"'Has she children?' I asked. "'Yes, why?' "'Because I believe children make marriage indissoluble.' "Surprised, she asked me: "'Is that a religious conviction?' "'I have no religion. Catholicism, moreover, does not permit divorce under any circumstances. There are other reasons.' "I explained mine to her, influenced by the interest of society and the primordial importance of the family. She naturally believed in the rights of the individual. "'We must above all be sincere. A home cannot exist without truth.' "In Dauphiné she had already condemned those unchangeable principles to which one cannot give expression to-day without audacity. Life has only served to confirm her desire of revolt. "'Our feelings may change,' I said to her. 'Facts which are the result of them do not change. These facts have engendered responsibility, created obligations.' "'They do not necessitate the loss of one's liberty.' "'But there are no free men.' "'Then is there no longer truth?' "I defended this miserable lie, so derided, which insures men's peace in every society, because one is not capable of hearing the truth. One minute she detested me--I could not bear it, and I discontinued that tone of sarcasm which allows us to treat serious subjects too lightly. "'We have liberty only in the inner sanction. The chief aim of marriage is not the happiness of husband and wife.' "She started. "'Certainly not. It is the foundation of a family, the child. That alone gives marriage a positive value. After the birth of the child life ceases to be a search for happiness. That event ends that period of sentimental restlessness of which Nature no longer takes notice. And if it is not suppressed, at any rate, it maintains a fixed course from which we can never stray with impunity.' "As she listened to me without replying, I picked up a volume of Byron which she was translating. "'Be careful of these romanticists. Their bouquets are poisoned. They make the world reflect their point of view. They believe we have every right to the highest realization, and that our personality creates the worth of the world. The more unbridled it is, the more powerful it seems to them. They add the decadence of their emotions to that of their minds.' "From intellectual habit, I waxed enthusiastic in this defense of the social order, to which I have devoted so much thought and effort. She looked at me with her golden eyes, which can assume fleeting expression of unutterable woe--when they become like those of wild beasts in their cage: she said nothing, but her look disturbed me. "'So,' she said at last, 'if love comes too late, it is not worthy of a sacrifice?' "I had not foreseen what one must always foresee with a woman, however intelligent: the immediate application of our general ideas to the present experiences. "'Yes,' she answered in her musical voice, 'the earth bums a long time with a slow fire. And one can always break one's heart. Is it not so?'