She looked at me quickly, with a strange expression.
“Never?” she asked, in a tone so low that I could scarcely catch the word.
“Never,” I responded.
Her laces stirred as her breast rose and fell, and I saw that she herself was endeavouring to evade my query, although at the same time her heart was full of the same impetuous passion which had so much amazed me on the previous night. I had spoken plainly, and my single word, uttered firmly, had crushed her.
It occurred to me that I had made a mistake. I had not acted diplomatically. I knew, alas! that I was, and always had been, a terrible blunderer in regard to women’s affections. Some men are unlucky in their love-affairs. I was one of them.
We walked slowly together side by side for some distance, neither uttering a word. At last I halted again, and, taking her hand, bent earnestly to her, saying:
“Now, Léonie, let us put aside any sentimentality and talk reasonably.”
“Ah!” she said, her eyes flashing quickly, “you do not love me. Put aside sentiment indeed! How can I put it aside?”
“But a moment ago you suggested that we should forget what passed between us yesterday.”
“I did so in order to test you—to see whether you had a spark of affection for me in your heart. But the bare, cold truth is now exposed. You have not!”