He began to laugh unconcernedly, as he replied: “Oh. I am very well, very well. Your fears were entirely without foundation.”
She raised her eyes, pausing in her work, and fixed her gaze upon him, a gaze full of doubt and entreaty.
“It is true,” said he.
“So much the better,” she replied, with a smile that was slightly forced.
He sat down, and for the first time in that house he was seized with irresistible uneasiness, a sort of paralysis of ideas, still greater than that which had seized him that day as he sat before his canvas.
“You may go on, my child; it will not annoy him,” said the Countess to her daughter.
“What was she doing?”
“She was studying a fantaisie.”
Annette rose to go to the piano. He followed her with his eyes, unconsciously, as he always did, finding her pretty. Then he felt the mother's eye upon him, and turned his head abruptly, as if he were seeking something in the shadowy corner of the drawing-room.
The Countess took from her work-table a little gold case that he had given her, opened it, and offered him some cigarettes.