“No,” said Diard, “I did not know until now which of them you preferred.”
“But neither of them have ever given me a moment’s uneasiness,” she answered quickly.
“But one of them gives you greater joys,” he said, more quickly still.
“I never counted them,” she said.
“How false you women are!” cried Diard. “Will you dare to say that Juan is not the child of your heart?”
“If that were so,” she said, with dignity, “do you think it a misfortune?”
“You have never loved me. If you had chosen, I would have conquered worlds for your sake. You know all that I have struggled to do in life, supported by the hope of pleasing you. Ah! if you had only loved me!”
“A woman who loves,” said Juana, “likes to live in solitude, far from the world, and that is what we are doing.”
“I know, Juana, that you are never in the wrong.”
The words were said bitterly, and cast, for the rest of their lives together, a coldness between them.