You take Minna like an axe to hew me down. Have mercy!"
"Why do you say these things, my friend, when you know that they are
useless?" she replied, with a look which grew in the end so soft that
Wilfrid ceased to behold her eyes, but saw in their place a fluid
light, the shimmer of which was like the last vibrations of an Italian
song.
"Ah! no man dies of anguish!" he murmured.
"You are suffering?" she said in a voice whose intonations produced
upon his heart the same effect as that of her look. "Would I could
help you!"
"Love me as I love you."
"Poor Minna!" she replied.
"Why am I unarmed!" exclaimed Wilfrid, violently.
"You are out of temper," said Seraphita, smiling. "Come, have I not
spoken to you like those Parisian women whose loves you tell of?"
Wilfrid sat down, crossed his arms, and looked gloomily at Seraphita.
"I forgive you," he said; "for you know not what you do."
"You mistake," she replied; "every woman from the days of Eve does
good and evil knowingly."
"I believe it"; he said.
"I am sure of it, Wilfrid. Our instinct is precisely that which makes
us perfect. What you men learn, we feel."
"Why, then, do you not feel how much I love you?"
"Because you do not love me."
"Good God!"
"If you did, would you complain of your own sufferings?"
"You are terrible to-night, Seraphita.
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