smile of a fugitive and unrelated kind as if she
had been thinking of far-off things, then roused herself to grave
animation.

"He came in full of smiling playfulness. How well I know that mood!
Such self-command has its beauty; but it's no great help for a man with
such fateful eyes. I could see he was moved in his correct, restrained
way, and in his own way, too, he tried to move me with something that
would be very simple. He told me that ever since we became friends, we
two, he had not an hour of continuous sleep, unless perhaps when coming
back dead-tired from outpost duty, and that he longed to get back to it
and yet hadn't the courage to tear himself away from here. He was as
simple as that. He's a _tres galant homme_ of absolute probity, even
with himself. I said to him: The trouble is, Don Juan, that it isn't
love but mistrust that keeps you in torment. I might have said jealousy,
but I didn't like to use that word. A parrot would have added that I had
given him no right to be jealous. But I am no parrot. I recognized the
rights of his passion which I could very well see. He is jealous. He is
not jealous of my past or of the future; but he is jealously mistrustful
of me, of what I am, of my very soul. He believes in a soul in the same
way Therese does, as something that can be touched with grace or go to
perdition; and he doesn't want to be damned with me before his own
judgment seat. He is a most noble and loyal gentleman, but I have my own
Basque peasant soul and don't want to think that every time he goes away
from my feet--yes, _mon cher_, on this carpet, look for the marks of
scorching--that he goes away feeling tempted to brush the dust off his
moral sleeve. That! Never!"

With brusque movements she took a cigarette out of the box, held it in
her fingers for a moment, then dropped it unconsciously.

"And then, I don't love him," she uttered slowly as if speaking to
herself and at the same time watching the very quality of that thought.
"I never did. At first he fascinated me with his fatal aspect and his
cold society smiles. But I have looked into those eyes too often. There
are too many disdains in this aristocratic republican without a home.
His fate may be cruel, but it will always be commonplace. While he sat
there trying in a worldly tone to explain to me the problems, the
scruples, of his suffering honour, I could see right into his heart and I
was sorry for him. I was sorry