And he went on while Pierre listened without further interruption:-- "Did you never wonder what decided me to marry? You thought, I suppose, like everybody else, that I was tired of a solitary life, and that I wanted to settle down, that I had met a match that fulfilled all the conditions requisite for a happy alliance. Nothing was lacking. There was a good dowry, an honorable name, a pretty, well-educated girl. And you thought the marriage the most natural thing in the world. I don't wonder at it. It was simply an illustration of ordinary ideas. We are the slaves of custom without even knowing it. We ask why so-and-so has not married like every one else. But we never think of asking why so-and-so has married like every one else when he is not every one else.--Besides, you did not know, you could not know, what bitter experiences had brought me to that point.--We have always respected each other in our confidences, my dear Pierre. That is why our friendship has remained so noble, so rare, something so different from the loathsome companionship that most men designate by the name. I never spoke to you about my mistresses, about my loves. I never sought to hear of yours. Such vilenesses, thank God, have always remained outside our affection." "Stop," broke in Hautefeuille, hurriedly, "don't sully your souvenirs in that way. I don't know them, but they must be sacred. If I have never questioned you about the secrets of your sentiments, my dear Olivier, it is through respect for them and not through any respect for our friendship.--Our affection would not have been limited by association with a true, deep love. Do not calumniate yourself. Do not tell me that you have never loved truly and deeply, and do not blaspheme." "True love!" interrupted Olivier, with singular irony. "I don't even know what the two words taken together mean. I have had more than one mistress. And, when I think of them, they all represent wild desire, followed by deeper disgust; bitter sensuality, saturated with jealousy, much falsehood understood, much falsehood uttered, and not an emotion, not one, do you understand? Not one that I would wish to recall, not a happiness, not a noble action, not a satisfaction! Whose fault is it? Is it due to the women I have met or to myself, to their vileness or to my poverty of heart?--I cannot say." "The heart is not poor," interrupted Hautefeuille, with just as much earnestness, "in him who has been the friend that you have been to me."