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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from An Old Maid by Honore de Balzac: routed the scoffers, contradicted certain rumors about du Bousquier,
and puzzled all observers of the human heart. Rose-Marie-Victoire was
so afraid that if she displeased her husband or opposed him, she would
lose his affection and be deprived of his company, that she would
willingly have sacrificed all to him, even her uncle. Her silly little
forms of pleasure deceived even the poor abbe for a time, who endured
his own trials all the better for thinking that his niece was happy,
after all.
Alencon at first thought the same. But there was one man more
difficult to deceive than the whole town put together. The Chevalier
de Valois, who had taken refuge on the Sacred Mount of the upper
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