te outpouring.

3

Rose was sitting in the drawing-room, waiting for me. I rushed in like a
mad thing, without knowing what I was doing. My laughter, my flowers, my
words all came together and fell upon her like a shower of joy. In one
breath I told her of my indiscretion of the night before, of those
stolen sensations, of my anguish, of my life at a standstill, waiting on
theirs, of my delightful talk with Floris, of the sympathy between us
and lastly of my conviction that happiness was being offered to her here
and now.

Then I noticed that she said nothing; and, begging her pardon for my
incoherence, I tried to express in serious words the future that awaited
her. But all those glad impressions had dazzled me; I was like some one
who comes suddenly from the bright sunshine into a room. Shadows fell
and rose before my brain as before eyes that have looked too long at
the light; and I could do nothing but kiss her and repeat:

"Believe me, happiness lies there! Seize it, seize it!"

At last she murmured, wearily:

"No, I can't do it."

I questioned her, anxiously:

"Perhaps there is some obstacle that separates you? Do you dislike him?"

"No, I know his whole life and I have nothing against him."

"Well, then ...?"

I tried in vain to obtain a definite reply. Her soul was shut, walled
in, almost hostile. Was she refusing herself, as she had once given
herself, without knowing why? Or else was my vague intuition correct and
was a latent energy escaping from that little low, square forehead,
white and pure as a camellia, a force of which she herself was unaware
and which no doubt would one day reveal to me the final choice of her
life?

I made her sit down and, kneeling beside her, questioned her patiently
and gently as one asks a sick child to describe the pain which one is
anxious to relieve. Silently, gazing vaguely into space, she let
herself rest on my shoulder. The flowers fell from her listless hands.
Some still hung to her dress, with tangled stalks. Red carnations,
mimosa, tuberose, narcissus, hyacinths drunk with perfume, guelder-roses
and white lilac wept at her feet.

I rose slowly and looked at her, my heart aching for the heedless one
who dropped the joys which chance laid in her arms!

PART THE THIRD

CHAPTER I

1

The reason why we judge people better after a lapse of time is that,
when we look at them from a distance, there is no confusion of detail.
The main lines o