"My Ferragut!… My Mediterranean hero! How I love you! Come … come…. I must reward you!"
They were in a central street, near the corner of a sloping little alley with stairs. She pushed him toward it, and at the first step in the narrow and dark passageway embraced him, turning her back on the movement and light in the great street, in order to kiss him with that kiss which always made the captain's knees tremble.
Although his temper was soothed, he continued complaining during the rest of the stroll. How many had preceded him?… He must know. He wished to know, no matter how horrible the knowledge might be. It was the delight of the jealous who persist in scratching open the wound.
"I want to know you," he repeated. "I ought to know you, since you belong to me. I have the right!…"
This right recalled with childish obstinacy made Freya smile dolorously. Long centuries of experience appeared to peep out from the melancholy curl of her lips. In her gleamed the wisdom of the woman, more cautious and foresighted than that of the man, since love was her only preoccupation.
"Why do you wish to know?" she asked discouragingly. "How much further could you go on that?… Would you perchance be any happier when you did know?…"
She was silent for some steps and then said as though disclosing a secret:
"In order to love, it is not necessary for us to know one another. Quite the contrary. A little bit of mystery keeps up the illusion and dispells monotony…. He who wishes to know is never happy."
She continued talking. Truth perhaps was a good thing in other phases of existence, but it was fatal to love. It was too strong, too crude. Love was like certain women, beautiful as goddesses under a discreet and artificial light, but horrible as monsters under the burning splendors of the sun.
"Believe me; put away these bugbears of the past. Is not the present enough for you?… Are you not happy?"