This indicates that the friendship he refers to never truly existed in the first place. Indeed, in Stanza XIII, he has the audacity to make a claim for the "truth."

This, as the reader has come to expect at this stage, is only very brief. The only claim to truth is that the woman was indeed light. However, because of this very lightness, she claims not to have done any wrong. She disregards the feelings of the friend in favor of her own desires for life with the speaker. Her exclamation to "Never mind that youth" appears to echo the feelings of the speaker. The woman has done the speaker no harm, and he has not harmed her. Instead, together they have harmed the innocent friend and broken what friendship there might have been left for him and the speaker. "Never mind" here can therefore also be interpreted as "I...
[ View Full Essay]