He went home in the halo of this moment of ecstasy. It was infinitely greater than the feminine image that had aroused it. The shadow of Noémi melted into a golden bath, and he had to make an effort to summon it up again. Marc tried to do so, but it escaped him. He was cheating himself, pretending to find under this happiness, which was so intense that it was painful, in everything that filled his heart to overflowing, the boundless hopes, the heroic resolutions, the strength and good will that bore him up like wings as he ran upstairs, four steps at a time. But the moment he caught sight of his mother's severe face--he was three-quarters of an hour late for lunch--the glory faded. He fell back beneath the sullen cloud of silence. Annette did not try to talk to him. She had her own burden of anxieties, and she could not share his. Her son, sitting opposite her at table, seemed self-centred and far away. He ate ravenously. He was hungry and eager to finish so that he could plunge back again into his daydreams. Annette thought, "I am nothing to him but the person who gives him his food." She no longer had even the courage to protest. She felt abandoned. Towards the end of the meal he became aware that he had not spoken, and he felt vaguely remorseful. But he was afraid that if he said a word she would begin to question him. He thrust his badly folded napkin into its ring, rose hurriedly, and, taking care not to catch his mother's eye, went out . . . or was going out, when, on a sudden impulse, he asked--he was sure, for Noémi had told him, but he wanted confirmation--"It's tonight we are dining at the Villards'?" Annette, who was still sitting there, motionless and dejected, said, without looking up, "We are not dining out." Marc stopped, astonished, on the threshold. "What! They told me so!" "Who told you?" In his embarrassment the boy did not answer. His mother knew nothing about his visits to Noémi. He hastened to turn aside the question with another question, "But when are we going, then?" Annette shrugged her shoulders. There were never going to be any more dinners at the Villards'. Noémi had said, for fun, "Next week," as she might have said, "In the year forty." Marc let go of the door-knob and turned back in distress. Annette looked at him, saw how disappointed he was, and said, "I don't know." "What! You don't know?" "The Villards have gone away," said Annette. "No!" Marc cried. She did not seem to hear him. Marc laid an impatient hand on his mother's arm, which was stretched out over the table, and besought her, "It isn't true?" Annette roused herself from her torpor, rose and began to clear the table. "But where, where?" cried Marc, overwhelmed. "I don't know," said Annette. She gathered up the dishes and went out.