Once there, she hesitated an instant. The terrace seemed to stand out distinctly, lighted up by the drawing-room windows. In the chestnut avenue she could distinguish in the shade the red gleam of cigars.
Suddenly she pulled the hood of her cloak up over her head, and evidently making up her mind, started off quickly along the dark pathway which led to the other avenue.
During this time her faithful admirers were waiting on the terrace for her to come and join them as she had promised, and the ponderous Gisèle was endeavouring vainly to organise a game at hide-and-seek. The men seemed to have no energy; Madame de Tourville was afraid of spoiling her dress; and Madame de Juzencourt was strolling about with Jean de Blaye and Madame de Nézel. Presently, however, she went back to the others alone, and Mademoiselle de la Balue wanted to persuade her to have a game, but she refused emphatically. She certainly was not going to run about, she said, considering that she was too warm already with only walking; she had just had to leave Thérèse de Nézel and Jean de Blaye, for she could not walk another step.
Left to themselves, Jean and Madame de Nézel continued strolling along, she in a natural, unaffected way, going on with the conversation they had commenced, and he absent-minded and ill-at-case.
"Why do you not reproach me?" he said at last, abruptly, not able to contain himself any longer; "why do you not say all the bad things you think about me?"
"Because I have nothing to reproach you for," she answered, very gently; "and I do not think any bad things about you."
"Well, then, you do not care about me any longer."
"I do not care about you any longer?" she said, and there was an accent of such intense grief in her voice that he was quite overcome by it.
He knew so well how deeply she loved him, that he dreaded the thought of the awful suffering she would have to endure if he were to be quite straightforward with her now, and so, out of affection for her, he endeavoured to conceal from her the real truth.
"Yes," he began, improvising with difficulty an excuse of which he had not thought until that moment, "you must have fancied that I was not thinking of you, for you have been here at The Pines a fortnight, and I have not sent you a line. The fact is, it is very difficult to arrange to meet here at Pont-sur-Loire; everyone knows me here, and, you see, for your sake, I scarcely liked to ask you to meet me in the town."