Sixtine interrupted him and pronounced the already familiar words:
"If you wish, I shall tell you the story of the portrait chamber."
Entragues started and grew pale. This exceeded the bounds of probability. With a weak voice, he answered:
"It is a tragic and rather strange story...." She stopped, seeming to summon her memory. Then:
"No, I should indeed prefer not to tell you it."
"Oh! please," urged Entragues, like a child who opens two wide, curious eyes.
"No, sometime later, perhaps. If you had asked it down there, before those verses, before a coincidence which I guess and which disturbs me! I cannot just now. When you learn it, you will understand, and this very reticence will seem clear to you.... It is said that it has never lied.... Well, listen: 'The Château de Rabodange at one time was the hereditary domain....' It is too much for me.... Childishness? Don't say that!"
"But I said nothing. The emotion I see you in does not suggest such words to me. Let us forget the story...."
"Well," replied Sixtine, "try to guess it. You can. I give you permission. Perhaps you will tell it to me. Let us talk no more of it and please go. I get up early and I must sleep. You see that I treat you like a friend."
She had such a nervous air that Hubert asked for nothing better than to obey her, not wishing to spoil his evening by the blunder of a reserve which henceforth might be necessary before the woman who no longer seemed mistress of herself. It was the moment for retreat or the moment for a bold stroke. He pursued the first course, the second not having entered his mind. When it was a matter of other persons, or when he reflected at leisure on his own sentimental adventures, Entragues possessed a remarkable lucidity of mind; before the cause itself--the cause in person, throbbing and eloquent--he was confused, like a school-boy, and obeyed, unaware of his stupidity, those false insinuations of women who ask for a violet so as to get a rose. He therefore made ready to leave, saying:
"I would not wish to oppose such good habits."
"Is it not written," she responded in the same light tone, "'flee all occasions of sinning?'"
"And even Saint Bernard, in his _Meditations_, considers the contemplated sin as serious as the perpetrated one. Not to flee the occasion is to anticipate the offense and render it inexcusable. But I do not see how early rising specially agrees with this precept. On the contrary, it seems to me that the longer the day, the more numerous are the stones on the road. Then, can it be that you want to travel along the road of perfection?"