Page:Later Life (1919).djvu/265

Rh self. She saw nothing in herself. And she knew that nobody saw it in her. It remained secretly, mysteriously hidden. Adolphine, Cateau, the Ruyvenaers, all of them talked about her husband and Marianne: she knew it; but she also knew that they never talked about herself and Brauws. . . though she had now known him for months, though he was the friend of the house and came to their house almost daily. He was a friend of Van der Welcke's, he was a friend of the house and a very well-known man; and that was all. It was not visible to anybody, to anybody. ..

Oh, was it not strange? That this same feeling, which she bore in her innermost self, unseen by any, should shine within her as a sun, while with Marianne it had shone out, for all the world to see, as an illicit joy. . . and was now streaming forth from her, in a convulsive sob, as an illicit sorrow. What she, the woman, hid within her the child could not hide within her, as though her soul were too slight for it, so slight that it had glowed through her soul as through alabaster and now flowed from it as from alabaster. . . Oh, was it not strange, was it not strange? After all, she did not hide it intentionally, for she, the middle-aged woman had never, in her new young life, thought of the people outside. . . in connection with her reviving youth! But it was so, it was so, beyond a doubt. . . And it made her feel strong: it seemed to her a grace