“Mamma, I’m sleepy,” exclaimed Jeanne in a changed voice. “Will you let me go to bed? I shall feel better in bed.”
Once more her mother seemed to awake with a start to consciousness of her surroundings.
“You are suffering, my darling! where do you feel the pain? Tell me.”
“No, no; I told you I’m all right! I’m sleepy, and it’s already time for me to go to bed.”
She left her chair and stood up, as though to prove that there was no illness threatening her: but her benumbed feet tottered over the floor on her way to the bedroom. She leaned against the furniture, and her hardihood was such that not a tear came from her, despite the feverish fire darting through her frame. Her mother followed to assist her to bed; but the child had displayed such haste in undressing herself that she only arrived in time to tie up her hair for the night. Without need of any helping hand Jeanne slipped between the sheets, and quickly closed her eyes.
“Are you comfortable?” asked Hélène, as she drew up the bedclothes and carefully tucked her in.
“Yes, quite comfortable. Leave me alone, and don’t disturb me. Take away the lamp.”
Her only yearning was to be alone in the darkness, that she might reopen her eyes and chew the cud of her sorrows, with no one near to watch her. When the light had been carried away, her eyes opened quite wide.
Nearby, in the meantime, Hélène was pacing up and down her room. She was seized with a wondrous longing to be up and moving about; the idea of going to bed seemed to her insufferable. She glanced at the clock—twenty minutes to nine; what was she to do? she rummaged about in a drawer, but forgot what she was seeking for. Then she wandered to her bookshelves, glancing aimlessly over the books; but the very reading of the titles wearied her. A buzzing sprang up in her ears with the room’s stillness; the loneliness, the heavy atmosphere, were as an agony to her. She would fain have had some bustle going on around her, have had some one there to speak to—something, in short, to draw her from herself. She twice listened at the door of Jeanne’s little room, from which, however, not even a sound of breathing came. Everything was quiet; so she turned back once more, and amused herself by taking up and replacing whatever came to her hand. Then suddenly the thought flashed across her mind that Zephyrin must still be with Rosalie. It was a relief to her; she was delighted at the idea of not being alone, and stepped in her slippers towards the kitchen.
She was already in the ante-room, and was opening the glass door of the inner passage, when she detected the re-echoing clap of a swinging box on the ears, and the next moment Rosalie could be heard exclaiming: