“But what is the matter with you, my dear,” said Mathilde to him, both tenderly and anxiously.
“I am lying,” said Julien irritably, “and I am lying to you. I am reproaching myself for it, and yet God knows that I respect you sufficiently not to lie to you. You love me, you are devoted to me, and I have no need of praises in order to please you.”
“Great heavens! are all the charming things you have been telling me for the last two minutes mere phrases?”
“And I reproach myself for it keenly, dear one. I once made them up for a woman who loved me, and bored me—it is the weakness of my character. I denounce myself to you, forgive me.”
Bitter tears streamed over Mathilde’s cheeks.
“As soon as some trifle offends me and throws me back on my meditation,” continued Julien, “my abominable memory, which I curse at this very minute, offers me a resource, and I abuse it.”
“So I must have slipped, without knowing it, into some action which has displeased you,” said Mathilde with a charming simplicity.
“I remember one day that when you passed near this honeysuckle you picked a flower, M. de Luz took it from you and you let him keep it. I was two paces away.”
“M. de Luz? It is impossible,” replied Mathilde with all her natural haughtiness. “I do not do things like that.”
“I am sure of it,” Julien replied sharply.