She stopped speaking. It was three in the morning. She got up to go. Christophe told her to wait until the morning before she went home, and proposed that she should go and lie down on his bed. She preferred to stay in the arm-chair by the dead fire, and went on talking quietly while all the house was still.
"You will be tired to-morrow."
"I am used to it. But what about you?… What are you doing to-morrow?"
"I am free. I have a lesson to give about eleven…. Besides, I am strong."
"All the more reason why you should sleep soundly."
"Yes; I sleep like a log. Not even pain can stand out against it. I am sometimes furious with myself for sleeping so well. So many hours wasted!… I am delighted to be able to take my revenge on sleep for once in a way, and to cheat it of a night."
They went on talking in low tones, with long intervals of silence. And Christophe went to sleep. Françoise smiled and supported his head to keep him from falling…. She sat by the window dreaming and looking down into the darkness of the garden, which presently was lit up. About seven o'clock she woke Christophe gently, and said good-by.
In the course of the month she came at times when Christophe was out, and found the door shut. Christophe sent her a key to the flat, so that she could go there when she liked. She went more than once when Christophe was away, and she would leave a little bunch of violets on the table, or a few words scribbled on a sheet of paper, or a sketch, or a caricature—just to show that she had been.
And one evening, when she left the theater, she went to the flat to resume their pleasant talk. She found him at work, and they began to talk. But at the very outset they both felt that the friendly comfortable mood of the last occasion was gone. She tried to go: but it was too late. Not that Christophe did anything to prevent her. It was her own will that failed her and would not let her go. They stayed there with the gathering consciousness of the desire that was in them.
Following on that night she disappeared for some weeks. In him there had been roused a sensual ardor that had lain dormant for months before, and he could not live without her. She had forbidden him to go to her house: he went to see her at the theater. He sat far back, and he was aflame with love and devotion: every nerve in his body thrilled: the tragic intensity which she brought to her acting consumed him also in its fire. At last he wrote to her: