“I came at once. Can I be of any use to you? You asked for me. Would you like me to stay?”
“No, thanks. I don't want anything. I only wanted to embrace you.”
Tears filled her eyes. Denise quickly leant over, and kissed her on both cheeks, trembling to feel on her lips the flame of those hollow cheeks. But Geneviève, stretching out her arms, seized and kept her in a desperate embrace. Then she looked towards her father.
“Would you like me to stay?” repeated Denise. “Perhaps there is something I can do for you.”
Geneviève's glance was still obstinately fixed on her father, who remained standing, with a stolid air, almost choking. He at last understood, and went away, without saying a word; and they heard his heavy footstep on the stairs.
“Tell me, is he with that woman?” asked the sick girl immediately, seizing her cousin's hand, and making her sit on the side of the bed. “I want to know, and you are the only one can tell me. They're living together, aren't they?” Denise, surprised by these questions, stammered, and was obliged to confess the truth, the rumours that were current in the shop. Clara, tired of this fellow, who was getting a nuisance to her, had already broken with him, and Colomban, desolated, was pursuing her everywhere, trying to obtain a meeting from time to time, with a sort of canine humility. They said that he was going to take a situation at the Grands Magasins du Louvre.
“If you still love him, he may return,” said Denise, to cheer the dying girl with this last hope. “Get well quick, he will acknowledge his errors, and marry you.”
Geneviève interrupted her. She had listened with all her soul, with an intense passion that raised her in the bed. But she fell back almost immediately. “No, I know it's all over! I don't say anything, because I see papa crying, and I don't wish to make mamma worse than she is. But I am going, Denise, and if I called for you last night it was for fear of going off before the morning. And to think that he is not happy after all!”
And Denise having remonstrated, assuring her that she was not so bad as all that, she cut her short again, suddenly throwing off the bed-clothes with the chaste gesture of a virgin who has nothing to conceal in death. Naked to the waist, she murmured: “Look at me! Is it possible?”
Trembling, Denise quitted the side of the bed, as if she feared to destroy this fearful nudity with a breath. It was the last of the flesh, a bride's body used up by waiting, returned to the first infantile slimness of her young days. Geneviève slowly covered herself up again, saying: “You see I am no longer a woman. It would be wrong to wish for him still!” There was a silence. Both continued to look at each other, unable to find a word to say. It was Geneviève who resumed: “Come, don't stay any longer, you have your own affairs to look after. And thanks, I was tormented by the wish to know, and am now satisfied. If you see him, tell him I forgive him. Adieu, dear Denise. Kiss me once more, for it's the last time.” The young girl kissed her, protesting: “No, no, don't despair, all you want is loving care, nothing more.” But the sick girl, shaking her head in an obstinate way, smiled, quite sure of what she said. And as her cousin was making for the door, she exclaimed: “Wait a minute, knock with this stick, so that papa may come up. I'm afraid to stay alone.”