d groundless fancy hinder you from making a man
happy, for whom you have an inclination? What, have I had some ground
to hope I might pass my life with you? has my fate led me to love the
most deserving lady in the world? have I observed in her all that can
make a mistress adorable? Has she had no disliking to me? Have I
found in her conduct everything which perhaps I could wish for in a
wife? For in short, Madam, you are perhaps the only person in whom
those two characters have ever concurred to the degree they are in you;
those who marry mistresses, by whom they are loved, tremble when they
marry them, and cannot but fear lest they should observe the same
conduct towards others which they observed towards them; but in you,
Madam, I can fear nothing, I see nothing in you but matter of
admiration: have I had a prospect of so much felicity for no other end
but to see it obstructed by you? Ah! Madam, you forget, that you have
distinguished me above other men; or rather, you have not distinguished
me; you have deceived yourself, and I have flattered myself."

"You have not flattered yourself," replied she; "the reasons of my duty
would not perhaps appear so strong to me without that distinction of
which you doubt, and it is that which makes me apprehend unfortunate
consequences from your alliance." "I have nothing to answer, Madam,"
replied he, "when you tell me you apprehend unfortunate consequences;
but I own, that after all you have been pleased to say to me, I did not
expect from you so cruel a reason." "The reason you speak of," replied
Madam de Cleves, "is so little disobliging as to you, that I don't know
how to tell it you." "Alas! Madam," said he, "how can you fear I
should flatter myself too much after what you have been saying to me?"
"I shall continue to speak to you," says she, "with the same sincerity
with which I begun, and I'll lay aside that delicacy and reserve that
modesty obliges one to in a first conversation, but I conjure you to
hear me without interruption.

"I think I owe the affection you have for me, the poor recompsense not
to hide from you any of my thoughts, and to let you see them such as
they really are; this in all probability will be the only time I shall
allow myself the freedom to discover them to you; and I cannot confess
without a blush, that the certainty of not being loved by you, as I am,
appears to me so dreadful a misfortune, that if I had not invincible
reasons grounde