"What would you? I love what is beautiful. Anything ugly disgusts me." "Even in me?" "Especially in you." She drummed angrily with her foot. "I will not be judged." "Then complain of what I judge you to be, and of what I love in you," said he tenderly to appease her. She let him take her in his arms, and deigned to smile, and let him kiss her. But in a moment when he thought she had forgotten she asked uneasily: "What do you think ugly in me?" He would not tell her: he replied cowardly: "I don't think anything ugly in you." She thought for a moment, smiled, and said: "Just a moment, Christli: you say that you do not like lying?" "I despise it." "You are right," she said. "I despise it too. I am of a good conscience. I never lie." He stared at her: she was sincere. Her unconsciousness disarmed him. "Then," she went on, putting her arms about his neck, "why would you be cross with me if I loved some one else and told you so?" "Don't tease me." "I'm not teasing: I am not saying that I do love some one else: I am saying that I do not.... But if I did love some one later on...." "Well, don't let us think of it." "But I want to think of it.... You would not be angry, with me? You could not be angry with me?" "I should not be angry with you. I should leave you. That is all." "Leave me? Why? If I still loved you ...?" "While you loved some one else?" "Of course. It happens sometimes." "Well, it will not happen with us." "Why?" "Because as soon as you love some one else, I shall love you no longer, my dear, never, never again." "But just now you said perhaps.... Ah! you see you do not love me!" "Well then: all the better for you." "Because ...?" "Because if I loved you when you loved some one else it might turn out badly for you, me, and him." "Then!... Now you are mad. Then I am condemned to stay with you all my life?" "Be calm. You are free. You shall leave me when you like. Only it will not be _au revoir_: it will be good-bye." "But if I still love you?" "When people love, they sacrifice themselves to each other." "Well, then ... sacrifice yourself!" He could not help laughing at her egoism: and she laughed too. "The sacrifice of one only," he said, "means the love of one only." "Not at all. It means the love of both. I shall not love you much longer if you do not sacrifice yourself for me. And think, Christli, how much you will love me, when you have sacrificed yourself, and how happy you will be." They laughed and were glad to have a change from the seriousness of the disagreement.