'Why?' she repeated, in a softer tone.
They were still silent; they could not really tell; they only knew that a certain sense of timidity and awe was always upon them in their mother's presence, that they never dared to laugh too loudly or ask a question twice before her. They loved her, and had the passionate admiration of childhood for that which is above it and incomprehensible to it, and she seemed to them more wonderful and beautiful than any other living creature, but there was a tinge of fear in their sense of her presence.
She read their unformed confused thoughts, and she felt a sharp reproach in their tacit confession.
Had she been so engrossed in the ice of her egotism, that she had never taken the trouble even to stoop and draw to her these young hesitating half-opened souls?
Had she been cold and careless even to them?
Enfants d'amour, nés d'une étreinte!
she murmured as she kissed them with lips which trembled; had she been so little kind to them that even they feared her?
'Maman était prête à pleurer,' murmured Xenia to her brother in amazed awe, as with their arms wound about each other they passed down the corridor to their own apartments.
Otho drew a long breath.