“Naturally, you think yourself nice!” she said to me with a laugh, and went on laughing. Whereupon I felt all the anguish that there was for me in not being able to attain to that other, less perceptible plane of her mind which her laughter indicated. It seemed, that laughter, to mean: “No, no, I’m not going to let myself be moved by anything that you say, I know you’re madly in love with me, but that leaves me neither hot nor cold, for I don’t care a rap for you.” But I told myself that, after all, laughter was not a language so well defined that I could be certain of understanding what this laugh really meant. And Gilberte’s words were affectionate. “But how am I not being nice,” I asked her, “tell me; I will do anything you want.” “No; that wouldn’t be any good. I can’t explain.” For a moment I was afraid that she thought that I did not love her, and this was for me a fresh agony, no less keen, but one that required treatment by a different conversational method. “If you knew how much you were hurting me you would tell me.” But this pain which, had she doubted my love for her, must have rejoiced her, seemed instead to make her more angry.