“Think of it!” exclaimed François with sudden animation. “A simple gentle woman of twenty years ago. A woman who had led the narrowest of lives; ignorant of men; ignorant of passion—till at the age of thirty-seven she falls in love, and is loved by a man ten years younger than herself. And that man, René Dampierre.”
The doctor started. “You mean the painter?”
François nodded. “She was his mistress for three years.”
Both men smoked in silence for a few moments.
“One might have guessed,” said the doctor quietly, “that she would choose a lover worthy of her.”
“Anne is an unconscious artist,” returned Fontenelle. “It was the most beautiful love affair I have ever known. The only perfect one—thanks to her courage and self-sacrifice.
“Anne is a simple woman in the sense that all her emotions are unsophisticated, original, generous. But she is also the wisest woman I ever met.
“She knew René better than he knew himself. That is to say, she knew men—or rather divined their natures, by her sixth sense of intuition.
“She might have married him. He wanted to marry her. But she knew what the result would be.
“Oh, René was not a brute,” he exclaimed in answer to his companion’s sudden movement. “Far from it. Except for his genius, he was the average kindly natured man. But Anne very wisely took his genius into account. He was not the man to marry, and she knew it. She is proud, as only a woman of her type can be proud. And then—here felt the artist in life—this was her first and last passion, the only vital emotion she had ever experienced in an existence otherwise incredibly grey, incredibly monotonous. She wanted to make it a perfect memory for herself, as well as for him.”