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Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume by Octave Feuillet
page 68 of 209 (32%)
this tale. You may perhaps judge, and I hope you will, that a chimerical
imagination can alone magnify into an event this vulgar episode of society
life; but if you see in the facts I have just told you the least germ of
danger, the slightest element of a serious complication, tell me so; I'll
break the engagements that were to detain me here some ten or twelve days
longer, and I'll leave at once.

I do not love Madame de Palme; I cannot and will not love her. My opinion
of her has evidently changed greatly; I look upon her henceforth as a good
little woman. Her head is light and will always be so; her behavior is
better than she gets credit for, though perhaps not as good as she
represents it herself; finally, her heart has both weight and value. I
feel some friendship for her, an affection that has something fraternal in
it; but between her and me, nothing further is at all likely; the expanse
of the heavens divides us. The idea of being her husband makes me burst
out laughing, and though a sentiment which you will readily appreciate,
the thought of being her lover inspires me with horror. As to her, I
believe she may feel the shadow of a caprice, but not even the dawn of a
passion. Here I am now upon her etagere with the rest of the figure-heads,
and I think, as does Madame de Malouet, that may be enough to satisfy her.
However, what do you think of it yourself?


[B] The German.




CHAPTER VII.

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