And I thought 'he doesn't care. He loves
me, all dusty and hideous and horrid, as I am.' And then I didn't care
either. I said to myself, 'I look an object, and I don't mind a bit,
because I see in his face that he loves me for myself, because he sees
my heart, and--' "
And suddenly in her voice there was a sharp, hissing catch, and she
stopped short. For a full minute she was silent. And Artois did not
speak. Nor did he move.
"I felt then, perhaps for the first time, 'the outside doesn't matter
to real people.' I felt that. I felt, 'I'm real, and he is real, and--
and Maurice is real. And though it is splendid to be beautiful, and
beauty means so much, yet it doesn't mean so much as I used to think.
Real people get beyond it. And when once they have got beyond it then
life begins.' I remember thinking that, feeling that, and--just for a
minute loving my own ugliness. And then, suddenly, I wished there was
a looking-glass in the room that I might stand before it and see what
an object I was, and then look into your face and see that it didn't
matter.
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