“The room over the study—that would be the best for the nursery when we want one.”
“But, René,” she answered, after a pause, “we don’t want to have children yet, do we?”
Despair seized him. He could not look at her.
“No. No. Of course, it is as you please.”
She smiled awry:
“Oh, my dear, I didn’t mean you to take it like that. It sounded horrid, I know. But for modern men and women, it ought to be possible——”
He could not let her finish. He hated her talk of “modern men and women,” as though some change had come over human nature.
“I sometimes think,” he said, “that no single word has the same meaning for the two of us. Your Love is not my Love, your Yes is not my Yes, your No is not mine.”
“Oh, René, you do say some terrible things! Sometimes you frighten me. Sometimes you are just a helpless silly baby, and sometimes you seem to know more than anybody I ever met. You are so strong, but you don’t seem to know what to do with your strength, and I am terrified of you . . . Oh, I don’t know what to do with you! Can’t we be just happy?”
“Just happy! . . . I suppose we can.”