are no better than
all other lovers. Ready to yield to you, however little you may be
able to reassure her, she is trying to find reasons for believing you
sincere. The love you protest for her does not offend her. What am I
saying? It enchants her. She is so much flattered by it, that her sole
fear is that it may not be true. Dissipate her alarms, show her that
the happiness you offer her and of which she knows the price, is not
an imaginary happiness. Go farther; persuade her that she will enjoy
it forever, and her resistance will disappear, her doubts will vanish,
and she will seize upon everything that will destroy her suspicions
and uncertainty. She would have already believed you; already she
would have resolved to yield to the pleasure of being loved, if she
had believed herself really loved, and that it would last forever.

How maladroit women are if they imagine that by their fears and their
doubts of the sincerity and constancy of men, they can make any one
believe they are fleeing from love, or despise it! As soon as they
fear they will be deceived in the enjoyment of its pleasures; when
they fear they will not long enjoy it, they already know the charms of
it, and the only source of anxiety then is, that they will be deprived
of its enjoyment too soon. Forever haunted by this fear, and attacked
by the powerful inclination toward pleasure, they hesitate, they
tremble with the apprehension that they will not be permitted to enjoy
it but just long enough to make the privation of it more painful.
Hence, Marquis, you may very easily conjecture a woman who talks to
you as does the Countess, using this language:

"I can imagine all the delights of love. The idea I have formed of it
is quite seductive. Do you think that deep in my heart I desire to
enjoy its charms less than you? But the more its image is ravishing to
my imagination, the more I fear it is not real, and I refuse to yield
to it lest my happiness be too soon destroyed. Ah, if I could only
hope that my happiness might endure, how feeble would be my
resistance? But will you not abuse my credulity? Will you not some day
punish me for having had too much confidence in you? At least is that
day very far off? Ah, if I could hope to gather perpetually the
fruits of the sacrifice I am making of my repose for your sake, I
confess it frankly, we would soon be in accord."

XX

The Half-way House to Love

The rival you have been given appears to me