"I do not in the least know."
"You will not, I hope, set out again for the East?"
"Oh! you know what a strange fellow I am. It won't do to challenge me to!"
"I don't challenge you at all, I only ask you not to leave the fortifications hereafter. We shall gain everything. You are not a Spaniard, you are a born Parisian, as I have already told you a hundred times. If I were in your place, I would set myself up here and stick to Paris. Since it is the best place in the world, why look for another?"
"My dear Guy," interrupted the duke, who had not listened, "will you promise to answer me, with all frankness, a delicate, an absurd question, if you will, one of those questions that is not generally put, but which I am going to ask you, nevertheless, without preface, point-blank?"
"To it and to any others that you put me, my dear duke, I will answer as an honest man and a friend should."
"Have you been much in love with Mademoiselle Kayser?"
"Very much."
"And has she loved you—a little?"