First Part Chapter 19

LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO MME. DE L'ESTORADE

Well, my Renee, you are a love of a woman, and I quite agree now that
we can only be virtuous by cheating. Will that satisfy you? Moreover,
the man who loves us is our property; we can make a fool or a genius
of him as we please; only, between ourselves, the former happens more
commonly. You will make yours a genius, and you won't tell the secret
--there are two heroic actions, if you will!

Ah! if there were no future life, how nicely you would be sold, for
this is martyrdom into which you are plunging of your own accord. You
want to make him ambitious and to keep him in love! Child that you
are, surely the last alone is sufficient.

Tell me, to what point is calculation a virtue, or virtue calculation?
You won't say? Well, we won't quarrel over that, since we have Bonald
to refer to. We are, and intend to remain, virtuous; nevertheless at
this moment I believe that you, with all your pretty little knavery,
are a better woman than I am.

Yes, I am shockingly deceitful. I love Felipe, and I conceal it from
him with an odious hypocrisy. I long to see him leap from his tree to
the top of the wall, and from the wall to my balcony--and if he did,
how I should wither him with my scorn! You see, I am frank enough with
you. What restrains me? Where is the mysterious power which prevents me
from telling Felipe, dear fellow, how supremely happy he has made me
by the outpouring of his love--so pure, so absolute, so boundless, so
unobtrusive, and so overflowing?