Madame Vicaud showed no surprise at this piece of information. “Ah, yes; I understand,” she said.
“She certainly told me that she did not love him,” Damier went on, “and yet—“ He paused, not quite knowing how to put to her his hope that Claire now would reconsider the situation, his hope that she would marry Monsieur Daunay.
It would be the solution of all difficulties, the best solution possible, and the situation could then be defined anew in terms that he more and more deeply longed for. He hardly dared, even yet, before her unconsciousness, define it, and turning away from her, he walked down the room, urging himself to a courage great enough to enable him now to speak to her what was in his heart. Madame Vicaud was watching him thoughtfully when he faced her again at the end of the room, and with still that look of controlled emotion.
“I, also, have something to tell you,” he said.
“Yes,” she assented quietly, yet with the look evidently braced, steeled, in preparation for what she was to hear.
“Can you guess?” he asked.
She was standing now, strangely, in the attitude of the little photograph—leaning on the back of a high chair; and her eyes recalled yet more strangely the intentness of the picture’s eyes as she said: “You have come to tell me that you love my daughter?”
He was so deeply astonished, so completely thrown back upon himself, that for a long moment he could only gaze helplessly into the eyes’ insolubility.
“No,” he said at last; “I did not come to tell you that.”
“But you do love her?” Madame Vicaud inquired, with something of gentle urgency in her voice, as though she helped his shyness. “Be frank with me, my friend; I have guessed so much more, seen so much more, than you told me or showed me. Even with all that saddens you, that pains you, you do love her—enough to overlook the pain and sadness?”