'My dear girl,' said Pauline to Louise with her maternal air, 'let us talk as though we were two sisters. You love me a little, don't you?'
Louise threw one arm round her friend's waist as she exclaimed:
'Indeed I do! You know I do!'
'Well, then, since you love me, it was very wrong of you not to tell me everything. Why do you keep secrets from me?'
'Indeed, I have no secrets.'
'Ah! yes; think again now. Come, open your heart to me.'
Each looked into the other's face so closely for a moment that they felt the warmth of one another's breath. And the eyes of one gradually grew troubled beneath the clear, unruffled gaze of the other. The silence was growing painful.
'Tell me everything. When things are discussed openly it is possible to arrange them satisfactorily, but dissimulation is apt to have an unhappy ending. Isn't that so, eh? It would be very painful for us to disagree again and to have a repetition of what caused us so much grief and trouble.'
At this Louise burst into a violent fit of sobbing. She clasped Pauline round the waist convulsively, and hid her face against her friend's shoulder while stammering amidst her tears:
'Oh! it is very unkind of you to speak of that again! You ought never to have mentioned it again, never! Send me away at once, rather than pain me like this!'