“Yes, I should love you so much that you would cease to think of it.”

“As if that were possible!”

“But it is possible.”

“How do you suppose that I could cease to think of it, with your brother and you on each hand?  Would you cease to think of it, I ask you?”

“I?  I swear I should.”

“Why you would think of it at every hour of the day.”

“No, I swear it.  Besides, listen, if you go away I will enlist and get killed.”

This boyish threat quite overcame her; she clasped Jean in a passionate and tender embrace.  He went on: 

“I love you more than you think—­ah, much more, much more.  Come, be reasonable.  Try to stay for only one week.  Will you promise me one week?  You cannot refuse me that?”

She laid her two hands on Jean’s shoulders, and holding him at arm’s length she said: 

“My child, let us try and be calm and not give way to emotions.  First, listen to me.  If I were ever to hear from your lips what I have heard for this month past from your brother, if I were once to see in your eyes what I read in his, if I could fancy from a word or a look that I was as odious to you as I am to him—­within one hour, mark me—­within one hour I should be gone forever.”

“Mother, I swear to you—­”

“Let me speak.  For a month past I have suffered all that any creature can suffer.  From the moment when I perceived that your brother, my other son, suspected me, that as the minutes went by, he guessed the truth, every moment of my life has been a martyrdom which no words could tell you.”

Her voice was so full of woe that the contagion of her misery brought the tears to Jean’s eyes.

He tried to kiss her, but she held him off.

“Leave me—­listen; I still have so much to say to make you understand.  But you never can understand.  You see, if I stayed—­I must—­no, no.  I cannot.”

“Speak on, mother, speak.”

“Yes, indeed, for at least I shall not have deceived you.  You want me to stay with you?  For what—­for us to be able to see each other, speak to each other, meet at any hour of the day at home, for I no longer dare open a door for fear of finding your brother behind it.  If we are to do that, you must not forgive me—­nothing is so wounding as forgiveness—­but you must owe me no grudge for what I have done.  You must feel yourself strong enough, and so far unlike the rest of the world, as to be able to say to yourself that you are not Roland’s son without blushing for the fact or despising me.  I have suffered enough—­I have suffered too much; I can bear no more, no indeed, no more!  And it is not a thing of yesterday, mind you, but of long, long years.  But you could never understand that; how should you!  If you and I are to live together and kiss each other, my little Jean, you must believe that though I was your father’s mistress I was yet more truly his wife, his real wife; that, at the bottom of my heart,