I understand your
anxiety, Mrs. Travers, but . . ."

"I am frightened," she said.

He reflected a moment. "What answer did you get?" he asked, softly.

"The answer was: 'Patience.'"

D'Alcacer laughed a little.--"You may well laugh," murmured Mrs. Travers
in a tone of anguish.--"That's why I did," he whispered. "Patience!
Didn't he see the horror of it?"--"I don't know. He walked away," said
Mrs. Travers. She looked immovably at her hands clasped in her lap,
and then with a burst of distress, "Mr. d'Alcacer, what is going to
happen?"--"Ah, you are asking yourself the question at last. _That_
will happen which cannot be avoided; and perhaps you know best what it
is."--"No. I am still asking myself what he will do."--"Ah, that is not
for me to know," declared d'Alcacer. "I can't tell you what he will do,
but I know what will happen to him."--"To him, you say! To him!" she
cried.--"He will break his heart," said d'Alcacer, distinctly, bending
a little over the chair with a slight gasp at his own audacity--and
waited.

"Croyez-vous?" came at last from Mrs. Travers in an accent so coldly
languid that d'Alcacer felt a shudder run down his spine.

Was it possible that she was that kind of woman, he asked himself.
Did she see nothing in the world outside herself? Was she above the
commonest kind of compassion? He couldn't suspect Mrs. Travers of
stupidity; but she might have been heartless and, like some women of
her class, quite unable to recognize any emotion in the world except her
own. D'Alcacer was shocked and at the same time he was relieved because
he confessed to himself that he had ventured very far. However, in her
humanity she was not vulgar enough to be offended. She was not the slave
of small meannesses. This thought pleased d'Alcacer who had schooled
himself not to expect too much from people. But he didn't know what to
do next. After what he had ventured to say and after the manner in
which she had met his audacity the only thing to do was to change the
conversation. Mrs. Travers remained perfectly still. "I will pretend
that I think she is asleep," he thought to himself, meditating a retreat
on tip-toe.

He didn't know that Mrs. Travers was simply trying to recover the full
command of her faculties. His words had given her a terrible shock.
After managing to utter this defensive "croyez-vous" which came out of
her lips cold and faint as if in a last effort of dying strength, she
felt herself turn rigid