“No, I love you, that is all! You do not doubt that! Tell me—one word—only one word!”
And Rodolphe imperceptibly glided from the footstool to the ground; but a sound of wooden shoes was heard in the kitchen, and he noticed the door of the room was not closed.
“How kind it would be of you,” he went on, rising, “if you would humour a whim of mine.” It was to go over her house; he wanted to know it; and Madame Bovary seeing no objection to this, they both rose, when Charles came in.
“Good morning, doctor,” Rodolphe said to him.
The doctor, flattered at this unexpected title, launched out into obsequious phrases. Of this the other took advantage to pull himself together a little.
“Madame was speaking to me,” he then said, “about her health.”
Charles interrupted him; he had indeed a thousand anxieties; his wife’s palpitations of the heart were beginning again. Then Rodolphe asked if riding would not be good.
“Certainly! excellent! just the thing! There’s an idea! You ought to follow it up.”
And as she objected that she had no horse, Monsieur Rodolphe offered one. She refused his offer; he did not insist. Then to explain his visit he said that his ploughman, the man of the bloodletting, still suffered from giddiness.
“I’ll call around,” said Bovary.
“No, no! I’ll send him to you; we’ll come; that will be more convenient for you.”