‘You do love me?’ she said, very low, with much hesitation, while her colour deepened.
Othmar looked up quickly with a certain irritation.
‘Has that pert baby told you to doubt it? Can that be a question between you and me? My dear child, would you be by me now if I did not do so?’
And he soothed her agitation by those caresses with which a man can so easily and with pleasure to himself counterfeit warmth and tenderness to a woman who has youth and grace and cheeks as soft as the wing of a bird.
‘Yseulte,’ he said gravely a few moments later, ‘do not listen to what other women say to you; if you do, you will lose your beautiful serenity and fret yourself vainly by doubts and fancies. There is nothing on earth so cruel to a woman as women. They envy you—not for me—but for what you possess through me and for the face and form with which nature has dowered you. Do not let them poison your peace. I am not afraid that they will corrupt your heart, but I am afraid that they may distress and disturb you. We cannot live all our lives in seclusion at Amyôt, and the world must come about you soon or late. To be in the world means to be surrounded with jealousies, cruelties, enmities, ingratitude, and malice; if we once lend our ear to what these will tell us, we shall have no more happiness. You have been like your favourite, S. Ignace; by reason of your own purity you have been allowed to hear the angels sing. Do not let the world’s clamour drown that divine song, for once lost no one ever hears it again! Do you understand what I mean, my dear?’
She said nothing, but she hid her face on his breast and burst into tears, the first that he had ever seen from her eyes.
‘Can they not let her alone,’ he thought with anger, and a sense of weariness and apprehension; if the world taught her what men’s love could be, would she not discover what was missing in his?