But he sat down, feeling very comfortable there.
“What! going to bed already!” resumed the young woman. “You don’t often keep such good hours. Have you something to see to, then, early to-morrow?”
“No,” answered he. “I feel sleepy, that is all. Oh! I can very well stay another ten minutes or so.”
He just then thought of Berthe. She would not be coming up till half-past twelve: he had plenty of time. And this thought, the hope of having her with him for a whole night, which had been consuming him for weeks past, no longer had the same effect on him. The fever of the day, the torment of his desire counting the minutes, evoking the continual image of approaching bliss, gave way beneath the fatigue of waiting.
“Will you have another small glass of brandy?” asked Marie.
“Well! yes, I don’t mind.”
He thought that it would set him up a bit. When she had taken the glass from him, he caught hold of her hands, and held them in his, whilst she smiled, without the least alarm. He thought her charming, with her paleness of a woman who had recently gone through a deal of suffering. All the hidden tenderness with which he felt himself again invaded, ascended with sudden violence to his throat, and to his lips. He had one evening restored her to her husband, after placing a father’s kiss upon her brow, and now he felt a necessity to take her back again, an acute and immediate longing, in which all desire for Berthe vanished, like something too distant to dwell upon.
“You are not afraid, then, to-day?” asked he, squeezing her hands tighter.
“No, since it has now become impossible. Oh! we shall always be good friends!”
And she gave him to understand that she knew everything. Saturnin must have spoken. Moreover, she always noticed when Octave received a certain person in his room. As he turned pale with anxiety, she hastened to ease his mind: she would never say a word to any one, she was not angry, on the contrary she wished him much happiness.