I must tell Scarron; he will make me laugh in retelling it." Madame's lips formed for a spiteful utterance, but what she said was: "Prison life has aged you." "Aged me, Madame ?" reproachfully.

"I grow old?
Never.

I have found the elixir of life." "You will give me the recipe ?" softening.
"You already possess it." "I?
Pray, explain." "We who have the faculty of learning, without the use of books, of refusing to take life seriously, of forgetting injuries,--we never grow old.

We simply die." A third person would have enjoyed this blundering, unconscious irony which in no wise disturbed madame.
"The recipe is this," continued Beaufort: "enjoy the hours as they come; borrow not in advance, but spend the hour you have; shake the past from the shoulders like a worn-out cloak; laugh at and with your enemies; and be sure you have enemies, or life's without salt." Madame gazed dreamily at the picture-lined walls.

She smiled, recalling some happy souvenir.