She was silent, seeking for words. He continued:

"Will you permit me to go back three months, although that is, it seems,
a long space of time for a woman's memory? I do not know whether you
recall our last meeting? Pardon, I meant to say the last but one, since
we met last night. Do you concede that the manner in which we parted
then did not presage the manner in which we met?"

"I concede it," said the Countess, with a gleam of angry pride in her
eyes, "although I do not very much like your style of expression. It is
the second time you have addressed me as an accuser, and if you assume
that attitude it will be useless to continue."

"Catherine!".... That cry of the young man, whose anger was increasing,
decided her whom he thus addressed to precipitate the issue of a
conversation in which each reply was to be a fresh burst of rancor.

"Well?" she inquired, crossing her arms in a manner so imperious that
he paused in his menace, and she continued: "Listen, Boleslas, we have
talked ten minutes without saying anything, because neither of us has the
courage to put the question such as we know and feel it to be. Instead
of writing to me, as you did, letters which rendered replies impossible
to me; instead of returning to Rome and hiding yourself like a
malefactor; instead of coming to my home last night with that threatening
face; instead of approaching me this morning with the solemnity of a
judge, why did you not question me simply, frankly, as one who knows that
I have loved him very, very much?.... Having been lovers, is that a
reason for detesting each other when we cease those relations?"