She said nothing. She merely looked up at him; and her beautiful eyes were filled with a new expression, one of gentle resignation. He fell silent again, evidently restraining himself and seeking his words. Then he resumed:
“As I say, I won’t speak about that any more. For the moment you didn’t know what you were doing and you weren’t accountable for your actions. But there must be an end of that now, for I wish it. Of course I know that according to the law I have not the least right over you. But we’ve discussed all that; and I told it you in writing. And you have been my wife; and, now that I am seeing you again, I feel very plainly that, in spite of everything, I regard you as my wife and that you are my wife. And you must have retained the same impression from our meeting here, at Nice.”
“Yes,” she said, calmly.
“Yes,” she repeated.
“Then that’s all right. It’s the only thing I wanted of you. So we won’t think any more now of what happened, of our former unpleasantness, of our divorce and of what you have done since. From now on we will put all that behind us. I look upon you as my wife and you shall be my wife again. According to the law we can’t get married again. But that makes no difference. Our divorce in law I regard as an intervening formality and we will counter it as far as we can. If we have children, we shall get them legitimatized. I will consult a lawyer about all that; and I shall take all the necessary measures, financial included. In this way our divorce will be nothing more than a formality, of no meaning to us and of as little significance as possible to the world and to the law. And then I shall leave the service. I shouldn’t in any case care to stay in it for good, so I may as well leave it earlier than I intended. For you wouldn’t find it pleasant to live in Holland; and it doesn’t appeal to me either.”
“No,” she murmured.
“Where would you like to live?”
“I don’t know....”
“In Italy?”