“Just fancy! He beat me, beat me, beat me! And only because, ashamed of always going about in rags, I asked him for five hundred francs!”
Octave, standing up in the middle of the room, tried to find some conciliating words. She was wrong to allow it to upset her so much. Everything would come right again. And he ended by timidly offering her assistance.
“If you are worried about any bill, why not apply to your friends? I should be so pleased! Oh! simply a loan. You could return it to me some other time.”
She looked at him. After a pause, she replied:
“Never! it cannot be. What would people think, Monsieur Octave?”
Her refusal was so decided that there was no further question of money. But her anger seemed to have left her. She breathed heavily, and bathed her face; and she looked quite pale, very calm, rather wearied, with large, resolute eyes. Standing before her, he felt himself overcome by that timidity of love, which he held in such contempt. Never before had he loved so ardently; the strength of his desire communicated an awkwardness to his charms of a handsome assistant. Whilst continuing to advise a reconciliation in vague phrases, he was reasoning clearly in his own mind, asking himself if he ought not to take her in his arms; but the fear of being again repulsed made him hesitate. She, without uttering a word, continued to look at him with her decided air, her forehead contracted by a faint wrinkle.
“Really!” he stammeringly continued, “you must be patient. Your husband is not a bad fellow. If you only go the right way to work with him, he will give you whatever you ask for.”
And beneath the emptiness of these words, they both felt the same thought take possession of them. They were alone, free, safe from all surprise, with the door bolted. This security, the close warmth of the room, exercised its influence on them. Yet he did not dare; the feminine side of his nature, his womanly feeling, refined him in that moment of passion to the point of making him the woman in their encounter. Then, as though recollecting one of her former lessons, Berthe dropped her handkerchief.
“Oh! thank you,” said she to the young man, who picked it up. Their fingers touched, they were drawn closer together by that momentary contact. Now she smiled tenderly, and gave an easy suppleness to her form, as she recollected that men detest sticks. It would never do to act the simpleton, one must permit a little playfulness without seeming to do so, if one would hook one’s fish.