loved by any other; we should be glad to convince them, that no other beauty, though of the highest rank, has any charms for us, and that a crown would be too dear, if purchased with no less a price than absence from her we adore. Women ordinarily, continued he, judge of the passion one has for them, by the care one takes to oblige, and to be assiduous about them; but it's no hard matter to do this, though they be ever so little amiable; not to give oneself up to the pleasure of pursuing them, to shun them through fear of discovering to the public, and in a manner to themselves, the sentiments one has for them, here lies the difficulty; and what still more demonstrates the truth of one's passion is, the becoming entirely changed from what one was, and the having no longer a gust either for ambition or pleasure, after one has employed one's whole life in pursuit of both.
The princess of Cleves readily apprehended how far she was concerned in this discourse; one while she seemed of opinion that she ought not to suffer such an address; another, she thought she ought not to seem to understand it, or show she supposed herself meant by it; she thought she ought to speak, and she thought she ought to be silent; the duke of Nemours's discourse equally pleased and offended her; she was convinced by it of the truth of all the queen-dauphin had led her to think; she found in it somewhat gallant and respectful, but also somewhat bold and too intelligible; the inclination she had for the duke gave her an anxiety which it was not in her power to controul; the most obscure expressions of a man that pleases, move more than the most open declaration of one we have no liking for; she made no answer: the duke de Nemours took notice of her silence, which perhaps would have proved no ill presage, if the coming in of the prince of Cleves had not ended at once the conversation and the visit.
The prince was coming to give his wife a further account of Sancerre, but she was not over curious to learn
