“Your majesty overwhelms me with your goodness.”
“Do not speak thus; cannot the queen have a friend?”
“I assure you, madame, that I have loved you as much as I shall ever love any one in this world.” She colored as she spoke.
“You have loved me; then you love me no more? Can a cloister so quickly extinguish all affection and all remembrance? if so, it is a cursed place.”
“Do not accuse my heart, madame, it is dead.”
“Your heart dead, Andrée? you, so young and beautiful.”
“I repeat to you, madame, nothing in the court, nothing in the world, is any more to me. Here I live like the herb or the flower, alone for myself. I entreat you to pardon me; this forgetfulness of the glorious vanities of the world is no crime. My confessor congratulates me on it every day.”
“Then you like the convent?”
“I embrace with pleasure a solitary life.”
“Nothing remains which attracts you back to the world?”