“If Madame would like me to read it.”
“Oh, read it, read it,” said Thérèse. And, as she always did when Balionte was in the room, turned her face to the wall. However, what Balionte managed to decipher, aroused her from her lethargy.
“I have been glad to hear from Balion’s reports that all is well at Argelouse....”
Bernard announced that he was coming back by road, but that as he expected to stop at several places on the way he could not fix the exact date of his return.
“It will certainly not be later than December 20th. Do not be surprised to see me return with Anne and young Deguilhem. They became engaged at Beaulieu, but it is not yet official; young Deguilhem is anxious to see you first. A mere question of formality, so he assures me; for my part, I have a feeling that he wants to form an opinion on you know what. I am sure you are intelligent enough to pass the test. Remember that you are ill, and that your mind is affected. Anyhow, I rely on you. Try not to damage Anne’s happiness, or compromise the happy issue of a project so satisfactory for the Family in every respect; you will not lose by it: if you fail me I should not hesitate to make you pay dearly for any attempt to wreck the scheme; but I am sure I have nothing to fear on that score.”
It was a beautiful day, clear and cold. Thérèse got up, obedient to Balionte’s injunctions, and took a turn in the garden leaning on her arm, but she found it very difficult to finish a scrap of chicken for her dinner. There were ten days left before December 20th. If Madame would consent to make an effort, it was quite long enough to get on her legs again.
“One can’t say that she doesn’t try,” said Balionte to Balion. “She does what she can. Monsieur Bernard knows how to break in a dog that won’t obey him. You know that iron collar he puts on them? Well, it didn’t take him long to make her crawl. But he’d better not be too sure of her....”
Thérèse was, in fact, making a great effort to try to give up dreaming and sleeping, and come back to life again. She forced herself to walk and eat, but especially to get her brain clear once more, and to look at men and things with the eyes of the flesh;—and just as though she were coming back to a stretch of heath which she had set on fire, treading upon the ashes and walking among the burnt and blackened pines, so she would try to speak and smile among that Family,—her family.
On the eighteenth, about three o’clock, on a cloudy but fine afternoon, Thérèse was sitting in her room in front of the fire, her head leaning against the back of the chair, and her eyes shut. She was awakened by the throbbing engines of a motor-car; she recognised Bernard’s voice in the entrance-hall and also Madame de la Trave’s. When Balionte, completely out of breath, had pushed open the door without knocking, Thérèse was already standing up before the mirror. She was putting rouge on her cheeks and lips. “I must not frighten the poor young man,” she said to herself.
But Bernard had made a mistake in not going up to see his wife at once. Young Deguilhem, who had promised his family “to keep his eyes extremely wide open,” reflected that this was, “to say the least of it, a rather significant piece of neglect.” He drew a little aside from Anne and turned up his fur collar, remarking that “it was not worth trying to warm these country drawing-rooms.” “Have you no cellar below?” he asked Bernard. “If not, your floor will always rot unless you lay down a bed of cement....”