Everyone seemed to take for granted that she missed him. Even her
husband, when he came down the Saturday following Robert's departure,
expressed regret that he had gone.
"How do you get on without him, Edna?" he asked.
"It's very dull without him," she admitted. Mr. Pontellier had seen
Robert in the city, and Edna asked him a dozen questions or more. Where
had they met? On Carondelet Street, in the morning. They had gone
"in" and had a drink and a cigar together. What had they talked about?
Chiefly about his prospects in Mexico, which Mr. Pontellier thought
were promising. How did he look? How did he seem--grave, or gay, or how?
Quite cheerful, and wholly taken up with the idea of his trip, which
Mr. Pontellier found altogether natural in a young fellow about to seek
fortune and adventure in a strange, queer country.
Edna tapped her foot impatiently, and wondered why the children
persisted in playing in the sun when they might be under the trees. She
went down and led them out of the sun, scolding the quadroon for not
being more attentive.
It did not strike her as in the least grotesque that she should be
making of Robert the object of conversation and leading her husband to
speak of him. The sentiment which she entertained for Robert in no way
resembled that which she felt for her husband, or had ever felt, or ever
expected to feel. She had all her life long been accustomed to harbor
thoughts and emotions which never voiced themselves. They had never
taken the form of struggles. They belonged to her and were her own, and
she entertained the conviction that she had a right to them and that
they concerned no one but herself. Edna had once told Madame Ratignolle
that she would never sacrifice herself for her children, or for any one.
Then had followed a rather heated argument; the two women did not appear
to understand each other or to be talking the same language. Edna tried
to appease her friend, to explain.
"I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my
life for my children; but I wouldn't give myself. I can't make it more
clear; it's only something which I am beginning to comprehend, which is
revealing itself to me."
"I don't know what you would call the essential, or what you mean by the
unessential," said Madame Ratignolle, cheerfully; "but a woman who would
give her life for her children could do no more than that--your Bible
tells you so. I'm sure I couldn't do more than that."