 as she had
been worried by several people who wanted her to go to Tolosa she bolted down
this way just to get clear of all those busybodies. »Hide from them,« she went
on with ardour. »Yes, I came here to hide,« she repeated twice as if delighted
at last to have hit on that reason among so many others. »How could I tell that
you would be here?« Then with sudden fire which only added to the delight with
which I had been watching the play of her physiognomy she added: »Why did you
come into this room?«
    She enchanted me. The ardent modulations of the sound, the slight play of
the beautiful lips, the still, deep sapphire gleam in those long eyes inherited
from the dawn of ages and that seemed always to watch unimaginable things, that
underlying faint ripple of gaiety that played under all her moods as though it
had been a gift from the high gods moved to pity for this lonely mortal, all
this within the four walls and displayed for me alone gave me the sense of
almost intolerable joy. The words didn't matter. They had to be answered, of
course.
    »I came in for several reasons. One of them is that I didn't know you were
here.«
    »Therese didn't tell you?«
    »No.«
    »Never talked to you about me?«
    I hesitated only for a moment. »Never,« I said. Then I asked in my turn,
»Did she tell you I was here?«
    »No,« she said.
    »It's very clear she did not mean us to come together again.«
    »Neither did I, my dear.«
    »What do you mean by speaking like this, in this tone, in these words? You
seem to use them as if they were a sort of formula. Am I a dear to you? Or is
anybody? ... or everybody? ...«
    She had been for some time raised on her elbow, but then as if something had
happened to her vitality she sank down till her head rested again on the sofa
cushion.
    »Why do you try to hurt my feelings?« she asked.
    »For the same reason for which you call me dear at the end of a sentence
like that: for want of something more amusing to do. You don't pretend to make
me believe that you do it for any sort of reason that a decent person would
confess to.«
    The colour had gone from her face
