Nêne/Part 1/Chapter 7

HAT same evening, little Jo was taken with colic.

Every one was asleep except Madeleine, when the child began to toss about and moan. Madeleine rocked the cradle; still half asleep, she began humming a lullaby in cadence with the ticking of the clock. But the child cried out sharply and flung himself about. Madeleine jumped out of bed, slipped on her petticoat and lighted a candle.

The baby's cries grew worse from minute to minute, and yet there was nothing that could have injured him. He must be sick, taken with some bad illness perhaps, since it had come on so suddenly. She began to walk the floor, rocking him in her arms, but as he would not quiet down, she opened the hall door and called out:

"Corbier! Corbier! The baby is sick! I don't know what's the trouble. I am worried!"

He came out at once, he too in his night shirt and bare-footed, having only just stopped to put on his trousers. Madeleine held the child up a little in her arms, and both of them looked anxiously at the small bit of humanity in pain.

"We ought to have a fire," said Madeleine.

"I'll go," said Corbier.

He went out and returned with some wood and kindling. He was so upset that he blew into the ashes. She had to kneel down beside him to help him start the fire. At last it flamed up. Madeleine sat down and held the baby out toward the warmth.

"If we could give him some tisane" she said.

So he set about preparing an infusion of marshmallow flowers. Madeleine gave it to the child, who, strangely, had just stopped crying. Apparently all right again, he kicked his little legs toward the fire. Cheeks still wet with tears, he laughed aloud while his father waved a burning twig which made a pretty, luminous ribbon in the air before his baby eyes.

How foolish they had been to work themselves up so! They looked at each other, sharing the tenderness they both felt for the baby.

Suddenly Madeleine blushed red hot. In her excitement she had hardly covered her body. Her unbuttoned underwaist left her throat uncovered and her chemise gaped over her great white bosom.

Boiseriot's evil words rang in her ears:

"You aren't so touchy with other people!"

Thanking Corbier, she rose quickly and put the baby back in his cradle.

The baby had fallen asleep again. Corbier had gone back to bed, and Madeleine sat up thinking,—ashamed of having been so careless, and quite upset by notions that had never troubled her before. She was not in love with Corbier. She could not have fallen in love with him so quickly! Like all girls of her age, she had had suitors. She had rejected several proposals; at other times, it was she who had been jilted. She had been a little annoyed over those incidents, but had got over them easily enough. No, she was not a girl to lose her head all of a sudden, just like that.

She was not in love with Corbier; she loved the children, and her love for them was sweet and held no danger. No doubt, he was a good-looking man, this young master,—and later, if he begged for her love honestly—one had heard of stranger happenings—would she say Yes or No?

To the muffled ticking of the grandfather's clock, the night sped away, and Madeleine lay there with a fever in her veins and her eyes wide open, staring into the darkness of the room.