He watched her anxiously. But the bright features lit up anew and she said to Guillaume, gaily and blithely, as though she had made the most wonderful and unexpected of discoveries:
“But, you know, Guillaume, I love you too.”
She had the look of a delighted child. She could have clapped her hands, so great was the enchantment of that magnificent vision of love, so sweet was it to know that she loved and was loved.
She leant over to him prettily:
“Then you are the one I was loving all the time and it is you that I love, Guillaume?”
“Gilberte ... please....”
“What do you want? Tell me what you want, Guillaume.”
“Your eyes, Gilberte, to kiss your innocent eyes, your eyes which are like the eyes of a little girl.”
Closing the lids, she offered her eyes, as though it were a quite natural thing. He took her in his arms and drew her to him. But a shiver passed through her at once. She made an instinctive movement of resistance and moaned:
“No ... no ... oh, please don’t!...”