st was destiny, but this one thing was--I."

She suddenly raised her face, her eyes shining through the humid mask of
it.

"Would you--could you--understand?"

"Tell me, Claire-Anne, what you want to."

She drew a short gasping breath, turned her head away, looked up,
turned it away again, paused for breath, gripped his hand by the
wrist....

"I ... I ... I was the child of actors, and they died, and there was
enough money to bring me up and educate me, and give me my chance on the
stage.... And I wasn't good enough.... I was too much myself. Couldn't
quite be other characters. I don't know if you understand.... But ...
then a man got infatuated with me and married me.... And later he wished
he'd married a--comfortable woman with a fortune.... And then he died
and left me ... not very much.... But that was not the reason.... I was
left, how do you say?... stranded. I had no career, no husband, no
child, no business. France, it is not easy ... not easy anywhere....
Friends? People are too busy.... And I was ... just there.... And all
around me life bubbled and flowed, and I was ... not dead, not alive ...
and alone ... I might have been a leper, but even lepers have colonies,
and some one to be kind to them ... not dead, not alive ... and alone. I
was so young.... It was unfair. Life was everywhere like a sparkling
wine ... but where I was, was flat....

"And then--then I met a man ... it was pleasant for a while--to have
some one to talk to, to go around with. It's so pleasant to laugh. You
don't know how pleasant until you haven't laughed for a long time.... He
didn't want to marry ... and in the end it was a choice of--oh, well ...
or going back to being not dead, not alive ... and I couldn't go, just
couldn't. And he gave me presents of money.... And then he got married.
I don't blame him ... a comfortable woman with a fortune ... but I
wasn't left for long.... Where one goes, others always follow....
There's a sort of ... _sentier intuitif_, a psychic path....

"And I wasn't so ashamed ... I was a little glad I had a place in the
world ... a work even.... And every one might despise me.... I had a
place.... I was no longer not dead, not alive.... I was even thankful
for that.... Until I met you with your--terrible courtesy, with your
understanding.... My head and my heart melted, and my body, too, and all
had been so firm, so decided.... And I dreamed that I could snatch a
while from destiny.... But--you see