"Have they told you so?" asked the Baroness, quickly.
"Never, I assure you," replied M. Delange. "But you will admit," he added, with a smile, "that it was not a very difficult discovery to make."
"Yes, they do love me," she said, resolutely, "but you forget. Doctor, that we were dealing with my sufferings, and, I presume, you do not wish me to infer that they are due to these two gentlemen."
"To a certain extent they are."
"How so? Is it absolutely necessary that I, too, should respond to this two-fold love, and be éprise in my turn?"
"No; it is very clear to me that you have no love for either of them. But their suffering conduces to yours, and you cannot help a constant feeling of uneasiness as you say to yourself—'What is to be the end of all this? How am I to extricate myself from the difficulty? How am I to get out of the false situation in which I have put myself?'"
"And, according to you, this simple feeling of uneasiness has sufficed to render me susceptible of fever, to cause me to lose my colour, to throw me into a state of prostration, and to bring on a nervous attack? I thought I was stronger."
"And so you are, in reality. The sufferings of these gentlemen simply annoy you. Your illness is within yourself. Your nerves are over-excited by the continual struggle that is going on within you, and the state of hesitation and uncertainty in which you are living."
"What uncertainty?"
"You are not in love with either of our two friends, but you are not quite sure that it will not come to pass some day. They evidently please you, and their conversation is agreeable. When they do some good action, or render you some service, your heart beats somewhat more quickly. And, what grieves you, unnerves you more than all, and puts you in a fever, is the fact that you do not know which of the two pleases you most. You are continually hesitating between one and the other, you are carried away by your imagination, and you lose yourself in useless questions and futile self-examination."