"You see I do," she answered; "but observe that we are only at our second day, and already I have had to forgive you something. Is this how you keep your promise of blind obedience?"

"What can I do, Marguerite? I love you too much and I am jealous of the least of your thoughts. What you proposed to me just now made me frantic with delight, but the mystery in its carrying out hurts me dreadfully."

"Come, let us reason it out," she said, taking both my hands and looking at me with a charming smile which it was impossible to resist, "You love me, do you not? and you would gladly spend two or three months alone with me in the country? I too should be glad of this solitude a deux, and not only glad of it, but my health requires it. I can not leave Paris for such a length of time without putting my affairs in order, and the affairs of a woman like me are always in great confusion; well, I have found a way to reconcile everything, my money affairs and my love for you; yes, for you, don't laugh; I am silly enough to love you! And here you are taking lordly airs and talking big words. Child, thrice child, only remember that I love you, and don't let anything disturb you. Now, is it agreed?"

"I agree to all you wish, as you know."

"Then, in less than a month's time we shall be in some village, walking by the river side, and drinking milk. Does it seem strange that Marguerite Gautier should speak to you like that? The fact is, my friend, that when this Paris life, which seems to make me so happy, doesn't burn me, it wearies me, and then I have sudden aspirations toward a calmer existence which might recall my childhood. One has always had a childhood, whatever one becomes. Don't be alarmed; I am not going to tell you that I am the daughter of a colonel on half-pay, and that I was brought up at Saint-Denis. I am a poor country girl, and six years ago I could not write my own name. You are relieved, aren't you?

Why is it you are the first whom I have ever asked to share the joy of this desire of mine? I suppose because I feel that you love me for myself and not for yourself, while all the others have only loved me for themselves.

"I have often been in the country, but never as I should like to go there. I count on you for this easy happiness; do not be unkind, let me have it. Say this to yourself: 'She will never live to be old, and I should some day be sorry for not having done for her the first thing she asked of me, such an easy thing to do!'"

What could I reply to such words, especially with the memory of a first night of love, and in the expectation of a second?

An hour later I held Marguerite in my arms, and, if she had asked me to commit a crime, I would have obeyed her.

At six in the morning I left her, and before leaving her I said: "Till to-night!" She kissed me more warmly than ever, but said nothing.

During the day I received a note containing these words:

"DEAR CHILD: I am not very well, and the doctor has ordered quiet. I shall go to bed early to-night and shall not see you. But, to make up, I shall expect you to-morrow at twelve. I love you."

My first thought was: She is deceiving me!

A cold sweat broke out on my forehead, for I already loved this woman too much not to be overwhelmed by the suspicion. And yet, I was bound to expect such a thing almost any day with Marguerite, and it had happened to me often enough with my other mistresses, without my taking much notice of it. What was the meaning of the hold which this woman had taken upon my life?

Then it occurred to me, since I had the key, to go and see her as usual.

In this way I should soon know the truth, and if I found a man there I would strike him in the face.

Meanwhile I went to the Champs-Elysees. I waited there four hours. She did not appear. At night I went into all the theatres where she was accustomed to go. She was in none of them.

At eleven o'clock I went to the Rue d'Antin. There was no light in Marguerite's windows. All the same, I rang. The porter asked me where I was going.

"To Mlle. Gautier's," I said.

"She has not come in."

"I will go up and wait for her."

"There is no one there."

Evidently I could get in, since I had the key, but, fearing foolish scandal, I went away. Only I did not return home; I could not leave the street, and I never took my eyes off Marguerite's house. It seemed to me that there was still something to be found out, or at least that my suspicions were about to be confirmed.

About midnight a carriage that I knew well stopped before No. 9. The Comte de G. got down and entered the house, after sending away the carriage. For a moment I hoped that the same answer would be given to him as to me, and that I should see him come out; but at four o'clock in the morning I was still awaiting him.

I have suffered deeply during these last three weeks, but that is nothing, I think, in comparison with what I suffered that night.

Chapter 14

When I reached home I began to cry like a child. There is no man to whom a woman has not been unfaithful, once at least, and who will not know what I suffered.

I said to myself, under the weight of these feverish resolutions which one always feels as if one had the force to carry out, that I must break with my amour at once, and I waited impatiently for daylight in order to set out forthwith to rejoin my father and my sister, of whose love at least I was certain, and certain that that love would never be betrayed.

