“No, no; though you pretend to excite yourself, it gives you no pleasure. Oh, I feel it does not, and, besides, it is only natural!” What? what did she mean? He seized her round the waist, and pressed her with questions, but she would not answer; she abandoned herself to his embrace, and kept shaking her head. At length, to oblige her to speak, he commenced tickling her.
“Well, you see,” she ended by murmuring, “you love another.” She named Valérie, and reminded him of the evening at the Josserands when he devoured her with his eyes. Then, as he declared that Valérie was nothing to him, she retorted, with another laugh, that she knew that very well, and had been only teasing him. Only, there was another, and this time she named Madame Hédouin, laughing more than ever, and amused at his protestations, which were very energetic. Who, then? Was it Marie Pichon? Ah! he could not deny that one. Yet he did do so, but she shook her head. She assured him that her little finger never told stories. And to draw each of these women’s names from her, he was obliged to redouble his caresses.
But she had not named Berthe. He was loosening his hold of her, when she resumed:
“Now, there’s the last one.”
“What last one?” inquired he, anxiously.
Screwing up her mouth, she again obstinately refused to say anything more, so long as he had not opened her lips with a kiss.
He continued to hold her reclining in his arms. She languishingly alluded to the cruel being who had deserted her after having only been married a week. A miserable woman like her knew too much of the tempests of the heart! For a longtime past she had guessed what she styled Octave’s “little games;” for not a kiss could be exchanged in the house without her hearing it. And, in the depths of the wide sofa, they had quite a cozy little chat, interrupted now and then with all sorts of delightful caresses.
When Octave left her he felt more at ease. She had restored his good humor, and she amused him with her complicated principles of virtue. Down-stairs, directly he entered the warehouse, he reassured Berthe with a sign, as her eyes questioned him with reference to the bonnet. Then all the terrible adventure of the morning was forgotten. When Auguste returned, a little before lunch-time, he found them both looking the same as usual, Berthe very much bored at the pay-desk, and Octave gallantly measuring off some silk for a lady.
But, after that day, the lovers’ private meetings became rarer still. As a practical fellow, he ended by thinking it stupid to be always paying, when she, on her side, only gave him her foot under the table. Paris had decidedly brought him ill-luck; at first, repulses, and then this silly passion, which was fast emptying his purse. He could certainly not be accused of succeeding through women. He now found a certain honor in it by way of consolation, in his secret rage at the failure of his plan so clumsily carried out up till then.
Yet Auguste was not much in their way. Ever since the bad turn affairs had taken at Lyons, he had suffered more than ever with his headaches. On the first of the month, Berthe had experienced a sudden joy on seeing him, in the evening, place three hundred francs under the bed-room timepiece for her dress; and, in spite of the reduction on the amount which she had demanded, as she had given up all hope of ever seeing a sou of it, she threw herself into his arms, all warm with gratitude. On this occasion the husband had a night of hugging such as the lover never experienced.