“You don’t love me as I love you,” she murmured.

“Oh, why do you say—”

She interrupted him, saying, “No, in me you love, as you put it so well before dinner, a woman who satisfies the wants of your heart, a woman who’s never caused you pain and who’s managed to put a little happiness into your life. That I know, that I feel. Yes, I have the consciousness, the deep joy of having been good and useful and helpful to you. And you’ve loved, you still love, all that you find in me: my solicitude for you, my admiration, my desire to please you, my passion—the complete gift I’ve made to you of myself. But that’s not me you love, don’t you understand that? Oh! I feel that the way you feel a cold draft. In me you love so many things—my beauty, which is fading, my devotion, the wit people say they find in me, the opinion the world has of me, the opinion I have of you in my heart—but that’s not me, that’s nothing of myself. Can’t you understand that?”