But a more concrete thought now came into his mind:
"And Addie?" he asked.
"I am not forgetting him," she said, gently. "He is the child of both of us, whom we both love. If we quietly . . . quietly separate, if you become happy later, he will be able to understand that his parents, however passionately they both loved him, separated because it was better that they should. He need not suffer through it. He will not suffer through it. At least, I like to think that he will not. If we are only honest, Henri, he cannot suffer through it."
"And you . . . what would you do?"
She blushed, but did not lose her composure; he did not see her blush. She had not yet thought of herself for a moment: she was thinking, had been thinking, after that wave of remorse and after holding Marianne that morning in her arms, only of him and Marianne, of their happiness, his and Marianne's, even though she did not mention the girl's name again, once she had told him that Marianne had refused Van Vreeswijck. She was thinking only of the two of them. . . . What would she do? She did not know. Her love, it is true, rose radiantly before her: her love, her new life; but she was not thinking of outward change. Life, the real life, was an inward thing; outwardly she was the mother of her son and would remain so . . .
