Without saying a word, Rose let herself fall into her lover's arms. Her drooping head revealed her neck, and M. Hervart kissed it with more passion than usual. His mouth pushed aside the collar of her dress, seeking her shoulder.
"Let us sit down," she said at last, when she had had her fill of her lover's mild caresses. And taking his head between her hands, she in her turn covered him with kisses, but mostly on the eyes and on the forehead. Desiring a more tender contact, he took the offensive, seized the exquisite head and after a slight resistance made a conquest of her lips. There was always, when they were sitting down, a little struggle before he reached this point, although she had often, when they were walking, offered him her lips frankly. On the bench it was more serious, because it was slower and because the kiss irradiated more easily throughout her body.
"No, Xavier, no!"
But she surrendered. For the first time, M. Hervart, having loosened her bodice, touched the soft flesh of her breast, fluttering with fear and passion. He kissed her violently, and when the kiss was slow in coming she provoked it, amorously. A simultaneous start put an end to their double pleasure; and there, sitting close to one another, were a pair of lovers, at once happy and ill satisfied. One of them was wondering if love had not completer pleasures to offer; and the other was saying, what a pity that one is a decent man!
At the moment M. Hervart considered himself very reserved. Later, when he had recovered his presence of mind a little more, he felt certain scruples, for he was delicate and subject to headaches as a result of indecisive pleasures. He felt proud of the at least partial domination, which he could, at scabrous moments, exercise over his nervous centres with his well-constructed, well-conditioned brain.
"Do you love your husband, little Rose?"
"Oh, yes!"
She roused herself to utter this exclamation with energy. M. Hervart felt no further indecision. Furthermore, he began almost at once to give a new direction to his thoughts. He wanted something to eat; Rose acquiesced. As she was slow in getting up he wanted to pick her up in his arms; but his arms, grown strangely weak, were unequal to the light burden. M. Hervart felt, too, that his legs were not as solid as they might have been. He would have liked to eat and at the same time to lie down in the grass. He let himself fall back on the bench.
"You look so tired," said Rose, inventing every kind of tenderness. "Stay here, I'll bring you some cakes and wine."
But he refused and they went back together.