She
was pale, but quite composed. She held out her hand to him. "And
so you have come at last, Andre," said she. "You might have come
before."
"I come when I am wanted," was his answer. "Which is the only time
in which one can be sure of being received." He said it without
bitterness, and having said it stooped to kiss her hand.
"You can forgive me what is past, I hope, since I failed of my
purpose," he said gently, half-pleading. "I could not have come to
you pretending that the failure was intentional - a compromise
between the necessities of the case and your own wishes. For it
was not that. And yet, you do not seem to have profited by my
failure. You are still a maid."
She turned her shoulder to him.
"There are things," she said, "that you will never understand."
"Life, for one," he acknowledged. "I confess that I am finding it
bewildering. The very explanations calculated to simplify it seem
but to complicate it further." And he looked at Mme. de Plougastel.
"You mean something, I suppose," said mademoiselle.
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