The rest of the evening passed amid general constraint.
"Well, I don't care!" I muttered on my way home, searching my conscience.
What was the meaning of all this? Was it nothing but the innocent whim of a fantastic mind? Two women quarrelling over a man! They must be jealous, then. Was the Baroness mad that she gave herself away in such a manner? I did not think so. I felt sure there was something else at the bottom of it.
"What is going on in this house?" I asked myself, brooding over the strange scene which had startled me in the evening, the very improbability of which made me hesitate to believe that I had seen anything really wrong.
This senseless jealousy, the apprehension of the old mother, the love of the Baroness, stimulated by the spring air, all this confused my mind, seethed and fermented in my brain, and after spending a sleepless night, I decided for a second time not to see her again, and so prevent the threatening calamity.
With this intention I arose in the morning and wrote her a sensible, candid and humble letter; in carefully chosen language I protested against an excessive abuse of friendship; firmly, without any explanation, I asked for forgiveness of my sins, blamed myself for having caused ill-feeling between relatives, and goodness knows what else I said!
The result was that I met the Baroness, as if by accident, on leaving the library at my usual time. She stopped me on the North Bridge, and we walked together through one of the avenues leading to Charles XII Square. Almost with tears in her eyes she entreated me to come back, not to ask for explanations, but just to be one of them again as in the old days.
She was charming this morning. But I loved her too dearly to compromise her.
"Leave me! You are ruining your reputation," I said, watching the passers-by, whose curious glances embarrassed us. "Go home at once, or I shall leave you standing here!"
She looked at me with eyes so full of misery that I longed to kneel down before her, kiss her feet and ask her forgiveness.