M. Masseron began to laugh:
“Come, Captain Belval, we mustn’t exaggerate things. If any enemies remain for us to fight, they must stand in great need, for the moment, of taking council with themselves. We’ll talk about this to-morrow, shall we, captain?”
He shook hands with Patrice again, bowed to Mme. Essarès and left the room.
Belval had at first made a discreet movement to go out with him. He stopped at the door and walked back again. Mme. Essarès, who seemed not to hear him, sat motionless, bent in two, with her head turned away from him.
“Coralie,” he said.
She did not reply; and he uttered her name a second time, hoping that again she might not answer, for her silence suddenly appeared to him to be the one thing in the world for him to desire. That silence no longer implied either constraint or rebellion. Coralie accepted the fact that he was there, by her side, as a helpful friend. And Patrice no longer thought of all the problems that harassed him, nor of the murders that had mounted up, one after another, around them, nor of the dangers that might still encompass them. He thought only of Coralie’s yielding gentleness.
“Don’t answer, Coralie, don’t say a word. It is for me to speak. I must tell you what you do not know, the reasons that made you wish to keep me out of this house . . . out of this house and out of your very life.”
He put his hand on the back of the chair in which she was sitting; and his hand just touched Coralie’s hair.
“Coralie, you imagine that it is the shame of your life here that keeps you away from me. You blush at having been that man’s wife; and this makes you feel troubled and anxious, as though you yourself had been guilty. But why should you? It was not your fault. Surely you know that I can guess the misery and hatred that must have passed between you and him and the constraint that was brought to bear upon you, by some machination, in order to force your consent to the marriage! No, Coralie, there is something else; and I will tell you what it is. There is something else. . . .”
He was bending over her still more. He saw her beautiful profile lit up by the blazing logs and, speaking with increasing fervor and adopting the familiar tu and toi which, in his mouth, retained a note of affectionate respect, he cried: