"But, deuce take it! if I did not love you, I would not have come."
"Listen. You belong to me now. You are mine; I am yours. There is between us that tie of a budding life which nothing can break; but will you promise me that, if one day, you should come to love me no more, you will tell me so?"
"Yes, I do promise you."
"You swear it to me?"
"I swear it to you."
"But then, all the same, we would remain friends, would we not?"
"Certainly, let us remain friends."
"On the day when you no longer regard me with love you'll come to find me and you'll say to me: 'My little Christiane, I am very fond of you, but it is not the same thing any more. Let us be friends, there! nothing but friends.'"
"That is understood; I promise it to you."
"You swear it to me?"