"Very well, then, I accept."
Cachelin said on entering the house: "Cora, do you know that M. Maze
is coming here to dinner next Sunday?"
Cora, surprised at first, stammered: "M. Maze? Really!" She blushed up
to her hair without knowing why. She had so often heard him spoken of,
his manners, his successes, for he was looked upon at the office as a man
who was irresistible with women, that she had long felt a desire to know
him.
Cachelin continued rubbing his hands: "You will see that he is a real
man, and a fine fellow. He is as tall as a carbineer; he does not resemble
your husband there."
She did not reply, confused as if they had divined her dreams of him.
They prepared this dinner with as much solicitude as the one to which
Lesable had been formerly invited. Cachelin discussed the dishes, wishing
to have everything served in perfection; and as though a confidence
unavowed and still undetermined had risen up in his heart, he seemed more
gay, tranquilised by some secret and sure prevision.
Through all that Sunday he watched the preparations with the utmost
solicitude, while Lesable was doing some urgent work, brought the evening
before from the office.
It was the first week of November, and the new year was at hand.
At seven o'clock Maze arrived, in high good humour. He entered as
though he felt very much at home, with a compliment and a great bouquet
of roses for Cora. He added, as he presented them, in the familiar tone
of a man of the world: "It seems to me, Madame, I know you already, and
that I have known you from your childhood, for many years your father has
spoken to me of you."
Cachelin, seeing the flowers, cried: "Ah they are charming!" and his
daughter recalled that Lesable had not brought her a bouquet the day he
was introduced. The handsome clerk seemed enchanted, laughing and
bestowing on Cora the most delicate flatteries, which brought the colour
to her cheeks.
He found her very attractive. She thought him charming and seductive.
When he had gone, Cachelin exclaimed: "Isn't he a fine fellow? What
havoc he creates! They say he can wheedle any woman!"
Cora, less demonstrative, avowed, however, that she thought him very
agreeable, and not so much of a poseur as she had believed.
Lesable, who seemed less sad and weary than usual, acknowledged that
he had underrated Maze on his first acquaintance.
Maze returned at intervals, which gradually grew shorter. He delighted
everybody. They petted and coddled him. Cora prepared for him the dishes
he liked, and the intimacy of the three men soon became so great that they
were seldom seen apart.
The new friend took the whole family to the theatre in boxes procured
through the press. They returned on foot, through the streets thronged
with people, to the door of Lesable's apartments, Maze and Cora walking
before, keeping step, hip to hip, swinging with the same movement, the
same rhythm, like two beings created to walk side by side through life.
They spoke to each other in a low tone, laughing softly together, and
seemed to understand each other instinctively: sometimes the young
woman would turn her head and throw behind her a glance at her husband
and father.
Cachelin followed them with a look of benevolent regard, and often,
forgetting that he spoke to his son-in-law, he declared: "They have the
same physique exactly. It is a pleasure to see them together."
Lesable replied quietly: "Yes, they are about the same figure." He was
happy now in the consciousness that his heart was beating more vigorously,
that his lungs acted more freely, and that his health had improved in
every respect; his rancour against his father-in-law, whose cruel taunts
had now entirely ceased, vanished little by little.
The first day of January he was promoted to the chief clerkship. His
joy was so excessive over his happy event that on returning home he
embraced his wife for the first time in six months. She appeared
embarrassed, as if he had done something improper, and she looked at Maze,
who had called to present to her his devotion and respect on the first day
of the year. He also had an embarrassed air, and turned toward the window
like a man who does not wish to see.
But Cachelin very soon resumed his brutalities, and began to harass his
son-in-law with his coarse jests.
Sometimes he even attacked Maze, as though he blamed him also for the
catastrophe suspended over them--the inevitable date of which approached
nearer every minute.
Cora alone appeared composed, entirely happy and radiant. She had
forgotten, it seemed, the threatening nearness of the term.
March had come. AH hope seemed lost, for it would be three years on
the twentieth of July since Aunt Charlotte's death.
An early spring had advanced the vegetation, and Maze proposed to his
friends one Sunday to make an excursion to the banks of the Seine, to
gather the violets in the shady places. They set out by a morning train
and got off at Maisons-Laffitte. A breath of winter still lingered among
the bare branches, but the turf was green and lustrous, flecked with
flowers of white and blue, and the fruit-trees on the hillsides seemed
garlanded with roses as their bare branches showed through the clustering
blossoms. The Seine, thick and muddy from the late rains, flowed slowly
between its banks gnawed by the frosts of winter; and all the country,
steeped in vapour, exhaled a savour of sweet humidity under the warmth of
the first days of spring.
They wandered in the park. Cachelin, more glum than usual, tapped his
cane on the gravelled walk, thinking bitterly of their misfortune, so soon
to be irremediable Lesable, morose also, feared to wet his feet in the
grass, while his wife and Maze were gathering flowers to make a bouquet.
Cora for several days had seemed suffering, and looked weary and pale. She
was soon tired and wished to return for luncheon. They came upon a little
restaurant near an old ruined mill, and the traditional repast of a
Parisian picnic party was soon served under a green arbour, on a little
table covered with two napkins, and quite near the banks of the river.
They had fried gudgeons, roast beef cooked with potatoes, and they had
come to the salad of fresh green lettuce, when Cora rose brusquely and ran
toward the river, pressing her napkin with both hands to her mouth.
Lesable, uneasy, wondered what could be the matter. Maze disconcerted,
blushed, and stammered, "I do not know--she was well a moment since."
Cachelin appeared frightened, and remained seated, with his fork in the
air, a leaf of salad suspended at the end. Then he rose, trying to see
his daughter. Bending forward, he perceived her leaning against a tree
and seeming very ill. A swift suspicion flashed through his mind, and he
fell back into his seat and regarded with an embarrassed air the two men,
both of whom seemed now equally confused. He looked at them with anxious
eyes, no longer daring to speak, wild with anguish and hope.
A quarter of an hour passed in utter silence. Then Cora reappeared, a
little pale and walking slowly. No one questioned her; each seemed to
divine a happy event, difficult to speak of. They burned to know, but
feared also to hear, the truth. Cachelin alone had the courage to ask:
"You are better now?" And she replied: "Yes, thank you; there is not much
the matter; but we will return early, as I have a light headache." When
they set out she took the arm of her husband as if to signify something
mysterious she had not yet dared to avow.
They separated at the station of Saint-Lazare. Maze, making a pretext
of some business affair which he had just remembered, bade them adieu,
after having shaken hands with all of them. As soon as Cachelin was alone
with his daughter and his son-in-law, he asked: "What was the matter
with you at breakfast?"
But Cora, did not reply at first; after hesitating for a moment she
said: "It was nothing much; a little sickness of the stomach was all."
She walked with a languid step, but with a smile on her lips.
Lesable was ill at ease, his mind distracted; haunted with confused and
contradictory ideas, angry, feeling an unavowable shame, cherishing a
cowardly jealousy, he was like those sleepers who close their eyes in the
morning that they may not see the ray of light which glides between the
curtains and strikes the bed like a brilliant shaft.
As soon as he entered the house, he shut himself in his own room,
pretending to be occupied with some unfinished work. Then Cachelin,
placing his hands on his daughter's shoulders, exclaimed: "You
are pregnant, aren't you?"