Suddenly Paul seized it, and kissed it--furiously--again
and again. She yielded it. It was sweet to smell, and warm. 'My God,
how I love you, how I love you!' he murmured.
When he looked up, she was smiling. 'Oh, you are radiant! You are
divine!' he cried. And then her eyes filled with tears. 'What is it?
What is it? You are unhappy?'
'Oh, no,' she said. 'But to think--to think that after all these years
of misery, of heartbreak, it should end like this, here.'
'Here?' he questioned.
'I am glad your bronchitis is better, but you _can_ invent the most
awful fibs,' she said.
He looked at her, while the universe whirled round him.
'Helene!'
'Paul!'
XV.
Her divorce didn't carry with it the right to marry again. But she
said, 'We can go on making believe we're married. Things one does in
play are always so much nicer than real things.' And when he spoke of
the 'world,' she answered, 'I have nothing to fear or to hope from the
world. It has done its worst by me already.'
As they walked back to the house for luncheon, Paul looked into her
face, and said, 'I can't believe my eyes, you know.'
She smiled and took his arm. 'J' t'aime tant,' she whispered.
'And now I can't believe my ears!'
And this would appear to be the end, but I suppose it can't be, for
everybody says nowadays that nothing ever ends happily here below.
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