After a few moments Rodolphe stopped; and when he saw her with her white gown gradually fade away in the shade like a ghost, he was seized with such a beating of the heart that he leant against a tree lest he should fall.
“What an imbecile I am!” he said with a fearful oath. “No matter! She was a pretty mistress!”
And immediately Emma’s beauty, with all the pleasures of their love, came back to him. For a moment he softened; then he rebelled against her.
“For, after all,” he exclaimed, gesticulating, “I can’t exile myself—have a child on my hands.”
He was saying these things to give himself firmness.
“And besides, the worry, the expense! Ah! no, no, no, no! a thousand times no! That would be too stupid.”