“Thérèse, where are you?”
“Here, on the seat.”
“Ah, yes; I can see your cigarette.”
Anne sat down, leaned her head against a motionless shoulder, looked up at the sky, and said: “He sees these very stars, he hears the Angelus....”
And she asked Thérèse to kiss her. But Thérèse did not bend down to that confiding little face. She merely asked:
“Are you unhappy?”
“Not this evening: I have realised that by some means or another I shall come to him again. The main thing is that he should know it; and he will know it through you: I have made up my mind to go away. But when I return, no walls shall keep me back: sooner or later, I shall lay my head upon his heart: I am as sure of that as I am that I’m alive. No, Thérèse, no: you, at least, must not talk morality to me, or about the family....”
“I’m not thinking of the family, darling, but of him: you can’t drop into a man’s life just like that: he has his family, too, his own interests, his work, a love-affair perhaps....”
“No, he once said to me: ‘There is only you in my life ...’ and another time: ‘Our love is the only thing I care for now....’”
“Yes, now....”