“She knows, but will never speak of it,” she added.
And I knew that my contradiction was only verbal. Deep in my own consciousness, I felt the truth, and in my imagination I pictured Raymonde sitting motionless as she watched me disappear with Mme. de H—, Dilette holding her hand, but not understanding her mother’s silence. She was thinking of another couple who walked under the trees at the Sleeping Woods and exchanged vows of everlasting faithfulness.
We found my machine. Before she stepped in, Mme. de H— turned to me, and asked briskly:
“Are you thinking of her?”
Instead of answering, I put another question:
“And you?”
“I think only of myself.”
Then she added:
“And of thee.”
But very soon after, her intimacy with me was to come to an end.