Years of Grace · Part IV · VI · Chapter 4 6 9 (2/2)

But André had not been right about experience. If André had married Jane and settled down in Lakewood, he would not have been the bearded cynic he was at fifty-three. Wives had a lot to do with it. It was Cyprienne⁠—and the earthy angels, of course⁠—Jane thought indulgently, who had made André what he was today. “L’amour fait passer le temps, le temps fait passer l’amour!” What words to hear from the lips of the man whose romantic memory you had been tenderly cherishing for thirty-four years! From the lips of the boy who had walked so bravely, so proudly out of your youth down Victorian Pine Street! Jane was thinking again of the inevitable disillusion of life. Was it inevitable, she wondered? If Jimmy had lived, would he be as dead as André?