Does not a woman’s virtue consist in the uncompromising refusal of every intrigue that might compromise her?
 Alexandre Dumas, The Vicomte of Bragelonne (1847). copy citation

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Author Alexandre Dumas
Source The Vicomte of Bragelonne
Topic compromise refusal
Date 1847
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2681/2681-h/2681-h.htm

Context

“de Guiche loves this illustrious personage, but she will never love him.” Athenais laughed disdainfully. “Do people really ever love?” she said. “Where are the noble sentiments you just now uttered? Does not a woman’s virtue consist in the uncompromising refusal of every intrigue that might compromise her? A properly regulated woman, endowed with a natural heart, ought to look at men, make herself loved—adored, even, by them, and say at the very utmost but once in her life, ‘I begin to think that I ought not to have been what I am,—I should have detested this one less than others.’”” source