"I won't deprive you of it."

"I was going to give it to my maid. I think it hideous; but if you like it, take it."

Prudence only saw the present, not the way in which it was given. She put the little figure on one side, and took me into the dressing-room, where she showed me two miniatures hanging side by side, and said:

"That is the Comte de G., who was very much in love with Marguerite; it was he who brought her out. Do you know him?"

"No. And this one?" I inquired, pointing to the other miniature.

"That is the little Vicomte de L. He was obliged to disappear."

"Why?"

"Because he was all but ruined. That's one, if you like, who loved Marguerite."

"And she loved him, too, no doubt?"

"She is such a queer girl, one never knows. The night he went away she went to the theatre as usual, and yet she had cried when he said good-bye to her."

Just then Nanine appeared, to tell us that supper was served.

When we entered the dining-room, Marguerite was leaning against the wall, and Gaston, holding her hands, was speaking to her in a low voice.

"You are mad," replied Marguerite. "You know quite well that I don't want you. It is no good at the end of two years to make love to a woman like me. With us, it is at once, or never. Come, gentlemen, supper!"

And, slipping away from Gaston, Marguerite made him sit on her right at table, me on her left, then called to Nanine:

"Before you sit down, tell them in the kitchen not to open to anybody if there is a ring."

This order was given at one o'clock in the morning.

We laughed, drank, and ate freely at this supper. In a short while mirth had reached its last limit, and the words that seem funny to a certain cla.s.s of people, words that degrade the mouth that utters them, were heard from time to time, amidst the applause of Nanine, of Prudence, and of Marguerite. Gaston was thoroughly amused; he was a very good sort of fellow, but somewhat spoiled by the habits of his youth. For a moment I tried to forget myself, to force my heart and my thoughts to become indifferent to the sight before me, and to take my share of that gaiety which seemed like one of the courses of the meal. But little by little I withdrew from the noise; my gla.s.s remained full, and I felt almost sad as I saw this beautiful creature of twenty drinking, talking like a porter, and laughing the more loudly the more scandalous was the joke.

Nevertheless, this hilarity, this way of talking and drinking, which seemed to me in the others the mere results of bad company or of bad habits, seemed in Marguerite a necessity of forgetting, a fever, a nervous irritability. At every gla.s.s of champagne her cheeks would flush with a feverish colour, and a cough, hardly perceptible at the beginning of supper, became at last so violent that she was obliged to lean her head on the back of her chair and hold her chest in her hands every time that she coughed. I suffered at the thought of the injury to so frail a const.i.tution which must come from daily excesses like this. At length, something which I had feared and foreseen happened. Toward the end of supper Marguerite was seized by a more violent fit of coughing than any she had had while I was there. It seemed as if her chest were being torn in two. The poor girl turned crimson, closed her eyes under the pain, and put her napkin to her lips. It was stained with a drop of blood. She rose and ran into her dressing-room.

"What is the matter with Marguerite?" asked Gaston.

"She has been laughing too much, and she is spitting blood. Oh, it is nothing; it happens to her every day. She will be back in a minute.

Leave her alone. She prefers it."

I could not stay still; and, to the consternation of Prudence and Nanine, who called to me to come back, I followed Marguerite.

Chapter 10

The room to which she had fled was lit only by a single candle. She lay back on a great sofa, her dress undone, holding one hand on her heart, and letting the other hang by her side. On the table was a basin half full of water, and the water was stained with streaks of blood.

Very pale, her mouth half open, Marguerite tried to recover breath. Now and again her bosom was raised by a long sigh, which seemed to relieve her a little, and for a few seconds she would seem to be quite comfortable.

I went up to her; she made no movement, and I sat down and took the hand which was lying on the sofa.

"Ah! it is you," she said, with a smile.

I must have looked greatly agitated, for she added:

"Are you unwell, too?"

"No, but you: do you still suffer?"

"Very little;" and she wiped off with her handkerchief the tears which the coughing had brought to her eyes; "I am used to it now."

"You are killing yourself, madame," I said to her in a moved voice. "I wish I were a friend, a relation of yours, that I might keep you from doing yourself harm like this."

"Ah! it is really not worth your while to alarm yourself," she replied in a somewhat bitter tone; "see how much notice the others take of me!

They know too well that there is nothing to be done."

Thereupon she got up, and, taking the candle, put it on the mantel-piece and looked at herself in the gla.s.s.

"How pale I am!" she said, as she fastened her dress and pa.s.sed her fingers over her loosened hair. "Come, let us go back to supper. Are you coming?"

I sat still and did not move.

She saw how deeply I had been affected by the whole scene, and, coming up to me, held out her hand, saying:

"Come now, let us go."

I took her hand, raised it to my lips, and in spite of myself two tears fell upon it.

"Why, what a child you are!" she said, sitting down by my side again.

"You are crying! What is the matter?"

"I must seem very silly to you, but I am frightfully troubled by what I have just seen."

"You are very good! What would you have of me? I can not sleep. I must amuse myself a little. And then, girls like me, what does it matter, one more or less? The doctors tell me that the blood I spit up comes from my throat; I pretend to believe them; it is all I can do for them."

"Listen, Marguerite," I said, unable to contain myself any longer; "I do not know what influence you are going to have over my life, but at this present moment there is no one, not even my sister, in whom I feel the interest which I feel in you. It has been just the same ever since I saw you. Well, for Heaven's sake, take care of yourself, and do not live as you are living now."

"If I took care of myself I should die. All that supports me is the feverish life I lead. Then, as for taking care of oneself, that is all very well for women with families and friends; as for us, from the moment we can no longer serve the vanity or the pleasure of our lovers, they leave us, and long nights follow long days. I know it. I was in bed for two months, and after three weeks no one came to see me."

"It is true I am nothing to you," I went on, "but if you will let me, I will look after you like a brother, I will never leave your side, and I will cure you. Then, when you are strong again, you can go back to the life you are leading, if you choose; but I am sure you will come to prefer a quiet life, which will make you happier and keep your beauty unspoiled."

"You think like that to-night because the wine has made you sad, but you would never have the patience that you pretend to."

"Permit me to say, Marguerite, that you were ill for two months, and that for two months I came to ask after you every day."

"It is true, but why did you not come up?"