"All to-day," resumed the girl, "when men seemed happiest it was because they were with women. Also when they looked most cruel—you perhaps know what I mean—there were women there too with the faces that frightened me. And all those lovely children playing in the park—always they seemed so merry because their mothers were near them. But also, you remember the poor soldier in the chair?—no legs and but one arm. His face was so sad until once the lady with him—a nurse, you said—spoke to him and he looked at her and smiled. It was lovely, monsieur. I think I wept a little."
He made no comment, but his left hand ran slow arpeggios on the table. From the window she could see the water of the chute, all silvery in the moonlight.
"So to-night, monsieur," she went on, "I am not the same as this morning. Then I thought that we who are women are the happiest; but now I think, in the real world, it is we who give pleasure or unhappiness. Perhaps, monsieur"—she turned around and faced him—"perhaps a woman finds joy only when she gives it to others."
He looked at her, and his eyebrows were raised in wonder. When he had said we grow old by moments, was it more than just a well-turned phrase?
She returned to her chair by the table.
"When Louis and I are alone," she murmured, "I shall not dream the same as before. Then we had only young people, brave and handsome, but now I shall pretend that there are many old and sad ones, who perhaps will be glad if I am with them. And——"
"Pippa, my dear"—he looked into her eyes that met his without timidity, and there was a pleading note in his voice—"you may be lonely here, but you saw to-day how many discouraged, unhappy people there are—how much sickness and unkindness there is. Keep to your little world here with its Fairy Princes and the music of the wind. It is better, Pippa…. Perhaps it is even more real than the other."
She smiled, patiently, and, for the second time that day, felt a motherly pity for his youthfulness.
"Your Majesty," she said, "in my book, The Fairy Prince, the girl sings a song about love, and she asks her mother, 'Est-ce plaisir, est-ce tourment?' I know now that it is both. Ah! I think it is too wonderful to be a woman; for some day, perhaps yes, perhaps no, I shall have my own children and a husband and friends. And sometimes, when my husband, he is much discouraged if the mill makes no money, though he works so hard, or if my children are perhaps sick and cry—then it is I who smile and say: 'Mes enfants'—for he, too, will be only a big child—'Mes enfants, can you see the sunshine? Do you hear the birds? Can you smell these flowers?—So!' Et alors—perhaps they smile too. So I sing a pretty song and say to my husband 'Courage, mon ami! Have you not your little wife?' And after that we are all happy…. And now, that is why I think it is so wonderful to be a woman."
The clock hiccoughed, and struck eight.