She rose and stood beside him.
“I will give you the proof,” she said in a low voice.
But still he was not satisfied; his eyes continued to question her.
“It is from my heart,” she repeated firmly. He caught her to him and kissed her, but it seemed to him even then as if he held something dead in his arms, something which by no beat of the heart, by no single spiritual response, met his. She gave him her lips.
For a long moment he held her, then she withdrew herself and moved away from him. “No more,” she said gently. “To-night I shall expect you. I will meet you at the turn of the road by the Madonna of the Rocks.”
She moved with him slowly towards the door. “Voyons!” she said before they parted. “Don’t hurt her--don’t ever tell her--your young wife. She is too good. A lie will cost you nothing. And, after all, if it was not me--it would be some other woman soon--would it not? After all--” Her voice faltered. Something in her wavered for a moment, something very hard and deep, tried suddenly to melt. “After all,” said Léon gravely, “this is the greatest proof I have to give. Take it as generously as I give it!”
She looked at him with strange eyes. “We are both about to be very generous, are we not?” she said with a dry little smile. “Eh bien! Love is short and marriage is long--all the better for love--which sees its end.”
Léon did not like this point of view. There was some truth in it, no doubt, but it would have sounded better from the lips of a man. He kissed her hands reproachfully. He could not think for the moment of anything very beautiful to say about love, and Madame herself said no more. She simply looked suggestively at the door.
After he had gone she stood where he had left her, clenching and unclenching her small, firm hands.
“From my heart,” she whispered, “Mon Dieu--it appears so--from my heart.”