A house like all the others, a carriage door, a vaulted passage—and behold, you were in a great garden, where the brilliance and scent of exotic flowers burst from among the palm-trees, more intoxicating to their senses than the familiar scents and colours of the copse at Robinvast. Within the high walls of this strange oasis, the air hung motionless, heavy and feverish. The flowers breathed forth an almost carnal odour.
"What a place to make love in," thought M. Hervart.
He forgot all about Rose; his imagination called up the thought of Gratienne and her voluptuousness. He shut out the sun, lit up the place with dim far away lamps, spread scarlet cushions on the grass where a magnolia had let fall one of its fabulous flowers, and on them fancied his mistress.... He knelt beside her, bent over her beauty, covering it with kisses and adoration.
"This garden's making me mad," said M. Hervart aloud. The dream was scattered.
"Here's the tower," said Rose. "Let's go up. It will be cool on top."
She too was breathing heavily, but from uneasiness, not from passion. It was cool within the tower. In a few moments Rose, now freed from her sense of sense of oppression, was at the top. She had quite well realised that M. Hervart, absorbed in some dream of his own, had been far away from her all the last part of their walk. Rose was annoyed, and the appearance of M. Hervart, rather red in the face and with eyes that were still wild, was not calculated to calm her. She felt jealous and would have liked to destroy the object of his thought.
M. Hervart noticed the little movement of irritation, which Rose had been unable to repress, and he was pleased. He would have liked to be alone.
He went and and leaned on the balustrade and, without speaking, looked far out over the blue sea. Seeing him once more absorbed by something which was not herself, Rose was torn by another pang of jealousy; but this time she knew her rival. Women have no doubts about one another, which is what always ensures them the victory, but Rose now pitted herself against the charm of the infinite sea. She took up her position, very close to M. Hervart, shoulder to shoulder with him.
M. Hervart looked at Rose and stopped looking at the sea.
His eyes were melancholy at having seen the ironic flight of desire. Rose's were full of smiles.