. I saw you go in; I could even hear you knock. Do you think you can
deceive me? Pah!'

She rose, evaded his arm, swept from the room in a kind of torrential
rage, banged the door behind her, and was gone.

He was so amazed at it all--the swift interchange of penitence
to self-abasement, languor, challenge, suspicion, wrath, and
accusation--that he stood dumfounded, not knowing what to think. He
heard the flying feet and swirling skirts as Annette raced upstairs. In
the drowsy stillness of the afternoon he heard the door of her bedroom
close with a decisive click, and then the sharp shooting of the bolt and
the shrieking of the key as it turned in its unaccustomed wards. Still
standing there in wonderment, he listened to her footsteps overhead
as she dashed through the dressing-room, and an instant later came the
slamming and the locking of a second door.

He sat down, reached mechanically for his pipe, beat out the ashes from
it on the level tiles of the hearth, and mechanically filled and lit it.
He searched his mind for a clue to the whole extraordinary business
of the last half-hour, and could find but one: the anxieties of coming
maternity, and possibly the change of frame which women suffer at such
times, had unhinged Annette, and had disturbed her mind and nerves from
their ordinary balance. He longed for an interview with Laurent, but he
dared not seek it. He would have sent a messenger to him, but he also
might be watched by those keen and too observant eyes.

As he sat and thought things over he gradually gathered courage, and at
length he began to discern a touch of comedy in that which had so much
disturbed him. It was a very tender and touching comedy, but it was
comedy all the same--a bird-soul of light and laughter hovering over
a lake of tears. The _dear_ little woman! He had thought her
unimpressionable, even a little stupid, and he saw now how much he had
wronged her. She was full of emotions he had never suspected, and could
not even now analyze. Her very waywardness, the strange caprices of
feeling which had so astonished him as they chased each other, began to
look charming in the new light his thoughts cast upon them.

'Thus it is,' said Paul to himself, 'we come into the world casting our
shadows before us, and making laughter and trouble of all sorts for our
makers before we are born.'

It was obviously the mother's lot to suffer much. It was obviously
the man's business to be very patient,