“You don’t show much sympathy with my annoyance.”
“Oh!” she cried, suddenly grave. “But, dear Léon, no one who knew you could treat it as anything but a silly joke. You don’t really expect us to take it seriously!”
Silent at first, he said at last:
“It was not intended for a joke, and I think any man who had such an accusation sprung upon him would naturally be a good deal disgusted.”
“Oh yes,” she said, readily, “disgusted at the folly. I can quite understand your anger at its insolence, but you can’t really fret yourself over what is so obviously absurd.”
He looked at her, and his face lightened. “You are right, you are right, chérie. I need not worry myself over a foolish piece of spite which no one in their senses would believe.”
“Now you are reasonable,” cried his wife, gayly.
“And you,” he retorted, putting his arm round her, and drawing her to the window—“you are yourself again? What did all that talk mean about your not being happy? I assure you I did not know you, you looked so fierce!”
“It meant the truth,” she acknowledged, in a low voice, “but it is going to be different, for from this day I am to share your troubles, and that is all I want I bore it at first, because—well, because I felt you did not know me very well; you might have loved me, yet thought I was foolish and untrustworthy. But, by-and-by, as years rolled on, and you treated me in the same manner, I became miserable, for I thought, ‘If he does not know now, perhaps he will never know,’ and it was a dreadful thing for me to reflect that you did not trust me. I felt it was very hard, and more so because it was so different with me. I trusted you entirely—” He made a sudden start from her side. “Oh, my God!” he exclaimed, sharply.
“What is it?” she said, distressed. “Do you dislike my telling you all this? But I want you to understand what made me so unhappy, and I assure you it was only the absence of confidence. Now all is going to be so different that I feel as if I should never be unhappy again. As for your sisters—oh, and that reminds me that I came the bearer of a very important message from Félicie.” She made a solemn face.