ressive
silence.

"Your manner has not misled me, Mrs. Pontellier," he said finally. "My
own emotions have done that. I couldn't help it. When I'm near you, how
could I help it? Don't think anything of it, don't bother, please. You
see, I go when you command me. If you wish me to stay away, I shall do
so. If you let me come back, I--oh! you will let me come back?"

He cast one appealing glance at her, to which she made no response.
Alcee Arobin's manner was so genuine that it often deceived even
himself.

Edna did not care or think whether it were genuine or not. When she
was alone she looked mechanically at the back of her hand which he had
kissed so warmly. Then she leaned her head down on the mantelpiece. She
felt somewhat like a woman who in a moment of passion is betrayed into
an act of infidelity, and realizes the significance of the act without
being wholly awakened from its glamour. The thought was passing vaguely
through her mind, "What would he think?"

She did not mean her husband; she was thinking of Robert Lebrun. Her
husband seemed to her now like a person whom she had married without
love as an excuse.

She lit a candle and went up to her room. Alcee Arobin was absolutely
nothing to her. Yet his presence, his manners, the warmth of his
glances, and above all the touch of his lips upon her hand had acted
like a narcotic upon her.

She slept a languorous sleep, interwoven with vanishing dreams.

XXVI

Alcee Arobin wrote Edna an elaborate note of apology, palpitant with
sincerity. It embarrassed her; for in a cooler, quieter moment it
appeared to her, absurd that she should have taken his action so
seriously, so dramatically. She felt sure that the significance of the
whole occurrence had lain in her own self-consciousness. If she ignored
his note it would give undue importance to a trivial affair. If she
replied to it in a serious spirit it would still leave in his mind
the impression that she had in a susceptible moment yielded to his
influence. After all, it was no great matter to have one's hand kissed.
She was provoked at his having written the apology. She answered in as
light and bantering a spirit as she fancied it deserved, and said she
would be glad to have him look in upon her at work whenever he felt the
inclination and his business gave him the opportunity.

He responded at once by presenting himself at her home with all his
disarming naivete. And then there was scarcely a da