"I swear to you at that moment she was sincere," he reiterated.
Sincere in her remorse, perhaps! Face to face with my love which transformed the wanton into a madonna. It was not very surprising.
[XII]
SUN-MISTS
He looked round anxiously to see if everything was there, as if it were possible to see anything at all in that confusion of people and luggage on the upper deck.
He felt guilty of an unknown crime, until the steamer had passed the mill. He was dazzled by the blinding sun, the sea appeared to be boundless, and the hazy blue mountains called him with irresistible force. His eyes fell on the children's perambulator; the one painted white with the blue cover, not the other one; he knew it so well, there were little white milkspots on the blue cover. And over there was the big arm-chair and the drawing-room sofa and the bath with the flower-pots. How dusty the poor things looked, they had spent the whole winter in a cloud of tobacco smoke; the pelargoniums used to stand on the writing-table in the lamplight, in the early spring, when the evenings were still long; the arm-chair stood to the right of the writing-table, and whenever he looked up from his work, whenever the restless pen stopped for a second, he received a friendly nod. But when there was no one sitting in the arm-chair, his tired eyes travelled to the cretonne flowers on the sofa; but there were so many eyes staring into the room, and how the lamp flickered! Ah! it was the sun shining on the upper deck! What was that over there? A pair of eyes familiar last year—how dull they were! Had he been ill? No! They had not met since last year; one never met in town, one was so busy there! One left one's school and went home! The children had had measles.... It was cold on deck, he had better go downstairs into the saloon.
There were the eyes again, staring at the sofa and the arm-chair. But they looked happy, longing, yearning for something which must surely happen.
He left his place and stepped forward to let the fresh breeze cool his face. Smoke and the smell of food were rising from the kitchen. There was the cook, taking a rest, trying to grow cool. And the large cabin!
The table-cloth was as white as it had been last year, the silver epergne sparkled as before, the flowers on the sideboard were as new and fresh, the lamps were swinging in their brass brackets; everything was exactly as it had been before, and yet everything was new, thanks to the ever-rejuvenating power of nature, thanks to spring!