"How happy I am! you still love me! Ah! this moment makes me forget all my cares. To think that anyone should dare to say that I love any other woman! You do not believe it, Elina, you will never believe it! Poor messenger that I am, am I not fortunate enough to be loved by you? what more could I desire?"
"Yes, I believe that you love me. I won't be angry any more; it makes one too wretched to be angry with a person one loves. Look at me; I am willing to see your face now. Oh! it seems to me that you have grown paler, that you have changed, since I saw you. Have you been sick?"
"No; it's the vexation and disappointment I have suffered."
"You haven't told me yet what you were doing those eleven days."
"I have been with a person, a friend, who was very ill; he had nobody but me to take care of him, so I could not leave him."
"Oh! in that case, I am not angry with you any more. But you never mentioned this friend to me."
"Because I seldom see him—only when he needs me."
"You are not lying to me? you haven't taken anybody's mistress?"
"I have thought of nobody but you."
"Good! now I am happy again. I had so many things to tell you; but when two people are together, they don't think—that is to say, they think too much—well, I don't know how it happens, but I forget everything else."