“They are so pretty, especially the youngest with his blond curls.”
“Oh, but there are too many of them,” I repeated. She did not reply. I walked on, not caring to witness the demonstration with which the father would be greeted. That sort of affection did not appeal to me. I understood only the so-called higher type of love. As Raymonde did not follow, I turned around and saw her intently watching that scene from a life which she appreciated and craved but had been denied. All the tenderness and yearning of her womanhood were aroused; she could not keep back the tears.
Instead of silently entering into her feeling, without useless words, I said impatiently:
“What is the matter with you, Raymonde? Come, that is absurd.”
In reality I knew the deep causes of her emotion. With miraculous intuition, had she not foreseen this, when she told her father that although she loved me I was not the husband for her? Although she was very ingenuous and ignorant of the degree of my unworthiness, yet she presaged our incompatibility, if not my injustice.
She calmed herself with an heroic effort.
“It is foolish of me,” she agreed. “They are so happy that I was deeply touched.”
“And we?” I demanded mechanically.
My question forced her to choose between a weak expression of self-pity or a bolder attempt to conceal her feelings by lying to me.
“Yes, indeed, we too are happy,” she said in a voice bravely simulating the truth.