She was delighted. “I? Impossible.”
He seated himself beside her. She exclaimed: “Ah! a stag!” The train was passing through the forest of Saint-Germain and she had seen a frightened deer clear an alley at a bound. As she gazed out of the open window, Duroy bending over her, pressed a kiss upon her neck. For several moments she remained motionless, then raising her head, she said: “You tickle me, stop!”
But he did not obey her.
She repeated: “Stop, I say!”
He seized her head with his right hand, turned it toward him and pressed his lips to hers. She struggled, pushed him away and repeated: “Stop!”
He did not heed her. With an effort, she freed herself and rising, said: “Georges, have done. We are not children, we shall soon reach Rouen.”
“Very well,” said he, gaily, “I will wait.”
Reseating herself near him she talked of what they would do on their return; they would keep the apartments in which she had lived with her first husband, and Duroy would receive Forestier’s position on “La Vie Francaise.” In the meantime, forgetting her injunctions and his promise, he slipped his arm around her waist, pressed her to him and murmured: “I love you dearly, my little Made.”
The gentleness of his tone moved the young woman, and leaning toward him she offered him her lips; as she did so, a whistle announced the proximity of the station. Pushing back some stray locks upon her temples, she exclaimed:
“We are foolish.”
He kissed her hands feverishly and replied:
“I adore you, my little Made.”
On reaching Rouen they repaired to a hotel where they spent the night. The following morning, when they had drunk the tea placed upon the table in their room, Duroy clasped his wife in his arms and said: “My little Made, I feel that I love you very, very much.”
She smiled trustfully and murmured as she returned his kisses: “I love you too — a little.”
The visit to his parents worried Georges, although he had prepared his wife. He began again: “You know they are peasants, real, not sham, comic-opera peasants.”
She smiled. “I know it, you have told me often enough.”
“We shall be very uncomfortable. There is only a straw bed in my room; they do not know what hair mattresses are at Canteleu.”
She seemed delighted. “So much the better. It would be charming to sleep badly — when — near you — and to be awakened by the crowing of the cocks.”
He walked toward the window and lighted a cigarette. The sight of the harbor, of the river filled with ships moved him and he exclaimed: “Egad, but that is fine!”
Madeleine joined him and placing both of her hands on her husband’s shoulder, cried: “Oh, how beautiful! I did not know that there were so many ships!”
An hour later they departed in order to breakfast with the old couple, who had been informed several days before of their intended arrival. Both Duroy and his wife were charmed with the beauties of the landscape presented to their view, and the cabman halted in order to allow them to get a better idea of the panorama before them. As he whipped up his horse, Duroy saw an old couple not a hundred meters off, approaching, and he leaped from the carriage crying: “Here they are, I know them.”
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