Even if she forgave all else, could she forgive me for being Bardelys the notorious Bardelys, the libertine, the rake, some of whose exploits she had heard of from her mother, painted a hundred times blacker than they really were?
Might she not shrink from me when I told her I was that man?
In her pure innocence she deemed, no doubt, that the life of every man who accounted himself a gentleman was moderately clean.

She would not see in me--as did her mother--no more than a type of the best class in France, and having no more than the vices of my order.

As a monster of profligacy might she behold me, and that--ah, Dieu!--I could not endure that she should do whilst I was by.
It may be--indeed, now, as I look back, I know that I exaggerated my case.

I imagined she would see it as I saw it then.

For would you credit it?
With this great love that was now come to me, it seemed the ideals of my boyhood were returned, and I abhorred the man that I had been.