"I consider this incognito a piece of rudeness. Why can he not call upon you as he does upon the princess? But the real impertinence lies in his coming here at all. The former lover of Constance had no business to present himself to Constance's cousin. I felt all this strongly enough at the time, Paula; but I also felt that your house and your apartment were not the place to discuss these matters."
"I thank you for your considerateness," said Paula, taking my hand in hers. "I saw in your eyes that you were placing a restraint upon yourself about something. Men best prove their respect for women when they do not suffer any storms of this kind to break loose in their presence; and as to this matter, I beg of you to dismiss it from your thoughts. You have suffered far too much from it already; it is time you had rid yourself of it once for all."
"Yes, if that were only possible," I said; and then I told Paula, what I had never mentioned to her before, about my meeting at the exhibition with the beautiful Bellini, who had so striking a resemblance to Constance. "I have certainly no reason to cherish any love for Constance," I said; "on the contrary, I can meet her seducer without the slightest feeling of hatred or revenge; and yet the image of that beautiful woman follows me everywhere, and it could not be otherwise had I seen Constance herself. Now why is this?"
"Constance was your first love," Paula answered, "and that makes a difference with men."
"With men, Paula? Do you mean that with women it is otherwise?"
"I do mean that," she replied. "A woman's first love differs from a man's, and exceeds it. Exceeds it in proportion as a man is more to a woman than a woman to a man."
"What kind of new philosophy do you call that?"
"It is no new philosophy: at least it is as old as my thoughts upon these matters, which is no very great age, it is true."
A faint flush tinged her usually pale cheeks, but it seemed that altogether she was not displeased that we had fallen upon this theme, and she continued with some animation:
"A man's life is more full of change, richer in deeds and events, than a woman's; and for this reason individual impressions, even the strongest, do not remain so long with them. They have so many new and more important things to record on the tablet of their life that they are obliged from time to time to efface the old writing with the sponge of forgetfulness. With us women it is altogether different: we do not willingly efface a word which sounds sweetly to our ears, much less a line, much less a whole page of our poor life. And then even when a man has an unusually tenacious memory, he can not act and choose as he will: the stronger and manlier his nature, the more does he act and choose as he must. And he must choose suitably to his age and circumstances--to use another phrase, suitably to his development. The man of twenty-five differs from the youth of nineteen far otherwise than the woman of twenty-five differs from the girl of nineteen; and the man of thirty-five again is another man. If the man of twenty-five or thirty-five should make the same choice as the youth of nineteen--I mean such a choice as youth makes, romantically unselfish and inconsiderate--he would commit a folly, in my eyes at least."