These differences instead of hindering their affection had drawn its bonds the closer.

On the first evening after the return of the young men these shades of character were caught and understood by the abbe, Mademoiselle Goujet, and Madame d'Hauteserre, who, while playing their boston, were secretly foreseeing the difficulties of the future.
At twenty-three years of age, having passed through the many reflections of a long solitude and the anguish of a defeated enterprise, Laurence had become a woman, and felt within her an absorbing desire for affection.

She now put forth all her graces of her mind and was charming; she revealed the hidden beauties of her tender heart with the simple candor of a child.

For the last thirteen years she had been a woman only through suffering; she longed to obtain amends for it, and she showed herself as loving and winning as she had been, up to this time, strong and great.
The four elders, who were the last to leave the salon that night, admitted to each other that they felt uneasy at the new position of this charming girl.

What power might not passion have on a young woman of her character and with her nobility of soul?
The twin brothers loved her with one and the same love and a blind devotion; which of the two would Laurence choose?
To choose one was to kill the other.