insensible woman, with no devotion in her composition, no heart
even, than be taken by everybody else for a vulgar person, and be
condemned to your so-called pleasures, of which you would most
certainly tire, and to everlasting punishment for it afterwards.
Your selfish love is not worth so many sacrifices. . . ."

The words give but a very inadequate idea of the discourse which
the Duchess trilled out with the quick volubility of a
bird-organ. Nor, truly, was there anything to prevent her from
talking on for some time to come, for poor Armand's only reply to
the torrent of flute notes was a silence filled with cruelly
painful thoughts. He was just beginning to see that this woman
was playing with him; he divined instinctively that a devoted
love, a responsive love, does not reason and count the
consequences in this way. Then, as he heard her reproach him
with detestable motives, he felt something like shame as he
remembered that unconsciously he had made those very
calculations. With angelic honesty of purpose, he looked within,
and self-examination found nothing but selfishness in all his
thoughts and motives, in the answers which he framed and could
not utter. He was self-convicted. In his despair he longed to
fling himself from the window. The egoism of it was intolerable.

What indeed can a man say when a woman will not believe in love?
--Let me prove how much I love you.--The _I_ is always there.

The heroes of the boudoir, in such circumstances, can follow the
example of the primitive logician who preceded the Pyrrhonists
and denied movement. Montriveau was not equal to this feat.
With all his audacity, he lacked this precise kind which never