"My dear Cecile," quoth he, "if you will take no thought for my convenience, I beg that, at least, you will take some for your good name. Thousand devils woman! Will you have it said in Paris that you were found locked in a room with me? What will your uncle - your virtuous, prudish, incorruptible uncle - say when he learns of it? If he does not demand a heavy price from you for so dishonouring him, he is not the man I deem him. Now be sensible, child, and open that door while there is yet time, and before anybody discovers us in this most compromising situation."
He struck the tone most likely to win him obedience, and that he had judged astutely her face showed him. In the place of the anger that had distorted it there came now into that countenance a look of surprise and fear. She saw herself baffled at every point. She had threatened him with Duplay - the only man available - and he had shown her how futile it must prove to summon him. And now she had locked herself in with him, thinking to sit there until he should do her will, and he showed her the danger to herself therein, which had escaped her notice.
There was a settle close behind her, and on to this she sank, and bending her head she opened the floodgates of her passionate little soul, and let the rage that had so long possessed her dissolve in tears. At sight of that sudden change of front La Boulaye stamped his foot. He appreciated the fact that she was about to fight him with weapons that on a previous occasion - when, however, it is true, they were wielded by another - had accomplished his undoing.
And for all that he steeled his heart, and evoked the memory of Suzanne to strengthen him in his purpose: he approached her with a kindly exterior. He sat him down beside her; he encompassed her waist with his arm, and drawing her to him he set himself to soothe her as one soothes a wilful child. Had he then recalled what her attitude had been towards him in the past he had thought twice before adopting such a course. But in his mind there was no sentiment that was not brotherly, and far from his wishes was it to invest his action with any other than a fraternal kindness.
But she, feeling that caressing arm about her, and fired by it in her hapless passion for this man, was quick to misinterpret him, and to translate his attitude into one of a kindness far beyond his dreams. She nestled closer to him; at his bidding her weeping died down and ceased.
"There, Cecile, you will give me the key now?" he begged.
She glanced up at him shyly through wet lashes - as peeps the sun through April clouds.
"There is nothing I will not do for you, Caron," she murmured. "See, I will even help you to play the traitor on my uncle. For you love me a little, cher Caron, is it not so?"
He felt himself grow cold from head to foot, and he grew sick at the thought that by the indiscretion of his clumsy sympathy he had brought this down upon his luckless head. Mechanically his arm relaxed the hold of her waist and fell away. Instinctively she apprehended that all was not as she had thought. She turned on the seat to face him squarely, and caught something of the dismay in his glance of the loathing almost (for what is more loathsome to a man than to be wooed by a woman he desires not?) Gradually, inch by inch, she drew away from him, ever facing him, and her eyes ever on his, as if fascinated by the horror of what she saw. Thus until the extremity of the settle permitted her to go no farther. She started, then her glance flickered down, and she gave a sudden gasp of passion. Simultaneously the key rang on the boards at Caron's feet angrily flung there by Cecile.
"Go!" she exclaimed, in a suffocating voice, "and never let me see your face again."
For a second or two he sat quite still, his eyes observing her with a look of ineffable pity, which might have increased her disorder had she perceived it. Then slowly he stooped, and took up the key.
He rose from the settle, and without a word - for words he realised, could do no more than heighten the tragic banality of the situation - he went to the door, unlocked it, and passed out.
Huddled in her corner sat Cecile, listening until his steps had died away on the stairs. Then she cast herself prone upon the settle, and in a frenzy of sobs and tears she vented some of the rage and shame that were distracting her.
