It is not for my
own sake that I speak at this moment, but for yours. I am indulgent,
but the world is not; it shuns a woman who makes a scandal. Is that
just? I know not; but this I know, the world is cruel. Society refuses
to calm the woes itself has caused; it gives its honors to those who
best deceive it; it has no recompense for rash devotion. I see and
know all that. I can't reform society, but this I can do, I can
protect you, Marie, against yourself. This matter concerns a man who
has brought you trouble only, and not one of those high and sacred
loves which do, at times, command our abnegation, and even bear their
own excuse. Perhaps I have been wrong in not varying your happiness,
in not providing you with gayer pleasures, travel, amusements,
distractions for the mind. Besides, I can explain to myself the
impulse that has driven you to a celebrated man, by the jealous envy
you have roused in certain women. Lady Dudley, Madame d'Espard, and my
sister-in-law Emilie count for something in all this. Those women,
against whom I ought to have put you more thoroughly on your guard,
have cultivated your curiosity more to trouble me and cause me
unhappiness, than to fling you into a whirlpool which, as I believe,
you would never have entered."
As she listened to these words, so full of kindness, the countess was
torn by many conflicting feelings; but the storm within her breast was
ruled by one of them,--a keen admiration for her husband.
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