"You have hurt me sadly, my friend!" said Isabelle at last, with a
deep-drawn sigh. "I had such perfect confidence in your delicacy and
respect. The frank, unreserved avowal of my love for you ought to have
been enough, and have shown you clearly, by its very openness, that I
trusted you entirely. I believed that you would understand me and let
me love you in my own way, without troubling my tenderness for you by
vulgar transports. Now, you have robbed me of my feeling of security.
I do not doubt your words, but I shall no longer dare to yield to the
impulses of my own heart. And yet it was so sweet to me to be with you,
to watch you, to listen to your dear voice, and to follow the course of
your thoughts as I saw them written in your eyes. I wished to share your
troubles and anxieties, de Sigognac, leaving your pleasures to others.
I said to myself, among all these coarse, dissolute, presuming men
that hover about us, there is one who is different--one who believes
in purity, and knows how to respect it in the woman he honours with his
love. I dared to indulge in a sweet dream--even I, Isabelle the actress,
pursued as I am constantly by a gallantry that is odious to me--I dared
to indulge in the too sweet dream of enjoying with you a pure mutual
love.
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