The war
receded; the cannon of Noyon sounded no longer in her ears. When she
spoke of the war,--which she did less and less every day,--you would
have thought that she was talking of some distant colonial expedition.
Of course she remembered the dangers that threatened her husband, and
pitied him naturally:--"Poor dear boy!" with a little smile as much as
to say, "He has not much luck. Not very clever, you know." ... But she
did not dwell on the subject, and, thank Heaven! it left no traces on
her mind. She had paid her score, she thought, and her conscience was
at rest; now she was in haste to go back to the world's most serious
task. One really would have supposed that the whole world hung on the
egg that she was about to lay.
Clerambault had been so absorbed by his struggles that he had not seen
Aline for months, and had therefore been unable to follow the change
in her mood. Rosine might have spoken of it before him, but he had
paid no attention. Within the last twenty-four hours he had heard in
quick succession of the birth of the baby and of the fact that Aline's
husband was missing, like Maxime, and he immediately pictured to
himself the suffering of the young mother. He thought of her as he
had always known her--vibrating between pleasure and pain, but always
feeling the latter more keenly, giving herself up to it, and even when
she was happy, finding reasons for distress.
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