The extraordinary confessions of Diana Please

AT my friend M. de C--'s instigation I sit down in the noon of my life to talk of its morning. I look first to your gallantry, my dear Alcide, to see that this statement is not misconstrued. That I have a past argues nothing of my remoteness from it. In comparison with the immortality which is surely to be mine, everything on this side is youth. I am seventeen, or thirty-seven, or whatever I choose; and I intend that Heaven, whenever it calls me, shall find me irresistible. Possessing all the ages, it cannot grudge me my arbitrary disposition of my own little term. Now, tell your friends, my dear Alcide, that to succeed in life one must never ask a woman her age or a man his intentions; and so we shall all be comfortable.