"You can come in," said the shopman. "They are at table."
But she motioned him to be silent, and drew him into a corner. Then, lowering her voice, she said: "It's you I want to speak to. Have you no heart? Can't you see that Geneviève loves you, and that it's killing her."
She was trembling, her fever of the previous night had taken possession of her again. He, frightened and surprised by this sudden attack, stood looking at her, without a word.
"Do you hear?" she continued. "Geneviève knows you love another. She told me so. She wept like a child. Ah, poor girl! she isn't very strong now, I can tell you! If you had seen her thin arms! It's heart-breaking. You can't leave her to die like this!"
At last he spoke, quite overcome. "But she isn't ill—you exaggerate! I don't see anything myself. Besides, it's her father who is postponing the marriage."
Denise sharply corrected this falsehood, certain as she was that the least insistence on the young man's part would have decided her uncle. As for Colomban's surprise, however, it was not feigned; he had really never noticed Geneviève's slow agony. For him it was a very disagreeable revelation; for while he remained ignorant of it, he had no great blame to tax himself with.
"And who for indeed?" resumed Denise. "For an utterly worthless girl! You can't know whom you are loving! So far I have not wished to hurt your feelings, I have often avoided answering your continual questions. Well! she goes about with everybody, she laughs at you, and will never marry you."
He listened to her, turning very pale; and at each of the sentences she threw in his face, his lips quivered. She, in a cruel fit, yielded to a transport of anger of which she had no consciousness. "In short," she said, in a final cry, "she's Monsieur Mouret's mistress if you want to know!"
As she spoke her voice died away in her throat and she turned even paler than Colomban himself. Both stood looking at each other. Then he stammered out: "I love her!"
Denise felt ashamed of herself. Why was she talking in this fashion to this young fellow? Why was she getting so excited? She stood there mute, the simple reply which he had just given her resounded in her heart like the distant but deafening clang of a bell. "I love her, I love her!" and it seemed to spread. He was right, he could not marry another woman.