Possibly she may
have feared that by sheer dint of talking of eternity she might
perpetuate his love in this world and the next. For her own
sake, it must be believed that no man had touched her heart, or
her conduct would be inexcusable. She was young; the time when
men and women feel that they cannot afford to lose time or to
quibble over their joys was still far off. She, no doubt, was on
the verge not of first love, but of her first experience of the
bliss of love. And from inexperience, for want of the painful
lessons which would have taught her to value the treasure poured
out at her feet, she was playing with it. Knowing nothing of the
glory and rapture of the light, she was fain to stay in the
shadow.
Armand was just beginning to understand this strange situation;
he put his hope in the first word spoken by nature. Every
evening, as he came away from Mme de Langeais', he told himself
that no woman would accept the tenderest, most delicate proofs of
a man's love during seven months, nor yield passively to the
slighter demands of passion, only to cheat love at the last. He
was waiting patiently for the sun to gain power, not doubting but
that he should receive the earliest fruits. The married woman's
hesitations and the religious scruples he could quite well
understand. He even rejoiced over those battles. He mistook the
Duchess's heartless coquetry for modesty; and he would not have
had her otherwise. So he had loved to see her devising
obstacles; was he not gradually triumphing over them? Did not
every victory won swell the meagre sum of lovers' intimacies long
denied, and at last conceded with every sign of love? Still, he
had had such leisure to taste the full sweetness of every small
successive conquest on which a lover feeds his love, that these
had come to be matters of use and wont.
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