Lucien stood looking straight before him out of the window. Pauline still held his hand. She waited for him to speak, and when he did not, she shook his hand.
"Do you hear what I say?"
"Yes" and then?"
"Then, Lucien, I should have no rival. You would be mine. If not, if you turned from me for what I had done—God! That would be awful, but I would never forgive, never. I would speak again. I would tell them many things. Nothing should stop me. You should die too. That is how I love. Lucien, Lucien, never make me jealous like that."
She kissed his hand passionately, then held it close to her breast. He could feel her heart beat quickly with her excitement.
"That would put an end to all my scheming, wouldn't it?" he said, drawing her back and closing the window. "Perhaps Latour would thank you."
"I wasn't thinking of Latour," and she clung to him and kissed him on the lips.
Into Lucien's complex thought Latour had come, not unnaturally, since this conversation. This exhibition of latent jealousy was the outcome of his visit. Without formulating any definite idea, he felt in a vague way that Latour's career was in some way bound up with his own. There was something in common between them, each had an interest for the other and in his concerns. Lucien did not understand why, but Latour might have found an answer to the question as he went back to the Rue Valette.
He was not sure whether Bruslart had spoken the truth, he did not much care, yet he felt a twinge of conscience. It troubled him because he had not much difficulty in salving his conscience as a rule. It was generally easy to make the ends justify the means. He had taken no notice of the swaying curtains as he left Bruslart. He never guessed that a woman stood behind them. There might have been no prick of conscience had he known of Pauline Vaison.
He entered the baker's shop in the Rue Valette. Behind the little counter, on which were a few loaves and pieces of bread, an old woman sat knitting.