In later years M. Mairieux consented to tell me how he had learned his daughter’s secret. It was later, much later, after we had lost her, and I was questioning him greedily about the past. I had envied him the possession of this secret, but it was just that he should have received it, and not me. After twenty years of boundless and absolutely unselfish affection, what an advantage he had over me! When he entered Raymonde’s rooms, she was standing by the threshold of the window, motionless, inert, almost indifferent. He told her of my impatience, my unhappiness. Nevertheless, he said, she should take counsel only of her own heart. The material advantages of a marriage should only be a secondary consideration. She kept repeating obstinately: “No, no, I do not want to marry him.” “But why?” “M. Cernay is not the husband for me.” He was tempted to stop there. A presentiment, which he took to be paternal selfishness warned him, as he confessed to me, warned him not to insist. Conscientious scruples, however, and the desire to exhaust every argument in favour of the alliance, urged him to add: “Possibly, but he loves you.” This time he received no reply; indeed it was not a question. There was only one thing more to say: “And you--do you love him?” “How can I know?” she murmured, and then, realising the truth, she wept. These first tears I did not see. How many others did her love cost her, less observed, even more secret, which I saw no better? To young girls who have not squandered their imagination in precocious little flirtations, love is like a garden in springtime before the dawn. The flowers are there, all the flowers. We do not realise it, although we inhale their perfume, because it is so incredible. Thus, enclosed within the heart, the magic enchantment sleeps, invisible. Day breaks, and with it all the world seems to be born. But the love which shines forth was always there. * * * The next day I had my turn. Mme. Mairieux watched for my arrival. It was she who opened the door for me, and from her I learned of my happiness. It lost nothing in the telling, for she was anxious to spare me several moments of anxiety. Raymonde met me in the drawing-room, holding her father’s hand. She wore the same simple dress of white serge that she had had on the day before. Her smooth cheeks had grown pale; she did not smile, she was serious, indeed almost severe. When her eyes rested upon me they seemed to me to have grown not only even larger, but almost terrified, and at the same time that I read in them the avowal of her love, I saw a kind of holy fear, a sort of religious ecstasy. With ardour I poured out all my love to her, but of what value were my protestations in comparison with that pathetic countenance haloed by devotion? Why did I not throw myself upon my knees to plead before her, to pray to her as to a saint?