"What are they saying, Odette?" (He imagined they were hiding from him the gravity of his illness.)
"I don't know. They don't say anything."
"What does the doctor say?"
"He says it isn't anything."
He was somewhat relieved, but he was still suspicious.
"Is that true? No, it isn't true. They're concealing it from me. . . . I know very well what I've got."
"What have you got?"
He was silent.
"Marc, what have you got?"
He retreated into a proud and hostile silence. Odette was in agony. She ended by believing that he was very ill, and her anxiety communicated itself to him. With that passionate exaggeration of hers which assumed melodramatic forms she clasped her hands.