"Do you want to?... You're driving me crazy."
The climb up the slope of the Beaux-Monts calmed their nerves. The carriage, which had come round by the circular road, was waiting for them at the top. They stood for a little while looking at the mist-grey distances.
They drove back by the Soissons road; they looked at nothing now and, since it had grown cool, they drew closer together and sat with clasped hands.
Leonor was thinking of the curious chances that had transported him, in a day or two, from Barnavast into the forest of Compiègne and had changed his profession from architecture to love. In spite of the fact that it seemed absurd and almost indelicate, he began, sitting in this carriage with his mistress's hand in his, to think of his walk with Rose.
"Rose is the cause of it all. It is she who brought me here, not you, poor darling, who sit dreaming at my side. It is she who made me hungry for the kisses I reserve for you?? kisses that any other woman might have received in your place.... Yes, squeeze my hand, you may do it, for I really think I love you. I love you more than chance, I love you more than the woman I was looking for, because you are the woman I found. Besides, the perfume of your soul will make sweet your own pleasure without thinking at all of mine. In love, egotism is a homage; it is also a sign of confidence."
The moment came. Silence fell with the night. She strove to hide her shyness under an impudent smile.
"Must I be a statue to please you? Am I a statue?"
"Your beauty would enchant me," he said, "even if it were not you. Statue, are you made of marble?"
"You know I'm not."
She called to mind, though the moment seemed most inapposite, her husband's pudicity, his discreet entries into the conjugal chamber, the timidity of his caresses, the decency of his words, and the sudden savagery after his almost brotherly conversation. M. de la Mesangerie had explained to her that the final formality was necessary for the procreation of children. "God," he added, "has so ordered it, and we must bless his divine providence." He seemed to regret the obligation of going so far and, whether through natural or acquired foolishness, or whether through hypocrisy, he encouraged his wife to believe that sensual pleasures were contemptible. "They are," he even said, "a means and not an end." Following these principles, he had deprived her of them as soon as her first child seemed imminent. M. de la Mesangerie was very pious and prided himself on the possession of a most enlightened and methodical religion.