“Don’t you know me by this time?”
“Every day I find you more astonishing and strange. Sometimes I come into your room in the morning and watch you sleeping, and I feel very lonely then. You are so remote. It is like waiting for the dawn. Then I see consciousness waking in you. Then your eyes open and you gaze innocently out upon the world. And you see me and are satisfied.”
“And you?”
“I know that another day has come, another opportunity, a new turn in the adventure.”
“Is it always an adventure?”
“Always. Unending desire.”
“For me,” she said, “it is peace and knowledge. It would be stifling if I had not you to kindle them.”
René kissed her and laughed:
“The whole duty of man,” he said, “to keep the flame alight in woman.”
She became serious on that.