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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: "Who but a Pole would wish to make a wife of a devoted mistress?"
cried Valerie. "To change love into duty, and pleasure into a bore."
"I know you to be so fickle," replied Steinbock. "Did I not hear you
talking to Lisbeth of that Brazilian, Baron Montes?"
"Do you want to rid me of him?"
"It would be the only way to hinder his seeing you," said the ex-
sculptor.
"Let me tell you, my darling--for I tell you everything," said Valerie
--"I was saving him up for a husband.--The promises I have made to
that man!--Oh, long before I knew you," said she, in reply to a
movement from Wenceslas. "And those promises, of which he avails
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