“Olivier! Olivier, I beg you not to make her pose for you!”
“But why?” he murmured, disturbed.
“Why? Why?” she said precipitately. “He asks it! You do not feel it, then yourself? Why? Oh, I should have guessed it sooner myself, but I only discovered it this moment. I cannot tell you anything now. Go and find my daughter. Tell her that I am ill; fetch a cab, and come to see me in an hour. I will receive you alone.”
“But, really, what is the matter with you?”
She seemed on the verge of hysterics.
“Leave me! I cannot speak here. Get my daughter and call a cab.”
He had to obey and reentered the studio. Annette, unsuspicious, had resumed her reading, her heart overflowing with sadness by the poetic and lamentable story.
“Your mother is indisposed,” said Olivier. “She became very ill when she went into the other room. I will take some ether to her.”
He went out, ran to get a flask from his room and returned.
He found them weeping in each other's arms. Annette, moved by “Les Pauvres Gens,” allowed her feelings full sway, and the Countess was somewhat solaced by blending her grief with that sweet sorrow, in mingling her tears with those of her daughter.