that it is in your power to act so, that your duty shall one day
oblige you to preserve the sentiments you have for me." "My
duty," replied she, "forbids me to think of any man, but of you
the last in the world, and for reasons which are unknown to
you." "Those reasons perhaps are not unknown to me," answered
he, "but they are far from being good ones. I believe that
Monsieur de Cleves thought me happier than I was, and imagined
that you approved of those extravagancies which my passion led me
into without your approbation." "Let us talk no more of that
adventure," said she; "I cannot bear the thought of it, it
giving me shame, and the consequences of it have been such that
it is too melancholy a subject to be spoken of; it is but too
true that you were the cause of Monsieur de Cleves's death; the
suspicions which your inconsiderate conduct gave him, cost him
his life as much as if you had taken it away with your own hands:
judge what I ought to have done, had you two fought a duel, and
he been killed; I know very well, it is not the same thing in the
eye of the world, but with me there's no difference, since I know
that his death was owing to you, and that it was on my account."
"Ah! Madam," said Monsieur de Nemours, "what phantom of duty
do you oppose to my happiness? What! Madam, shall a vain and
groundless fancy hinder you from making a man happy, for whom you
have an inclination? What, have I had some ground to hope I
might pass my life with you? has my fate led me to love the most
deserving lady in the world? have I observed in her all that can
make a mistress adorable? Has she had no disliking to me? Have
I found in her conduct everything which perhaps I could wish for
in a wife? For in short, Madam, you are perhaps the only person
in whom those two characters have ever concurred to the degree
they are in you; those who marry mistresses, by whom they are