“I had done you quite as great a wrong, Henri. I should not have accepted your sacrifice. I ought not to have become your wife.”
“But what would you have done then?”
“I should have gone away, somewhere or other. If I had been then the woman that I am now, I should have gone away, somewhere or other. And I should have left you to your life ... and to the happiness that was perhaps awaiting you elsewhere....”
“I should have had to give up the service just the same....”
“But you would have been freer without me. You were still so young: you had your whole life before you; and you would perhaps have found your happiness. As it is, you have never found it ... or ... perhaps too late.”
He stood up, very restless and nervous, and his boyish eyes pleaded anxiously:
“Constance, I can’t talk in this way. I’m not used to it....”
“Can’t you face things seriously for a moment?...”
“No, I can’t. It upsets me. I don’t know: you mean to be nice, I believe, but please don’t let us talk like this. We’re not accustomed to it. And I ... I can’t do it. You can see for yourself, it upsets me.”
“Come,” she said, in a motherly tone, “you are not so much upset as all that. You can have a bicycle-ride afterwards and you will feel better. But first let us talk seriously for a moment....”