"I am not married."
"But one day per'aps? You love someone, hein?" (Had she wilfully forgotten? She studied his face with a wicked curiosity. He could not answer her.) "Give it 'er then—Monsieur Robert—pour me faire plaisir."
"There is no one to give it to."
"But there was——"
He tried desperately to regain the old sarcastic inflection.
"No doubt it seems inevitable to you."
"Tell me about 'er. Voyons, if you can't keep me alive, Monsieur mon docteur, you might at least amuse me."
"There is nothing to tell. I will give you something that will make you sleep."
"I do not want to sleep. That is bad, ugly sleep that you give me. So you quarrel. What you quarrel about, Monsieur Robert? Another woman?"
The sheer, grotesque truth of it drove him to an ironical assent.