"Pray take your cloak and boa," he said, detaining her. "To be sure," she retorted, "those traces of my presence might compromise you." "You are a child," he said, in a coaxing tone, as he adjusted her cloak with ostentatious care; "you know very well that I love you; but really you take pleasure in torturing me, and you drive me mad. Wait until I go and call a cab. If I could, I would escort you home; but that would ruin you." "Pray, do you not think that I am ruined already?" she asked bitterly. "No, my darling," replied Raymon, who asked nothing better than to persuade her to leave him in peace. "Nobody has noticed your absence, as they have not come here yet in search of you. Although I should be the last one to be suspected, it would be natural to inquire at the houses of all of your acquaintances. And then you can go and place yourself under your aunt's protection; indeed, that is the course I advise you to take; she will arrange everything. You will be supposed to have passed the night at her house." Madame Delmare was not listening; she was gazing stupidly at the sun, as it rose, huge and red, over an expanse of gleaming roofs. Raymon tried to rouse her from her preoccupation. She turned her eyes on him but seemed not to recognize him. Her cheeks had a greenish tinge and her parched lips seemed paralyzed. Raymon was terrified. He remembered the other's suicide, and, in his alarm, not knowing which way to turn, dreading lest he should become twice a criminal in his own eyes, but feeling too exhausted mentally to be able to deceive her again, he pushed her gently into an easy-chair, locked the door, and went up to his mother's room. XXI He found her awake; she was accustomed to rise early, the result of habits of hard-working activity which she had formed during the emigration, and which she had not abandoned when she recovered her wealth.