HISTORY OF THE PORTRAIT CHAMBER
"It is a tragic and rather strange story...." She stopped, seeming to summon her memory. Then:
"No, I should indeed prefer not to tell you it."
"Oh! please," urged Entragues, like a child who opens two wide, curious eyes.
"No, sometime later, perhaps. If you had asked it down there, before those verses, before a coincidence which I guess and which disturbs me! I cannot just now. When you learn it, you will understand, and this very reticence will seem clear to you.... It is said that it has never lied.... Well, listen: 'The Château de Rabodange at one time was the hereditary domain....' It is too much for me.... Childishness? Don't say that!"
"But I said nothing. The emotion I see you in does not suggest such words to me. Let us forget the story...."
"Well," replied Sixtine, "try to guess it. You can. I give you permission. Perhaps you will tell it to me. Let us talk no more of it and please go. I get up early and I must sleep. You see that I treat you like a friend."
She had such a nervous air that Hubert asked for nothing better than to obey her, not wishing to spoil his evening by the blunder of a reserve which henceforth might be necessary before the woman who no longer seemed mistress of herself. It was the moment for retreat or the moment for a bold stroke. He pursued the first course, the second not having entered his mind. When it was a matter of other persons, or when he reflected at leisure on his own sentimental adventures, Entragues possessed a remarkable lucidity of mind; before the cause itself—the cause in person, throbbing and eloquent—he was confused, like a school-boy, and obeyed, unaware of his stupidity, those false insinuations of women who ask for a violet so as to get a rose. He therefore made ready to leave, saying:
"I would not wish to oppose such good habits."
"Is it not written," she responded in the same light tone, "'flee all occasions of sinning?'"