Marjolaine, too, was thinking hard. All sorts of new ideas, new conceptions, were looming on her horizon. They came as angels, certainly, but angels with flaming swords. It seemed that great happiness could be inextricably interwoven with great misery, so that a simple human being could not tell where the one began and the other ended. It seemed that a man could say one thing and mean another: that he could look like the Archangel Michael and yet not mean what he said. It seemed that you could be wounded in all your finest and most sensitive nerves just for looking at a man. It seemed also, that your pride was of no use to you whatever, but deserted you when it was most needed, or, rather, turned against you, and helped to hurt you. This must be enquired into. "Mère, chérie," she whispered. "What, my darling?" asked Madame, coming out of her dream. Marjolaine pressed her hand to her heart. There was an actual physical pain there, as if an iron band were crushing it. "Is this—is what I feel—love?" "Ah!" cried Madame, "I have betrayed myself. I did not mean you to know. I am afraid it was going to be—love." "Going to be! But it is! Or else, this ache? What is it?" "Crush it now!" Madame was distressed. She would not allow Marjolaine’s young life to be blighted as her own had been. "Crush it now! Fiercely! ruthlessly! and it will be nothing. You have only seen him once—" "Does that make any difference?" What could one answer to such a question? One could only ignore it. "You must be very brave; very determined; and put the thought of him away." Marjolaine shook her head sadly. How could she put the thought of him away? It was in her. It filled her. It was she herself. And did she want to put it away? Would she put it away if she could? It seemed to her that if the thought were withdrawn now, she would be left a hollow husk of a thing, with no thought at all. Madame saw she had gone too far too quickly. "Dear, I know. It took me a long time, because I had been happy so long; but at last, when your father came, I was able to put my hand in his, and look straight into his eyes." Here was a new mystery for Marjolaine. So good and beautiful a woman as her mother could love twice, then? "Mother," said she, with grave enquiry, "did you love my father as much as you had loved Jack?" However good and blameless we may be, it is a very uncomfortable experience to be cross-examined by utter, single-minded innocence.