How could you fail to understand that the
curiosity of love might have carried me further than I ought to
go; and that next morning I might be angry with myself, and
wretched because I had gone too far? Alas! I sinned in
ignorance. I was as sincere in my wrongdoing, I swear to you, as
in my remorse. There was far more love for you in my severity
than in my concessions. And besides, of what do you complain? I
gave you my heart; that was not enough; you demanded, brutally,
that I should give my person----"
"Brutally?" repeated Montriveau. But to himself he said, "If
I once allow her to dispute over words, I am lost."
"Yes. You came to me as if I were one of those women. You
showed none of the respect, none of the attentions of love. Had
I not reason to reflect? Very well, I reflected. The
unseemliness of your conduct is not inexcusable; love lay at the
source of it; let me think so, and justify you to myself.--Well,
Armand, this evening, even while you were prophesying evil, I
felt convinced that there was happiness in store for us both.
Yes, I put my faith in the noble, proud nature so often tested
and proved." She bent lower. "And I was yours wholly," she
murmured in his ear. "I felt a longing that I cannot express to
give happiness to a man so violently tried by adversity. If I
must have a master, my master should be a great man. As I felt
conscious of my height, the less I cared to descend. I felt I
could trust you, I saw a whole lifetime of love, while you were
pointing to death.
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