"Women," she said, with tears in her eyes, "can only love; men act;
they have a thousand ways in which they are bound to act. But we can
only think, and pray, and worship."
A love that had sacrificed so much for her sake deserved a recompense.
She looked about her like a nightingale descending from a leafy covert
to drink at a spring, to see if she were alone in the solitude, if the
silence hid no witness; then she raised her head to Raoul, who bent
his own, and let him take one kiss, the first and the only one that
she ever gave in secret, feeling happier at that moment than she had
felt in five years. Raoul thought all his toils well-paid. They both
walked forward they scarcely knew where, but it was on the road to
Auteuil; presently, however, they were forced to return and find their
carriages, pacing together with the rhythmic step well-known to
lovers. Raoul had faith in that kiss given with the quiet facility of
a sacred sentiment. All the evil of it was in the mind of the world,
not in that of the woman who walked beside him. Marie herself, given
over to the grateful admiration which characterizes the love of woman,
walked with a firm, light step on the gravelled path, saying, like
Raoul, but few words; yet those few were felt and full of meaning. The
sky was cloudless, the tall trees had burgeoned, a few green shoots
were already brightening their myriad of brown twigs.
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