Then he went on to speak of authors, whom he had never read, but whom, like many other people, he accused of the grossest immorality. And yet while he was thus prating of virtue and denouncing vice, he was cleverly manœuvring to get behind Clorinde's chair without her being aware of it. The girl was gazing at the ceiling with an expression of absent-mindedness. 'Oh, as for novels,' she murmured, 'I have never even opened one. They are all a pack of falsehoods. You don't know Leonora, the Gipsy, do you? It is a pretty book. I read it in Italian when I was quite little. It is about a young girl who ends by marrying a lord. She is captured by brigands to begin with——'
However, a slight grating sound behind her made her start and turn her head: 'What are you doing?' she asked.
'I am pulling the blind down,' replied Rougon; 'I was afraid the sun was inconveniencing you.'
The girl was, indeed, sitting in a flood of sunlight, whose dancing dust gilded her corsage as with luminous down. 'Please leave the blind alone,' she cried, 'I love the sun. I feel as though I were in a warm bath.'
Then she raised herself in her chair and glanced into the garden. But when she saw the gardener still kneeling there, with the back of his blue blouse turned towards them, she reverted to her reclining attitude again, smiling, and easy once more. Rougon, who had followed her glance, left the blind as it was, and the girl began to banter him. He was just like an owl, she said, to be so fond of darkness. However, he showed no resentment, but began to pace the room, swaying about like a bear contemplating some wily act of treachery.
'Oh, come and look here,' he said at last, pointing to a large photograph; 'you haven't seen my last portrait, have you?'
But she merely smiled, and replied: 'Oh! I can see it very well from here; and, besides, you've shown it to me before.'
Rougon was not yet discouraged. He drew down the blind of the other window, and invented several reasons to induce the girl to go into the shady corner which he had made by doing so. She would be much more comfortable there, he told her. But Clorinde, despising this obvious snare, merely shook her head. Then Rougon came and stood in front of her; and, dropping all attempts at stratagem, said straightforwardly: 'Oh, by the way, I want to show you my new horse, Monarque. You know that I have been making an exchange. You are fond of horses, and you shall tell me what you think of him.'
But the girl still refused to move. Then Rougon began to press her. The stable was only a few yards away. It wouldn't take her more than five minutes at the most. She continued to refuse, however, and thereupon Rougon murmured with a touch of scorn in his voice: 'What! are you afraid?'