“What do you say?”
“Nothing, nothing.”
“Now, Diana, do not cry, do not accuse yourself. You cowardly! you, my heroine! you were constrained.”
“I believed it; I saw dangers, gulfs under my feet. Now, Jeanne, these dangers seem to me chimerical, these gulfs as if a child could cross them. I was cowardly, I tell you; oh, I had no time to reflect.”
“You speak in enigmas.”
“No,” cried Diana, rising, “it was not my fault, it was his. The Duc d’Anjou was against him; but when one wishes a thing, when one loves, neither prince nor master should keep you back. See, Jeanne, if I loved——”
“Be calm, dear friend.”
“I tell you, we were cowardly.”
“‘We!’ of whom do you speak? That ‘we’ is eloquent, my dearest Diana.”
“I mean my father and I; you did not think anything else, did you? My father is a nobleman—he might have spoken to the king; I am proud, and do not fear a man when I hate him. But he did not love me.”