She turns round and looks into my eyes. The dear, tormented face—I would give the world to banish even the shadow of a grief from it.
"Michel——"
She breaks off.
"Michel, have you something to say to me?"
Her gaze puts me to confusion. I bend down and kiss her fingers; then, I find nothing to say to her, but this:
"Shake hands, Jeannine."
A feverish pressure, in which our souls, too, hold each other first.
"Are we agreed?"
She answers: "Yes."
The tone of her voice is no longer veiled. I gaze on her. The suffering has suddenly vanished from her eyes. All the brilliance has returned to her complexion, just as it has to her glance. Again, the expression of which I had kept such a delightful recollection, Youth smiling at Happiness.