They walked about the garden. 'It is lovely. The prettiest garden of the neighbourhood,' she said. 'Show me where the irises grow, by the pond.' And when they had arrived there, 'They do look like princesses, don't they? Your little friend had some perceptions. Show me where you and she used to sit down. I am tired.'
He led her into a corner of the rosery. She sank upon the turf.
'It is nice here,' she said, 'and quite shut in. One would never know there was a house so near.'
She had taken off one of her gloves. Her soft white hand lay languidly in her lap. Suddenly Paul seized it, and kissed it—furiously—again and again. She yielded it. It was sweet to smell, and warm. 'My God, how I love you, how I love you!' he murmured.
When he looked up, she was smiling. 'Oh, you are radiant! You are divine!' he cried. And then her eyes filled with tears. 'What is it? What is it? You are unhappy?'
'Oh, no,' she said. 'But to think—to think that after all these years of misery, of heartbreak, it should end like this, here.'
'Here?' he questioned.
'I am glad your bronchitis is better, but you can invent the most awful fibs,' she said.
He looked at her, while the universe whirled round him.
'Hélène!'