A few minutes later I heard the voice of the Baroness: she was making inquiries of the landlady about my health. I went out to meet her, and she almost kissed me before the eyes of all the by-standers. With a heart full to overflowing, she deplored my illness, which she regarded as the result of overwork, and advised me to return to town, and put off my journey until the spring.
She was beautiful to-day. In her closely-fitting fur coat, with its long and supple hairs, she looked like a llama. The sea-breezes had brought the blood to her cheeks, and in her eyes, magnified by the excitement of her visit, I could read an expression of infinite tenderness. In vain I begged her not to alarm herself on my account, and assured her that I had almost fully recovered. She found that I looked like a corpse, declared me unfit for work, and treated me like a child. And how sweetly she played the part of a mother! The tone of her voice was a caress; she playfully used terms of endearment; she wrapped her shawl around me; at table she spread my dinner-napkin over my knees, poured out some wine for me, looked after me in every way. I wondered why she did not thus devote herself to her child rather than to the man who was all the time striving to hide his passion, which threatened to defy all control.
In this disguise of the sick child, it seemed to me that I was like the wolf who, after having devoured the grandmother, lies down on her bed waiting for Little Red Riding-hood, that he may devour her also.
I blushed before this unsophisticated and sincere husband, who overwhelmed me with kindness, asked for no explanations. And yet I was not at fault. I obstinately hardened my heart, and received all the attentions which the Baroness showered on me with an almost insulting indifference.
At dessert, when the time for the return journey had come, the Baron proposed that I should return with them. He offered me a room in his house which, he said, was waiting to receive me. I am glad to say that my answer was a decided refusal. Terrified at this dangerous playing with fire, I was firm in my decision. I would stay here for a week to recover entirely, and then return to town to my old attic.
In spite of all their objections, I persisted. Strange; as soon as I pulled myself together and made a determined stand, the Baroness became almost hostile to me. The more I vacillated and humored her whims, the fonder she seemed of me, the more she praised my wisdom, my amiability. She swayed and bewildered me, but as soon as I opposed her seriously, she turned her back on me and treated me with dislike, almost with rudeness.
While we were discussing the Baron's proposal to live under one roof, she drew a glowing picture of such an arrangement, dwelling on the pleasantness of being able to see one another at any time without a previous invitation.
"But, my dear Baroness," I objected, "what would people say if you were to receive a bachelor into your young ménage?"
"What does it matter what people say?"
"But your mother, your aunt? Moreover, my man's pride rebels against a measure which is only permissible in the case of a minor."