impatience, and the stair-carpet seemed the softest her feet ever had
pressed. But Bertin became gloomy, a little nervous, often irritable. He
had his moments of impatience, soon repressed, but frequently recurring.

One day, when she had just entered, he sat down beside her instead of
beginning to paint, saying:

"Madame, you can no longer ignore the fact that what I have said is not
a jest, and that I love you madly."

Troubled by this beginning and seeing that the dreaded crisis had
arrived, she tried to stop him, but he listened to her no longer.
Emotion overflowed his heart, and she must hear him, pale, trembling,
and anxious as she listened. He spoke a long time, demanding nothing,
tenderly, sadly, with despairing resignation; and she allowed him to
take her hands, which he kept in his. He was kneeling before her without
her taking any notice of his attitude, and with a far-away look upon
his face he begged her not to work him any harm. What harm? She did not
understand nor try to understand, overcome by the cruel grief of seeing
him suffer, yet that grief was almost happiness. Suddenly she saw tears
in his eyes and was so deeply moved that she exclaimed: "Oh!"--ready to
embrace him as one embraces a crying child. He repeated in a very soft
tone: "There, there! I suffer too much;" then, suddenly, won by his
sorrow, by the contagion of tears, she sobbed, her nerves quivering, her
arms trembling, ready to open.

When she felt herself suddenly clasped in his embrace and kissed
passionately on the lips, she wished to cry out, to struggle, to repulse
him; but she judged herself lost, for she consented while resisting, she
yielded even while she struggled, pressing him to her as she cried: "No,
no, I will not!"

Then she was overcome with the emotion of that moment; she hid her face
in her hands, then she suddenly sprang to her feet, caught up her hat
which had fallen to the floor, put it on her head and rushed away, in
spite of the supplications of Olivier, who held a fold of her skirt.

As soon as she was in the street, she had a desire to sit down on the
curbstone, her limbs were so exhausted and powerless. A cab was passing;
she called to it and said to the driver: "Drive slowly, and take me
wherever you like." She threw herself into the carriage, closed the
door, sank back in one corner, feeling herself alone behind the raised
windows--alone to think.

For some minutes she heard only the sound of the wheel