Then, between her father, who nudged her knee, and her lover, who gently rubbed her boot, she felt quite happy. Life would now be delightful. And they united in throwing aside all reserve, enjoying the pleasure of a family gathering unmarred by a single quarrel. In truth, it was hardly natural, something must have brought them luck. Auguste, alone, had his eyes half closed, suffering from a headache, which he had moreover expected after so many emotions. Toward nine o’clock he was even obliged to retire to bed.
CHAPTER XIII.
For some time past, Monsieur Gourd had been prowling about with an uneasy and mysterious air. He was met gliding noiselessly along, his eyes open, his ears pricked up, continually ascending the two staircases, where lodgers had even encountered him going his rounds in the dead of night. The morality of the house was certainly worrying him; he felt a kind of breath of shameful things which troubled the cold nakedness of the courtyard, the calm peacefulness of the vestibule, the beautiful domestic virtues of the different stories.
One evening, Octave had found the doorkeeper standing motionless and without a light at the end of his passage, close to the door which opened onto the servants’ staircase. Greatly surprised, he questioned him.
“I wish to ascertain something, Monsieur Mouret,” simply answered Monsieur Gourd, deciding to go off to bed.
The young man was very much frightened. Did the doorkeeper suspect his relations with Berthe? He was perhaps watching them. Their attachment encountered continual obstacles in that house, where there was always some one prying about and the inmates of which professed the most strict principles.
It happened to be a Tuesday night when Octave discovered Monsieur Gourd watching close to his room. This increased his uneasiness. For a week past, he had been imploring Berthe to come up and join him in his apartment, when all the house would be asleep. Had the doorkeeper guessed this? Octave went back to his room dissatisfied, tormented with fear and desire.
The night was a close one, and, overcome by the heat, Octave had dozed off in an easy-chair, when toward midnight he was roused by a gentle knocking.
“It’s I,” faintly whispered a woman’s voice.
It was Berthe. He opened the door and clasped her in his arms in the obscurity. When he had lighted his candle, he saw that she was deeply troubled about something. The day before, not having sufficient money in his pocket, he had been unable to pay for the bonnet at the time: and as in her delight she had so far forgotten herself as to give her name, they had sent her the bill that evening. Then, trembling at the thought that they might call on the morrow when her husband was there, she had dared to come up, gathering courage from the great silence of the house, and confident that Rachel was asleep.