It was horrible. She repulsed him, shuddering.
"Don't, Guy, don't!"
Entreaties poured from him.
"If you understood!" she moaned. "I shall have gone to my grave while you're a young man."
He thought she meant that she was very ill.
"I'll nurse you back to health. Victorine, I love you with all my soul."
"You don't love me a bit," she said. "There is nothing in me for you to love—I am as utterly different from you as if there were fifty years between us; you only imagine you love me because you admire my face. Good heavens, have I ever said a single word to lead you to think I cared for you in such a way?"
An English boy might have suffered as much, but would have taken it more quietly. This boy was French, and he did not hide what he felt. He answered vehemently that she had led him to think so every time they talked of his future. "If you didn't care for me, why should it interest you?" He raved of his broken heart. He loaded her with reproaches. "You've shammed to me, mocked me, just to amuse yourself!"
"No." She was crying. "I am fond of you—fonder of you than of anybody in the world. But not like that. I shall never care like that again for anyone."
"I wish I had never seen you. I wish I were dead."