A LOVE CRIME. Paul Bourget

      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?