“In the other case?”
“Oh, Emilio is a poor creature!” she said, with a profound accent of disdain, shrugging her shoulders, and adding nothing further, as if she had said the last word about him.
“And you, and you, Donna Maria?”
“I? I owe to one of my usual exaltations having inflicted on my lively being one of the most unsupportable humiliations feminine pride can ever endure.”
She stopped, troubled and proudly pale, with eyes veiled in tears of indignation.
“You understand, I asked his pardon humbly. I prayed humbly for him to pronounce it with loyalty, to accord it fully and generously, I, Maria Guasco; and I wept, yes wept, before him, and endured his pardon; which was, instead of an absolution, an accusation, an inquiry, a daily condemnation.”
Fortunately, the two were far away from the others, and the violet tints of the sunset became deeper beneath the trees. The woman stopped, and made a supreme effort to stifle her sighs, to repress her tears, and compose her face.
“Please forget what I have told you,” she said imperiously to Provana, putting a hand on his arm.
“Why, then, why?” he exclaimed, becoming suddenly heated; “why do you like to treat me always as a man without a heart or a soul? Who gives you the right to treat me thus? Why must I always be considered by you as an enemy? Don’t you believe that I have fibre and feelings, like other human beings? Am I a monster? Why don’t you believe that I can understand you and follow you to the depths and speak a word of consolation, even I? Am I unfit, then, to be your friend?”
She was stupefied at this cry of sorrow, new and unthought of.