"What have I to do with these people?"
The idea that one or another of them might presume to act as her guardian did not even repel her any more, it made her want to laugh. She asked herself what Sylvie would have thought, had she been blessed with a family of this sort. What shouts, what bursts of laughter! . . .
Annette answered them sometimes, when she was all alone in the garden. And it happened that Roger heard her one day, and asked in astonishment:
"What in the world is making you laugh?"
To which she replied:
"Nothing, dear. I don't know. Nonsense. . . ."
And she tried to reassume her soberest expression. But it was stronger than she: she began laughing harder than ever, even in front of the Brissot ladies. She begged pardon, and the Mesdames Brissot, indulgent and a little vexed, said:
"The child! She has to get rid of her laughter!"
But she was not always laughing. Shadows passed abruptly over her good humor. After hours of radiant tenderness and confidence with Roger, she experienced, without transition, and for no cause, attacks of melancholy, doubt, and anxiety. The instability from which her thoughts had suffered since last autumn, far from being calmed, was accentuated during these months of requited love. There came, in flurries, an invasion of strangely unharmonious instincts: irritability, grotesque humor, malignant irony, umbrageous pride, inexplicable fits of spite. Annette found it hard to put a damper on them. And the result was not so splendid, for when she did she seemed plunged in a hostile and disquieting taciturnity. As her intelligence remained clear, she was astonished at these sudden changes, and reproached herself for them. That didn't improve matters. But the realization of her own imperfections gave her a certain indulgence—more wished for than sincere—towards those of these "clowns." . . . (Again! . . . Impertinent girl! . . . Forgive me! I won't do it again! . . .) Since they were Roger's relations, she ought to accept them, if she accepted Roger. The rest, Good Heavens, the rest is of no great importance when there are two to defend each other.
Only, were there two? Would Roger defend her? And, even before considering whether she would accept Roger, would Roger accept her sincerely and with a generous heart when he finally saw what she was like? For up to date he had seen only her mouth and eyes. As regarded what she thought and wished—the true Annette—it did not seem that he had tried very hard to become acquainted with her; he found it more comfortable to invent her. However, Annette cradled herself in the hope that, with the aid of love, it would not be impossible, after bravely looking into each other's hearts, for them to say to each other: "I take you, I take you as you are. I take you with your faults, your demons, with your little demands, with your law of life. You are what you are. As you are, I love you."