He waited for some time, not daring to speak; he looked at them, his own heart oppressed with an incomprehensible melancholy.
“Well,” said he at last. “Are you better?”
“Yes, a little,” the Countess replied. “It was nothing. Have you ordered a carriage?”
“Yes, it will come directly.”
“Thank you, my friend—it is nothing. I have had too much grief for a long time.”
“The carriage is here,” a servant announced.
And Bertin, full of secret anguish, escorted his friend, pale and almost swooning, to the door, feeling her heart throb against his arm.
When he was alone he asked himself what was the matter with her, and why had she made this scene. And he began to seek a reason, wandering around the truth without deciding to discover it. Finally, he began to suspect. “Well,” he said to himself, “is it possible she believes that I am making love to her daughter? No, that would be too much!” And, combating with ingenious and loyal arguments that supposititious conviction, he felt indignant that she had lent for an instant to this healthy and almost paternal affection any suspicion of gallantry. He became more and more irritated against the Countess, utterly unwilling to concede that she had dared suspect him of such villainy, of an infamy so unqualifiable; and he resolved, when the time should come for him to answer her, that he would not soften the expression of his resentment.
He soon left his studio to go to her house, impatient for an explanation. All along the way he prepared, with a growing irritation, the arguments and phrases that must justify him and avenge him for such a suspicion.
He found her on her lounge, her face changed by suffering.