I should make a poor diplomatist indeed if
I had not perceived that your first coquetries, your little
premeditated inconsistencies, were only assumed for the purpose of
studying our characters--"
Modeste raised her head with the rapid, intelligent, half-coquettish
motion of a wild animal, in whom instinct produces such miracles of
grace.
"--and therefore when I returned home and thought them over, they
never misled me. I only marvelled at a cleverness so in harmony with
your character and your countenance. Do not be uneasy, I never doubted
that your assumed duplicity covered an angelic candor. No, your mind,
your education, have in no way lessened the precious innocence which
we demand in a wife. You are indeed a wife for a poet, a diplomatist,
a thinker, a man destined to endure the chances and changes of life;
and my admiration is equalled only by the attachment I feel to you. I
now entreat you--if yesterday you were not playing a little comedy
when you accepted the love of a man whose vanity will change to pride
if you accept him, one whose defects will become virtues under your
divine influence--I entreat you do not excite a passion which, in him,
amounts to vice.
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