He replied: "If that is the familiar tone you take, I will follow your
example, and tell you, darling, that I adore you more and more every
moment, and that I find Rouen a very long way off."
He spoke now with a theatrical intonation and with a series of changes
of facial expression, which amused his companion, accustomed to the ways
of literary Bohemia. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye,
finding him really charming, and experiencing the longing we have to
pluck a fruit from the tree at once, and the check of reason which
advises us to wait till dinner to eat it at the proper time. Then she
observed, blushing somewhat at the thoughts which assailed her: "My dear
little pupil, trust my experience, my great experience. Kisses in a
railway train are not worth anything. They only upset one." Then she
blushed still more as she murmured: "One should never eat one's corn in
the ear."
He chuckled, kindling at the double meanings from her pretty mouth, and
made the sign of the cross, with a movement of the lips, as though
murmuring a prayer, adding aloud: "I have placed myself under the
protection of St. Anthony, patron-saint of temptations. Now I am
adamant."
Night was stealing gently on, wrapping in its transparent shadow, like a
fine gauze, the broad landscape stretching away to the right. The train
was running along the Seine, and the young couple began to watch the
crimson reflections on the surface of the river, winding like a broad
strip of polished metal alongside the line, patches fallen from the sky,
which the departing sun had kindled into flame. These reflections slowly
died out, grew deeper, faded sadly. The landscape became dark with that
sinister thrill, that deathlike quiver, which each twilight causes to
pass over the earth. This evening gloom, entering the open window,
penetrated the two souls, but lately so lively, of the now silent pair.
They had drawn more closely together to watch the dying day. At Nantes
the railway people had lit the little oil lamp, which shed its yellow,
trembling light upon the drab cloth of the cushions. Duroy passed his
arms round the waist of his wife, and clasped her to him. His recent
keen desire had become a softened one, a longing for consoling little
caresses, such as we lull children with.