"Perhaps," she answered indifferently.
"But one cannot spend much on one's self, after all. The nuns at Arles
used to tell me that poverty was a virtue, and that to be very rich was
to be very miserable. They were poor,--all those good women,--and they
were always cheerful."
"The nuns! _ah, mon Dieu!_" cried Duprez. "The darlings know not the
taste of joy--they speak of what they cannot understand! How should they
know what it is to be happy or unhappy, when they bar their great
convent doors against the very name of love!"
She looked at him, and her color rose.
"You always talk of _love_," she said, half reproachfully, "as if it
were so common a thing! You know it is sacred--why will you speak as if
it were all a jest?"
A strange emotion of admiring tenderness stirred Pierre's heart--he was
very impulsive and impressionable.
"Forgive me!" he murmured penitently. Then he added suddenly, "You
should have lived ages ago, _ma belle_,--the world of to-day will not
suit you! You will be made very sorrowful in it, I assure you,--it is
not a place for good women!"
She laughed.
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