In a low voice, choosing his words with care, he continued:
"If you only knew how that irritated me."
"Why?" she asked naively, as they were passing through a little cluster of pine trees which hid them from sight.
Nevertheless, she hastened her steps. It was not yet the psychological moment. The love-making of a man of forty is more clear-sighted and artful, less hurried than that of a young man. He evaded the issue, rather than declare himself.
"When you were a young girl, I had dreamed of asking you to marry me."
"So I have been told."
"Ah.... If you had been happy, I should not have recalled it. I should never have reminded you of it. But I cannot bear the look of pain that crosses your face. You are so young. So many years are before you to retrieve the grief of the past."
She stopped, overwhelmed, trembling. So many years ... Yes ... until the old age of her father. The errors of the past: the soul of Autumn, Anne de Sézery. That was the beauty of living!
"Why do you speak to me like this?" she said in a stifled voice.
He read trouble and confusion in her frightened eyes, which stared at him, and so mistaking her attitude, he dared to hold the young woman's hands affectionately.