This commonplace idea occupied him for a while. Every joy is transient, and when it has passed one finds oneself numb and neutral once again.
"Neutral, or below neutral? A woman of this temperament? I can still tame her? Yes, but what will happen ten years hence, when she is thirty? Ah, well, till then...!"
M. Des Boys carried off Encoignard into his study. Left alone, Rose and M. Hervart had soon vanished behind the trees and shrubberies, had soon crossed the stream. They almost ran.
"Here we are at home," said Rose and, very calmly, she offered her lips to M. Hervart.
"She's positively conjugal already," thought M. Hervart.
Nevertheless, this kiss disturbed his equanimity—the more so since Rose, in gratitude no doubt to M. Hervart for his defence of her old garden, kept her mouth a long time pressed to his. She was growing breathless and her breasts rose under her thin white blouse. M. Hervart was tempted to touch them. He made bold, and his gesture was received without indignation. They looked at one another anxious to speak but finding no words. Their mouths came together once more. M. Hervart pressed Rose's breast, and a small hand squeezed his other hand. It was a perilous moment. Realising this, M. Hervart tried to put an end to the contact. But the little hand squeezed his own more tightly and in a convulsive movement her knee came into contact with his leg. The tension was broken. Their hands were loosened, they drew away from one another, and for the first time after a kiss, Rose shut her eyes.
M. Hervart felt a pain in the back of his neck.
He began thinking of that season of Platonic love he had once passed at Versailles with a virtuous woman, and he was frightened; for that passion of light kisses and hand-pressures had undermined him as more violent excesses had never done.
"What will become of me?" he thought. "This is a case of acute Platonism, marked by the most decisive symptoms. All or nothing! Otherwise I am a dead man."
He looked at Rose, meaning to put on a chilly expression; but those eyes of her looked back at him so sweetly!