“As a reward for your promise,” I said, smiling at him through tears that would come because I was worn out, and because I knew that it was I who needed his forgiveness, not he mine. “Now are you happy again?” I asked.
“Yes, I’m happy,” he said. “Though on the way to this house I didn’t dream that it would be possible for me to know happiness any more in this world. And even at your gate—” He stopped suddenly, and his face changed. I waited an instant, but seeing that he didn’t mean to go on, I could not resist questioning him. I had to know what had happened at my gate.
“Even at the gate—what?” I asked.
“Nothing. I’m sorry I spoke. I want to show you how completely I trust you now, by not speaking of that.”
But this reticence of his only made me more anxious to hear what he had been going to say. I was afraid that I could guess. But I must have it from his lips, and be able to explain away the mystery which, when it recurred to him in the future, might make him doubt me, even though in this moment of exaltation he did not doubt.
“Yes, speak of it,” I said. “All the more because it is nothing. For it can be nothing.”
“I want to punish myself for asking an explanation about Godensky, by not allowing you to explain this other thing,” insisted poor, loyal, repentant Raoul. “Then—at the time—it made all the rest seem worse, a thousand times worse. But I saw through black spectacles. Now I see through rose-coloured ones.”
“I’d rather you saw through your own dear eyes, without any spectacles. You must tell me what you’re thinking of, dear. For my own sake, if not yours.”
“Well—if you will know. But, remember, darling, I’m going to put it out of my mind. I’ll ask you no questions, I’ll only—tell you the thing itself. As I said, I didn’t come here directly after seeing Godensky get into your carriage. I wandered about like a madman—and I thought of the Seine.”
“Oh—you must indeed have been mad!”