"We are
Frenchmen; the affair can easily be arranged."
Mademoiselle des Touches cast a supplicating look on Calyste, which
calmed him instantly.
"Why," said Felicite, as if to break up the discussion, "do young men
like my Calyste, begin by loving women of a certain age?"
"I don't know any sentiment more artless or more generous," replied
Vignon. "It is the natural consequence of the adorable qualities of
youth. Besides, how would old women end if it were not for such love?
You are young and beautiful, and will be for twenty years to come, so
I can speak of this matter before you," he added, with a keen look at
Mademoiselle des Touches. "In the first place the semi-dowagers, to
whom young men pay their first court, know much better how to make
love than younger women. An adolescent youth is too like a young woman
himself for a young woman to please him. Such a passion trenches on
the fable of Narcissus. Besides that feeling of repugnance, there is,
as I think, a mutual sense of inexperience which separates them. The
reason why the hearts of young women are only understood by mature
men, who conceal their cleverness under a passion real or feigned, is
precisely the same (allowing for the difference of minds) as that
which renders a woman of a certain age more adroit in attracting
youth.
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