He was right; Mademoiselle
de Verneuil, like other women of the world, grew the more reserved the
more she felt the warmth of her own feelings, assuming with perfect
naturalness the appearance of prudery, beneath which such women veil
their desires. They all wish to offer themselves as virgins on love's
altar; and if they are not so, the deception they seek to practise is
at least a homage which they pay to their lovers. These thoughts
passed rapidly through the mind of the young man and gratified him. In
fact, for both, this mutual examination was an advance in their
intercourse, and the lover soon came to that phase of passion in which
a man finds in the defects of his mistress a reason for loving her the
more.
Mademoiselle de Verneuil was thoughtful. Perhaps her imagination led
her over a greater extent of the future than that of the young
/emigre/, who was merely following one of the many impulses of his
life as a man; whereas Marie was considering a lifetime, thinking to
make it beautiful, and to fill it with happiness and with grand and
noble sentiments. Happy in such thoughts, more in love with her ideal
than with the actual reality, with the future rather than with the
present, she desired now to return upon her steps so as to better
establish her power. In this she acted instinctively, as all women
act.
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