He knew that the hour was come--that he must leave her and spare her, as
to himself he phrased it, or teach her the love words that the daisies
whisper to women.
And why not?--anyway she would marry Jeannot.
He, half-way to the town, walked back again and paused a moment at the
gate; an emotion half pitiful, half cynical, stirred in him.
Anyway he would leave her in a few days: Paris had again opened her arms
to him; his old life awaited him; women who claimed him by imperious,
amorous demands reproached him; and after all this day he had got the
Gretchen of his ideal, a great picture for the future of his fame.
As he would leave her anyway so soon, he would leave her unscathed--poor
little field flower--he could never take it with him to blossom or wither
in Paris.
His world would laugh too utterly if he made for himself a mistress out
of a little Fleming in two wooden shoes. Besides--
Besides, something that was half weak and half noble moved him not to
lead this child, in her trust and her ignorance, into ways that when she
awakened from her trance would seem to her shameful and full of sorrow.
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