“Thank you, Monsieur Jean.”
This strange situation lasted three weeks. One night, when no sound broke the stillness of the house, Flore, who chanced to wake up, heard the regular breathing of human lungs outside her door, and was frightened to discover Jean-Jacques, crouched like a dog on the landing.
“He loves me,” she thought; “but he will get the rheumatism if he keeps up that sort of thing.”
The next day Flore looked at her master with a certain expression. This mute almost instinctive love had touched her; she no longer thought the poor ninny so ugly, though his forehead was crowned with pimples resembling ulcers, the signs of a vitiated blood.
“You don’t want to go back and live in the fields, do you?” said Jean-Jacques when they were alone.
“Why do you ask me that?” she said, looking at him.
“To know—” replied Rouget, turning the color of a boiled lobster.
“Do you wish to send me back?” she asked.
“No, mademoiselle.”
“Well, what is it you want to know? You have some reason—”