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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Deserted Woman by Honore de Balzac: Champignelles a man of honor, a loyal gentleman incapable of lending
himself to any transaction in bad taste, nay, the merest suspicion of
bad taste! Love lends a young man all the self-possession and astute
craft of an old ambassador; all the Marquis' harmless vanities were
gratified, and the haughty grandee was completely duped. He tried hard
to fathom Gaston's secret; but the latter, who would have been greatly
perplexed to tell it, turned off M. de Champignelles' adroit
questioning with a Norman's shrewdness, till the Marquis, as a gallant
Frenchman, complimented his young visitor upon his discretion.
M. de Champignelles hurried off at once to Courcelles, with that
eagerness to serve a pretty woman which belongs to his time of life.
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