It beautified her; she was younger; she was not a ridiculous old woman.
This optical trick gave her a sort of phantasmagoric brightness,
and while I was still the victim of it I heard a whisper somewhere
in the depths of my conscience: "Why not, after all--why not?"
It seemed to me I was ready to pay the price. Still more distinctly
however than the whisper I heard Miss Tita's own voice. I was so struck
with the different effect she made upon me that at first I was not clearly
aware of what she was saying; then I perceived she had bade me goodbye--
she said something about hoping I should be very happy.
"Goodbye--goodbye?" I repeated with an inflection interrogative
and probably foolish.
I saw she did not feel the interrogation, she only heard the words;
she had strung herself up to accepting our separation and they
fell upon her ear as a proof. "Are you going today?" she asked.
"But it doesn't matter, for whenever you go I shall not see you again.
I don't want to." And she smiled strangely, with an infinite gentleness.
She had never doubted that I had left her the day before in horror.
How could she, since I had not come back before night to contradict,
even as a simple form, such an idea? And now she had the force of soul--
Miss Tita with force of soul was a new conception--to smile at me
in her humiliation.
"What shall you do--where shall you go?" I asked.
"Oh, I don't know. I have done the great thing.
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