Then she was possessed with a sudden, irresistible desire to go away, to leave at once by the first train, to quit the country where one perceived too clearly by the strong light of the fields the indelible traces of sorrow and years. In Paris one lives in the half shadow of apartments, where heavy curtains, even at midday, admit only a mellow light. She would be beautiful again there, with the pallor one needs in that dim, discriminating glimmer. Then Annette’s face passed before her eyes, her hair a little rumpled, when she was playing lawn tennis. She comprehended then the unacknowledged anxiety from which her soul had suffered. She was not jealous of the beauty of her daughter. No, assuredly! But she did feel, she confessed for the first time, that she must never again appear at her side in bright sunlight.