She leaned tenderly on his arm. She laughed and said to him: "I am intoxicated, my friend, I am quite intoxicated." He looked at her, his heart going patty-patty. He felt himself grow pale, fearful that he had not looked too boldly at her, and that the trembling of his hand had not revealed his passion.
She had decked her head with wild flowers and water-lilies, and she had asked him: "Do you not like to see me appear thus?"
As he did not answer—for he could find nothing to say, he should rather have gone down on his knees—she burst out laughing, a sort of discontented laughter, which she threw straight in his face, saying: "Great goose, what ails you? You might at least speak!"
He felt like crying, and could not even yet find a word to say.
All these things came back to him now, as vividly as on the day when they took place. Why had she said this to him, "Great goose. What ails you! You might at least speak!"
And he recalled how tenderly she had leaned on his arm. And in passing under a shady tree he had felt her ear leaning against his cheek, and he had tilted his head abruptly, for fear that she had not meant to bring their flesh into contact.
When he had said to her: "Is it not time to return?" she darted at him a singular look. "Certainly," she said, "certainly," regarding him at the same time in a curious manner. He had not thought of anything then; and now the whole thing appeared to him quite plain.
"Just as you like, my friend. If you are tired let us go back."
And he had answered: "It is not that I am fatigued; but Saudres has perhaps woke up now."
And she had said: "If you are afraid of my husband's being awake, that is another thing. Let us return."