A LOVE CRIME. Paul Bourget
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Immediately, his thoughts turned again to Helen. The charming air of
distinction that she possessed returned to his recollection, and
suddenly softened him to an extraordinary degree.
"Why have I entered into her life," he said, "since I do not love her?
For eleven little months she did not know me, and she was at peace.
There would still be time enough to act the part of an honest man."
He was seized by the temptation to do what he had done once already--to
renounce, before any irrevocable step had been taken, an intrigue in
which he ran the risk of taking another's heart without giving his own
in return.
"Perhaps she loves me," he said to himself; and he sat down at his
table, and even got ready a sheet of paper in order to write to her.
Then, leaning back in his easy chair, he reflected. The recollection of
Varades suddenly beset him, as also of the serenity with which Helen had
deceived her husband that evening. "Innocent child," he said aloud,
speaking to himself, "if it were not I, it would be someone else. When a
fast woman meets with a libertine, they form a pair."
He began to laugh in a nervous fashion, and recalled the boundless
contempt with which he had formerly been covered by the lady whom his
scruples had led him to give up. She was the only enemy that he had kept
among all the women with whom he had had to do. The clock struck.
"Two o'clock," he said, "and I have to get up early in order to visit
worthy Madame Palmyre, and reserve one of her little suites, as in
Madame de Rugle's days. I shall be tired. Monsieur de Varades will be
missed."
Half-an-hour later he was in bed, and, head on arm, sleeping that
infantine sleep which, in spite of his life, had still been left to him.
So he was represented in a drawing by his father, which hung on one of
the walls of his bed-room. Ah! if the dead ones, whose son he was, had
been able to see him, would they have condemned him? Would they have
pitied him?
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