And just as death was there everywhere about me in that salon, many-sided and invisible, life had fled for refuge yonder in that room where Raymonde waited for me to return. She was not resting; she was only waiting for me, I told myself. When I should enter, she would lift her arms from the bed, and in her open palms would be security and peace and love. Around her head would shine that halo which I had already seen there. But I should have to hurry; she would not wait for me long—
A sudden illumination shone within me. I felt a happiness without knowing whence it came, a state for which the recollection of my engagement and perhaps too some rare intuition that vanity had not stifled in me, unconsciously had prepared me for, so that I stirred beneath it, like the earth at dawn.
Some outward sign of it all must have shown in me, for Mme. de H— asked:
“What is the matter with you?”
Her voice had suddenly become unfamiliar.
“With me? Nothing.”
“You are most peculiar this evening.”
“I am over-tired; that’s all. I must go.”
“Do you feel ill?”
“Very well, on the contrary,” I replied, without thinking of my words.