The enormity of my aberration caused me at that moment one of the keenest disappointments of my life. How could I even have thought of the possibility of realising such a preposterous scheme! So keen was my discomfort that I must have looked like a fool. But later, I detected with delight a feeling of shame that was quite new to me. When one has misused his all, such a discovery is full of enchantment. One perceives, beyond the dull fields he has travelled all too often, a shining country which draws him on, toward which he gazes as Moses must have gazed upon the Promised Land. I tried to regain my composure. “Why?” I said at random. “I do not know. Paris frightens me.” Then she added gaily: “No doubt I shall never go there. So much the worse for me.” We turned toward home. Except for a few insignificant words she said nothing more to me, as if a belated intuition had warned her not to prolong the conversation. During the following days, and up to the time of my departure, she carefully avoided a tête-à-tête. Or perhaps she did not even think of one. I too did not desire to meet her. It seemed to me that I had insulted her, and the cowardice of my intentions, if not of my acts, wounded my pride. This feeling was stronger even than her attraction for me. Her presence threw me into a state of extreme confusion which I bore with impatience. I was relieved to get away. At the Sleeping Woods I felt lowered and shrunken in my own esteem. And nothing is more unnerving. I returned to my former life, but with this difference, that, disgusted with the gross cynicism cultivated by my free set, I went more into formal society. This was the worse for me, however, for I lost thereby that mental independence which some day might have been guided into more natural channels. I frequented several salons, and was led to reflect bitterly not only upon the frailty of women, though I took advantage of it, but also upon their ability to forget, a frailty and an ability possessed in equal parts by those women whose broadly scattered amorous favours encourage young people in the delusion that such as they represent all womankind.