A pause, longer and more awkward, ensued. It seemed to Marsac as if he actually felt the temperature in the room falling ten degrees every second. For once, language failed him; and he heard himself saying, in a quavering voice and almost without his own volition,-- “Would that I were a respectable man!” Madame Fleury turned her dark eyes on him and drew nearer. Her breathing quickened, and a faint pink rose in her smooth cheek, and she said in a laughing voice, which also trembled a little,-- “You are quite respectable enough for me.” Proposals of marriage are always embarrassing, and none the less so when, as the Breton peasants say, “the haystack chases the cow.” Marsac felt himself suddenly grow hot, and as suddenly grow cold. He sat quite near Madame Fleury, her half-laughing and brightly burning eyes fixed on him. Every detail of her elegant and correct morning costume, her well-shod feet, her handsome figure, was abnormally present to him. But he found it impossible to raise his eyes to her face. The only clear idea in his mind was a frantic fury towards the women of the present day, who, he foresaw, would make these bad quarters of an hour, such as he was undergoing, common enough to men in the future. As for Madame Fleury, Marsac’s embarrassment was not lost on her; and although a new woman, she was still a woman, and womanly pride impelled her to control the slight tremor of her nerves, and say in a voice, studiedly cold, “It is a mere matter of business and of convenience with me.” This gave Marsac, as he thought, a loophole of escape, and he said hurriedly, “I, Madame, in my innocence, have regarded marriage as a matter of sentiment.” Imagine his chagrin, though, when Madame Fleury, smiling and blushing like a girl, replied, “Well, Monsieur Marsac, if you will have it so--” Marsac saw in a moment the pit he had dug for himself, but he preferred to play the part of a poltroon to stepping into it. He turned and fidgeted in his chair; he looked out of the window, down at the street, hoping to see Fontaine returning, and every moment the situation grew more appalling. Presently he managed to say,-- “Until he is forty, a man is too young to marry; and after he is forty, he is too old.” Madame Fleury surveyed him all over, with a cool contempt which seemed to leave blisters on his body. Then a brilliant idea came to him. He glanced at Madame Fleury, and saw as well as felt the rage rising in her heart against him. He tried to speak calmly and naturally, but his words were jerked out of him with stammering and stuttering,-- “You are very, very g-g-good, Madame; and I feel more pleased--no, no, I mean honoured--than I can explain--express, that is. But you know how Fontaine and I have lived together since our boyhood. We have nobody but each other; we have shared everything as brothers. Now, d-d-do you think it quite fair that I should, like a pig, accept this dazzling offer without giving Fontaine a chance?”