She took her brother's arm, and leaving the hall went into the dining-room, where M. and Madame Oberlé were seated already--silent.
"My poor dear, in this house every joy is paid for by the sorrow of others. Look! I alone am happy!"
The dinner was very short. M. Oberlé immediately after led his daughter into the billiard-room because he wanted to question her. The mother remained a moment at the table near her son, who was now her neighbour. As soon as she was alone with him, the constraint fell like a veil from her face. The mother turned towards her child, admired him, smiled at him, and said in the confidential tone she knew so well how to use:
"I can do no more, my dear. I am completely done up and must go to bed. But I will confess that amidst my suffering a while ago I had one joy. Imagine that till just then I believed most firmly that you were going to leave us."
"I do not believe it now; do not be afraid! I am reassured. Your sister has told me in secret that I shall have some day a little Alsatian for a daughter-in-law. That will do me so much good. I understand that you could not tell me anything yet, while so much has been happening. And then it is still new--isn't it? Why are you trembling like that? I tell you, Jean, that I ask nothing from you now, and that I have entirely lost my fears--I love you so much."
She also embraced Jean. She also pressed him to her breast. But she had no tenderness in her soul except that which she was expressing.
She remembered the child in the cradle, nights and days of long ago, anxieties, dreams, precautions, and prayers of which he had been the object, and she thought:
"All that is nothing compared with what I would always do for him!"
"When she had disappeared, and he had heard the noise she made opening the invalid grandfather's door, to whom she never missed wishing good night, Jean rose and went out. He went through the fields to the trees which surrounded the Bastians' house, went into the park and, hidden there, remained some time watching the light which filtered through the shutters of the large drawing-room. Voices spoke, now one, now another. He recognised the tone but could not distinguish the words. There were pauses between the slowly spoken words, and Jean imagined that they were sad. The temptation came to him to go round those few yards of frontage and enter the drawing-room boldly. He thought: "Now that I have decided to live out of Alsace; now that they have refused me because of my father's attitude and because of Lucienne's marriage, I have no longer the right to question Odile. I shall go away without knowing if she also suffers as I suffer. But can I not see her in her own home for the last time, in the intimacy of the lamplight which brings the three of them together? I will not write to her. I will not try to speak to her, but I must see her; I shall carry away a last look of her--a last remembrance, and she will guess that at least I am deserving of pity."