“I am so fatigued,” she murmured; “let me go to my room, please.”
“Do you want me to go with you?”
“Thank you, I prefer to be alone.”
She glided through the room like a shadow. At the door, she turned toward me and said brokenly:
“If I was wrong in dismissing your friend, forgive me.”
“No, no,” I said, “it is not that.”
She disappeared, and I walked up and down, reviewing the whole unpleasant episode and its inevitable consequences. I was annoyed with myself for the unpleasant sensation I felt. It was something akin to that I felt when I asked the innocent young girl of the woods to come to Paris with me alone and she had willingly consented, not comprehending the significance of my invitation. Had I not nevertheless committed the cowardice of injuring the little creature who had entrusted herself to me and claimed protection? And as on that previous occasion, I recalled the bird which I had picked up in my hand, whose life, whose warm life, I felt slip away. Had I not held it too close instead of caressing it?
I should have insisted on going with her,—I should not have left her alone. But I stayed there, unnerved and dissatisfied with myself.
At dinner she occupied her place without a word of explanation. Any further expression of opinion would have been as the spade of earth that falls on a coffin. Neither she nor I reopened the subject. She retired early, and her absence was a distinct relief to me. The cigar which I was smoking was excellent. Out of doors, the mild evening air announced the spring-time.
That night, I have since learned, was one of intense agony for her. How could she still love me? Had I not yet succeeded in destroying love in her? Love is not so dependent on its object as on the nature of the being in whose heart it dwells, and from which it receives its life and force. That of Raymonde was born immortal.