"Ah! now you think you have me fast, but just wait till I am up again!"
The look which accompanied the threat gave him to understand what would happen. Now he began a battle with himself whether he should await the arrival of the child or go away first, in order to avoid the wrench of parting from it.
Since the married pair had entered into such a close relationship that one could hear the thoughts of the other, he could keep no secrets from her which she did not seize upon forthwith.
"I know well enough that you contemplate deserting us and casting us on the street."
"That is strange," he remarked; "it is you who have threatened the whole time to go off with the child, as soon as it came. So whatever I do is wrong; if I stay you go, and then I am both unhappy and ridiculous; if I go you are the martyr, and I am unhappy and a scoundrel to boot! That comes of having to do with women!"
How they got through the nine months was to him a puzzle. The last part of the time was the most tolerable, for she had begun to love the unborn child, and love imparted to her a higher beauty than she had before. But when he told her so, she did not believe him, and when she observed that he was lulling himself to sleep with dreams of perpetual happiness by her side she broke out again, saying: "You think you have got me safe now."
"My dear," he answered, "when we vowed to each other to be man and wife, I believed that I would belong to you and you to me, and I hoped that we should hold together so that the child should be born in a home, and be brought up by its father and mother."
And so on ad infinitum.
The child came, and the mother's joy was boundless. Ennui had disappeared and the man breathed freely, but he should have done so more imperceptibly. For two sharp eyes saw it and two keen looks said: "You think that I am tied by the child!"
On the third day the little one had lost the charm of novelty and was handed over to a nurse. Then dressmakers were summoned. Now he knew what was coming. From that hour he went about like a man condemned to death, waiting for his execution. He packed two travelling-bags which he hid in his wardrobe, ready to fly at the given signal.