Don't bow your head, don't feel humiliated; you have been the dupe of noble feelings; you have coquetted with poesy, not with a man.

All women--all, do you hear me, Marie ?--would have been seduced in your position.

How absurd we should be, we men, we who have committed a thousand follies through a score of years, if we were not willing to grant you one imprudence in a lifetime! God keep me from triumphing over you or from offering you a pity you repelled so vehemently the other day.

Perhaps that unfortunate man was sincere when he wrote to you, sincere in attempting to kill himself, sincere in returning that same night to Florine.

Men are worth less than women.