She was an intelligent and witty girl, and some drops of the blood of Mansu in her veins and, rebellious to all yokes, she had never been able to help yielding to a fancy, whatever might be the consequences.
Marcel was really the only man she had ever loved.

He was at any rate the only one for whose sake she had really suffered, and it had needed all the stubbornness of the instincts that attracted her to all that glittered and jingled to make her leave him.

She was twenty, and for her luxury was almost a matter of existence.

She might do without it for a time, but she could not give it up completely.

Knowing her inconstancy, she had never consented to padlock her heart with an oath of fidelity.
She had been ardently loved by many young fellows for whom she had herself felt a strong fancy, and she had always acted towards them with far-sighted probity; the engagements into which she entered were simple, frank and rustic as the love-making of Moliere's peasants.