That is how men are. That
is how you are, I suppose, and that was Maurice, too. He forgot me for
a peasant. But--she must have been pretty once. And I was always
ugly!"
"Delarey loved you," Artois said, suddenly, interrupting her in a
strong, deep voice, a voice that rang with true conviction.
"He never loved me. Perhaps he thought he did. He must have thought
so. And that first day--when we were coming up the mountain-side--"
She stopped. She was seized; she was held fast in the grip of a memory
so intense, so poignant, that she made, she could make, no effort to
release herself. She heard the drowsy wail of the Ceramella dropping
down the mountain-side in the radiant heat of noon. She felt Maurice's
warm hand. She remembered her words about the woman's need to love--"I
wanted, I needed to love--do men ever feel that? Women do often,
nearly always, I think." The Pastorale--it sounded in her ears. Or was
it the sea that sounded, the sea in the abandoned chambers of the
Palace of the Spirits? She listened.
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