Their rapid intimacy did not leave off growing during the following
days. M. Des Boys never left the workmen who were making the new paths
and from moment to moment he would call his daughter or M. Hervart,
soliciting their approval.
In the afternoons they would go and look at one of the castles in the
neighbourhood.
They saw Martinvast, towers, chapel, Gothic arches, ingeniously adapted
so as to cover, without spoiling their lines, the flimsy luxury of
modern times. Tourlaville, though less old, looked more decayed under
its cloak of ivy. M. Hervart admired the great octagonal tower, the
bold lines of the inward-curving roofs. They saw Pepinbast, a thing of
lace-work and turrets, florid with trefoils and pinnacles. They saw
Chiflevast, a Janus, Gothic on one side and Louis XIV on the other.
Nacqueville is old in parts; the main block seems to be contemporary
with Richelieu; as a whole, it is imposing, a building to which each
generation has added its own life without hiding the distant origins.
Vast, which looks quite modern, occupies a pleasing site by the falls
of the Saire. It seemed more human than the others, whose hugeness and
splendour they had admired without a wish to possess. Here one could
give play to one's desire.
"All the same," said M. Hervart, "it looks too much like a big cottage."
M. Des Boys resolved to have a cascade at Robinvast. It was a pity that
he had nothing better than a stream at his disposal.
They returned by La Pernelle, from which one can see all the eastern
part of the Hague, from Gatteville to St. Marcouf, a great sheet of
emerald green, bordered, far away by a ribbon of blue sea.
They made a halt. Rose picked some heather, with which she filled M.
Hervart's arms. The eagerness of the air lit up her eyes, fired her
cheeks.
"Isn't it lovely, my country?"
A cloud hid the sun. Colour paled away from the scene; a shadow walked
across the sea, quenching its brilliance; but southward, towards the
isles of St. Marcouf, it was still bright.
"A sad thought crossing the brow of the sea," said M. Hervart. "But
look...."
Everything had suddenly lit up once again.
Rose blew kisses into space.
They had to go back towards St. Vast, where they had hired the
carriage. Thence, traveling by the little railway which follows the sea
for a space before it turns inland under the apple trees, they arrived
at Valognes.
They dined at the St. Michel hotel. M. Des Boys was bored; he had begun
to find the excursion rather too long. But there were still a lot of
fine buildings to be looked at, Fontenay, Flamanville.... However,
those didn't mean such long journeys.
"We have still got to go," said he, "to Barnavast, Richemont, the
Hermitage and Pannelier. That can be done in one afternoon."
They did not get back to Robinvast till very late. The darkness in the
carriage gave M. Hervart his opportunity; his leg came into contact
with Rose's; under pretext of steadying the bundle of heather which
Rose was balancing on her knee, their hands met for an instant.
Mme. Des Boys was waiting for them, rather anxiously. She kissed her
daughter almost frenziedly. Enervated, Rose burst out laughing, said
she wanted something to drink and, having drunk expressed a wish for
food.
"That's it," said M. Hervart. "Let's have supper."
He checked himself:
"I was only joking; I'm not in the least hungry."
But Rose found the idea amusing; she went in search of food, bringing
into the drawing-room every kind of object, down to a bottle of
sparkling cider she had discovered in a cupboard.
"Hervart's a boy of twenty-five," said M. Des Boys as he watched his
friend helping Rose in her preparations. "I shall go to bed."
"At twenty-five," said Hervart, "one doesn't know what to do with
one's life. One has all the trumps in one's hand, but one plays one's
cards haphazard, and one loses."
"Does he talk of playing now?" said M. Des Boys, who was half asleep.
Rose burst out laughing.
"Are you really going to bed?" asked Mme. Des Boys; she looked tired.
"I suppose I must stay here."
But she was soon bored. It was half past twelve. She tried to get her
daughter to come.
"Ten minutes more, mother."
"All right, I'll leave you. I shall expect you in ten minutes."
M. Hervart got up.
"I give you ten minutes. Be indulgent with the child. All this fresh
air has gone to her head."
M. Hervart felt embarrassed. A week ago such a _tête-a-tête_ would have
seemed the most innocent and perhaps, too, the most tedious of things.
"I really don't know what may happen. I must be serious, cold; I must
try and look tired and antique...."
As soon as she heard her mother's footsteps in the room above the
drawing-room, Rose came and sat down close to M. Hervart, put her hands
on the arm of his chair. He looked at her, and there was something of
madness in his eyes. He turned completely and laid his hands upon the
girl's hands. They moved, took his and pressed them, gently. Then,
without having had the time to think of what they were doing, they
woke up a second later mouth against mouth. This kiss exhausted their
emotion. With the same instinctive movement both drew back, but they
went on looking at one another.
Decidedly, she was very pretty. She, for part, found him admirable,
thinking:
"I belong to him. I have given him my lips. I am his. What will he do?
What shall I do?..."
That was just what M. Hervart was wondering--what ought he to do?
"What caresses are possible, what won't she object to? I should like
to kiss her lips again.... Her eyes? Her neck? Which of the Italian
poets was it who said: 'Kiss the arms, the neck, the breasts of your
beloved, they will not give you back your kisses. The lips alone,' But
I shall have to say something. Of course, I ought to say: 'Je vous
aime.' But I don't love her. If I did, I should have said: 'Je t'aime!'
and I should have said it without thinking, without knowing.
"Rose, I love you."
She shut her eyes, laid her head on the arm of the chair; for she was
sitting on a low stool.
It was the ear that presented itself. M. Hervart kissed her ear slowly,
savouring it, kiss by kiss, like an epicure over some choice shell-fish.
"She lets me do what I like. It's amusing...."
He kissed his way round her ear and halted next to the eye, which was
shut.
"How soft her eyelid is!"
His lips travelled down her nose and settled at the corner of her
mouth. Tickled by their touch, she smiled.
When he had thoroughly kissed the right side, she offered him the left;
then, giving her lips to him frankly, she received his kiss, returned
it with all her heart, and got up.
She smiled without any embarrassment. She was happy and very little
disturbed.
"There," she said to herself. "Now I'm married."