"It was Michel who told you that!" he said, in a changed tone that made Mila's heart bleed. "And doubtless he betrayed my confidence to the end," he added; "he told you the name——"
"Oh! Michel is incapable of betraying anybody's confidence," she replied, struggling to maintain her courage at the level of the crisis she had provoked; "and I, Magnani, am incapable of leading my brother on to such a base thing. Besides, why should I be at all interested, I should like to know?"
"Of course, it must be a matter of entire indifference to you," replied Magnani, completely crushed.
"Indifference is not the word," she said; "I have much esteem and friendship for you, Magnani, and I pray for your happiness. But I am interested in my own happiness, too, so that I have no time to be idle and pry into other people's secrets."
"Your happiness! At your age, Mila, happiness is love; so you are in love, too, are you?"
"In love? why not? Do you consider me too young to think about such things?"
"Ah! my dear child, you are at the age when one should think about such things, for at my age love is despair."
"Why, is your love not returned? I was not mistaken in thinking that you are unhappy?"
"No, my love is not returned," he replied, dejectedly, "and never will be; I have never even dreamed that it would."
A more romantic and more experienced woman than Mila might have looked upon that admission as a definitive obstacle to all hope; but her ideas of life were more simple and more logical: "If he has no hope, he will recover," she thought.