She heard some steps on the stairs. It was Léon. She got up and took from the chest of drawers the first pile of dusters to be hemmed. When he came in she seemed very busy.

The conversation languished; Madame Bovary gave it up every few minutes, whilst he himself seemed quite embarrassed. Seated on a low chair near the fire, he turned round in his fingers the ivory thimble-case. She stitched on, or from time to time turned down the hem of the cloth with her nail. She did not speak; he was silent, captivated by her silence, as he would have been by her speech.

“Poor fellow!” she thought.

“How have I displeased her?” he asked himself.

At last, however, Léon said that he should have, one of these days, to go to Rouen on some office business.

“Your music subscription is out; am I to renew it?”

“No,” she replied.