Gabrielle had stripped off her gloves, thrown back the fronts of her coat. Her bosom rose and fell with an abrupt irregular motion under the lace and chiffon of her blouse. More than ever was the air dead, the atmosphere suffocating. More than ever did those depraved forms and conceptions, defying expulsion by plaster and whitewash, crowd in upon and oppress her. Supernatural, moral, and physical terror, joining hands, created a very evil magic circle around her, isolating her, cutting her off from all familiar, amusing, pleasant, tender and gracious every-day matters dear to her social and domestic sense. She no longer entertained any doubt about the young man's mental condition. Shut away with him here, alone, behind closed doors, beneath black-muffled skylights, with only clay-cold fish and reptiles as witnesses, the situation began to appear alarming in the extreme. How to effect her escape? How to temporize until rescue should in some form come to her? Her circumstances were so incredible, so nightmarish in their improbability, their merciless reality, their insane logic, that her brain reeled under the strain. Wordlessly but passionately she prayed for strength, guidance, help.
"It is inconceivable, Madame, that you still hesitate," René repeated, insinuatingly.
Making a supreme effort, Gabrielle rose from her chair. She felt braver, more mistress of herself standing up. With an assumption of ease and indifference she buttoned her coat and began drawing on her long gloves.
"You are right," she replied, but without looking at him. "I no longer hesitate. You have made your meaning clear. You have also said many affecting and poetic things to me. But, as you will be the first to admit, there are certain filial obligations I am bound to discharge, and to discharge personally. My beloved mother has been my companion and my constant care for so long, that it is imperative I should go with Giovanni; and, in a few words, tell her myself of the decision we have arrived at. To commit the communication of such news to a servant, however excellent, who is also a stranger, would be both cruel and impertinent. You, who reverence motherhood so deeply, will sympathize with this mother from whom you propose to take away those dearest to her."
The sobs rose in Gabrielle's throat. But she swallowed them courageously. If she once gave way, once lost her head—well—
"Moreover," she continued, "unless I myself go, unless I myself claim her, my mother will, and rightly, refuse to part with my little Bette."
A pause followed, during which the young man appeared immersed in thought. During that pause a faint sound of footsteps seemed to reach Gabrielle's fear-quickened hearing; but whether from the common stairway, the flat underneath, or here, nearer at hand, she could not determine. She prayed with all the fervor of her spirit, while deftly, daintily smoothing out the wrinkles in the wrists of her long gloves.
"You appreciate the force of that which I say regarding my mother and my little Bette?" she asked, glancing at him.
"I do—most incontestably, I do."
The answer came so spontaneously and in so perfectly natural a tone that Gabrielle's glance steadied upon the speaker in swift inquiry and hope. Had the cloud lifted, leaving his mind clear, permitting an interval of lucidity, of reason and normal thought?