I might help you with a stray suggestion or two."

"No. Good night. Why don't you go after you have said good
night? I don't like you," she went on in a high, excited pitch,

attempting to draw away her hand. She felt that her words lacked
dignity and sincerity, and she knew that he felt it.

"I'm sorry you don't like me. I'm sorry I offended you. How
have I offended you? What have I done? Can't you forgive me?"

And he bent and pressed his lips upon her hand as if he wished
never more to withdraw them.

"Mr. Arobin," she complained, "I'm greatly upset by the excitement
of the afternoon; I'm not myself. My manner must have misled you

in some way. I wish you to go, please." She spoke in a monotonous,
dull tone. He took his hat from the table, and stood with eyes turned

from her, looking into the dying fire. For a moment or two he kept an
impressive silence.

"Your manner has not misled me, Mrs. Pontellier," he said
finally. "My own emotions have done that. I couldn't help it.

When I'm near you, how could I help it? Don't think anything of it,
don't bother, please. You see, I go when you command me. If you

wish me to stay away, I shall do so. If you let me come back,
I--oh! you will let me come back?"

He cast one appealing glance at her, to which she made no
response. Alcee Arobin's manner was so genuine that it often

deceived even himself.
Edna did not care or think whether it were genuine or not.

When she was alone she looked mechanically at the back of her hand
which he had kissed so warmly. Then she leaned her head down on

the mantelpiece. She felt somewhat like a woman who in a moment of
passion is betrayed into an act of infidelity, and realizes the

significance of the act without being wholly awakened from its
glamour. The thought was passing vaguely through her mind, "What

would he think?"
She did not mean her husband; she was thinking of Robert

Lebrun. Her husband seemed to her now like a person whom she had
married without love as an excuse.

She lit a candle and went up to her room. Alcee Arobin was
absolutely nothing to her. Yet his presence, his manners, the

warmth of his glances, and above all the touch of his lips upon her
hand had acted like a narcotic upon her.

She slept a languorous sleep, interwoven with vanishing
dreams.

XXVI
Alcee Arobin wrote Edna an elaborate note of apology,

palpitant with sincerity. It embarrassed her; for in a cooler,
quieter moment it appeared to her, absurd that she should have

taken his action so seriously, so dramatically. She felt sure that
the significance of the whole occurrence had lain in her own

self-consciousness. If she ignored his note it would give undue
importance to a trivial affair. If she replied to it in a serious

spirit it would still leave in his mind the impression that she had
in a susceptible moment yielded to his influence. After all, it

was no great matter to have one's hand kissed. She was provoked at
his having written the apology. She answered in as light and

bantering a spirit as she fancied it deserved, and said she would
be glad to have him look in upon her at work whenever he felt the

inclination and his business gave him the opportunity.
He responded at once by presenting himself at her home with

all his disarming naivete. And then there was scarcely a day which
followed that she did not see him or was not reminded of him. He

was prolific in pretexts. His attitude became one of good-humored
subservience and tacit adoration. He was ready at all times to

submit to her moods, which were as often kind as they were cold.
She grew accustomed to him. They became intimate and friendly by

imperceptible degrees, and then by leaps. He sometimes talked in
a way that astonished her at first and brought the crimson into her

face; in a way that pleased her at last, appealing to the animalism
that stirred impatiently within her.

There was nothing which so quieted the turmoil of Edna's
senses as a visit to Mademoiselle Reisz. It was then,

in the presence of that personality which was offensive to her,
that the woman, by her divine art, seemed to reach Edna's spirit

and set it free.
It was misty, with heavy, lowering atmosphere, one afternoon,

when Edna climbed the stairs to the pianist's apartments under the
roof. Her clothes were dripping with moisture. She felt chilled

and pinched as she entered the room. Mademoiselle was poking at a
rusty stove that smoked a little and warmed the room indifferently.

She was endeavoring to heat a pot of chocolate on the stove. The
room looked cheerless and dingy to Edna as she entered. A bust of

Beethoven, covered with a hood of dust, scowled at her from the
mantelpiece.

"Ah! here comes the sunlight!" exclaimed Mademoiselle, rising
from her knees before the stove. "Now it will be warm and bright

enough; I can let the fire alone."
She closed the stove door with a bang, and approaching,

assisted in removing Edna's dripping mackintosh.
"You are cold; you look miserable. The chocolate will soon be hot.

But would you rather have a taste of brandy? I have scarcely
touched the bottle which you brought me for my cold." A piece of

red flannel was wrapped around Mademoiselle's throat; a stiff neck
compelled her to hold her head on one side.

"I will take some brandy," said Edna, shivering as she removed
her gloves and overshoes. She drank the liquor from the glass as

a man would have done. Then flinging herself upon the
uncomfortable sofa she said, "Mademoiselle, I am going to move

away from my house on Esplanade Street."
"Ah!" ejaculated the musician, neither surprised nor especially interested.

Nothing ever seemed to astonish her very much. She was endeavoring to adjust
the bunch of violets which had become loose from its fastening in her hair.

Edna drew her down upon the sofa, and taking a pin from her own hair,
secured the shabbyartificial flowers in their accustomed place.

"Aren't you astonished?"
"Passably. Where are you going? to New York? to Iberville?

to your father in Mississippi? where?"
"Just two steps away," laughed Edna, "in a little four-room

house around the corner. It looks so cozy, so inviting and
restful, whenever I pass by; and it's for rent. I'm tired looking

after that big house. It never seemed like mine, anyway--like
home. It's too much trouble. I have to keep too many servants.

I am tired bothering with them."
"That is not your true reason, ma belle. There is no use

in telling me lies. I don't know your reason, but you have not
told me the truth." Edna did not protest or endeavor to justify

herself.
"The house, the money that provides for it, are not mine.

Isn't that enough reason?"
"They are your husband's," returned Mademoiselle, with a shrug

and a maliciouselevation of the eyebrows.
"Oh! I see there is no deceiving you. Then let me tell you:

It is a caprice. I have a little money of my own from my mother's
estate, which my father sends me by driblets. I won a large sum

this winter on the races, and I am beginning to sell my sketches.
Laidpore is more and more pleased with my work; he says it grows in

force and individuality. I cannot judge of that myself, but I feel