"I complied with hers often enough."
"Yes, but when your inclinations were opposed, why should it be hers that must yield? For myself I cannot see why."
"It was because she did not love me."
"And because you did not love her either, since you did not yield to her more."
"I certainly loved her much more than she loved me, for I always wished to be with her; but as for her, so long as she was amused, it was much the same to her whether she was with me or not."
"You should then have tried to become necessary to her."
"I do not know how I should have done that."
"Nothing would have been more easy, if you had shown yourself pleased whenever she expressed pleasure, no matter whence that pleasure came. If, for instance, when Louisa called her to look at her book of prints, instead of being angry at her leaving you, you had appeared glad that she was going to be amused, then as her joy would have been increased, by her seeing you pleased, she would never have looked at a picture without wishing to show it to you; for her pleasure could never be perfect unless you partook of it, and she would have ended quite naturally, by not desiring those enjoyments which you could not share; but for this you ought to have begun by interesting yourself in her pleasures rather than in your own."
"It was hardly worth the trouble of loving her," said Eugenia bitterly, "if it was to have been for her pleasure, and not for my own."
"Then it was yourself that you loved, and not her."