ing that he would return
some hard answer; and he dared not address his mother, knowing that in
spite of himself he should speak violently. He sat twitching the
water-worn pebbles with the end of his cane, switching them and
turning them over. She, with a vague look in her eyes, had picked up
three or four little stones and was slowly and mechanically dropping
them from one hand into the other. Then her unsettled gaze, wandering
over the scene before her, discerned, among the weedy rocks, her son
Jean fishing with Mme. Rosemilly. She looked at them, watching their
movements, dimly understanding, with motherly instinct, that they were
talking as they did not talk every day. She saw them leaning over side
by side when they looked into the water, standing face to face when
they questioned their hearts, then scrambled up the rock and seated
themselves to come to an understanding. Their figures stood out very
sharply, looking as if they were alone in the middle of the wide
horizon, and assuming a sort of symbolic dignity in that vast expanse
of sky and sea and cliff.
Pierre, too, was looking at them, and a harsh laugh suddenly broke
from his lips. Without turning to him Mme. Roland said:
"What is it?"
He spoke with a sneer.
"I am learning. Learning how a man lays himself out to be cozened by
his wife."
She flushed with rage, exasperated by the insinuation she believed was
intended.
"In whose name do you say that?"
"In Jean's, by heaven! It is immensely funny to see those two."
She murmured in a low voice, tremulous with feeling: "O Pierre, how
cruel you are. That woman is honesty itself. Your brother could not
find a better."
He laughed aloud, a hard, satirical laugh:
"Ha! hah! hah! Honesty itself! All wives are honesty itself,--and all
husbands are--betrayed." And he shouted with laughter.
She made no reply, but rose, hastily went down the sloping beach, and
at the risk of tumbling into one of the rifts hidden by the seaweed,
of breaking a leg or an arm, she hastened, almost running, plunging
through the pools without looking, straight to her other son.
Seeing her approach, Jean called out:
"Well, mother? So you have made the effort?"
Without a word she seized him by the arm, as if to say: "Save me,
protect me!"
He saw her agitation, and greatly surprised he said:
"How pale you are; what is the matter?"
She stammered out:
"I was nearly falling; I was frightened at the rocks."
So
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