"Kiss—"
"Your wife." She was close to hysteria now, all hope of self-command gone. She caught him by the arm. "Jacques, do you love her? I never knew, I never thought—Oh, but you can't love her! It is impossible, Jacques. Why don't you answer me?"
He was shivering as if with a chill. "That is a question you have no right to ask."
"I—no right?" She laughed aloud. "What do rights matter? Besides, I have every right, because it is me you love, me! I know it by your eyes, your voice. See, you are afraid to touch me. And yet you kiss her! Why? Why?"
She could barely hear the answer. "Because—it makes her a little happy."
She laughed again, brokenly. "You hypocrite!"
"No, not quite a hypocrite—" he got it out in jerks. "She cares for me. She needs me. She has given me our son. If one cannot have—the moon—at least there are stars."
She knelt facing him, with her hands out, whispering desperately, "But if you can have the moon, if you can—? Oh, my dear, my dear! Why don't you take me?"
He took her then, held her so close that his heart shook her body as if it were her own, kissed her eyes, her hair, her lips, until she was ashamed and put up her hands before her face so that he might kiss only them.
At last he put her from him, and went without a word back to his wife.