‘Oh!’ she cried, beating the air with her hands, ‘these moods, these follies! they are my own fault I am dividing myself from you. I am breaking my own heart; I am miserable for no reason. Help me, Paul, help me! Be at least my friend!’
He was not a man to whom such an appeal could be made in vain, and his heart acquitted him of any falsehood when he assured her that he loved her, and would yield her any earthly service in his power.
‘But, sweetheart,’ he said, ‘tell me how I am to help you. Don’t think that there is any reproach in what I say, but often when I wish to be near you you banish me, and I have to go, because all my thought is not to harass you. I heard what Laurent said just now——’
Her face hardened into an expression of inquiry. Her black brows shot down level, over her brown eyes, and the eyes gloomed at him with a threat in them.
‘You heard?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ he responded caressingly, ‘I heard his parting words, “l’affaire est assez grave—mais courage, et bonne espérance.”’
‘Is that all you heard?’ she demanded, bending the level challenge of her brows still lower, and snaking away her form from his embrace as if she feared it.
‘I heard no more,’ said Paul.
‘Ah, well!’ she answered in a sudden lassitude. She fell back into the arm-chair with closed eyes, and suffered her hands to fall laxly on either side of her knees. ‘You will find me a changed girl, Paul. I am going to have done with my moods, and I am going to follow—I am going to follow—what is it I am going to follow? M. Laurent knows. Oh yes, it is the goddess of hygiene! I am to bathe, and I am to drive, and I am to walk, and I am to be equably cheerful, and I am to give up my black coffee and my strong tea and my eau des Carmes, and I am never to drink wine until dinner-time, and then only two glasses—two little glasses of claret or burgundy—and then I am to be quite an angel of good temper, and everybody is to adore me. That is the verdict of M. Laurent. Do you think, Paul, I shall be charming when I have done all these things?’
‘You would be charming, little sweetheart,’ said Paul, ‘whether you did them or no. It is not a question of charm, but of health, dear, and Laurent is a very sage old gentleman indeed, and you may follow his counsel with perfect certainty. I can’t help owning,’ he went on, ‘that I’ve been a little nervous lately about the fluctuation of your spirits, and I’m glad he happened to drop in and have a talk with you.’