Well, you must admit that I have always been—good-natured.
Oh, you have played a queer little game! From
the day I first met you I felt that you were coquetting
with me, coquetting mysteriously, obscurely, coquetting
as only you can without showing it to others.
Little by little you conquered me with looks, with
smiles, with pressures of the hand, without compromising
yourself, without pledging yourself, without revealing
yourself. You have been horribly upright—and
seductive. I have loved you with all my soul,
yes, sincerely and loyally, and to-day I do not know
what feeling you have in the depths of your heart,
what thoughts you have hidden in your brain; in fact,
I know-I know nothing. I look at you, and I see
a woman who seems to have chosen me, and seems also
to have forgotten that she has chosen me.
Does she love me, or is she tired of me? Has she
simply made an experiment—taken a lover
in order to see, to know, to taste,—without
desire, hunger, or thirst? There are days when
I ask myself if among those who love you and who tell
you so unceasingly there is not one whom you really
love.
Good heavens! Really, there are some things
into which it is not necessary to inquire.
Oh, how hard you are! Your tone tells me that
you do not love me.
Now, what are you complaining about? Of
things I do not say?—because—I
do not think you have anything else to reproach me
with.
Forgive me, I am jealous.
Of whom?
I do not know. I am jealous of everything that
I do not know about you.
Yes, and without my knowing anything about these things,
too.
Forgive me, I love you too much—so much
that everything disturbs me.
Everything?
Yes, everything.
Are you jealous of my husband?
JACQUES DE RANDOL [amazed]
What an idea!
MME. DE SALLUS [dryly]
Well, you are wrong.
