“Oh, let me be, Maria, let me be your friend. Do let me, that together our two souls may be healed, mine from cynicism and yours from discomfort and desolation. I ask you to let me be your friend, nothing else. I have been ill for so many years, from every mortal illness, and I thirst for good. You, too, Maria, have been so ill; let us seek some pleasure together.”
She felt that he was sincere at that moment, sincere as he had never been, as he never would be again. But she knew that there are no pleasures in life unless accompanied by devouring poisons. She knew that there are no succours and comforts between man and woman without mortal danger, and without fatal and mortal error. The truth, impetuous and brutal, rose in the woman’s words.
“Are you asking me to be your lover?”
He at once became cold, and replied—
“Yes.”
“I don’t wish to be,” she replied, turning her back, and replacing her cloak on her shoulders to resume their walk.
Gianni Provana did not frown nor change countenance.
“Still, it will be so.”
“Why?” exclaimed Maria disdainfully.
“Because now there is nothing else to be done,” he concluded composedly.