Understand me clearly; women who fall do not judge themselves more harshly than their accomplices judge them.

For myself, what would you have me think of you?
"To his misfortune and my shame, I have known your husband since his boyhood.

There is not a drop of blood in his veins that does not throb for you; there is not a thought of his day nor a dream of his night that is not yours; your every comfort comes from his sacrifices--your every joy from his exertion! See what he is to you! "You have only seen my name in the journals; you have seen me ride by your window; I have talked a few times with you, and you yield to me in one moment the whole of his life with your own--the whole of his happiness with your own.
"I tell you, woman, every man like me, who abuses your vanity and your weakness and afterward tells you he esteems you--lies! And if after all you still believe he loves you, you do yourself fresh injury.

No: we soon learn to hate those irksome ties that become duties where we only sought pleasures; and the first effort after they are formed is to shatter them.
"As for the rest: women like you are not made for unholy love like ours.
Their charm is their purity, and losing that, they lose everything.

But it is a blessing to them to encounter one wretch, like myself, who cares to say--Forget me, forever! Farewell!" He left her, passed from the room with rapid strides, and, slamming the door behind him, disappeared.