“And how about Emilie; has she been asleep too?” he asked good-humouredly.
“No,” she answered. “I have not been asleep, only dozing a little. Will you stay at home to tea? Yes, that will be sociable.”
And she looked at him with a kindly expression in her honest eyes; she felt a sort of motherly affection for that younger brother, whom she had brought up and petted from his childhood, and who had now returned to her fostering care after a two months’ absence abroad. She was glad that he was looking so well, he had even grown stouter, and with pride she remarked that a more manly expression lay over his delicate features, or was it her fancy, because she had not seen him for some time?
Georges sat down beside her, and they conversed about things in general. She knew him well, she thought, and she felt sure that he was about to ask her some favour. Inwardly she was glad that he needed her, but still she could not resist the temptation to leave him to shift for himself entirely, without helping him to come to the point. He hesitated a great deal, and when from her assumed indifference he judged that it was not the right moment to speak, he seemed of a sudden determined to postpone what he had to say, and in a firmer voice began talking about something else. Then she felt sorry, and said but little in reply, whilst she tried to think of some means to lead him back to his original intention. But she could find no pretext whatever, and so she cut the matter short at once by straightway asking him—
“I say, Georges, what is it? What have you to tell me?” [[124]]
Now it was his turn to pretend indifference, and with assumed surprise he answered—
“To tell you? How do you mean?”
“Oh, I don’t know; I thought—I fancied I could see something in the ends of your moustache,” she said jokingly. “Is there nothing the matter, really? Money affairs, perhaps?”
She knew better, they were no money affairs, it was never anything to do with money affairs, for in money matters he was always so desperately precise that she could never find the slightest flaw in that quarter. And indeed he shook his head in denial, but still, though he looked at her smilingly, he got no farther; his question must indeed be an awkward one if it made such a ready talker as he hesitate.
“Oh no,” he answered. “’Tis all said in a few words, but there are times when words will not come at all; isn’t it so?”