"Your note, which Dionetta left in the room. He was sitting by the desk upon which I had laid it, and his hand was upon it."
"And it made you nervous? To think that he had but to open that innocent bit of paper! What a scene there would have been! I should have gloried in the situation--yes, indeed. There is no pleasure in life like the excitement of danger. Those who say women are weak know nothing of us. We are braver than men, a thousand, thousand times braver. I tried to peep through the door, but there wasn't a single friendly crevice. What a shock it would have given him if I had suddenly called out as he held the letter: 'Open it, my love, open it and read it!'"
"That is what you call being prudent?" said Almer in despair.
"Tyrant! I cannot promise you not to think. I have a good mind to be angry with you. You are positively ungrateful. You shut me up in a room all by myself, where I quietly remain, the very soul of discretion--you did not so much as hear me breathe--only forgetting myself once when my feelings overcame me, and you don't give me one word of praise. Tell me instantly, sir, that I am a brave little woman."
"You are the personification of rashness."
"How ungrateful! Did you think of me, Christian, while I was locked up there?"
"My thoughts did not wander from you for a moment."
"If you had only given me a handful of these roseleaves so that I might have buried my face in them and imagined I was not tied to a man who loves another woman than his wife! You seem amazed. Do you forget already what has passed between you? If it had happened that I loved him, after his confession to-night I should hate him. But it is indifferent to me upon whom he has set his affections--with all my heart I pity the unfortunate creature he loves. She need not fear me; I shall not harm her. You got at the heart of his secret when you asked him if a woman was involved in it; and you compelled him to confess that his honour--and of course hers; mine does not matter--was at stake in his miserable love-affair. He loves a woman who is not his wife; with all his evasions he could not help admitting it. And this is the man who holds his head so high above all other men--the man who was never known to commit an indiscretion! Of course he must keep his secret close--of course he could not speak of it to his friend, whom he tries to hoodwink with professions and twisted words! He married me, I suppose, to satisfy his vanity; he wanted the world to see that old as he was, grave as he was, no woman could resist him. And I allowed myself to be persuaded by worldly friends! Is it not a proof of my never having loved him, that, instead of hating him when in my hearing he confesses he loves another, I simply laugh at him and despise him? I should not shed a tear over him if he died to-night. He has insulted me--and what woman ever forgets or forgives an insult? But he has done me a good service, too, and I thank him. How sleepy I am! Good-night. My minute is up, and I cannot stay longer; I must think of my complexion. Goodnight, Christian; that is all I came to say."