Aha! the plot thickens; you don't love me any more and you have never loved me. That is rather contradictory; how can I cease to do a thing which I never began to do?--You see, my little queen, you don't know what you are saying and you are perfectly ridiculous.
ROSETTE.
I longed so to have you love me that I helped to deceive myself. It is easy to believe what one desires; but now I see that I am mistaken. You made a mistake yourself; you mistook liking for love and desire for passion. It's something that happens every day. I bear you no ill will for it: it wasn't your fault that you weren't in love with me; my own lack of charm is all that I have to blame. I ought to have been prettier, more playful, more of a flirt; I ought to have tried to rise to your level, O my poet! instead of trying to pull you down to mine: I was afraid of losing you among the clouds, and I dreaded lest your head should steal your heart from me. I imprisoned you in my love and I thought that, if I gave myself to you utterly, you would keep a little something of me--
