“Did he seem to have suffered much?”
Laurent could not answer. He made a terrified gesture as if to put aside some hideous vision, and rising went towards the bed. Then, returning violently with open arms, he advanced towards Thérèse.
“Kiss me,” said he, extending his neck.
Thérèse had risen, looking quite pale in her nightdress, and stood half thrown back, with her elbow resting on the marble mantelpiece. She gazed at the neck of her husband. On the white skin she had just caught sight of a pink spot. The rush of blood to the head, increased the size of this spot, turning it bright red.
“Kiss me, kiss me,” repeated Laurent, his face and neck scarlet.
The young woman threw her head further back, to avoid an embrace, and pressing the tip of her finger on the bite Camille had given her husband, addressed him thus:
“What have you here? I never noticed this wound before.”
It seemed to Laurent as if the finger of Thérèse was boring a hole in his throat. At the contact of this finger, he suddenly started backward, uttering a suppressed cry of pain.
“That,” he stammered, “that——”
He hesitated, but he could not lie, and in spite of himself, he told the truth.