"Then he must not go to meetings either?"

"That was quite a different matter, for his meetings were attended by men only. He didn't mind her going out without him; what he didn't like was that she went out alone with so many men."

"She wouldn't be alone, for the cashier's wife would be present as--"

"As what?"

"As the cashier's wife."

"Then couldn't he be present as her husband?"

"Why did he want to make himself so cheap by being in the way?"

"He didn't mind making himself cheap."

"Was he jealous?"

"Yes! Why not? He was afraid that something might come between them."

"What a shame to be jealous! What an insult! What distrust! What did he think of her?"

"That she was perfect. He would prove it. She could go alone!"

"Could she really? How condescending of him!"

She went. She did not come home until the early hours of the morning.

She awakened her husband and told him how well it had all gone off. He was delighted to hear it. Somebody had made a speech about her; they had sung quartets and ended with a dance.

"And how had she come home?"

"The young a.s.s had accompanied her to the front door."

"Supposing anybody who knew them had seen her at three o'clock in the morning in the company of the young a.s.s?"

"Well, and what then? She was a respectable woman."

"Yes, but she might easily lose her reputation."

"Ah! He was jealous, and what was even worse, he was envious. He grudged her every little bit of fun. That was what being married meant! To be scolded if one dared to go out and enjoy oneself a little. What a stupid inst.i.tution marriage was! But was their union a true marriage? They met one another at night, just as other married couples did. Men were all alike. Civil enough until they were married, but afterwards, oh! Afterwards.... Her husband was no better than other men: he looked upon her as his property, he thought he had a right to order her about."

"It was true. There was a time when he had believed that they belonged to one another, but he had made a mistake. He belonged to her as a dog belonged to its master. What was he but her footman, who called for her at night to see her home? He was 'her husband.' But did she want to be 'his wife'? Were they equals?"

"She hadn't come home to quarrel with him. She wanted to be nothing but his wife, and she did not want him to be anything but her husband."

The effect of the champagne, he thought, and turned to the wall.

She cried and begged him not to be unjust, but to--forgive her.

He pulled the blankets over his ears.

She asked him again if he--if he didn't want her to be his wife any more?

"Yes, of course, he wanted her! But he had been so dreadfully bored all the evening, he could never live through another evening like it."

"Let them forget all about it then!"

And they forgot all about it and continued loving one another.

On the following evening, when the green forester came for his wife, he was told that she had gone to the store rooms. He was alone in the counting-house and sat down on a chair. Presently a gla.s.s door was opened and the young a.s.s put in his head: "Are you here, Annie?"

No, it was only her husband!

He rose and went away. The young a.s.s called his wife Annie, and was evidently on very familiar terms with her. It was more than he could bear.

When she came home they had a scene. She reproached him with the fact that he did not take his views on the emanc.i.p.ation of women seriously, otherwise he could not be annoyed at her being on familiar terms with her fellow-clerks. He made matters worse by admitting that his views were not to be taken seriously.

"Surely he didn't mean what he was saying! Had he changed his mind?

How could he!"

"Yes, he had changed his mind. One could not help modifying one's views almost daily, because one had to adapt them to the conditions of life which were always changing. And if he had believed in spiritual marriages in the days gone by, he had now come to lose faith in marriages of any sort whatever. That was progress in the direction of radicalism. And as to the spiritual, she was spiritually married to the young a.s.s rather than to him, for they exchanged views on the management of the goods department daily and hourly, while she took no interest at all in the cultivation of forests. Was there anything spiritual in their marriage? Was there?"

"No, not any longer! Her love was dead! He had killed it when he renounced his splendid faith in--the emanc.i.p.ation of women."

Matters became more and more unbearable. The green forester began to look to his fellow-foresters for companionship and gave up thinking of the goods department and its way of conducting business, matters which he never understood.

"You don't understand me," she kept on saying over and over again.

"No, I don't understand the goods department," he said.

One night, or rather one morning, he told her that he was going botanising with a girls' cla.s.s. He was teaching botany in a girls'

school.

"Oh! indeed! Why had he never mentioned it before? Big girls?"

"Oh! very big ones. From sixteen to twenty."

"H'm! In the morning?"

"No! In the afternoon! And they would have supper in one of the outlying little villages."

"Would they? The head-mistress would be there of course?"

"Oh! no, she had every confidence in him, since he was a married man.

It was an advantage, sometimes, to be married."

On the next day she was ill.

"Surely he hadn't the heart to leave her!"