The fierce, undisciplined vehemence of her passions had
yielded under the influence of the equable atmosphere which a true
love gives to life. The certainty of being loved, sought through so
many perils, had given birth to a desire to re-enter those social
conditions which sanction love, and which despair alone had made her
leave. To love for a moment only now seemed to her a species of
weakness. She saw herself lifted from the dregs of society, where
misfortune had driven her, to the high rank in which her father had
meant to place her. Her vanity, repressed for a time by the cruel
alternations of hope and misconception, was awakened and showed her
all the benefits of a great position. Born in a certain way to rank,
marriage to a marquis meant, to her mind, living and acting in the
sphere that belonged to her. Having known the chances and changes of
an adventurous life, she could appreciate, better than other women,
the grandeur of the feelings which make the Family. Marriage and
motherhood with all their cares seemed to her less a task than a rest.
She loved the calm and virtuous life she saw through the clouds of
this last storm as a woman weary of virtue may sometimes covet an
illicit passion. Virtue was to her a new seduction.
"Perhaps," she thought, leaving the window without seeing the signal
on the rocks of Saint-Sulpice, "I have been too coquettish with him
--but I knew he loved me! Francine, it is not a dream; to-night I
shall be Marquise de Montauran.
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