And the heart also can change. Ideas may be modified and renewed, so that in forty years of life we may, by gradual and constant transformations, become four or five totally new and different beings.
He dwelt on this thought till it troubled him; it had first taken possession of him when he surprised her in the Princess's room. He was not the least angry; it was not the same woman that he was looking at—that thin, excitable little doll of those days.
What was he to do? How should he address her? and what could he say to her? Had she recognised him?
The train stopped again. He got up, bowed, and said: "Berthe, do you want anything I can bring you?"
She looked at him from head to foot, and answered, without showing the slightest surprise or confusion or anger, but with the most perfect indifference:
"I do not want anything—thank you."
He got out and walked up and down the platform a little in order to think, and, as it were, to recover his senses after a fall. What should he do now? If he got into another carriage it would look as if he were running away. Should he be gallant? That would look as if he were asking for forgiveness. Should he speak as if he were her master? He would look like a cad, and besides, he really had no right to do so.
He got in again and took his place.
During his absence she had hastily arranged her dress and hair, and was now lying stretched out on the seat, radiant, but without showing any emotion.
He turned to her, and said: "My dear Berthe, since this singular chance has brought us together after a separation of six years—a quite friendly separation—are we to continue to look upon each other as irreconcilable enemies? We are shut up together, tête-à-tête, which is so much the better or so much the worse. I am not going to get into another carriage, so don't you think it is preferable to talk as friends till the end of our journey?"