Nicolette rearranged the pillows round Marcelle’s aching head, then she sat down by the table, and took up her needlework. After awhile it certainly seemed as if the invalid slept. The house was very still. In the hearth a log of olive wood crackled cheerfully. Suddenly Nicolette looked up from her work. She encountered Marcelle de Ventadour’s eyes fixed upon her. They looked large, dark, eager. Nicolette felt that her own heart was beating furiously, and a wave of heat rushed to her cheeks. She had heard a sound, coming from the court-yard below—a commotion—the tramp of a horse’s hoofs on the flagstones—she was sure of that—then the clanking of metal—a shout—Bertrand’s voice—no doubt of that——
Marcelle had raised herself on her couch: a world of expectancy in her eyes. Nicolette threw down her work, and in an instant was out of the room and running along the gallery to the top of the stairs. Here she paused for a moment, paralysed with excitement: the next she heard the clang of the bolts being pulled open, the rattling of the chain, and Jasmin’s cry of astonishment:
“M. le Comte!”
For the space of two seconds Nicolette hesitated between her longing to run down the stairs so as to be first to wish Tan-tan a happy New Year, and the wish to go back to the Comtesse Marcelle and see that the happy shock did not bring on an attack of fainting. The latter impulse prevailed. She turned and ran back along the gallery. But Marcelle de Ventadour had forestalled her. She stood on the threshold of her room, under the lintel. She had a candle in her hand and seemed hardly able to stand. In the flickering light, her features looked pinched and her face haggard: her hair was dishevelled and her eyes seemed preternaturally large. Nicolette ran to her, and was just in time to clasp the tottering form in her strong, steady arms.
“It is all right, madame,” she cried excitedly, her eyes full with tears of joy, “all right, it is Bertrand!”
“Bertrand,” the mother murmured feebly, and then reiterated, babbling like a child: “It is all right, it is Bertrand!”
Bertrand came slowly across the vestibule, then more slowly still up the stairs. The two women could not see him for the moment: they just heard his slow and heavy footstep coming nearer and nearer. The well of the staircase was in gloom, only lit by an oil lamp that hung high up from the ceiling, and after a moment or two Bertrand came round the bend of the stairs and they saw the top of his head sunk between his shoulders. His shadow projected by the flickering lamp-light looked grotesque against the wall, all hunched-up, like that of an old man.
Nicolette murmured: “I’ll run and tell Micheline and Mme. la Comtesse!” but suddenly Marcelle drew her back, back into the room. The girl felt scared: all her pleasure in Bertrand’s coming had vanished. Somehow she wished that she had not seen him—that it was all a dream and that Bertrand was not really there. Marcelle had put the candle down on the table in the centre of the room. Her face looked very white, but her hands were quite steady; she turned up the lamp and blew out the candle and set it on one side, then she drew a chair close to the hearth, but she herself remained standing, only steadied herself with both her hands against the chair, and stared at the open doorway. All the while Nicolette knew that she must not run out and meet Bertrand, that she must not call to him to hurry. His mother wished that he should come into her room, and tell her—tell her what? Nicolette did not know.
Now Bertrand was coming along the corridor. He paused one moment at the door: then he came in. He was in riding breeches and boots, and the collar of his coat was turned up to his ears: he held his riding whip in his gloved hand, but he had thrown down his hat, and his hair appeared moist and dishevelled. On the smooth blue cloth of his coat, myriads of tiny drops of moisture glistened like so many diamonds.
“It is snowing a little,” were the first words that he said. “I am sorry I am so wet.”