Mons. de Merville has inspired you with stronger sentiments of coquetry, than you ever had before! This is indeed surprising! You ask me the reason of your caprices? You put me on a difficult task; but since you desire it, these were the reflections I made on your adventure. I think there is one time of life very dangerous for women, who are not entirely free from coquetry. It is when they are still handsome, but no longer possess the brilliancy and charms of youth, nor are talked of for their elegance of person, which now ceases to attract admiration. In short, as soon as it is said of a woman, she is still handsome; that still spoils the compliment. It begins at your age, and finishes at five or six-and-thirty, for then we are no longer regarded, and this misfortune frequently happens even much sooner. It appears to me very natural that a woman of thirty, who is no longer flattered by that eager crowd who formerly surrounded her, should set a greater value on the attentions paid her. Formerly she thought they could not help falling in love with her; at present she is almost grateful for it; as she knows it is not her beauty which is any longer sought after; the empire which she had gained over the world by her charms is gone, not to be retrieved. She is like a Queen, who being dethroned, no longer perceives her Courtiers around her, and is only the more afflicted by perceiving the neglect with which she is treated. She has renounced the glory of conquering numbers, but she is still possessed with the hope of inspiring an ardent passion. The first man who pays her any attention, she will suppose to be the object she has in view, and whatever her lover may be, she will find her vanity more gratified at this time than ever she did in her youth.