"It is you! Ah, my friend," she said, "I am so glad—I am so glad!"
He caught the gloved hands she stretched out to him, and held them in his, that were reddened with Jean Jacques Potier's labors, and kissed them eagerly. The little gray gloves were not buttoned—his warm lips feasted unchecked upon each blue-veined wrist, until she told him breathlessly:
"No more!—there must be no more!... Pray cease, my friend!"
She had withdrawn her hands.... He said with a catch in his breath and with eyes that implored her:
"I do not offend you?..."
She looked at him full and drew off one glove and laid the bare hand in his extended palm. Warm and soft, it seemed incredibly small as it lay there. The touch of it infused a melting sweetness; a thrill went through the man from head to foot. Perhaps the thrill was communicated, for she drew her hand away quickly. She said:
"You are very generous to one who has so often deceived you.... How many times I have condemned myself for my wickedness, thinking: 'Of all those noble deeds I have described in the letters, not one has been really performed by M. Charles Tessier.... All are invented to make a good face!'"
He said in a whisper:
"I could forgive you for making even a worse fool of me—now I know you never were married! It was your telling me that knocked me out of time.... Nothing else mattered much afterward.... You said to Monseigneur yesterday that it was to retain your place in this house you pretended to be the wife of its master. But why did you pretend it in the first place to me?"
She began to change color from pale to red, and tried to free her hand. It was impossible. He said: