Who knows what we may expect!" Her
infatuation with dress still accompanied her in every moment of her
life.
Julio noticed a persistent absent-mindedness about her. It seemed
as though her spirit, abandoning her body, was wandering to far-away
places. Her eyes were looking at him, but she seldom saw him. She would
speak very slowly, as though wishing to weigh every word, fearful of
betraying some secret. This spiritual alienation did not, however,
prevent her slipping bodily along the smooth path of custom, although
afterwards she would seem to feel a vague remorse. "I wonder if it is
right to do this! . . . Is it not wrong to live like this when so many
sorrows are falling on the world?" Julio hushed her scruples with:
"But if we are going to marry as soon as possible! . . . If we are
already the same as husband and wife!"
She replied with a gesture of strangeness and dismay. To marry! . . .
Ten days ago she had had no other wish. Now the possibility of marriage
was recurring less and less in her thoughts. Why think about such remote
and uncertain events? More immediate things were occupying her mind.
The farewell to her brother in the station was a scene which had fixed
itself ineradicably in her memory. Upon going to the studio she had
planned not to speak about it, foreseeing that she might annoy her lover
with this account; but alas, she had only to vow not to mention a thing,
to feel an irresistible impulse to talk about it.
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