Page:The Bohemians of the Latin Quarter.djvu/297

would not hear of it, and threw the medicine out of the window. At night, when she was seized with a fit of coughing, she would leave the room and go out on the landing, so that Jacques might not hear her.

One day, when they had both gone into the country, Jacques saw a tree the foliage of which was turning to yellow. He gazed sadly at Francine, who was walking slowly and somewhat dreamily.

Francine saw Jacques turn pale and guessed the reason of his pallor.

“You are foolish,” said she, kissing him, “we are only in July, it is three months to October, loving one another day and night as we do, we shall double the time we have to spend together. And then, besides, if I feel worse when the leaves turn yellow, we will go and live in a pine forest, the leaves are always green there.

*****

In October Francine was obliged to keep her bed. Jacques’s friend attended her. The little room in which they lived was situate right at the top of the house and looked into a court, in which there was a tree, which day by day grew barer of foliage. Jacques had put a curtain to the window to hide this tree from the invalid, but Francine insisted on its being drawn back.

“Oh! my darling,” she said to Jacques, “I will give you a hundred times more kisses than there are leaves.” And she added, “Besides I am much better now. I shall soon be able to go out, but as it will be cold, and I do not want to have red hands, you must buy me a muff.”

During the whole of her illness this muff was her only dream.

The day before All Saints’, seeing Jacques more grief-stricken than ever, she wished to give him courage, and to prove to him that she was better she got up.