Without turning to him Mme. Roland said:
“What is it?”
He spoke with a sneer.
“I am learning.
Learning how a man lays himself out to be cozened by his wife.”
She flushed with rage, exasperated by the insinuation she believed was intended.
“In whose name do you say that?”
“In Jean’s, by Heaven!
It is immensely funny to see those two.”
She murmured in a low voice, tremulous with feeling:
“O Pierre, how cruel you are!
That woman is honesty itself.
Your brother could not find a better.”
He laughed aloud, a hard, satirical laugh:
“Ha! hah! Hah!
Honesty itself!
All wives are honesty itself—and all husbands are—betrayed.”
And he shouted with laughter.
She made no reply, but rose, hastily went down the sloping beach, and at the risk of tumbling into one of the rifts hidden by the sea-weed, of breaking a leg or an arm, she hastened, almost running, plunging through the pools without looking, straight to her other son.
Seeing her approach, Jean called out:
“Well, mother? So you have made the effort?”
Without a word she seized him by the arm, as if to say:
“Save me, protect me!”
He saw her agitation, and greatly surprised he said:
“How pale you are!
What is the matter?”
She stammered out:
“I was nearly falling; I was frightened at the rocks.”
So then Jean guided her, supported her, explained the sport to her that she might take an interest in it.
But as she scarcely heeded him, and as he was bursting with the desire to confide in some one, he led her away and in a low voice said to her:
“Guess what I have done!”
“But—what—I don’t know.”
“Guess.”
“I cannot. I don’t know.”
“Well, I have told Mme. Rosemilly that I wish to marry her.”
She did not answer, for her brain was buzzing, her mind in such distress that she could scarcely take it in.
She echoed:
“Marry her?”
“Yes.
Have I done well?
She is charming, do not you think?”
“Yes, charming. You have done very well.”
“Then you approve?”
“Yes, I approve.”
“But how strangely you say so! I could fancy that—that you were not glad.”
“Yes, indeed, I am—very glad.”
“Really and truly?”
“Really and truly.”
And to prove it she threw her arms round him and kissed him heartily, with warm motherly kisses.
Then, when she had wiped her eyes, which were full of tears, she observed upon the beach a man lying flat at full length like a dead body, his face hidden against the stones; it was the other one, Pierre, sunk in thought and desperation.