First Part Chapter 21

LOUISE DE CHAULIEU TO RENEE DE L'ESTORADE
June.

Dear wedded sweetheart,--Your letter has arrived at the very moment to
hearten me for a bold step which I have been meditating night and day.
I feel within me a strange craving for the unknown, or, if you will,
the forbidden, which makes me uneasy and reveals a conflict in
progress in my soul between the laws of society and of nature. I
cannot tell whether nature in me is the stronger of the two, but I
surprise myself in the act of meditating between the hostile powers.

In plain words, what I wanted was to speak with Felipe, alone, at
night, under the lime-trees at the bottom of our garden. There is no
denying that this desire beseems the girl who has earned the epithet
of an "up-to-date young lady," bestowed on me by the Duchess in jest,
and which my father has approved.

Yet to me there seems a method in this madness. I should recompense
Felipe for the long nights he has passed under my window, at the same
time that I should test him, by seeing what he thinks of my escapade
and how he comports himself at a critical moment. Let him cast a halo
round my folly--behold in him my husband; let him show one iota less
of the tremulous respect with which he bows to me in the
Champs-Elysees--farewell, Don Felipe.