“The truth is that you love living in the past as the Bedouin loves living in the desert.”
“It was my oasis,” she answered, simply.
“And all these years—they have made no difference?”
“Did you think they would? Did you think they had?”
“I hoped so. I thought—I had begun to think that you lived again in Vere.”
“Emile, you can always stand the truth, can’t you? Don’t say you can’t. That would hurt me horribly. Perhaps you do not know how sometimes I mentally lean on you. And I like to feel that if you knew the absolute truth of me you would still look upon me with the same kind, understanding eyes as now. Perhaps no one else would. Would you, do you think?”
“I hope and believe I could,” he said. “You do not live in Vere. Is that it?”
“I know it is considered the right, the perfectly natural thing that a mother, stricken as I have been, should find in time perfect peace and contentment in her child. Even you—you spoke of ‘living again.’ It’s the consecrated phrase, Emile, isn’t it? I ought to be living again in Vere. Well, I’m not doing that. With my nature I could never do that. Is that horrible?”
“Ma pauvre amie!” he said.
He bent down and touched her hand.