Down-stairs in the shop, her face buried in her hands, Berthe had remained for a while immovable. After putting up the shutters, the porter had returned to the basement. Then Octave thought he might approach the young woman. Ever since the husband’s departure, Saturnin had been making signs to him over his sister’s head, as though inviting him to console her. Now he was beaming and multiplied his winks; fearing that he was not understood, he emphasized his advice by blowing kisses into space, with a child’s overflowing effusion.
“What! you want me to kiss her?” asked Octave by signs.
“Yes, yes,” replied the madman, with an enthusiastic nod of the head.
And, when he beheld the young man smiling before his sister, who had noticed nothing, he seated himself on the floor, behind a counter, hiding, so as not to be in their way. In the profound silence of the closed warehouse the gas-jets were still burning with tall flames. There reigned a death-like peacefulness, a closeness of atmosphere mingled with the unsavory odor of the dressed silk.
“Do not take it so much to heart, madame, I beg of you,” said Octave, in his caressing tones.
She started at finding him so close to her.
“Excuse me, Monsieur Octave. It is not my fault that you assisted at this painful scene. And I must ask you to excuse my husband, for he could not have been very well this evening. You know that in all families there are little unpleasantnesses——”
Sobs choked her utterance. The mere idea of extenuating her husband’s faults before the world had brought on a copious flood of tears, which quite unnerved her. Saturnin raised his anxious face on a level with the counter; but he dived down again directly he saw Octave take hold of his sister’s hand.
“I beg of you, madame, summon up a little courage,” said the assistant.
“No, I cannot help it,” stammered she. “You were there—you heard everything. For ninety-five francs’ worth of hair! As though all women did not wear false hair now! But he knows nothing—he understands nothing. He knows no more about women than the Grand Turk; he has never had anything to do with them, no never, Monsieur Octave! Ah! I am very miserable!”