De Mersch's face had an extraordinary quality that I seemed to notice in
all the faces around me--a quality of the flesh that seemed to lose all
luminosity, of the eyes that seemed forever to have a tendency to seek
the ground, to avoid the sight of the world. When he brightened to
answer her it was as if with effort. It seemed as if a weight were on
the mind of the whole world--a preoccupation that I shared without
understanding. She herself, a certain absent-mindedness apart, seemed
the only one that was entirely unaffected.

As we sat side by side in the little carriage, she said suddenly:

"They are coming to the end of their tether, you see." I shrank away
from her a little--but I did not see and did not want to see. I said so.
It even seemed to me that de Mersch having got over the troubles _là
bas_, was taking a new lease of life.

"I _did_ think," I said, "a little time ago that ..."

The wheels of the coupe suddenly began to rattle abominably over the
cobbles of a narrow street. It was impossible to talk, and I was thrown
back upon myself. I found that I was in a temper--in an abominable
temper. The sudden sight of that man, her method of greeting him, the
intimacy that the scene revealed ... the whole thing had upset me. Of
late, for want of any alarms, in spite of groundlessness I had had the
impression that I was the integral part of her life. It was not a
logical idea, but strictly a habit of mind that had grown up in the
desolation of my solitude.

We passed into one of the larger boulevards, and the thing ran silently.