He turned his head toward the children who were looking out at the neighboring chestnut blossoms, and he immediately digressed: they were, moreover, old recriminations, which he had often analyzed critically:
"Why did you prevent my helping you to educate the children? I could do only that for them and you have deprived me of it."
She replied gently:
"I had taken charge of it. You had deserted me. Have they been badly looked after?"
"I have not deserted you: you went away and you have taken our children. Do you think I did not love them as much as you? If I did not ask to take care of them, at least for a part of the year, it is only on your account, so as not to increase your loneliness and it is because my mother begged me to leave them to you. Did you not know about it? Did you not guess it? You thought that I had no interest in them? In refusing my support you gave me back my rights. Now I am free, now I mean to see them again, to share them."
He had grown more and more excited, rambling on because of the disorder of his heart and his brain.
"Marie Louise, Philippe!" called Elizabeth terrified.
The two children hurried to her; Marie Louise had already cried from afar:
"Naughty papa!"
The young wife pressed them both to her.