It could make no change in anything.

It would not have been a thing worth struggling about, indeed; only--only I had in my inmost heart a suspicion that the stoutest resolutions might lose their force in that atmosphere; and that there even such a talisman as the memory of a woman's looks and words might lose its virtue.
Still, I think that I should have succumbed in the end if I had not received at the corner of the Luxembourg a shock which sobered me effectually.

As I passed the gates, a coach, followed by two outriders, swept out of the Palace courtyard; it was going at a great pace, and I reined my jaded horse on one side to give it room.

By chance as it whirled by me, one of the leather curtains flapped back, and I saw for a second by the waning light--the nearer wheels were no more than two feet from my boot--a face inside.
A face and no more, and that only for a second.

But it froze me.