But she and I both felt that he was lying again. We did not deceive ourselves. But what matter, what matter?
Her lips on his lips, she murmured like a thorny caress among the caresses:
"My husband will soon be home."
How little they really were at one! How, actually, there was nothing but their fear that they had in common, and how they stirred their fear up desperately. But their tremendous effort to commune somehow was soon to be over.
They stopped talking. Words had already accomplished the work of reviving their love. She merely murmured:
"I am yours, I am yours. I give myself to you. No, I do not give myself to you. How can I give myself when I do not belong to myself?"
"Are you happy?" she asked again.
"I swear you are everything in the world to me."
* * * * * * * * *
Now, she felt, their bliss had already become a mere memory, and she said almost plaintively: