He felt a momentary bitterness: “Your first ... from me.” She smiled: “A girl must not receive a kiss from any but the man she is engaged to ... and are you not the first, the only one?” “What do you mean, Gilberte?” “I mean, Guillaume,” she said, in accents throbbing with her heart’s gladness, “I mean that I am not a widow, that I have never been married, that I called myself a married woman in the hope of escaping attention and that no such person as Mme. Armand exists.” Guillaume was trembling with emotion. He understood, yet refused to admit the truth, so great would have been the anguish of a mistake: “No, no, I dare not believe it ... you, a girl, unmarried!” “What is there so extraordinary in that?” “Oh, Gilberte!” He had seized her hands and stood gazing at her in ecstasy. She whispered: “I was sure that you would be delighted.” “It is something more than delight. You seem to me even more beautiful and even more innocent and sacred. I do not love you any better, but I love you differently.” And he continued: “Is it really possible? Is there no one in your past? Is there not even that shadow on my happiness?” “My whole past is you, Guillaume.” Mme. de la Vaudraye came up to them. They had forgotten all about her; and her appearance gave them an impression that was all the more painful inasmuch as the sudden gravity of her features was in direct contrast with their own rapture. She said to Gilberte: “If Mme. Armand does not exist, then whom is my son marrying?” “Well, Gilberte....” “Gilberte whom?” “Gilberte Me,” replied the girl, trying to speak playfully, but half-uneasy at heart. “Come, child, that’s not enough. You must have a surname?...” “I suppose so....” “What was your father’s name? Your mother’s?” “I don’t know.” Mme. de la Vaudraye drew herself up to the full length of her angular figure. It was as though she were learning some terrible event, a catastrophe. Gilberte caught sight of Guillaume’s pallor and suddenly understood what she had never even half-realized, the danger of her irregular position where a woman like Mme. de la Vaudraye was concerned. She shook with terror. Guillaume interposed gently: “Don’t upset yourself, Gilberte. I need not say how little importance I attach to all this; but mother does not look at things from my point of view. Let us hear the facts.”