DIANE. Yes, a very dear friend.
MADAME LE BARGY. Do you mean--Maurice?
DIANE. Yes.
MADAME LE BARGY. You knew him well?
DIANE. I loved him.
MADAME LE BARGY. Yes, I know.
DIANE [_astonished_]. You know!
MADAME LE BARGY. Yes, Maurice has told me.
DIANE. No, no; that I am sure of. I am sure he never has. He has never told a soul. That was our agreement. We were to keep it secret and sacred. Not even you were to know, not as long as we lived.
MADAME LE BARGY [_gently_]. But after...?
DIANE [_puzzled_]. After?
MADAME LE BARGY. How long did you know Maurice?
DIANE. It would be two years this March.
MADAME LE BARGY. You loved each other all that time?
DIANE. From the very first. We never had any of those preliminaries in which people have a chance to deceive each other. We came together directly and frankly and we never regretted it.
MADAME LE BARGY. Maurice was very young.
DIANE. He was twenty-four. He was eager for life. But you two had kept him back. You had warmed his heart with your kind of love until he had begun to think it was the only love which is worthy.
MADAME LE BARGY. And you believe that that isn"t so?
DIANE [_simply_]. I believe that there can be no flame like the love between two young people who are one.
MADAME LE BARGY [_going to Diane and putting a hand on her shoulder_].
Poor little woman.
DIANE [_astounded_]. Madame!
MADAME LE BARGY. You have been suffering a great deal, Diane.
DIANE [_bursting into wild weeping_]. Oh, Madame, how good you are, how kind you are! [_Grasping Madame"s arms, she trembles and sobs._] Oh, how can I ever tell you? Thank you, thank you! [_She jumps up and paces about the room._] What am I going to do with myself? How can I go on? I simply can"t stand it. If I had only died with Maurice! If I could only have died in his place! Oh, the cruelty of it! Why did they have to pick out _my_ lover? Surely there are thousands of others. Why did it have to be just mine? Mine--when I needed him so! He might have been spared a little longer, to give me time to get used to it. That would have been better. But now! Just as he was beginning to be of service, too. Why he hadn"t been there a year yet. Not even a year! [_Beating her hips violently._] I could tear myself to pieces. I hate myself for going on living. I detest myself for being alive when he is dead.
MADAME LE BARGY [_who has watched Diane with infinite pity--softly_].
Diane, do you think that I loved my son?
DIANE [_in surprise_]. Why, yes, Madame, I believe that you loved Maurice.
MADAME LE BARGY. You think that my love was not as great as yours?
DIANE. No, I don"t think so. You had had your life. Maurice and I were only beginning ours.
MADAME LE BARGY. Which do you think is the greater love, Diane, the love which endures for the moment, or the love which endures for all time?
DIANE [_puzzled_]. For all time...?
MADAME LE BARGY. For all time.
DIANE. We have the dear lips to kiss, the dear head to caress, but when these are gone there is only memory--and that is torture.
MADAME LE BARGY. What if I should tell you that Maurice still lives, Diane?
DIANE [_rushing to her_]. Madame! My G.o.d, is this true?
MADAME LE BARGY [_gently_]. Maurice still lives, Diane. He talks with me every day.
DIANE [_slowly_]. He talks with you....
MADAME LE BARGY [_holding her gaze_]. Yes, Diane, he talks with me.
DIANE [_the hope dies out of her face and she turns away_]. I understand.
MADAME LE BARGY. You see, you did not love Maurice.
DIANE. How can you tell me that--that I didn"t love him?
MADAME LE BARGY. Because you don"t continue to do so.
DIANE. But how can I love what no longer exists?
MADAME LE BARGY. Oh, the selfishness of those who have never really loved!
DIANE. That is what I said to Nanette--and now you say the same thing to me.
MADAME LE BARGY. Diane, when I knew for certain that Maurice had fallen into the sea, that they had recovered his body, that he was buried in German soil, then I felt that I should never live another moment. I felt as you have felt. I wanted to die. I could not bear it. I came here to this house. I was mad for the sight of him, for the things that he had touched and loved. I flew into his room and dragged his clothes from the pegs and crushed them to me, but even the odor and touch of his personal belongings was not enough to calm me. I came into this room. Then I drew near that chair. Something--I don"t know what--drove me to sit in it. I flung myself into it as if it were into his arms, and I wept out all my grief. Then, all at once, a great calm came over me. I looked upon my solemn black dress in amazement and distaste. I looked into my solemn and black heart with surprise and shame. I felt that Maurice was _alive_, that he was not _dead_, Diane. Then I remembered, as I sat there, that it was in this chair that he had sat when he came to say good-by. There he had sat talking happily and confidently--he had seemed filled with radiance. And so he has talked to me again and again. Every day, at the same time, at twilight, I have sat there and felt myself with Maurice. We have talked together, just as we always did. There is nothing weird or supernatural about it, Diane. He is just as we knew him, as we knew him in those swift, strange moments when, in a flash, the body seems to slip aside and spirit rushes out to meet spirit. That is all. People see me cheerful and smiling and they say that I am mad.
The few to whom I have told of these talks pity me and are sure that I have lost my reason. Perhaps, in a worldly sense, I am mad. But I know this, Diane, that Maurice lives as usual, more truly, than he did six weeks ago. I know that his youth has not been sacrificed in vain. As the dead plant enriches the soil from which it grew and into which it finally falls, so will this young soul in all its bloom enrich the life out of which it sprang and from which it can never entirely disappear.
DIANE [_after a pause--rising_]. That is beautiful, but I cannot do it.
[_Stretching out her arms._] My arms are aching with emptiness.
MADAME LE BARGY. You see that you did not really love, Diane.
DIANE. Perhaps not. But it was the greatest I was capable of.
[_She gets a scarf she has dropped and goes toward the back._]