“You are a child to persist in such foolish ideas. You don’t know what life is.”
She was annoyed that he was so obstinate, and would not listen [[128]]to her good advice, but he—although he would not have admitted it—felt himself hesitate a little in his so-long-thought-out ideas; he felt a burden of hopelessness overwhelming him, and saw the ground of his expectations glide away from under his feet. Slowly he passed his hand across his forehead; it were better perhaps—if he waited.
“Perhaps—I should—do better to—wait!” he whispered, giving expression to the thoughts that oppressed, and his words were so full of sad resignation that Emilie, notwithstanding the victory she had achieved, felt pained.
She took his head in both her hands, and looked long into his sad, wistful eyes.
“You dreamer!” she said, full of motherly tenderness and sympathy. “Who knows, eh? You are so young—and perhaps, who knows, perhaps——”
“Well—perhaps what?”
“Perhaps you are right, and I am all wrong,” casting aside her victory at the sorrow it caused her spoilt boy. “Only, think well over it; be sensible, Georges, I beg of you!”
And she pressed a loving kiss on his eyelids, which closed, and beneath which she felt a suspicious moisture.