“And you,” he said to Desiree one morning, when household affairs had taken her to the kitchen, “you are troubled this morning. You have had a letter from your husband?”
“Yes—and he is in good health.”
“Ah!”
Barlasch glared at her beneath his brows, looking her up and down, noting her quick movements, which had the uncertainty of youth.
“And now that he is gone,” he said, “and that there is war, you are going to employ yourself by falling in love with him, when you had all the time before, and did not take advantage of it.”
Desiree laughed at him and made no other answer. While she spoke to Lisa he sat and watched them.
“It would be like a woman to do such a thing,” he pursued. “They are so inconvenient—women. They get married for fun, and then one fine Thursday they find they have missed all the fun, like one who comes late to the theatre—when the music is over.”
He went to the table and examined the morning marketing, which Lisa had laid out in preparation for dinner. Of some of her purchases he approved, but he laughed aloud at a lettuce which had no heart, and at such a buyer.
Then Desiree attracted his scrutiny again.
“Yes,” he said, half to himself, “I see it. You are in love. Just Heaven, I know! I have had them in love with me.... Barlasch.”