On the morrow, Octave, feeling interested, tried to make the cousin talk at “The Ladies’ Paradise,” whilst they were receiving a consignment of linen goods together. But she answered curtly, and he felt that she was hostile, annoyed at his having been a witness the evening before. Moreover, she did not like him; she even displayed a sort of rancor toward him in their business relations.
Octave had given himself six months, and, though scarcely four had passed, he was becoming impatient. Every morning he asked himself whether he should not hurry matters forward, seeing the little progress he had made in the affections of this woman, always so icy and gentle. She had ended, however, by showing a real esteem for him, won over by his enlarged ideas, his dreams of vast modern warehouses discharging millions of merchandise into the streets of Paris. Often, when her husband was not there, and she opened the correspondence with the young man of a morning, she would detain him beside her and consult him, profiting a great deal by his advice, and a sort of commercial intimacy was thus gradually established between them. Their hands met amidst bundles of invoices, their breaths mingled as they added up columns of figures, and they yielded to moments of emotion before the open cash-box after some extra fortunate receipts. He even took advantage of these occasions, his tactics being now to reach her heart through her good trader’s nature, and to conquer her on a day of weakness, in the midst of the great emotion occasioned by some unexpected sale. So he remained on the watch for some surprising occurrence which should deliver her up to him.
About this time, Monsieur Hédouin, having fallen ill, went to pass a season at Vichy to take the waters. Octave, to speak frankly, was delighted. Though as cold as marble, Madame Hédouin would become more tender-hearted during her enforced widowhood. But he fruitlessly awaited a quiver, a languidness of desire. Never had she been so active, her head so free, her eye so clear.
At heart, though, the young man did not despair. At times he thought he had reached the goal, and was already arranging his mode of living for the near day when he would be the lover of his employer’s wife. He had kept up his connection with Marie to help him to wait patiently; only, though she was convenient and cost him nothing, she might perhaps one day become irksome, with her faithfulness of a beaten cur. Therefore, at the same time that he took her in his arms on the nights when he felt dull, he would be thinking of a way of breaking off with her. To do so abruptly seemed to him to be worse than foolish. One holiday morning, when about to rejoin his neighbor’s wife, the neighbor himself having gone out early, the idea had at length come to him of restoring Marie to Jules, of sending them in a loving way into each other’s arms, so that he might withdraw with a clear conscience. It was, moreover, a good action, the touching side of which relieved him of all remorse. He waited a while, however, not wishing to find himself without a female companion of some kind.
At the Campardons’ another complication was occupying Octave’s mind. He felt that the moment was arriving when he would have to take his meals elsewhere. For three weeks past Gasparine had been making herself quite at home there, with an authority daily increasing. At first she had begun by coming every evening; then she had appeared at lunch: and, in spite of her work at the shop, she was commencing to take charge of everything, of Angèle’s education, and of the household affairs. Rose was ever repeating in Campardon’s presence:
“Ah! if Gasparine only lived with us!”
But each time the architect, blushing with conscientious scruples, and tormented with shame, cried out:
“No, no; it cannot be. Besides, where would you put her to sleep?”
And he explained that they would have to give his study as a bedroom to their cousin, whilst he would move his table and plans into the drawing-room. It would certainly not inconvenience him in the least; he would, perhaps, decide to make the alteration one day, for he had no need of a drawing-room, and his study was becoming too cramped for all the work he had in hand. Only, Gasparine might very well remain as she was. What need was there to live all in a heap?
“When one is comfortable,” repeated he to Octave, “it is a mistake to wish to be better.”