“The worst thing you did,” I said, “was to let me lull myself in a sense of false security. Here I am at forty-four, empty-handed, with no occupation, no other interest in life apart from you. If you had warned me eight years ago I should have made an independent existence for myself and now it would be easier for me to accept the situation.”

“But, Monique!” he cried, looking astonished. “I urged you as strongly as I possibly could to take that job as secretary of the Revue médicale seven years ago. It was right up your street and you could have reached a worthwhile position. You wouldn’t!”

The suggestion had seemed to me so untimely that I had almost entirely forgotten it. “I couldn’t see any point in spending the day away from the house and the children just for a hundred thousand francs a month,” I said.

“That was your answer then. I pressed you very hard.”

“If you had told me your real reasons—if you had told me I no longer meant everything to you and that I too should stand off a little myself, I should have accepted it.”

“I suggested your getting a job again when we were at Mougins. And again you refused.”

“At that time your love was enough for me.”

“It is not too late,” he said. “I can easily find you something to do.”

“Do you suppose that that would console me? Eight years ago I might have thought it less ludicrous—I should have had more chance of getting somewhere. But now.…”