[...] to my utter astonishment it was in his eyes that I saw tears.

“I have been behaving like a swine!”

I said, “It’s not being a swine to love another woman. You can’t help it.”

Shrugging his shoulders he said, “Do I really love her?”

I have been feeding on that remark for the last two days. They spent a fortnight together, in the freedom and the beauty of the mountains, and he comes back saying, “Do I really love her?” It is a line I should never have dared play deliberately; but my desperation has worked on my side. This long tête-à-tête has begun to wear out his passion. Again he said, “I didn’t want this! I didn’t want to make you unhappy.” As for that, it is a stock phrase which hardly moves me at all. If he had felt only an upsurge of pity I should not have taken hope again. But there in front of me, speaking aloud, he said, “Do I really love her?” And I tell myself that perhaps this is the beginning of the decrystallization that will detach him from Noëllie and give him back to me.