“Life gives us but one friend, and I wish to be yours.  Friendship is the bond between a pair of kindred souls, united in their strength, and yet independent.  Let us be friends and comrades to bear jointly the burden of life.  Leave me absolutely free.  I would put no hindrance in the way of your inspiring me with a love similar to your own; but I am determined to be yours only of my own free gift.  Create in me the wish to give up my freedom, and at once I lay it at your feet.

“Infuse with passion, then, if you will, this friendship, and let the voice of love disturb its calm.  On my part I will do what I can to bring my feelings into accord with yours.  One thing, above all, I would beg of you.  Spare me the annoyances to which the strangeness of our mutual position might give rise to our relations with others.  I am neither whimsical nor prudish, and should be sorry to get that reputation; but I feel sure that I can trust to your honor when I ask you to keep up the outward appearance of wedded life.”

Never, dear, have I seen a man so happy as my proposal made Louis.  The blaze of joy which kindled in his eyes dried up the tears.

“Do not fancy,” I concluded, “that I ask this from any wish to be eccentric.  It is the great desire I have for your respect which prompts my request.  If you owe the crown of your love merely to the legal and religious ceremony, what gratitude could you feel to me later for a gift in which my goodwill counted for nothing?  If during the time that I remained indifferent to you (yielding only a passive obedience, such as my mother has just been urging on me) a child were born to us, do you suppose that I could feel towards it as I would towards one born of our common love?  A passionate love may not be necessary in marriage, but, at least, you will admit that there should be no repugnance.  Our position will not be without its dangers; in a country life, such as ours will be, ought we not to bear in mind the evanescent nature of passion?  Is it not simple prudence to make provision beforehand against the calamities incident to change of feeling?”

He was greatly astonished to find me at once so reasonable and so apt at reasoning; but he made me a solemn promise, after which I took his hand and pressed it affectionately.

We were married at the end of the week.  Secure of my freedom, I was able to throw myself gaily into the petty details which always accompany a ceremony of the kind, and to be my natural self.  Perhaps I may have been taken for an old bird, as they say at Blois.  A young girl, delighted with the novel and hopeful situation she had contrived to make for herself, and may have passed for a strong-minded female.