There is a trifle of powder left in your hair, and a fragrance of
nobility clings to you which a woman of the world cannot fail to
detect. Therefore, fearing that the man whom you saw accompanying me,
who has all the shrewdness of a woman, might make the same discovery,
I sent him away. Monsieur, let me tell you that a true Republican
officer just from the Polytechnique would not have made love to me as
you have done, and would not have taken me for a pretty adventuress.
Allow me, Monsieur de Bauvan, to preach you a little sermon from a
woman's point of view. Are you too juvenile to know that of all the
creatures of my sex the most difficult to subdue is that same
adventuress,--she whose price is ticketed and who is weary of
pleasure. That sort of woman requires, they tell me, constant
seduction; she yields only to her own caprices; any attempt to please
her argues, I should suppose, great conceit on the part of a man. But
let us put aside that class of women, among whom you have been good
enough to rank me; you ought to understand that a young woman,
handsome, brilliant, and of noble birth (for, I suppose, you will
grant me those advantages), does not sell herself, and can only be won
by the man who loves her in one way. You understand me? If she loves
him and is willing to commit a folly, she must be justified by great
and heroic reasons.
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