But Cora, did not reply at first; after hesitating for a moment she said: "It was nothing much; a little sickness of the stomach was all." She walked with a languid step, but with a smile on her lips.
Lesable was ill at ease, his mind distracted; haunted with confused and contradictory ideas, angry, feeling an unavowable shame, cherishing a cowardly jealousy, he was like those sleepers who close their eyes in the morning that they may not see the ray of light which glides between the curtains and strikes the bed like a brilliant shaft.
As soon as he entered the house, he shut himself in his own room, pretending to be occupied with some unfinished work. Then Cachelin, placing his hands on his daughter's shoulders, exclaimed: "You are pregnant, aren't you?"
She stammered: "Yes, I think so. Two months."
Before she had finished speaking, he bounded with joy, then began to dance the cancan around her, an old recollection of his garrison days. He lifted his leg and leaped like a young kid in spite of his great paunch, and made the whole apartment shake with his gambols. The furniture jostled, the glasses on the buffet rattled, and the chandelier oscillated like the lamp of a ship.
He took his beloved daughter in his arms and embraced her frantically. Then tapping her lightly on the shoulder he cried: "Ah, it is done, then, at last! Have you told your husband?"
She murmured, suddenly intimidated: "No,—not yet—I—I—was waiting—"
But Cachelin exclaimed: "Good, very good. You find it awkward. I will run and tell him myself." And he rushed to the apartment of his son-in-law. On seeing him enter, Lesable, who was doing nothing, rose and looked inquiringly at Cachelin, who left him no time for conjecture, but cried: "Do you know your wife is in the family way?"
The husband was stricken speechless, his countenance changed, and the blood surged to the roots of his hair: "What? How? Cora? you say—" he faltered when he recovered his voice.
"I say that she is pregnant; do you understand? Now is our chance!"