"
"He thinks that of all women, young or old?"
"Yes, I think so. He tells me that whereas most men make the mistake of
putting down womanly unreason to the score of their having too much
heart, he puts it down to their having no heart at all, which he says
is so mad a state that they are unrecognisable as human creatures."
"But--(alas, poor Alfred)--you have made a charming confidante for us!"
"Confidante? He will make the best. He is devoted to me."
"To me?"
"To anything, to any one I care for."
"Not to me. What you have told me is the key to his expression when he
looks at me. If he is devoted to you it is not an unreasoning devotion,
and he is judging me poisonous to you. As he has himself been hurt, he
will not have you hurt. I wish he had never come. I wish he might never
be my driver to the river, and your friend, and our enemy."
"Fanny!"
"I wish it. I am unhappy about him, and unhappiness is always punished.
While we were in Metz every one smiled at us; here every one will spy
us out, scold, frown, punish--"
"And your magic luck?"
"Alfred threatens my luck," she said. Then, with another look, "Are you
angry with me? Can you love such a character?"
"I love it now."
"You have never heard me when I scold, or cry or am sulky?..."
"Never."
"But if I make the experiment?"
"I could make a hundred experiments, but I make none of them.
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