Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 3.djvu/187

165 THE ETRUSCAN VASE 165

with a threatening glance, to which his voice responded, but Mathilde went on without no- ticing anything.

" Come, now, all you men wish to pose as Don Juans. You fancy you are making dupes when often you have encountered only Dona Juana, who is much more cunning than your- selves."

" I perceive that with your superior wit you ladies scent out rakes in every place. I doubt not also that our friend Massigny, who was both a stupid and a coxcomb, became, when dead, spotless and a martyr."

"Massigny? He was not a fool; then too there are silly women to be found. I must tell you a story about Massigny. But surely have I not told it you already? "

" Never," rephed Saint-Clair tremblingly.

" Massigny fell in love with me after his re- turn from Italy. My husband knew him and introduced him to me as a man of taste and culture. Those two were just made for each other. Massigny was most attentive to me from the first; he gave me some water-colour sketches which he had bought from Schroth, as his own paintings, and talked of music and art in the most divertingly superior manner. One day he sent me an incredibly ridiculous letter. He said.