"It was because of the ambiguity, that was the cause, my soul! The ambiguity threw the poison."
"Oh! was he going to take as a serious confession idle words playfully uttered on the wings of a causerie. This time, was it not really the old malady of chimerical fancies? He smiled at himself, and almost grew out of patience. Ah! the thing was not to accuse her because of a confession, not to reveal himself as devoid of criticism as a public accuser, but not to deny her criminal potentiality. What a doll full of bran instead of blood, seamed with threads instead of nerves, is a woman incapable of crime! As well say that she is incapable of passion! Our cowardly civilization, itself, absolves the bloody consequences of love, sparing such women the futile expiation of an inevitable act. The equivocation he had read on Sixtine's face was the mark of election, the sign of possible passion, the proof that she was a woman."
This deduction reassured Entragues. Henceforth, instead of trembling before the word crime, he would have to qualify it. A preliminary distinction would have spared him the start which had frightened the dice players. Now he willingly accepted a Sixtine who was a neighbor to crime, and even a criminal Sixtine. In the latter case it meant, for example, that she loved, that she was deceived, that she had poisoned the deceiver. Ah! there are luckless poisoned ones whose fate may trouble sensibilities after the deed. But if, instead of defending herself, Sixtine had died, what sort of person would the assassin have been?
This crime, at first so disturbing, insensibly gained some considerations of attraction. An old desire, like an old viper, stirred in his head. Ah! to kiss hands that had used poison! To caress the flesh of a murderess! Through contempt of all morality, to give pleasure to the woman who had provoked, for her peace, frightful agonies!... And perhaps there truly was nothing in it at all! Oh! she had, with a single word, confessed too thoroughly not to go, some day, to the end of the avowal: he would know how to win her confidence. For the time being, as it was impossible to penetrate further, lacking sufficient enlightenment, Entragues abandoned all analysis and dined.