Up above, Pauline's convalescence was progressing gradually. Although the patient was now out of danger, she still remained very feeble, worn out and exhausted by feverish attacks which astonished the doctor. As Lazare said, doctors were always being astonished. He himself was growing more irritable every hour. The sudden lassitude which had fallen upon him when the crisis was over seemed to be turning into a kind of uneasy restlessness. Now that he was no longer wrestling against death, he began to feel distressed by the close atmosphere of the apartment and the spoonfuls of physic which had to be administered at regular hours, and all the other little duties of a sick-room, which he had so enthusiastically taken upon himself at first. Pauline was able to do without him now, and he sank back into the boredom of an aimless empty existence—a boredom which kept him fidgeting from chair to chair, with his hands hanging listlessly by his side, or wandering about the room, staring hopelessly at the walls, or deep in gloomy abstraction in front of the window, looking out, but seeing nothing.
'Lazare,' Pauline said to him one day, 'you must go out. Véronique will be quite able to do everything.'
But he hotly refused. 'Couldn't she bear his presence any longer,' he asked, 'that she wanted to send him away? It would be very nice of him, wouldn't it, if he were to desert her like that before she was quite strong again?'
But he grew calm as she gently explained to him:
'You wouldn't be deserting me by just going out to get a little fresh air. Go out in the afternoon. We should be in a pretty way if you were to fall ill too.'
Then, however, she unfortunately added:
'I have seen you yawning all the morning.'
'You've seen me yawning!' he cried. 'Say at once that I have no heart! This is a nice way to thank me!'
The next morning Pauline was more diplomatic. She pretended that she was very anxious that the construction of the stockades should be proceeded with; the high winter tides were coming on, and the experimental works would be swept away if the system of defence was not completed. But Lazare no longer glowed with his early enthusiasm; he was dissatisfied with the resistance of the timbers as he had arranged them, and fresh study would be necessary. Then, too, the estimate would be exceeded, and the authorities had not yet voted a single sou. For two days Pauline tried to fan his inventive amour-propre into fresh life. She asked him if he was going to let himself be beaten by the sea, with all the neighbourhood looking on and smiling; as for the money, it would certainly be paid back, if she advanced it, as they had settled she should. By degrees Lazare then seemed to work himself up to his old pitch of enthusiasm. He made fresh designs and again called in the carpenter from Arromanches, and had long consultations with him in his own room, the door of which he left open so that he might be ready to go to Pauline at the first summons.
'Now,' said he one morning as he kissed the girl, 'the sea won't be able to break anything. I am quite sure we shall be successful. As soon as you are able to walk, you must go and see how the works are getting on.'