mperative to be able to say: our love is unparalleled, unique; or,
at least: I am the only possible one; I am yours, you are mine, only.
That had not been the case. What he had been forced to tell himself
was, that he was not the first. And now he knew that, for some time
past, he had been aware that he would always occupy the second place;
she was forced to compare him with another, to his disadvantage. And he
knew more. For the first time, he allowed his thoughts to rove,
unchecked, over her previous life, and he was no longer astonished at
the imperfections of the present. To him, the gradual unfolding of
their love had been a wonderful revelation; to her, a repetition, and a
paler and fainter one, of a tale she already knew by heart. And the
knowledge of this awakened a fresh distrust in him. If she had loved
that first time, as she had asserted, as he had seen with his own eyes
that she did, desperately, abandonedly, how had it been possible for
her to change front so quickly, to turn to him and love anew? Was such
a thing credible? Was a woman's nature capable of it? And had it not
been this constant fear, lest he should never be able to efface the
image of his predecessor, which, yesterday, had boldly stalked out as a
dread that what had drawn her to him, had not been love at all?

But this mood passed. He himself cared too well to doubt, for long,
that in her own way she really loved him. What, however, he was obliged
to admit was, that what she felt could in no way be counted the equal
of his love for her: that had possessed a kind of primeval freshness,
which no repetition, however passionately fond, could achieve. And yet,
in his mind, there was still room for doubt--eager, willing doubt. It
was due to his ignorance. He became aware of this, and, while brooding
over these things, he was overmanned by the desire to learn, from her
own lips, more about her past, to hear exactly what it had meant to
her, in order that he might compare it with her present life, and with
her feelings for him. Who could say if, by doing this, he might not
drive away what was perhaps a phantom of his own uneasy brain?

He resolved to make the endeavour. But he was careful not to let her
suspect his intention. First of all, he was full of compunction for his
bad temper of the night before; he was also slightly ashamed of what he
was going to do; and then, too, he knew that she would resent his
prying. What he did must be done with ta