'And she?'
'She answered quite simply, "Et moi, je t'aime tant, aussi." And then she began to cry. And when I asked her what she was crying for, she explained that I oughtn't to have left her in doubt for so long; she had been so unhappy from fear that I didn't "love her so." She was quite unfemininely frank, you see. Oh, the ecstacy of that hour! The ecstacy of our first kiss! From that time on it was "mon petit mari" and "ma petite femme." The greatest joy in life for me, for us, was to sit together, holding each other's hands, and repeating from time to time, "J' t'aime tant, j' t'aime tant." Now and then we would vary it with a fugue upon our names—"Hélène!"—"Paul!"' He laughed. 'Children, with their total lack of humour, are the drollest of created beings, aren't they?'
'Oh, I don't think it's droll. I know, all children have those desperate love affairs. But they seem to me pathetic. How did it go on?'
'Oh, for two or three years we lived in Paradise. There were no other boys in the neighbourhood, so she was constant.'
'For three years? And then?'
'Then my grandmother died, and I was carried off to Paris. She remained here. And so it ended.'
'And when did you meet her next? After you were grown up?'
'I have never met her since.'
'You must have followed her career with a special interest, though?'
'Ah, quant à ça!'