Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan Page B

with a superior air:
    "It is a question of psychology."
    I went on to explain my plan. They raised the same objections as I had done myself the day before, and I felt a particular pleasure in refuting them. I got excited all over again, in my effort to convince them that it was feasible. It only remained for me to prove to them that it ought not to be carried out, but for this I could not find any logical argument.
    "I don't like that kind of intrigue," said Cyril reluctantly. "But if it is the only way to make you marry me, I'll do it."
    "It's not exactly Anne's fault," I said.
    "You know very well that if she stays you'll have to marry the man she chooses," said Elsa.
    Perhaps it was true. I could see Anne introducing me on my twentieth birthday to a young man with a degree to match my own, assured of a brilliant future, steady and faithful. In fact someone like Cyril himself. I began to laugh.
    "Please don't laugh," said Cyril. "Tell me that you'll be jealous when I'm pretending to be in love with Elsa. How can you bear the thought of it for one moment? Do you love me?"
    He spoke in a low voice. Elsa had gone off and discreetly left us alone. I looked at Cyril's tense brown face, his dark eyes. It gave me a strange feeling to think he loved me. I looked at his red lips, so near mine. I did not feel intellectual any longer. He came closer, our lips met and he kissed me passionately. I realised that I was more gifted for kissing a young man in the sunshine than for taking a degree. I drew away from him, gasping for breath:
    "Cécile, let's stay together for ever! In the meantime I'll carry out the plan with Elsa."
    I wondered if I was right in my reckoning. As I was the instigator of the whole thing I could always stop it.
    "You're full of ideas," said Cyril with his slanting smile that lifted one side of his mouth and gave him the appearance of a handsome bandit.
    And that is how I set the whole comedy in motion, against my better judgement. Sometimes I think I would blame myself less if I had been prompted that day by hatred and violence, and had not allowed myself to drift into it merely through inertia, the sun, and Cyril's kisses.
    When I left the conspirators at the end of an hour, I was rather perturbed. However, there were still grounds for reassurance: my plan could misfire because my father's passion for Anne might well keep him faithful to her, besides which, neither Cyril nor Elsa could do much without my connivance. If my father showed any signs of falling into the trap, I would find some means of putting an end to the whole thing. But still it was amusing to try the plan out, and see whether my psychological judgement proved right or wrong.
    What is more, Cyril was in love with me and had asked me to marry him. This was enough to make me forget everything else. If he could wait two years, to give me time to grow up, I would accept him. I could already imagine myself living with Cyril, sleeping next to him, never leaving him.
    Every Sunday we would go to lunch with Anne and my father, a united married couple, and sometimes perhaps include Cyril's mother, which would add a homely atmosphere to the meal.
    I met Anne on the terrace on her way down to the beach to join my father. She received me with the ironical smile with which one greets those who have drunk too much the night before. I asked her what she had been going to tell me just as I fell asleep, but she only laughed and said it might make me cross. Just then my father came out of the water. He was broad and muscular, and I thought he looked wonderful. I bathed with Anne, who swam slowly with her head well out of the water so as not to wet her hair. Afterwards we three lay side by side on our stomachs in the sand, with me in the middle. We were quiet and peaceful.
    Just then the boat appeared round the rocks, all sails set. My father was the first to see it.
    "So Cyril couldn't hold out any longer!" he said laughing. "Shall we forgive him, Anne? After all