“Nothing, father! Thanks.... It is nothing.... Leave me alone, please!”
“Then you do not need me?” M. Raindal murmured in surprise.
“No, no, I assure you.... Go away.... I tell you it is nothing at all.... Just my nerves!...”
He dared not insist, for fear of exasperating her; he retired and shut the door behind him with particular care, as if he had left a sick-room.
Nerves!... Hm!... A woma excuse, a veil of sickness with which they cover up the secret of their anger. What could be the matter with Thérèse? What was it that caused her such great pain? Remorse insinuated: “If it were you! Suppose your Thursday visits, your obstinacy were the cause of it!” M. Raindal resolved to probe this to the very bottom, to question Thérèse the very next morning.
But the next day passed without his following up his intention. She was not thinking about it any more. Why should he torment the poor child with questions? Again, it was possible that she had told him the truth. It might have been nerves, after all.
CHAPTER X
NERVES, that sort of “nerves” had been the trouble with Mlle. Raindal for a whole week, as they were each year at the coming of the new season.
When, one evening, a gust of warm breeze swept through the icy air, the breath of advancing spring, her customary seriousness turned to melancholy; and she waited for the inevitable trial of which this perverse breath was the herald.
The universal magic which at that time threw all human beings into confusion always struck her with special vigor. Neither her learning, her reason nor her virile will-power could protect her. She fell a languid prey to aimless fancies, which because of this very confusion, allowed full play to the dreams of a chastity suddenly in revolt. She passed from the most childish transports of tenderness to the most fanciful flights of imagination. Tears of emotion came to her eyes; sometimes she burst into sobs; the perfume of a flower, the tunes of the street-organ below, or a beggar singing an old-fashioned romance in the street caused her heart to be overfilled with sadness and gave her an instinctive desire to lean her head on some robust shoulder.