“We are attached friends, it is true. I won’t deny that.”
“Friends!” ejaculated Chanet, with ineffable disgust. “Bah, I’m not to be cozened in that way. You are her lover, and she is attached to you.”
“You are in error, my friend.”
Chanet shook his head sorrowfully and said—
“I wish I could think so.”
“I wish you could, because you would then be a more contented man.”
“From the day on which I first set eyes upon Mademoiselle Trieste,” said Chanet, sorrowfully, “I loved her—loved her with all my heart and soul, loved her with a love which nothing can extinguish—a love which will go down with me to the grave. It is little to say, perhaps, that I would lay down my life for her, and if she asked me to give her up for a more wealthy suitor, a man of title, such as you are, if I thought, if I could believe that it was her own special desire for me to do so I would resign her; and this, it is true, would be a terrible alternative—a miserable sacrifice as far as I am individually concerned, but it should be done nevertheless. My father asked of Madame Trieste the hand of her daughter for me, and my suit was accepted by both mother and daughter. All went on well enough till you came upon the scene, and then——”
“But surely you do not mean to say that I am answerable for the caprices of a young maiden. Was she attached to you? Answer me that question—I mean before I came upon the scene, as you are pleased to term it.”
“Well, monsieur, I am free to confess that I don’t think she cared for me nearly so much as I did for her.”
“I am sure she did not; that’s better than thinking.”