HE. Yes—that time.
SHE. Can't you understand? I stopped because I thought you were a person like myself, suffering like myself. It wasn't easy to stop. It tore me to pieces. But I suffered rather than let you suffer. But when I saw you recover your serenity in a day while the love that I had struck down in my heart for your sake cried out in a death agony for months, I felt again that you were superior, inhuman—and I hated you for it.
HE. Did I deceive you so well as that?
SHE. And when the next time came, I wanted to see if it was real, this godlike serenity of yours. I wanted to tear off the mask. I wanted to see you suffer as I had suffered. And that is why I was cruel to you the second time.
HE. And the third time—what about that?
She bursts into tears, and sinks to the floor, with her head on the chair, sheltered by her arms. Then she looks up.
SHE. Oh, I can't talk about that—I can't. It's too near.
HE. I beg your pardon. I don't wish to show an unseemly curiosity about your private affairs.
SHE. If you were human, you would know that there is a difference between one's last love and all that have gone before. I can talk about the others—but this one still hurts.
HE. I see. Should we chance to meet next year, you will tell me about it then. The joys of new love will have healed the pains of the old.