But she had not so forbidden me. On the contrary, there had been occasions when she had even invited me to speak. Of course, this might have been done out of sheer wantonness, for I well knew⁠—I had remarked it only too often⁠—that, after listening to what I had to say, and angering me almost beyond endurance, she loved suddenly to torture me with some fresh outburst of contempt and aloofness! Yet she must have known that I could not live without her. Three days had elapsed since the affair with the Baron, and I could bear the severance no longer. When, that afternoon, I met her near the Casino, my heart almost made me faint, it beat so violently. She too could not live without me, for had she not said that she had need of me? Or had that too been spoken in jest?