all sincerity; and that night, and all day long on the morrow, he
could not put the thought of the Marquise out of his mind.

At times he wondered why she had singled him out, what she had meant
when she asked him to come to see her, and thought supplied an
inexhaustible commentary. Again it seemed to him that he had
discovered the motives of her curiosity, and he grew intoxicated with
hope or frigidly sober with each new construction put upon that piece
of commonplace civility. Sometimes it meant everything, sometimes
nothing. He made up his mind at last that he would not yield to this
inclination, and--went to call on Mme. d'Aiglemont.

There are thoughts which determine our conduct, while we do not so
much as suspect their existence. If at first sight this assertion
appears to be less a truth than a paradox, let any candid inquirer
look into his own life and he shall find abundant confirmation
therein. Charles went to Mme. d'Aiglemont, and so obeyed one of these
latent, pre-existent germs of thought, of which our experience and our
intellectual gains and achievements are but later and tangible
developments.

For a young man a woman of thirty has irresistible attractions. There
is nothing more natural, nothing better established, no human tie of
stouter tissue than the heart-deep attachment between such a woman as
the Marquise d'Aiglemont and such a man as Charles de Vandenesse. You
can see examples of it every day in the world. A girl, as a matter of
fact, has too many young illusions, she is too inexperienced, the
instinct of sex counts for too much in her love for a young man to
feel flattered by it. A woman of thirty knows all that is involved in
the self-surrender to be made. Among the impulses of the first, put