seem to
be living over again those quiet moments which we used to spend side by
side at Sainte-Colombe. Are you happy?"

Smiling and with her eyes still fixed on the sky, she says:

"Yes."

"Perfectly?"

"Yes."

"You are not afraid of the future?"

"Not for my sake, but I am for yours."

I question her with my eyes; and she adds:

"I am afraid that I shall never be what you want."

I put my hand on her shoulder and said:

"You will be what you are to be; and that is the main thing. It seems to
me at this moment that the greatest ideas are nothing, that the fairest
dreams are childish compared with the simple reality of a human being's
first taste of happiness. You were hidden; and I bring you to the light.
You were a prisoner; and I set you free. I see nothing to fetter you;
and that is all I ask. The life of a beautiful woman should be like a
star whose every beam is the source of a possible joy.... I am glad, for
this is the day of your first deliverance."

Rose murmured:

"What will the second be, then?"

I hesitated for a moment. Then I replied:

"It is difficult to say, dear; you will come to know gradually. I might
answer, that of your mental or moral life; but I do not wish to lay down
any rule. You are about to start on life's journey; I do not wish to
trace your road with words. How much more precious your smallest actions
are to me!"

I closed the window and went and sat in a chair by the fire-place. Rose,
standing with uplifted arms in front of the glass, took off her hat and
veil, then undid her mantle and her scarf and put everything carefully
away in the wardrobe. My eyes followed her quiet movements and my heart
rested on each of them. I spoke her name and she came and sat at my
feet, against my knees, with her soft, fair head waiting for my caress.

It was now night; the fire lit our faces, but the room was dark wherever
the flames did not cast their gleams. A chrysanthemum on a longer stalk
than the others bent its petals into the light. Opposite the fire-place,
within the shade of the bed-curtains, stood a white figure from the
Venice Accademia, an allegory representing _Truth_. We could not see
the mirror which she holds nor the details that surround her. The
pedestal that raises her above mankind was also invisible; only the nude
body of the woman invited and retained the light.

I called Rose's attention to her:

"Look, she is more interesting like that. In the doubt which th