Page:Nalkowska - Kobiety (Women).djvu/68

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"Yes, I was in love with him," she replies, in a calm low voice.

"Well, and have you sacrificed your happiness to that abstract theory of yours?"

Another pause.

"Not exactly. &hellip; The fact is that I simply could not bear to think I had not been his only love."

There she stops, but I feel she is only waiting for me to question her further: this is the moment when she must lay bare to me what she has hitherto, with her wonted secretiveness, concealed from every eye. Yet I refrain from questions.

Again she speaks, slowly and as one that looks back on memories that are still fresh: "We often spent the winter evenings together. His soul was the thing nearest and dearest to me on earth, but I loved him yet more because his eyes were so mournful and his lips so fine.

"He may have been too outspoken: he desired I should know all about him, before I plighted my troth. I wish I had known nothing; there is bliss only where there is ignorance. &hellip; For there have been some instants of forgetfulness; and these have given me an inkling of what my happiness would