With regard to my cousin, I must say, people abuse her unjustly; she is not very tiresome, this fat cousin of mine; I heard of nothing but her absurdities, and was warned against taking up my abode with her and choosing her for my chaperone, as her persecutions would drive me frantic and our life would be one continuous quarrel.  I am happy to say that none of these horrors have been realized.  We understand each other perfectly, and, if I am not married next winter, the Hotel de Langeac will still be my home.

Roger, uninformed of my departure, will be furious, which is exactly what I want, for from his anger I expect enlightenment, and this is the test I will apply.  Like all inexperienced people, I have a theory, and this theory I will proceed to explain.

If in your analysis of love you seek sincerity, you must apply a little judicious discouragement, for the man who loves hopefully, confidently, is an enigma.

Follow carefully my line of reasoning; it maybe complicated, laborious, but—­it is convincing.

All violent love is involuntary hypocrisy.

The more ardent the lover the more artful the man.

The more one loves, the more one lies.

The reason of all this is very simple.

The first symptom of a profound passion is an all-absorbing self-abnegation.  The fondest dream of a heart really touched, is to make for the loved one the most extraordinary and difficult sacrifice.

How hard it is to subdue the temper, or to change one’s nature! yet from the moment a man loves he is metamorphosed.  If a miser, to please he will become a spendthrift, and he who feared a shadow, learns to despise death.  The corrupt Don Juan emulates the virtuous Grandison, and, earnest in his efforts, he believes himself to be really reformed, converted, purified regenerated.

This happy transformation will last through the hopeful period.  But as soon as the remodelled pretender shall have a presentiment that his metamorphosis is unprofitable; as soon as the implacable voice of discouragement shall have pronounced those two magic words, by which flights are stayed, thoughts paralyzed, and hopeful hearts deadened, “Never!  Impossible!” the probation is over and the candidate returns to the old idols of graceless, dissolute nature.

The miser is shocked as he reckons the glittering gold he has wasted.  The quondam hero thinks with alarm of his borrowed valor, and turns pale at the sight of his scars.

The roue, to conceal the chagrin of discomfiture, laughs at the promises of a virtuous love, calls himself a gay deceiver, great monster, and is once more self-complacent.

Freed from restraint, their ruling passions rush to the surface, as when the floodgates are opened the fierce torrent sweeps over the field.

These hypocrites will feel for their beloved vices, lost and found again, the thirst, the yearning we feel for happiness long denied us.  And they will return to their old habit, with a voracious eagerness, as the convalescent turns to food, the traveller to the spring, the exile to his native land, the prisoner to freedom.