She shook her head:
"No. But I thought …"
He thanked her with a look. Rosa's heart melted.
"My poor … poor Christophe!" she said.
She flung her arms round his neck and wept. Christophe felt the worth of such pure tenderness. He had so much need of consolation! He kissed her:
"How kind you are," he said. "You loved her too?"
She broke away from him, she threw him a passionate look, did not reply, and began to weep again.
That look was a revelation to him. It meant:
"It was not she whom I loved…."
Christophe saw at last what he had not known—what for months he had not wished to see. He saw that she loved him.