"Often."
"Perhaps you have made a mistake this time."
"We shall see."
"Ah! In that case I'm done! You terrify me. If I think you are watching me,
I shall lose what little wits I have."
With fond and eager curiosity Christophe watched the sensitive, mobile face, which blushed and went pale by turns. Emotion showed fleeting across it like the shadows of clouds on a lake.
"What a nervous youngster it is!" he thought. "He is like a woman."
He touched his knee.
"Come, come!" he said. "Do you think I should come to you with weapons concealed about me? I have a horror of people who practise their psychology on their friends. I only ask that we should both be open and sincere, and frankly and without shame, and without being afraid of committing ourselves finally to anything or of any sort of contradiction, be true to what we feel. I ask only the right to love now, and next minute, if needs must, to be out of love. There's loyalty and manliness in that, isn't there?"
Olivier gazed at him with serious eyes, and replied:
"No doubt. It is the more manly part, and you are strong enough. But I don't think I am."