'Won't you come, just for a minute?'
Pauline then seemed to hesitate in her turn, and finally murmured:
'I'm afraid she mightn't be pleased if I did.'
And so, after a moment of silent embarrassment, Lazare went upstairs by himself, without saying another word.
When Lazare, for fear lest his father should be disquieted by his absence, appeared again at luncheon, he was very pale. From time to time during the day a ring of the bell summoned Véronique, who ran up with platefuls of soup, which the patient could scarcely be induced to taste; and when she came downstairs again she told Pauline that the poor young man was growing perfectly distracted. It was heart-breaking, she said, to see him shivering with fever by his mother's bedside, wringing his hands and with his face racked by grief, as though he every moment feared that he should see her torn from him. About three o'clock, as the servant came downstairs once more, she leant over the balustrade and called to Pauline; and as the girl reached the first-floor landing she said to her:
'You ought to go in, Mademoiselle, and help him a little. So much the worse if it displeases her. She wants Monsieur Lazare to turn her round, and he can only groan, without daring to touch her. And she won't let me go near her!'
Pauline entered the room. Madame Chanteau lay back, propped up by three pillows, and, as far as mere appearances went, if it had not been for the quick, distressful breathing which set her shoulders heaving, she might have been keeping her bed from sheer idleness. Lazare stood before her, stammering:
'It's on your right side, then, that you want me to turn you?'
'Yes; just turn me a little. Ah! my poor boy, how difficult it seems to make you understand!'
But Pauline had already taken hold gently of her aunt and turned her, saying: