“Leave her now,” said her father. “You do not see that she is thoroughly tired out.”
Ah, how I pity those who become engaged, who marry, in the city! Does not everything urge them to set bounds to a love which they must keep, as it were, on a leash, in the streets, must protect incessantly in the midst of acquaintances, difficulties and embarrassments? My own and Raymonde’s love blossomed forth in freedom.
We had resumed our horseback rides, and sometimes M. Mairieux accompanied us, sometimes he entrusted his daughter to me, when he would follow us with his eyes for several moments before he returned to his office or his work outdoors.
The trees still retained their foliage, but the colours changed from day to day, a marvel to behold. The leaves of the lindens became a pale yellow, those of the oaks, at first a red copper, later that colour of rust which they keep all winter, for they do not fall: shrivelled, hardened, and curled up they cling to the branches until the new growth comes in the spring and flings them down.
“They are like those feelings,” I said to Raymonde, “which remain in the heart even after they are dead, and which only a new passion has the power to drive away.”
Whenever I gave vent to such sentimental rubbish as this, the art of which one acquires in society, she used to look me full in the face, her astonished eyes seeming to discover in me some unknown abysses. Why did I aim to dazzle her with such empty talk? I was thinking of those faded memories which still occasionally obtruded themselves upon my mind, and which, although they had not yet entirely gone, were destined, under the influence of my love, to disappear only to be reborn another day.
“None of my affections is dead,” she replied. “None will die before I do.”
We were passing the Green Fountain, and we paused to give our horses a drink from the basin. We saw the reflection of their heads mingle in the calm water, and leaning forward, she unconsciously and I intentionally, we saw our own heads come together and touch. Drawing back I looked at Raymonde: she was blushing as if she had felt my lips, although they had never yet touched her.
Two years before, more than two years since, it was, on the birthday of spring, I had waylaid her there. I recalled the incident to her, and asked her the reason of her fear.
“I did not expect you,” she said.