IX

Madame de Marelle shuddered all over, and remained silent, so deep in thought that she seemed to have forgotten that he was at her feet. And two transparent drops kept continually forming in her eyes, falling and forming again.

She rose. Duroy guessed that she was going away without saying a word, without reproach or forgiveness, and he felt hurt and humiliated to the bottom of his soul. Wishing to stay her, he threw his arms about the skirt of her dress, clasping through the stuff her rounded legs, which he felt stiffen in resistance. He implored her, saying: “I beg of you, do not go away like that.”

Then she looked down on him from above with that moistened and despairing eye, at once so charming and so sad, which shows all the grief of a woman’s heart, and gasped out: “I⁠—I have nothing to say. I have nothing to do with it. You⁠—you are right. You⁠—you have chosen well.”

And, freeing herself by a backward movement, she left the room without his trying to detain her further.

Left to himself, he rose as bewildered as if he had received a blow on the head. Then, making up his mind, he muttered: “Well, so much the worse or the better. It is over, and without a scene; I prefer that,” and relieved from an immense weight, suddenly feeling himself free, delivered, at ease as to his future life, he began to spar at the wall, hitting out with his fists in a kind of intoxication of strength and triumph, as if he had been fighting Fate.

When Madame Forestier asked: “Have you told Madame de Marelle?” he quietly answered, “Yes.”

She scanned him closely with her bright eyes, saying: “And did it not cause her any emotion?”

“No, not at all. She thought it, on the contrary, a very good idea.”