I
know now how little I understood. I didn't realize how much there was
to understand. You've been telling me. Haven't you, Hermione? Haven't
you?"
He paused. But there was no answer.
"I am sure you have been telling me. We must get down to the truth at
last. I thought--till now I have thought that I was more able to read
the truth than most men. You must often have laughed--how you must
have laughed--secretly at my pretensions. Only once--one night in the
garden on the island--I think I saw you laughing. And even then I
didn't understand. Mon Dieu!"
He was becoming fiercely concentrated now on what he was saying. He
was losing all self-consciousness. He was even losing consciousness of
the strange fact that he was addressing a void. It was as if he saw
Hermione, so strongly did he feel her.
"Mon Dieu! It is as if I'd been blind all the time I have known you,
blind to the truth of you and blinder still to my own truth. Perhaps I
am blind now. I don't know. But, Hermione, I can see something.
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