The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Domestic Peace by Honore de Balzac: conversation, the Baron flew to Madame de Vaudremont, and led her to a
place in the most brilliant quadrille. Favored by the sort of
intoxication which dancing always produces in a woman, and by the
turmoil of a ball, where men appear in all the trickery of dress,
which adds no less to their attractions than it does to those of
women, Martial thought he might yield with impunity to the charm that
attracted his gaze to the fair stranger. Though he succeeded in hiding
his first glances towards the lady in blue from the anxious activity
of the Countess' eyes, he was ere long caught in the fact; and though
he managed to excuse himself once for his absence of mind, he could
not justify the unseemly silence with which he presently heard the
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