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274 bicycle-ride afterwards and you will feel better. But first let us talk seriously for a moment. . ."

He sighed, sank into his chair, submitted to her stronger will. If only she had flown out at him, he would have stormed back at her; but she was saying such strange things, the sort of things that people never said, and she was so calm and frank about it, calmer and franker than people ever were.

"You will listen seriously for a moment? Well, what I want to ask you is this: have you never thought that it would be better . . . if we just quietly separated, Henri?"

He said nothing, looked at her with his great wondering eyes.

"It is certainly very late," she said, "very late for me to propose it. But it is perhaps not too late . . . Let us be honest, Henri: we have never been happy together. You might perhaps still be happy without me, released from me, free . . ."

He continued to look at her, his eyes still full of amazement; and it seemed as though he was afraid to turn his gaze towards a life of such transcendent peace and quietness and sincerity. It seemed to him that she was urging him to take a road which grew fainter and fainter as it took its mystic, winding way towards clouds. . . towards things that did not exist.

"I? . . . Happy?" he stammered, not knowing what to say.