“Amuse yourself well, and do not catch cold on coming out.” On the morrow, Octave had an idea: it was to become acquainted with Madame Pichon, by rendering her a few neighbourly services; in this way, if she ever caught Valeric, she would keep her eyes shut. And an opportunity occurred that very day. Madame Pichon was in the habit of taking Lilitte, then eighteen months old, out in a little basket-work perambulator, which raised Monsieur Gourd’s ire; the doorkeeper would never permit it to be carried up the principal staircase, so that she had to take it up the servants’; and as the door of her apartment was too narrow, she had to remove the wheels every time, which was quite a job. It so happened that that day Octave was returning home, just as his neighbour, incommoded by her gloves, was giving herself a great deal of trouble to get the nuts off. When she felt him standing up behind her, waiting till the passage was clear, she quite lost her head, and her hands trembled.
“But, madame, why do you take all that trouble?” asked he at length. “It would be far simpler to put the perambulator at the end of the passage, behind my door.”
She did not reply, her excessive timidity kept her squatting there, without strength to rise; and, beneath the curtain of her bonnet, he beheld a hot blush invade the nape of her neck and her ears. Then he insisted:
“I assure you, madame, it will not inconvenience me in the least.”
Without waiting, he lifted up the perambulator and carried it in his easy way. She was obliged to follow him; but she remained so confused, so frightened by this important adventure in her uneventful every-day life, that she looked on, only able to stutter fragments of sentences.
“Dear me! sir, it is too much trouble—I feel quite ashamed—you will find it very awkward. My husband will be very pleased—”
And she entered her room and locked herself in, this time hermetically, with a sort of shame. Octave thought that she was stupid. The perambulator was a great deal in his way for it prevented him opening his door wide, and he had to slip into his room sideways. But his neighbour seemed to be won over, more especially as Monsieur Gourd consented to authorize the obstruction at that end of the passage, thanks to Campardon’s influence.
Every Sunday, Marie’s parents, Monsieur and Madame Vuillaume, came to spend the day. On the Sunday following, as Octave was going out, he beheld all the family seated taking their coffee, and he was discreetly hastening by, when the young woman, whispering quickly in her husband’s ear, the latter jumped up, saying:
“Excuse me, sir, I am always out, I have not yet had an opportunity of thanking you. But I wish to tell you how pleased I was—”
Octave protested. At length he was obliged to give in. Though he had already had his coffee, they made him accept another cup. They gave him the place of honour, between Monsieur and Madame Vuillaume. Opposite to him, on the other side of the round table, Marie was again thrown into one of those confused conditions which at any minute, without apparent cause, brought all the blood from her heart to her face. He watched her, never having seen her at his ease. But, as Trublot said, she was not his fancy: she seemed to him wretched and washed out, with her flat face and her thin hair, though her features were refined and pretty. When she recovered herself a little, she laughed lightly as she again talked of the perambulator, about which she found a great deal to say.