Page:A chambermaid's diary.djvu/99

Rh pretty! You must be so good! Whereas that hussy"

"Oh! come, Monsieur! come! come!"

He continued:

"You are so gentle! And yet, what? you are only a chambermaid."

For a moment he drew nearer to me, and in a low voice said:

"If you would, Célestine?"

"If I would what?"

"If you would you know very well; yes, you know very well."

"Monsieur wishes me perhaps to betray Madame with Monsieur?"

He misunderstood the expression of my face; and, with eyes standing out of his head, the veins in his neck swollen, his lips moist and frothy, he answered, in a smothered voice:

"Yes; yes, indeed."

"Monsieur doesn't think of such a thing?"

"I think of nothing else, Célestine."

He was very red, his face congested.

"Ah! Monsieur is going to begin again?"

He tried to grasp my hand, to draw me to him.

"Well, yes," he stammered, "I am going to begin again; I am going to begin again, because because  I am mad over you, Célestine; because I think of nothing else; because I cannot sleep; because I feel really sick. And don't be