Madame Guibert sighed, and Paule after a moment’s reflection, during which Jean was able to study her face more at leisure, spoke again, as faithful as Antigone.
“We should love to feel that my brother was near us, to be able to kneel on the stones which cover him.”
“Have you not always his memory with you? What remains of Marcel is but his earthly husk.”
“Ah, yes!” agreed Madame Guibert. She was thinking of his immortal soul.
Marcel’s sister yielded. But Jean saw the tears running down her cheeks.
“He was our pride—and my life,” she sighed; and in a lower voice she added: “He knew that long ago.”
“God willed it so,” said his mother. “We do not understand His plans. He seems so cruel sometimes that we are tempted to rebel. But His goodness is infinite.”
Jean, much affected, took her wrinkled, trembling hand in his own and, with the same respect which Marcel used to show, he kissed it reverently. He stood up and, facing the two women as they gazed at him, paid a last tribute to the dead, not without hope that he might help Paule, less resigned and more discouraged than her mother.
“His short life was complete. By his will power and his courage he has set us an example. Far from pitying him, should we not envy him? We must honor the dead, but we must have faith in life!”
Paule turned on Jean those dark eyes of hers, into which the light was coming back. A new strength seemed to flow to her from him. Could this be the frivolous young officer who used to flirt with girls of the lighter kind? In her memory of him she had cherished a contemptuous kindness for him, which perhaps concealed an unavowed vexation at his conduct. In her pride she had thought herself strong. She was now discovering that, if she wished to be worthy of her own esteem and Jean’s, she must pluck relentlessly from her heart all that bitterness and rebellion wherewith it abounded as the woods in winter with dead leaves.