She had turned rather paler and glanced at her boys, Dolf and Christie, who had looked up in dismay, their mouths wide open with astonishment.
“Is Jules naughty, mamma?” asked Christie.
She shook her head, smiling. She felt a strange, an unspeakably strange weariness. She did not know what it meant; but it seemed to her as if very distant vistas were opening before her eyes and fading into the horizon, pale, in a great light. Nor did she know what this meant; but she was not angry with Jules and it seemed to her as if he had lost his temper, not with her, but with somebody else. A sense of the enigmatical depth of life, the soul’s unconscious mystery, like to a fair, bright endlessness, a far-away silvery light, shot through her in silent rapture.
Then she laughed:
“Jules is so nice,” she said, “when he gets excited.”
Anna and Suzette, upset at the incident, played with the boys, looking over their picture-books. Cecile spoke only to her sister. But Amélie’s nerves were still quivering.
“How can you defend those ways of Jules’?” she asked, in a choking voice.
“I think it nice of him to stand up for people he likes. Don’t you think so too?”
Amélie grew calmer. Why should she be put out if Cecile was not?
“I dare say,” she replied. “I don’t know. He has a good heart I believe, but he is so unmanageable. But, who knows, perhaps it’s my fault: if I understood things better, if I had more tact....”