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88 THE CONFESSION OF A FOOL
blue water, a coppery moon was rising behind the Scotch
firs.
I was sitting at a table in the dining-room, lost in
thought, now mournful, now serene, and did not notice
the landlady until she stood close by me.
"The lady who’s just left is your sister, isn’t she?
"
she asked.
"Not at all."
" Isn’t she ? How strangely you resemble one another !
I should have sworn that you are brother and sister."
I was not in the mood to continue such a conversation,
but it left me in a ferment of thoughts.
Had my constant intercourse with the Baroness affected
the expression of her features ? Or had the expression of
her face influenced mine during this six months’ union of
our souls? Had the instinctive desire to please one
another at any price been the cause of an unconscious
selection of gestures and expressions, suppressing the less
pleasing in favour of the more seductive ? It was not at
all unthinkable that a blending of our souls had taken
place, and that we no longer belonged to ourselves.
Destiny, or rather instinct, had played its fateful, inevit-
able part ; the ball had been set rolling, overthrowing and
destroying everything that barred its way : honour, reason,
happiness, loyalty, wisdom, virtue !
. . . And this guilelessness to propose to receive under
her roof an ardent young man, a man of the age when the
passions are so strong that control is often almost impos-
sible ! Was she vicious, or had love obscured her reason ?
Vicious ! No, a thousand times no ! I appreciated her
candid ways, her gaiety, her sincerity, her motherly ten-
derness. That she was eccentric, that her mind was badly
balanced, she had herself acknowledged in speaking of her
faults—but vicious ? No ! Even the little tricks which
she occasionally resorted to in order to cheer me up were
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