However, I did not wish to go away without letting Marguerite know why I went. Only a man who really cares no more for his mistress leaves her without writing to her. I made and remade twenty letters in my head. I had had to do with a woman like all other women of the kind. I had been poetizing too much. She had treated me like a school-boy, she had used in deceiving me a trick which was insultingly simple. My self-esteem got the upper hand. I must leave this woman without giving her the satisfaction of knowing that she had made me suffer, and this is what I wrote to her in my most elegant handwriting and with tears of rage and sorrow in my eyes:

"MY DEAR MARGUERITE: I hope that your indisposition yesterday was not serious. I came, at eleven at night, to ask after you, and was told that you had not come in. M. de G. was more fortunate, for he presented himself shortly afterward, and at four in the morning he had not left.

"Forgive me for the few tedious hours that I have given you, and be a.s.sured that I shall never forget the happy moments which I owe to you.

"I should have called to-day to ask after you, but I intend going back to my father's.

"Good-bye, my dear Marguerite. I am not rich enough to love you as I would nor poor enough to love you as you would. Let us then forget, you a name which must be indifferent enough to you, I a happiness which has become impossible.

"I send back your key, which I have never used, and which might be useful to you, if you are often ill as you were yesterday."

As you will see, I was unable to end my letter without a touch of impertinent irony, which proved how much in love I still was.

I read and reread this letter ten times over; then the thought of the pain it would give to Marguerite calmed me a little. I tried to persuade myself of the feelings which it professed; and when my servant came to my room at eight o'clock, I gave it to him and told him to take it at once.

"Shall I wait for an answer?" asked Joseph (my servant, like all servants, was called Joseph).

"If they ask whether there is a reply, you will say that you don't know, and wait."

I buoyed myself up with the hope that she would reply. Poor, feeble creatures that we are! All the time that my servant was away I was in a state of extreme agitation. At one moment I would recall how Marguerite had given herself to me, and ask myself by what right I wrote her an impertinent letter, when she could reply that it was not M. de G. who supplanted me, but I who had supplanted M. de G.: a mode of reasoning which permits many women to have many lovers. At another moment I would recall her promises, and endeavour to convince myself that my letter was only too gentle, and that there were not expressions forcible enough to punish a woman who laughed at a love like mine. Then I said to myself that I should have done better not to have written to her, but to have gone to see her, and that then I should have had the pleasure of seeing the tears that she would shed. Finally, I asked myself what she would reply to me; already prepared to believe whatever excuse she made.

Joseph returned.

"Well?" I said to him.

"Sir," said he, "madame was not up, and still asleep, but as soon as she rings the letter will be taken to her, and if there is any reply it will be sent."

She was asleep!

Twenty times I was on the point of sending to get the letter back, but every time I said to myself: "Perhaps she will have got it already, and it would look as if I have repented of sending it."

As the hour at which it seemed likely that she would reply came nearer, I regretted more and more that I had written. The clock struck, ten, eleven, twelve. At twelve I was on the point of keeping the appointment as if nothing had happened. In the end I could see no way out of the circle of fire which closed upon me.

Then I began to believe, with the superst.i.tion which people have when they are waiting, that if I went out for a little while, I should find an answer when I got back. I went out under the pretext of going to lunch.

Instead of lunching at the Cafe Foy, at the corner of the Boulevard, as I usually did, I preferred to go to the Palais Royal and so pa.s.s through the Rue d'Antin. Every time that I saw a woman at a distance, I fancied it was Nanine bringing me an answer. I pa.s.sed through the Rue d'Antin without even coming across a commissionaire. I went to Very's in the Palais Royal. The waiter gave me something to eat, or rather served up to me whatever he liked, for I ate nothing. In spite of myself, my eyes were constantly fixed on the clock. I returned home, certain that I should find a letter from Marguerite.

The porter had received nothing, but I still hoped in my servant. He had seen no one since I went out.

If Marguerite had been going to answer me she would have answered long before.

Then I began to regret the terms of my letter; I should have said absolutely nothing, and that would undoubtedly have aroused her suspicions, for, finding that I did not keep my appointment, she would have inquired the reason of my absence, and only then I should have given it to her. Thus, she would have had to exculpate herself, and what I wanted was for her to exculpate herself. I already realized that I should have believed whatever reasons she had given me, and anything was better than not to see her again.