"I don't know," said Luce, "I can't explain it. But it has come since the war. There is something in the air. Everybody is troubled. In families one sees people who were not capable of doing without one another marching off today, each one in his own direction. And as if intoxicated each one runs along with nose on the trail."
"Where do they go?"
"I don't know. And I believe they don't either. Either pure chance or some desire spurs them. Women take lovers. Men forget their wives. And kindly people, too, who generally appear so calm and so orderly! Everywhere we hear of households broken up. It's the same between parents and children. My mother...."
She stopped, then ran on:
"My mother lives her own life."
She stopped again:
"Oh, it's perfectly natural! She is still young, and poor mama has not had much happiness; she has not poured out her sum of affection. She has a right to want to make her life over again."
Pierre inquired:
"She wants to marry again?"
Luce shook her head. One could hardly know very well.... Pierre dared not insist.