She closed her eyes, leaned toward him and pressed against him, lifted her cheek to him, and as he pressed his lips upon it, she murmured in his ear: “I love thee!”
Then Olivier, without dropping the hands he clasped in his own, looked at her, saying: “Let us see that sad face.”
She felt ready to faint.
“Yes, a little pale,” said he, “but that is nothing.”
To thank him for saying that, she said brokenly,
“Ah, dear friend, dear friend!” finding nothing else to say.
But he turned, looking behind her in search of Annette, who had disappeared.
“Is it not strange,” he said abruptly, “to see your daughter in mourning?”
“Why?” inquired the Countess.
“What? You ask why?” he exclaimed, with extraordinary animation. “Why, it is your own portrait painted by me—it is my portrait. It is yourself, such as you were when I met you long ago when I entered the Duchess's house! Ah, do you remember that door where you passed under my gaze, as a frigate passes under a cannon of a fort? Good heavens! when I saw the little one, just now, at the railway station, standing on the platform, all in black, with the sun shining on her hair massed around her face, the blood rushed to my head. I thought I should weep. I tell you, it is enough to drive one mad, when one has known you as I have, who has studied you as no one else has, and reproduced you in painting, Madame. Ah, I thought that you had sent her alone to meet me at the station in order to give me that surprise. My God! but I was surprised, indeed! I tell you, it is enough to drive one mad.”