Thérèse would laugh. “Who cares, you are always so worried. She is at her counter and won’t leave. She is too afraid of being robbed. Besides, you can hide.”
Laurent’s passion had not yet stifled his native peasant caution, but soon he grew used to the risks of these meetings, only a few yards from the old woman.
One day, fearing her niece was ill, Madame Raquin climbed the stairs. Thérèse never bothered to bolt the bedroom door.
At the sound of the woman’s heavy step on the wooden stairs, Laurent became frantic. Thérèse laughed as she saw him searching for his waistcoat and hat. She grabbed his arm and pushed him down at the foot of the bed. With perfect self-possession she whispered:
“Stay there. Don’t move.”
She threw all his clothes that were lying about over him and covered them with a white petticoat she had taken off. Without losing her calm, she lay down, half-naked, with her hair loose.
When Madame Raquin quietly opened the door and tiptoed to the bed the younger woman pretended to be asleep. Laurent, under all the clothes was in a panic.
“Thérèse,” asked the old lady with some concern, “are you all right, my dear?”
Thérèse, opening her eyes and yawning, answered that she had a terrible migraine. She begged her aunt to let her sleep some more. The old lady left the room as quietly as she had entered it.
“So you see,” Thérèse said triumphantly, “there is no reason to worry. These people are not in love. They are blind.”