For a long time they rested thus, immobile, with thoughts too deep for expression,—in a sacred silence broken only by sighs. Then when the calm was complete she softly disengaged herself in saying, "And she is there, Jean," as if completing the sentence long before begun. But it required an effort.
He answered by a pressure of the hand. That was all.
"And now, then, monsieur," she observed, abruptly and with playful satire, "I'm going to eat. I'm sorry you are not hungry, but——"
"Eat? Little one," he joyously cried, "I can eat a house and lot!" He took her bodily between his hands, he who a moment before had been so weak, and tossed her as one plays with a child.
"For shame! There is no house here for you, but I've got a lot to eat! There! No more of that, Monsieur Jean, or you shall have no supper!"
As he threatened her again with his exuberant spirits, she wisely but laughingly put the table between them. But she looked a world of happiness from her eyes.
From the extreme of mental depression Jean Marot was thus suddenly transported to the extreme of happiness and hopefulness. Simply because the life of the man whom he would have done to death, in his insane jealousy of a successful rival, had become precious, priceless, as that of the brother of his beloved. The conditions were desperate enough as they were. To have slain her brother would not only have rendered them hopeless, it would have condemned the survivor to a lifetime of remorse, unless, indeed, that life had not been happily shortened by the guillotine.
So they laughed, talked, ate, drank, and made merry, these two, taking no thought of the morrow until both the supper and the time necessary to dispose of it were consumed.
Jean lighted a cigarette that she gave him, and threw himself on the couch. Meanwhile, the girl, with the assistance of Poupon, got some hot water and washed the dishes, putting them one by one carefully back on the shelves in the wall. Finally the empty bottle found its place under the couch.
Then she discovered that Jean was sleeping soundly. He had succumbed in spite of rattling dishes and her talk, and slept the heavy sleep of physical exhaustion. The cigarette had fallen from his fingers half finished. His throat was still muffled in her silken scarf, but she tried to see if the marks were still there. For fully a minute she remained standing over him, buried in thought. The old clock in the Henri IV. tower behind the Panthéon chimed eleven. She sighed.