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Rh looked after it, made it her beautiful home by a thousand intimate touches. She now went through the house mechanically performing her usual little housewifely duties, still half dreaming, in a condition of semi-consciousness. It was as if her thoughts were standing still, as if she no longer knew, nor for that matter thought, remembering only the night before, that lonely evening of inward conviction. . . The morning had dawned, placid, with its cloudless sky; Addie had come: she now knew what Henri thought. It surprised her just a little that Henri thought like that. . . and then she realized that, after all, he did not love Marianne very much. . . that he must love her less than Addie. Poor Marianne, she thought; and she reflected that women love more absolutely than men. . . She spoke to the servant, gave her orders, did all the actual, everyday things, in between her thoughts. And suddenly she looked deep down into herself, once more saw so completely into her own clear depths that she was startled at herself and shuddered. She saw that, if Henri had made the same proposal to her that she had made to him, she would have accepted it in her desire for happiness, for happiness with the man whom she loved and who—she felt it!—loved her. She saw that she would have accepted and that she would not have hesitated because of her son! . . . Her son! He was certain to be leaving them soon in any case. ..