"It still hurts your feelings, then, does it? There is a faithful lover for you! But what would you have me say? That she loved you as much as you loved her?"
At this Dora jerked her head backward, with a laugh that rang so charmingly false and so virulent that I was impelled both to slap her face and to kiss it
"But tell me," she said, with a sudden affectation of sedate curiosity, "was she really so beautiful?"
"I never said she was 'so beautiful,' did I? You are far more beautiful than she." "Oh, stop joking, please! Can't you answer seriously?"
"I really mean it."
"Mean what?"
"That you are prettier than Matilda." "Is that the way you are faithful to her?"
"Oh, that was five years ago. Now there is somebody else I am faithful to."
She was silent. Her cheeks glowed
"Why don't you ask who that somebody is?"