'You love Luc! you love Luc!' he repeated. 'Love, why love?' The thought that love possessed that fondly treasured sister whom he had always seen beside him like his second self, filled him with amazement. He had never thought that she might some day love, and from that cause become unhappy. Love was a craving of which he himself knew nothing, a sphere into which he had never entered. And thus, artless and ignorant as he himself was, his embarrassment became extreme. 'Oh! tell me, brother, why does Luc love that Josine, why does he not love me?' Sœurette repeated. She was sobbing now. She had wound her arms around her brother's neck, resting her head upon his shoulder, so weighed down by distress that he was utterly distracted. And yet what could he say to console her? 'I don't know, little sister; I don't know,' he answered. 'No doubt he loves her because it is his nature to love. There can be no other reason. He would love you if he had loved you the first.' There was truth in this. Luc loved Josine because she was an _amorosa_, a woman of charm and passion, whom he had found suffering, and who had kindled into flame all the love of his heart. And besides, beauty was hers, with the passion which peoples the world. 'But, brother,' said Sœurette, 'he knew me before he knew her, so why did he not love me first?' More and more embarrassed by these questions, Jordan anxiously sought for delicate and kindly words: 'Perhaps,' he answered, 'it was because he lived here like a friend, a brother. He has become a brother for you and me.' Whilst speaking thus, Jordan looked at his sister, and this time he did not tell her all that he thought. He observed her resemblance to himself. She was so slender, so frail, so insignificant. She did not represent love; she was too pale and puny. Charming no doubt, very gentle and very kind; but then, ever clad in black, sombre-looking and sad, as are all the silent and devoted ones. For Luc she had never been aught but an intelligent and a benevolent creature. 'You will understand, little sister,' Jordan presently resumed, 'that if he has become as it were your brother and mine, he cannot love you in the same way as he loves Josine. Such a thing would not have entered his mind. But none the less I am sure that he loves you a great deal; he loves you indeed all the more, as much in fact as I myself love you.' But Sœœurette would not admit it. Her whole being protested dolorously, and amidst a fresh explosion of sobs she cried her distress aloud: 'No, no; he does not love me the more; he does not love me at all! To love a woman as a brother! what is that when I suffer as I am suffering now that I see him lost to me? If I knew naught of all those things a little while ago, at least I divine them now, and I feel as if I should die--yes, die!'