At last she sighed.

"But the most wretched thing, is it not--is to drag out, as I do, a
useless existence. If our pains were only of some use to someone, we
should find consolation in the thought of the sacrifice."

He started off in praise of virtue, duty, and silent immolation, having
himself an incredible longing for self-sacrifice that he could not
satisfy.

"I should much like," she said, "to be a nurse at a hospital."

"Alas! men have none of these holy missions, and I see nowhere any
calling--unless perhaps that of a doctor."

With a slight shrug of her shoulders, Emma interrupted him to speak of
her illness, which had almost killed her. What a pity! She should not be
suffering now! Leon at once envied the calm of the tomb, and one evening
he had even made his will, asking to be buried in that beautiful rug
with velvet stripes he had received from her. For this was how they
would have wished to be, each setting up an ideal to which they were now
adapting their past life. Besides, speech is a rolling-mill that always
thins out the sentiment.

But at this invention of the rug she asked, "But why?"

"Why?" He hesitated. "Because I loved you so!" And congratulating
himself at having surmounted the difficulty, Leon watched her face out
of the corner of his eyes.