"Paul! Paul!"
VII
"Oh, Madame!" I said, bewildered, and sick as from a stab. It was no comfort that the high lady who scarcely allowed me to kiss her hand before we parted, clung around my neck. She trembled against me.
"Have you come back to your mother, Paul?"
"Eagle!" I pleaded. "Don't you know me? You surely know Lazarre!"
She kissed me, pulling my head down in her arms, the velvet mouth like a baby's, and looked straight into my eyes.
"Madame, try to understand! I am Louis! If you forget Lazarre, try to remember Louis!"
She heard with attention, and smiled. The pressure of my arms spoke to her. A man's passion addressed itself to a little child. All other barriers which had stood between us were nothing to this. I held her, and she could never be mine. She was not ill in body; the contours of her upturned face were round and softened with much smiling. But mind-sickness robbed me of her in the moment of finding her.
"She can't be insane!" I said aloud. "Oh, God, anything but that! She was not a woman that could be so wrecked."