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.

Proud and noble souls are prompt to recognize the delicacy with which they are treated.