"What! do you value my life, then?" she said.

"Most undoubtedly."

"That's magnanimous!"

She walked a few steps in silence, resting lightly upon the arm of her companion, and rocking, in her peculiar way, her graceful figure.

"Your good cure must take me for a species of demon," she added.

"He is not the only one," said Lucan, with ironical coldness.

She laughed a short and constrained laugh; then, after another pause, and while continuing to walk with downcast eyes:

"You must certainly hate me a little less now; say, don't you?"

"A little less."

"Be serious, will you? I know that I have made you suffer a great deal. Are you beginning to forgive me now?"