“Stay here with me, dear, please.”
And turning to Marcel gracefully, she said:
“There is no room for you. But I’m sure that you aren’t tired.”
“No, indeed,” he replied. Then, after a pause, “Do you know that absurd Arab proverb, ‘It is better to be seated than to stand, better to lie down than to sit, and better to be dead than to lie down?’”
“I did not know it, but I like it,” said Alice.
A profound depression, as unaccountable as a child’s despair, was visible in her sweet young face. She bent toward the silent Paule.
“I envy you, Paule. You are so strong and splendid. I am so weak. If you only knew how weak I am! I have no strength at all.”
And with her lovely sad eyes she fixed Marcel as if speaking to him and asking for his help. Why did she pity herself so? And why did she shrink from M. de Marthenay?
“At your age,” Marcel said, “how can one disbelieve in happiness?”
Instead of these commonplace words he thirsted to give her the comfort of his own strength. And Paule, a prey at this moment to doubt and bitterness, still kept silence in disdainful astonishment at being envied by this friend whose life had been spared so much and who could arrange her fate according to her own will.