He beset her furiously, to make her keep silent, then he lay disabused, weary, happy that it was over. When they lay down again she put her arm about his neck and ran her tongue around in his mouth like an auger, but he paid little heed to caresses and remained feeble and pathetic. Then she bent over, reached him, and he groaned.
"Ah!" she exclaimed suddenly, rising, "at last I have heard you cry!"
He lay, broken in body and spirit, incapable of thinking two thoughts in sequence. His brain seemed to whir, undone, in his skull.
He collected himself, however, rose and went into the other room to dress and let her do the same.
Through the drawn portière separating the two rooms he saw a little pinhole of light which came from the wax candle placed on the mantel opposite the curtain. Hyacinthe, going back and forth, would momentarily intercept this light, then it would flash out again.
"Ah," she said, "my poor darling, you have a child."
"The shot struck home," said he to himself, and aloud, "Yes, a little girl."
"How old?"
"She will soon be six," and he described her as flaxen-haired, lively, but in very frail health, requiring multiple precautions and constant care.
"You must have very sad evenings," said Mme. Chantelouve, in a voice of emotion, from behind the curtain.