Louise! You stupid child! Isn't it something like that? Tell me, isn't it?"
Madame Claire's finger had found the spot, evidently. Louise's hardness, her bravado, suddenly left her. Madame Claire had never seen her cry before, and the sight seemed to her very pitiful. Her tears made her seem younger.
"It is like that." Her voice came muffled from the handkerchief she was pressing to her face. "But I'm helpless. I can't be different. I tell you I can't. The more Eric tries to be nice to me, the more I harden toward him. The more I want to meet him half way, the less I'm able to. I'm not hard, really; I long to be different. But it's too late. It's grown on me now. I can't stop it. I suppose I must go on like this forever. My life is a misery to me." ****** It was a prayer of thanksgiving that went up to the god who understands women that night. Madame Claire felt that now all things were possible. Where there had been a blank wall, there was now an open gate—for her, at least. How long it would be before the gate would be open to Eric, she dared not think.
