"I am glad that you are imperfect. If you knew what I see, it would annoy you. Forgive me! I have seen nothing. . . . But I, I am not like you; I want you to see me as imperfect! I am what I am, and I hold to it; my imperfections are myself, more than the rest. If you take me, you take them. Do you take them? . . . But you don't wish to know them. When will you finally take the trouble to really look at me?" XII Roger was in no hurry. After a few futile attempts to lead him on to this dangerous ground from which he seemed to flee, Annette, interrupting their conversation in the midst of a walk, stopped, took both his hands in hers, and said: "Roger, we must have a talk." "Talk!" he exclaimed, laughing. "But it doesn't seem to me that we deprive ourselves of that!" "No," she said, "I don't mean talking pretty things; I mean a serious talk." Immediately his expression grew a little frightened. "Don't be afraid," she said, "it's about myself that I want to talk to you." "About you?" he said, once more serene. "Then it's bound to be charming." "Wait! Wait!" she exclaimed. "Perhaps you won't say that when you have heard me." "What could you tell me now that would surprise me? Haven't we told each other everything, after being together for so many days?" "So far as I'm concerned, I've scarcely said anything but _Amen_," said Annette, laughing. "You do all the talking." "Oh! the bad girl!" exclaimed Roger. "Isn't it you that I talk about?" "Yes, it's about me, _too_. And you even speak for me." "You think that I talk too much?" asked Roger innocently. Annette bit her lips. "No, no, my dear Roger, I love it when you talk. But when you talk about me, I just listen to you; and it is so beautiful, so beautiful that I say, 'So be it!' But it's not true." "You are the first woman to complain of her picture being beautiful." "I should prefer it to be me. It's not a beautiful picture that you are going to hang up in your family home, Roger. I am a living woman, who has her desires, her passions, and her thoughts. Are you sure that she can come into your home with all her baggage?" "I am taking you with my eyes closed." "I am asking you to open them." "I see your limpid soul, revealed in your face." "Poor Roger! Good Roger! . . . You don't want to look." "I love you. That's enough for me." "I love you too. And that isn't enough for me." "It's not enough?" he asked in a tone of consternation. "No. I have to see." "What is it you want to see?" "I want to see _how_ you love me." "I love you more than everything else in the world." "Naturally! You couldn't do less. But I am not asking you _how much_, I am asking you _how_ you love me. . . . Yes, I know that you want me; but what is it, precisely, that you want to make of your Annette?" "Make her half of myself." "There you are! . . . Now the point is, my friend, that I am not a half. I am a whole Annette."