This was the first time I had ever heard from his lips words so hard and satirical. His satire did not touch, and his hardness did not frighten me, but they became contagious. Was it really he, always so opposed to any debating between us, always so simple and straightforward, who was speaking to me thus? And why? Just because I had offered to sacrifice myself to his pleasure, which was really the supreme thing in my eyes; just because, at this moment, with the thought, came the comprehension of how much I loved him. Our characters were reversed; it was he who had lost all frankness and simplicity, and I who had found them. "You are so changed," said I, sighing. "Of what am I guilty in your eyes? It is not this reception, but some old sin, which you are casting up against me in your heart. Why not use more sincerity? You were not afraid of it with me, once. Speak out,--what have you against me?" "No matter what he may say," I thought, quickly running over the events of the season in my mind, "there is not one thing that he has a right to reproach me with, this whole winter." I went and stood in the middle of the room, so that he would be obliged to pass near me, and I looked at him. I said to myself: "He will come close to me, he will put his arms around me and kiss me, and that will be the end of it all;" this thought darted into my head, and it even cost me something to let it end so, without my proving to him that he was in the wrong. But he stood still at the end of the room, and, looking in my face: "You still do not understand me?" he said. "No." "Yet ... how can I tell you?... I am appalled, for the first time, I am appalled at what I see--what I cannot but see." He stopped, evidently frightened at the rough tone of his voice. "What do you mean?" I demanded, indignant tears filling my eyes. "I am appalled that, knowing the prince's comments on your beauty, you should, after that, be so ready and willing to run after him, forgetting your husband, yourself, your own dignity as a woman,--and then for you not to understand what your husband has to feel in your stead, since you yourself have not this sense of your own dignity!--far from it, you come and declare to your husband that you will _sacrifice_ yourself, which is equivalent to saying, 'To please His Highness would be my greatest happiness, but I will _sacrifice_ it.'" The more he said, the more the sound of his own voice excited him, and the harder, more cutting and violent, became his voice. I had never seen, and had never expected to see him thus; the blood surged to my heart; I was frightened, but yet, at the same time, a sense of unmerited disgrace and offended self-love aroused me, and I keenly longed to take some vengeance on him. "I have long expected this outbreak," said I, "speak, speak!"