She accepted with transports of joy these tributes of adoration to the woman whom she could no longer claim to be. Frederick, becoming intoxicated with his own words, came to believe himself in the reality of what he said. Madame Arnoux, with her back turned to the light of the lamp, stooped towards him. He felt the caress of her breath on his forehead, and the undefined touch of her entire body through the garments that kept them apart. Their hands were clasped; the tip of her boot peeped out from beneath her gown, and he said to her, as if ready to faint:
"The sight of your foot makes me lose my self-possession."
An impulse of modesty made her rise. Then, without any further movement, she said, with the strange intonation of a somnambulist:
"At my age!—he—Frederick! Ah! no woman has ever been loved as I have been. No! Where is the use in being young? What do I care about them, indeed? I despise them—all those women who come here!"
"Oh! very few women come to this place," he returned, in a complaisant fashion.
Her face brightened up, and then she asked him whether he meant to be married.
He swore that he never would.
"Are you perfectly sure? Why should you not?"
"'Tis on your account!" said Frederick, clasping her in his arms.
She remained thus pressed to his heart, with her head thrown back, her lips parted, and her eyes raised. Suddenly she pushed him away from her with a look of despair, and when he implored of her to say something to him in reply, she bent forward and whispered: