"When you love sincerely you are not so venturesome. It is so necessary for you to trust him, that you treasure up your faith and risk it not in suspicious trifling.
"Real love is timid, it would rather err than suspect, it buries doubts instead of nursing them, and very wisely, for love cannot survive faith."
This is a magnificent period, and you should send it to Balzac; he delights in filling his novels with such very woman-like phrases.
I admit that your ideas are just and true when applied to love alone; but if this love is to end in marriage, the "test" is no longer "suspicious trifling," and one has the right to try the constancy of a character without offending the dignity of love.
Marriage, and especially a marriage of inclination, is so serious a matter, that we cannot exercise too much prudence and reasonable delay before taking the final step.
You say, "Love is timid;" well, so is Hymen. One dares not lightly utter the irrevocable promise, "Thine for life!" these words make us hesitate.
When we wish to be honorable and faithfully keep our oaths, we pause a little before we utter them.
Now I can hear you exclaim, "You are not in love; if you were, instead of being frightened by these words, they would reassure you; you would be quick to say 'Thine for life,' and you could never imagine that there existed any other man you could love."
I am aware that this gives you weapons to be used against me; I know I am foolish! but—well, I feel that there is some one somewhere that I could love more deeply!
This silly idea sometimes makes me pause and question, but it grows fainter daily, and I now confess that it is folly, childish to cherish such a fancy. In spite of your opinion, I persist in believing that I am in love with Roger. And when you know him, you will understand how natural it is for me to love him.