I flung a stealthy glance over the bed; the curtains were drawn back a little; Madame Gaudin was in a deep sleep, I thought, when I saw her quiet, sallow profile outlined against the pillow.
"'You are in trouble?' Pauline said, dipping her brush into the coloring.
"'It is in your power to do me a great service, my dear child,' I answered.
"The gladness in her eyes frightened me.
"'Is it possible that she loves me?' I thought.
'Pauline,' I began.
I went and sat near to her, so as to study her.
My tones had been so searching that she read my thought; her eyes fell, and I scrutinized her face. It was so pure and frank that I fancied I could see as clearly into her heart as into my own.
"'Do you love me?' I asked.
"'A little,—passionately—not a bit!' she cried.
"Then she did not love me.
Her jesting tones, and a little gleeful movement that escaped her, expressed nothing beyond a girlish, blithe goodwill.
I told her about my distress and the predicament in which I found myself, and asked her to help me.
"'You do not wish to go to the pawnbroker's yourself, M. Raphael,' she answered, 'and yet you would send me!'
"I blushed in confusion at the child's reasoning.
She took my hand in hers as if she wanted to compensate for this home-truth by her light touch upon it.
"'Oh, I would willingly go,' she said, 'but it is not necessary.
I found two five-franc pieces at the back of the piano, that had slipped without your knowledge between the frame and the keyboard, and I laid them on your table.'
"'You will soon be coming into some money, M. Raphael,' said the kind mother, showing her face between the curtains, 'and I can easily lend you a few crowns meanwhile.'
"'Oh, Pauline!' I cried, as I pressed her hand, 'how I wish that I were rich!'
"'Bah! why should you?' she said petulantly.
Her hand shook in mine with the throbbing of her pulse; she snatched it away, and looked at both of mine.
"'You will marry a rich wife,' she said, 'but she will give you a great deal of trouble. Ah, Dieu! she will be your death,—I am sure of it.'
"In her exclamation there was something like belief in her mother's absurd superstitions.
"'You are very credulous, Pauline!'
"'The woman whom you will love is going to kill you—there is no doubt of it,' she said, looking at me with alarm.
"She took up her brush again and dipped it in the color; her great agitation was evident; she looked at me no longer.
I was ready to give credence just then to superstitious fancies; no man is utterly wretched so long as he is superstitious; a belief of that kind is often in reality a hope.
"I found that those two magnificent five-franc pieces were lying, in fact, upon my table when I reached my room.
During the first confused thoughts of early slumber, I tried to audit my accounts so as to explain this unhoped-for windfall; but I lost myself in useless calculations, and slept.
Just as I was leaving my room to engage a box the next morning, Pauline came to see me.
"'Perhaps your ten francs is not enough,' said the amiable, kind-hearted girl; 'my mother told me to offer you this money. Take it, please, take it!'
"She laid three crowns upon the table, and tried to escape, but I would not let her go.
Admiration dried the tears that sprang to my eyes.
"'You are an angel, Pauline,' I said.
'It is not the loan that touches me so much as the delicacy with which it is offered.
I used to wish for a rich wife, a fashionable woman of rank; and now, alas!
I would rather possess millions, and find some girl, as poor as you are, with a generous nature like your own; and I would renounce a fatal passion which will kill me.
Perhaps what you told me will come true.'
"'That is enough,' she said, and fled away; the fresh trills of her birdlike voice rang up the staircase.
"'She is very happy in not yet knowing love,' I said to myself, thinking of the torments I had endured for many months past.
"Pauline's fifteen francs were invaluable to me.
Foedora, thinking of the stifling odor of the crowded place where we were to spend several hours, was sorry that she had not brought a bouquet; I went in search of flowers for her, as I had laid already my life and my fate at her feet.
With a pleasure in which compunction mingled, I gave her a bouquet. I learned from its price the extravagance of superficial gallantry in the world.
But very soon she complained of the heavy scent of a Mexican jessamine. The interior of the theatre, the bare bench on which she was to sit, filled her with intolerable disgust; she upbraided me for bringing her there.
Although she sat beside me, she wished to go, and she went.
I had spent sleepless nights, and squandered two months of my life for her, and I could not please her.
Never had that tormenting spirit been more unfeeling or more fascinating.
"I sat beside her in the cramped back seat of the vehicle; all the way I could feel her breath on me and the contact of her perfumed glove; I saw distinctly all her exceeding beauty; I inhaled a vague scent of orris-root; so wholly a woman she was, with no touch of womanhood.
Just then a sudden gleam of light lit up the depths of this mysterious life for me.