“Old fool, what?” he said, lifting his glass and smiling at his wife who happened to look at him at the moment.
She did not return his smile but her eyes, which had flashed for a second, assumed so withering an expression of dignity that he felt crushed.
The spell was broken, the last trace of his old love had vanished; he was sitting opposite the mother of his children; he felt small.
“No need to look down upon me because I have made a fool of myself for a moment,” she said gravely. “But in a man’s love there is always a good deal of contempt; it is strange.”
“And in the love of a woman?”
“Even more, it is true! But then, she has every cause.”
“It’s the same thing—with a difference. Probably both of them are wrong. That which one values too highly, because it is difficult of attainment, is easily underrated when one has obtained it.”
“Why does one value it too highly?”
“Why is it so difficult of attainment?”
The steam whistle above their heads interrupted their conversation.