Men of Good Will Book 5. [antikvár]

WHEN she got back from her first visit to Sammécaud's bachelor-flat in the rue de la Baume, Marie de Champcenais did not feel particularly proud of herself. " What a hateful little fool he must have thought me ! just like a chit of a girl, all dressed up for her first ball, who starts snivelling c I don't want to, Mamma, take me home !,' as soon as she is asked to dance." She did not try to put the blame for this fiasco on to Sammécaud. Another woman might, with some justification, have said to herself: " It was up to him to go about it more cleverly." But Marie was too busy finding fault with herself to see anything wrong in her companion's behaviour. There was nothing she could complain of in the flat itself. What could have been more discreet, in better taste, more flattering to her self-esteem ? Sammécaud had shown himself at once sentimental and passionate : just, as a matter of fact, what a lover ought to be. Of course, he had been rather daring. But then what else could one expect ? Marie had the kind of mind that plays fair. Her disgust with herself involved more than a mere sense of wounded vanity. It bordered upon a species of humiliation which only men are commonly supposed to feel: the humilation of sexual impotence.