Author's note: This chapter has taken me ages to write. I'm so sorry, guys. I simply didn't have time. I have important exams all next week, and I have to study. It'll become better after next week, I promise. Thanks for your patience!

Chapter Thirty-Seven

December 10th 1895: Raoul

I avoided Cecile's eye at the breakfast table this morning, since I still felt embarrassed about my dream. I had considered not turning up at all, but it would have been too suspicious. Besides, I was hungry, and if I didn't show myself at the table, Jacques would probably send his niece to bring me breakfast, which would only serve to make my situation worse. So I simply sat down on my usual chair and pretended to be very interested in a bird sitting on the window sill.

My silence seemed to go unnoticed. Cecile and Jacques were talking merrily, despite the early hour. If there was someone who had changed in the weeks since the young woman had arrived here, it was her uncle. The change wasn't visible at the first glance. He was still an old, stiff-legged man. The change was on the inside. I had known him for all my life, and I had never seen him that cheerful before.

Sometimes, I woke up to the sound of him whistling a merry little tune as he went about his usual work. Even his conversation skills had improved considerably since his favourite niece had come to live with us. We could actually speak to each other for several minutes without him mentioning work once. It was quite astonishing.

And then there was Cecile herself. She was bright and vivacious… and very pretty. Yet if I had been afraid that she'd be glued to my side and try to do everything with me, I couldn't have been more mistaken. When I had refused to show her the city, she had simply bought a map and begun to explore Paris on her own. She hadn't seen half of what she wanted to see, but I was sure that she'd do so in the end. She was a very determined young woman.

She hadn't asked me to take her anywhere a second time, even when I left in the coach and could have easily dropped her off somewhere. I wasn't sure how I felt about it. On the one hand, it made me a little sad. After all, there were far worse things that could happen to a man than driving through the city in the company of a pretty young woman. I had secretly been looking forward to telling her more about Paris.

Yet on the other hand, I was glad she hadn't asked me again. I wouldn't have admitted it to anyone, least of all her, but sometimes, Cecile's presence made me uneasy. She was too pretty, too friendly, too charming – too appealing to resist her for much longer. Yet resisting was exactly what I had to do. I couldn't possibly approach her on that level… or could I?

In one of those long, sleepless nights – which I actually preferred to those in which I had dreams that didn't leave much to the imagination – I had worked out that there were two main reasons why I couldn't approach her. There were others, of course, but I thought I could deal with them easily once the other two problems were solved.

I found myself thinking a lot about those problems. It didn't surprise me that they came to my mind again as I sat at the table, staring out of the window, the conversation of Cecile and Jacques a mere background noise.

The first problem was that I couldn't be sure what Cecile felt for me. Was I nothing but the employer of her uncle, or was there a deeper interest in me? She always was very friendly to me, but that didn't count as a sign that she liked me. She was friendly to everyone, from Naniette to the delivery boy who brought me letters. Sometimes, I thought that her gaze lingered on me a little longer than it was necessary, but that could very well be just my imagination.

I had to remind myself that even if she was interested in me, she couldn't show it in any obvious way. It wouldn't have been decent to do so for a woman. Though Cecile hadn't been brought up in the same elitist circles of society as I had, she knew very well how to behave. She'd have never gone so far as to approach me and ask me what I thought of her. It was a small miracle that she had asked me to show her the city in the first place, and it was not at all surprising that she hadn't done so a second time.

There would have been ways to find out about her feelings, of course. I had been with the same woman for a long time, but that didn't mean that I had forgotten all about courting. I could have bought Cecile flowers or I could have asked her to go to dinner with me… if I had wanted to.

And that was just the heart of the second problem. I didn't know whether I truly wanted her to be interested in me. I didn't even know whether I was interested in her. Well, I obviously was interested in her in a certain way, or I wouldn't spend so much time thinking of her, but the question was whether I really wanted something to happen between the two of us.

I knew that in order to answer that question, I had to find out what I felt for Christine first. I was not like other men. I couldn't love more than one woman at the same time. If I still loved Christine, I didn't love Cecile. It was very simple.

Well, at least it would have been simple if my feelings for her hadn't been that hard to fathom. It would have been easier if I had been allowed to meet her every now and then, but she avoided me. I had only seen her a couple of times when I had fetched the children (I always did so myself these days), and she had never uttered more than a casual greeting.

Moreover, my feelings for her seemed to change a lot. When I picked up the children from her house, and she more or less slammed the door in my face, I felt nothing but anger. I couldn't understand why she was so cold and showed so little interest in whether I knew anything about her life. She hadn't even told me in person that she'd move houses, but sent Antoinette to do it.

I still had no idea why she had moved at all. I would have understood if she had decided to move in with the Phantom. Well, at least I'd have understood it on a rational level, which didn't mean I'd have been happy about it. But why on earth had she moved out of Meg's home and into the house of an elderly lady? It was one of the many things I'd probably never know. That lack of knowledge was another reason for my anger.

When I thought back to the old times, however, I couldn't keep my heart from swelling with a sad kind of joy. Life had been so wonderful then. We had been so happy together. And now, nothing of that happiness was left. But maybe it could be restored. If only Christine let me get a little closer to her…

But she did not, and that was what added a good amount of sadness and resignation to my feelings. I couldn't help thinking that for her, our marriage was over, damaged beyond the slightest chance of repair. She didn't tell me anything about her life because she thought it no longer necessary to keep me informed. I was no longer part of he life.

I reminded myself that tempting as it was to think about it, Christine and her feelings were not the subject of my internal discussion. The point was not whether she loved me, but whether I loved her. And that was something I simply didn't know. I longed for a time when my feelings had still been easy to understand. Had there ever been such a time?

Maybe I simply had to avoid Cecile for a while, at least till I was sure about my feelings. Yes, it sounded like a good solution. I could leave the house early and not return until evening. Perhaps I could even –

"…but only if you approve of it, M. le Comte."

The sound of my name, spoken by Cecile, pulled me out of my thoughts.

"Oh… yes, yes, of course," I replied, trying my best to pretend I had been listening attentively all the time. Taking a sip of coffee from my cup, I shuddered, realising it was stone-cold. How long had I been lost in thought?

"Really?" Cecile asked, sounding delighted. "I'm so glad you agree. You won't regret it, I promise!" She jumped up from her chair and left the room quickly, calling, "I have to go at once and look for a decent dress".

I cleared my throat and turned to face Jacques.

"Erm… what did I just agree to?" I wanted to know in a casual voice.

The old man looked at me with something very close to a smirk.

"You've agreed to take Cecile to the performance tonight, M. le Comte," he answered, obviously fighting the urge to burst into laughter. The puzzled expression on my face had to look very amusing.

I scowled. This was certainly not the right moment for him to develop a sense of humour.