'Oh no! We are as far asunder as Jean-qui-rit and Jean-qui-pleure. What amuses me as a comedy distresses you as a tragedy: when I see a satire like Pope's you see a dirge like the Daphnis. The two attitudes are as different as a horse chestnut and a chestnut horse.'
'At one time we were not so very inharmonious!' said Othmar unwisely; since it is always unwise to recall a bond of sympathy at any moment when that bond seems strained or out-worn. It is natural to do so, but it is unwise.
'When people are amourachés they always imagine themselves sympathetic to each other on every point,' she said with cruel truth; then she paused a moment, and, smiling, added a truth still more cruel.
'I should always have sympathised with you, probably, if I had not married you,' she repeated dreamily and amiably.
'That I quite understand,' said Othmar, with bitterness. 'One can be a hero to one's wife as little as to one's valet. It is not to be hoped for in either case.'
'I know all about you,' she said with a sigh. 'That is so very fatal! Perhaps if you would do something I do not know, you would become interesting again.'
'That is a suggestion which may have its perils.'
'Peril?' she repeated. 'My dear Otho, there is much more peril in the monotony of undisturbed relations. I often wonder if you are really sincere when you profess such constant admiration of me; myself, I admit I constantly think how unwise we were not to remain delightful illusions to each other. It is impossible to retain any illusions about a person you live with; if you looked at Chimborazo every day it would seem small!'
They were alone for a few rare moments in her own apartments at Amyôt; it was but seldom now that he ever was indulged with a conversation sotto quattr' occhi. She held firmly to her theory that too much intimacy is the grave of love, a grave so deep that love has no resurrection.
Those stupid women who allowed their lovers or their lords to enter their apartments as easily as they could enter their stables!—what could they expect? All the charm of admittance there was gone.