“I would soon be in sickness and sorrow if I thought that.”

“Don’t jest with such matters, monsieur.”

“I am serious.  I wish I was as ill as Madame Raynal is, to be loved as she is.”

“You must resemble her in some other things to be loved as she is.

“You have often made me feel that of late, dear Rose.”

This touched her.  But she fought down the kindly feeling.  “I am glad of it,” said she, out of perverseness.  She added after a while, “Edouard, you are naturally jealous.”

“Not the least in the world, Rose, I assure you.  I have many faults, but jealous I am not.”

“Oh, yes, you are, and suspicious, too; there is something in your character that alarms me for our happiness.”

“Well, if you come to that, there are things in your conduct I could wish explained.”

“There!  I said so.  You have not confidence in me.”

“Pray don’t say that, dear Rose.  I have every confidence in you; only please don’t ask me to divest myself of my senses and my reason.”

“I don’t ask you to do that or anything else for me; good-by, for the present.”

“Where are you going now? tic! tic!  I never can get a word in peace with you.”

“I am not going to commit murder.  I’m only going up-stairs to my sister.”

“Poor Madame Raynal, she makes it very hard for me not to dislike her.”

“Dislike my Josephine?” and Rose bristled visibly.

“She is an angel, but I should hate an angel if it came forever between you and me.”

“Excuse me, she was here long before you.  It is you that came between her and me.”

“I came because I was told I should be welcome,” said Edouard bitterly, and equivocating a little; he added, “and I dare say I shall go when I am told I am one too many.”

“Bad heart! who says you are one too many in the house?  But you are too exigent, monsieur; you assume the husband, and you tease me.  It is selfish; can you not see I am anxious and worried? you ought to be kind to me, and soothe me; that is what I look for from you, and, instead of that, I declare you are getting to be quite a worry.”

“I should not be if you loved me as I love you.  I give you no rival.  Shall I tell you the cause of all this? you have secrets.”

“What secrets?”

“Is it me you ask? am I trusted with them?  Secrets are a bond that not even love can overcome.  It is to talk secrets you run away from me to Madame Raynal.  Where did you lodge at Frejus, Mademoiselle the Reticent?”

“In a grotto, dry at low water, Monsieur the Inquisitive.”

“That is enough:  since you will not tell me, I will find it out before I am a week older.”

This alarmed Rose terribly, and drove her to extremities.  She decided to quarrel.

“Sir,” said she, “I thank you for playing the tyrant a little prematurely; it has put me on my guard.  Let us part; you and I are not suited to each other, Edouard Riviere.”