"Have you thought much about me?" she continued. "You have not been
unfaithful to me a single time? Not even once? . . . Tell me the truth;
you know I can always tell when you are lying."
"I have always thought of you," he said putting his hand on his heart,
as if he were swearing before a judge.
And he said it roundly, with an accent of truth, since in his
infidelities--now completely forgotten--the memory of Marguerite had
always been present.
"But let us talk about you!" added Julio. "What have you been doing all
the time?"
He had brought his chair nearer to hers, and their knees touched. He
took one of her hands, patting it and putting his finger in the glove
opening. Oh, that accursed garden which would not permit greater
intimacy and obliged them to speak in a low tone, after three months'
absence! . . . In spite of his discretion, the man who was reading his
paper raised his head and looked irritably at them over his spectacles
as though a fly were distracting him with its buzzing. . . . The very
idea of talking love-nonsense in a public garden when all Europe was
threatened with calamity!
Repelling the audacious hand, Marguerite spoke tranquilly of her
existence during the last months.
"I have passed my life the best I could, but I have been greatly bored.
You know that I am now living with mama, and mama is a lady of the old
regime who does not understand our tastes.
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