"Ah! do not be pained; what does it matter if I ruin myself?" such was the translation of the poor woman's looks, the words that she uttered in a whisper.
She had not spoken falsely when putting to him the sorrowful question:
"You will at least be happy?"
And now, within a few hours of the moment when she would be entirely his, it was this hope and this uncertainty that floated above all else.
"Ah!" she thought, "if only I may see that light in his eyes! Afterwards I shall become what I may. What matter if I have given him that?"
She had reached this point in her reflections when a kiss made her start. Alfred had just come in to bid her good morning. Having gone out before eight o'clock he had not yet seen her, and finding her so pretty in the robe of soft material that showed the outline of her graceful shoulders, and bust, and the lines of her legs terminating in the white, blue-veined, naked feet in their black slippers, he could not refrain from approaching her and stealing a kiss from the sweet place on her neck, between the ear and nape. This was such a surprise to her on emerging from the universe of ideas in which she had just been absorbed, that she gave a slight scream.
"Lazy, chilly, timorous creature," said Chazel, who strove to jest in order to banish the angry expression which his caresses had just called up upon that charming face. "Do you know what o'clock it is? A quarter to twelve. You will never be ready for breakfast. What are you reading?" he continued, taking up the two volumes sent by Monsieur de Querne which were lying on the table; "more novels—but they are not cut. What have you been doing all the morning?"
"I have been settling papers and making up accounts."
How many of these little falsehoods her lips had uttered, and not one, even the slightest and most innocent of them, that did not cost her a cruel effort.
"Will you ring for Julia?" she resumed. "I am going to have my hair dressed, and I shall be ready in ten minutes."