Mr. Pontellier returned to his wife with the information that Raoul had
a high fever and needed looking after. Then he lit a cigar and went and
sat near the open door to smoke it.

Mrs. Pontellier was quite sure Raoul had no fever. He had gone to
bed perfectly well, she said, and nothing had ailed him all day. Mr.
Pontellier was too well acquainted with fever symptoms to be mistaken.
He assured her the child was consuming at that moment in the next room.

He reproached his wife with her inattention, her habitual neglect of the
children. If it was not a mother's place to look after children, whose
on earth was it? He himself had his hands full with his brokerage
business. He could not be in two places at once; making a living for
his family on the street, and staying at home to see that no harm befell
them. He talked in a monotonous, insistent way.

Mrs. Pontellier sprang out of bed and went into the next room. She soon
came back and sat on the edge of the bed, leaning her head down on the
pillow. She said nothing, and refused to answer her husband when he
questioned her. When his cigar was smoked out he went to bed, and in
half a minute he was fast asleep.

Mrs. Pontellier was by that time thoroughly awake. She began to cry a
little, and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her peignoir. Blowing out
the candle, which her husband had left burning, she slipped her bare
feet into a pair of satin mules at the foot of the bed and went out
on the porch, where she sat down in the wicker chair and began to rock