At first he did not reply; a smile lurked beneath his mustache; then he murmured: "I am your slave."
She told him how she had discovered that she loved him, on learning that he was to marry Madeleine Forestier. Suddenly she ceased speaking. The carriage stopped. Du Roy opened the door.
"Where are we?" she asked.
He replied: "Alight and enter the house. We shall be undisturbed there."
"Where are we?" she repeated.
"At my rooms; they are my bachelor apartments which I have rented for a few days that we might have a corner in which to meet."
She clung to the cab, startled at the thought of a tete-a-tete, and stammered: "No, no, I do not want to."
He said firmly: "I swear to respect you. Come, you see that people are looking at us, that a crowd is gathering around us. Make haste!" And he repeated, "I swear to respect you."
She was terror-stricken and rushed into the house. She was about to ascend the stairs. He seized her arm: "It is here, on the ground floor."
When he had closed the door, he showered kisses upon her neck, her eyes, her lips; in spite of herself, she submitted to his caresses and even returned them, hiding her face and murmuring in broken accents: "I swear that I have never had a lover"; while he thought: "That is a matter of indifference to me."