she might not observe my dizziness, this proud thought somewhat
restored my strength: 'If she is deceiving you, she is unworthy of you!'

"I ascribed my sudden reddening and the tears which started to my eyes
to an attack of pain, and the sweet creature insisted on driving me
home with the blinds of the cab drawn. On the way she was full of a
solicitude and tenderness that might have deceived the Moor of Venice
whom I have taken as a standard of comparison. Indeed, if that great
child were to hesitate two seconds longer, every intelligent spectator
feels that he would ask Desdemona's forgiveness. Thus, killing the
woman is the act of a boy.--She wept as we parted, so much was she
distressed at being unable to nurse me herself. She wished she were my
valet, in whose happiness she found a cause of envy, and all this was
as elegantly expressed, oh! as Clarissa might have written in her
happiness. There is always a precious ape in the prettiest and most
angelic woman!"

At these words all the women looked down, as if hurt by this brutal
truth so brutally stated.

"I will say nothing of the night, nor of the week I spent," de Marsay
went on. "I discovered that I was a statesman."

It was so well said that we all uttered an admiring exclamation.

"As I thought over the really cruel vengeance to be taken on a woman,"
said de Marsay, continuing his story, "with infernal ingenuity--for,
as we had loved each other, some terrible and irreparable revenges
were possible--I despised myself, I felt how common I was, I
insensibly formulated a horrible code--that of Indulgence. In taking