“And you mean that——?”
“That Anne was right to go. She knew the woman before René himself guessed the truth. She suffered I know, or perhaps as I don’t know. But not so horribly, I think, as they would both have suffered if she had stayed. And she made her exit with dignity.” He smiled again. “I am a Frenchman, doctor, and I suppose the love of le beau geste is in my blood. I take off my hat to Anne Page.”
When Dr. Dakin spoke, it was in a voice from which he could not banish indignation.
“It seems incredible! That he could forget a woman like that, I mean.”
His own faithful nature rose up in revolt at the outrage to all his sentiments of enduring love.
“He didn’t,” returned François quickly. “Anne had no real rival. She may rest in peace. Fate was kind to her—and perhaps to him,” he added. “Their love while it lasted, was perfect, and death settled the future. You are thinking that if any woman was worthy of fidelity it was Anne Page? I agree with you. But when a woman late in life falls in love with a genius——” he made a gesture with his hand, and left the sentence unfinished.
“Tragic, doctor, I admit. But it’s life,—and Anne knew and accepted it.”
The faint irony which he could seldom keep out of his voice, was almost submerged by something that sounded like real emotion.
“You knew them both very well, of course?” asked Dr. Dakin, after quite a long silence. “When they were together, I mean.”
“I was with them nearly every evening, when they entertained all the men best worth knowing, in Paris. It must have struck you that Anne is a woman of unusual mental distinction?”