"Yes," she repeated, almost as if to herself.

For the first time a little cloud went over Vere's sensitive face.

"Madre, how horribly I must have disappointed you," she said.

The mother did not break into protestations. She always treated her
child with sincerity.

"Just for a moment, Vere," she answered. "And then, very soon, you
made me feel how much more intimate can be the relationship between a
mother and a daughter than between a mother and any son."

"Is that true, really?"

"I think it is."

"But why should that be?"

"Don't you think that Monsieur Emile can tell you much better than I?
I feel all the things, you know, that he can explain."

There was a touch of something that was like a half-hidden irony in
her voice.

"Monsieur Emile! Yes, I think he understands almost everything about
people," said Vere, quite without irony. "But could a man explain such
a thing as well as a woman? I don't think so."