this flirtation, to be lover and diplomatist at once; but youth and
hot blood and analysis could only end in one way, over head and ears
in love; for, natural or artificial, the Marquise was more than his
match. Each time he went out from Mme. d'Aiglemont, he strenuously
held himself to his distrust, and submitted the progressive situations
of his case to a rigorous scrutiny fatal to his own emotions.

"To-day she gave me to understand that she has been very unhappy and
lonely," said he to himself, after the third visit, "and that but for
her little girl she would have longed for death. She was perfectly
resigned. Now as I am neither her brother nor her spiritual director,
why should she confide her troubles to _me_? She loves me."

Two days later he came away apostrophizing modern manners.

"Love takes on the hue of every age. In 1822 love is a doctrinaire.
Instead of proving love by deeds, as in times past, we have taken to
argument and rhetoric and debate. Women's tactics are reduced to three
shifts. In the first place, they declare that we cannot love as they
love. (Coquetry! the Marquise simply threw it at me, like a challenge,
this evening!) Next they grow pathetic, to appeal to our natural
generosity or self-love; for does it not flatter a young man's vanity
to console a woman for a great calamity? And lastly, they have a craze
for virginity. She must have thought that I thought her very innocent.
My good faith is like to become an excellent speculation."

But a day came when every suspicious idea was exhausted. He asked
himself whether the Marquise was not sincere; whether so much
suffering could be feigned, and why she should act the part of
resignation? She lived in complete seclusion; she drank in silence of