She started, as if she had just tasted a drop of despair, and repeated several times:
“Ah, poor friend—poor friend—poor friend!”
Then after a moment of silence she added: “It is the fault of our hearts, which never have grown old. I feel that my own is full of life!”
He tried to speak but could not, for now his sobs choked him. She listened, as he leaned against her, to the struggle in his breast. Then, seized by the selfish anguish of love, which had gnawed at her heart so long, she said in the agonized tone in which one realizes a horrible misfortune:
“God! how you love her!”
Again he confessed: “Ah, yes! I love her!”
She reflected a few moments, then continued: “You never have loved me thus?”
He did not deny it, for he was passing through one of those periods in which one speaks with absolute truth, and he murmured:
“No, I was too young then.”
She was surprised.