that in permitting ourselves to reason in that
fashion on what virtue is, we may succeed in converting into a
problem, the rules we should receive and observe as a law, which it is
a crime to construe. Moreover, to persuade women that it is not to
themselves they are indebted for the virtue they possess, might it mot
deprive them of the most powerful motive to induce them to preserve
it? I mean by that, the persuasion that it is their own work they
defend. The consequences of such morality would be discouraging, and
tend to diminish, in the eyes of a guilty woman, the importance of her
errors. But let us turn to matters of more interest to you.

At last, after so many uncertainties, after so many revolutions in
your imagination, you are sure you are loved? You have finally
succeeded in exciting the Countess to divulge her secret during a
moment of tenderness. The words you burned to hear have been
pronounced. More, she has allowed to escape her, a thousand
involuntary proofs of the passion you have inspired. Far from
diminishing your love, the certainty that you are beloved in return
has increased it; in a word, you are the happiest of men. If you knew
with how much pleasure I share your happiness you would be still
happier. The first sacrifice she desired to make was to refuse to
receive the Chevalier: you were opposed to her making it, and you were
quite right. It would have compromised the Countess for nothing, which
calls to my mind the fact, that women generally lose more by
imprudence than by actual faults. The confidence you so nobly
manifested in her, ought to have greatly impressed her.

Everything is now as it should be. However, shall I tell you
something? The way this matter has turned out alarms me. We agreed, if
you remember, that we were to treat the subject of love without
gloves. You were not to have at the most but a light and fleeting
taste of it, and not a regulated passion. Now I perceive that things
become more serious every day. You are beginning to treat love with a
dignity which worries me. The knowledge of true merits, solid
qualities, and good character is creeping into the motives of your
liaison, and combining with the personal charms which render you so
blindly amorous. I do not like to have so much esteem mixed with an
affair of pure gallantry. It leaves no freedom of action, it is work
instead of amusement. I was afraid in the beginning that your
relations would assume a grave and meas