Michael spoke in a tone of sadness and chagrin.
"I don't interest you: that is easy to see."
Alicia once more laughed heartily and with one of her hands she tapped those of the Prince which were clasped together.
"Silly! Do you really think I don't care for you at all. If I felt indifferent toward you would I have sought you formerly, and would I be here with you now?"
He was disconcerted. "Well, then?" And he made an effort to discover what obstacle stood in the way of his desire. If it was on account of what had happened in her past life, he had forgotten it. He, Prince Lubimoff, had had many affairs that it was better not to recall.
"Let's not talk about the past at all. You are a different woman. I know what your life has been during the last few years; besides, the other morning you told me what you have been since your son began to live by your side. I take you from the time you recognized the seriousness of life, on seeing beside you a man formed from your own flesh and blood. I have forgotten the Venus of former years, the Helen of the 'old man on the wall.' I desire you, seeing you as you are to-day, the Venus Sorrowful, weeping, suffering and in need of consolation and care that will sustain and sweeten life."
She stopped smiling. Her lips trembled with a pitiful expression of gratitude; her eyes were moist with tears.
"No," she said in a humble voice. "It is impossible for that very reason. My son! How my son has changed me! I know what all this love means. We are not two children to be deceived by dreams of purity and talk about the soul and heaven, while our bodies are drawn together by a natural impulse. If I accept your love, I know what that means at once, perhaps before the dawning of a new day. Can you imagine such a thing? My son,—I don't know where he is, perhaps he is dead. At least he is suffering at the present moment hardships which a beggar woman would not allow a son of hers to suffer, and I, in the meantime, abandoning myself to a great love, to a passion such that it would absorb all my time and thoughts, as though I were still in my early youth.... Oh, no! How shameful! I know what love between us fatally demands, and it frightens me. I feel powerless in the face of things which formerly seemed to me as nothing. You have spoken the truth: I am a different woman."
The Prince regained hope on learning the nature of the obstacle. Her son was still alive: he was sure of it, He had written to the King of Spain and to influential friends of his in Paris; he had even sent letters to Germany through diplomatic channels. They might find him any moment; he would succeed in returning him to his mother's side. Why should the poor boy stand in the way of both their futures? Her son knew life; the years that he had spent with his mother had familiarized him with the irregularities which are so common in the world of the fortunate. He would not consider it unusual for her, submitting to a marriage that was not a lie, to rebuild her life discreetly with a man whom she had known since her youth. Besides, he would love him like a younger brother. He could count on influential friends capable of helping the boy if he wanted to work. When he died what was left of his fortune would go to him.
Alicia clasped one of his hands with the tenderness of gratitude. "How good you are!" But suddenly she dried her tears, and her eyes shone with a glow of energy that seemed to reflect her struggle with herself, and she continued, in a firm tone: