He gazed into her black eyes with a quiet smile.
"Not even as much by Père Goriot" said he.
"No," she answered in an undertone. "I cannot help it, nothing makes any impression upon me unless I can imagine it might happen to myself. This good Père Goriot, who is so ill repaid for all he does for his daughters, the daughters themselves, who have an actual passion for spending a great deal of money and living in fabulous luxury, I can understand very well. I too had a father who would have sacrificed himself for me if necessary, as I would have done for him, and it is by no means strange to me that people can set their hearts on a thousand beautiful things which only the rich should possess. But that a man can no longer live, because he--because he is in love--with somebody's wife--is a thing of which I have no idea. Why do you look at me so? Don't you believe me? You can do so safely, I always say what I think."
"I'm only looking at you," he replied, "because I do not know how to reconcile your words, which I do not doubt, with your face and your twenty-one years."
"And why not?"
"Do not consider it a tasteless compliment: but with such a face, I should hardly think a person could live twenty-one years in the world, without at least perceiving in others, what mad follies a man desperately in love may commit. And have you never been moved when you made some one unhappy, even if your own heart remained untouched? You have probably known nothing of hunger except from hearsay, and yet the sight of misery touches you."
"Certainly," she answered thoughtfully; "but you're mistaken, if you suppose I have never suffered want myself. There have been times--but that's my own affair. On the contrary, the love that has been offered me has either seemed untrue and ridiculous, or excited actual horror and loathing, never compassion."
Edwin's surprise increased at every word, whose sincerity he could not doubt. But if it were as she said and her grave innocent gaze confirmed--how had she come to these suspicious lodgings in such more than doubtful company? What, if she had nothing to repent, was the cause of this avoidance of men, this mysterious love of solitude in one so young and independent?
He noticed that she looked surprised at his silence, and in order to make some remark, said:
"If you place so little value on the passion, which since the beginning of creation has, with hunger, been the motive power of the world, your purveyor of romances certainly has a difficult task. Or would you prefer novels of the latest style, which only contain enough love not to frighten the owners of circulating libraries?"