This sudden severity after her delicious abandon, changed Octave’s pleasure into angry vexation.
“You are the one,” he replied, “who are cruel! Why allow me so much bliss, if you intended to take it away from me so soon? Since you love me only in your dreams, I beg of you to go to sleep again and never awaken. I will stay near you. Your words were so sweet, but a moment ago, and now you deny them!”
“What did I say?” she asked, with hesitation, a deep blush suffusing her face and neck.
These symptoms, which he considered a bad augury, increased Octave’s irritation. He arose and said in a bitter tone:
“Fear nothing! I will not abuse the words which have escaped you, however flattering or charming they may have been; they told me that you loved me. I do not believe it any longer; you are agitated, I can see; but it is from fear and not love.”
Clemence drew herself up upon the divan, crossed her arms over her breast and gazed at him for a few moments in silence.
“Do you believe these two sentiments incompatible?” she asked at last; “you are the only one whom I fear. Others would not complain.”
There was such irresistible charm in her voice and glance that Gerfaut’s ill-humor melted away like ice in the sun’s rays. He fell upon his knees before the divan, and tried to pass her arms about his neck as before; but instead of lending herself to this project, she attempted to rise.
“I am so happy at your feet,” he said, gently preventing her. “Everybody else can sit beside you; I only have the right to kneel. Do not take this right away from me.”
Madame de Bergenheim extricated one of her hands, and, raising her finger with a threatening gesture, she said: