“My husband said a great deal....” she murmured.
“Yes; and you know that in our delightful discussions I was always able to confute his sophistical arguments; you always saw I was right—you were always convinced.”
“But then I was not jealous—and jealousy—I know it now as surely as I know God—jealousy is my way of loving.”
“Yes, you loved him!” said Paoletti a good deal confused, as he glanced up for a moment and then looked down again, “because you took an interest in him, and did not wish him to suffer; and in this I supported you—always supported you.”
“But still, he said a great deal,” repeated María in the same weary tone of an unhappy child. “He said that you....”
“Well, that I?”
“That you, by constantly pruning my affections to concentrate them on God, by pruning my ideas, from a terror of atheism, by robbing him of my heart and leaving nothing but duty, had left him nothing of his wife but the slave of his desires.”
“Oh! woman, woman!” exclaimed Paoletti eagerly and not without some dignity. “How often have I refuted this argument, which is terrible only in appearance, and left you soothed and reassured!”
“But can you refute the fact....”