From this day forth, we are and will remain good friends. You will tell me all your secrets, make me the confidante of all your love affairs.
How entertaining it will be to know everything!"
"And you, Frederique, will you tell me all your thoughts, all the feelings that agitate your heart?"
"To be sure! But you will receive few confidences from me, for I have no intrigues now. I don"t propose to form any more liaisons of that sort.
In short, I am done with loving; I am happy as I am. I have resolved never to listen to any man again."
"At your age! Nonsense! That resolution won"t last long."
"Very well; if I change--why, I"ll let you know. But let us come to you, the man of the thousand and one pa.s.sions! You ought to tell the story of them, as a supplement to the _Thousand and One Nights_."
"That may have been true once; but I"ve been getting rusty of late. It isn"t virtue, I suppose; but I fancy that I am becoming hard to please."
"You will undoubtedly hasten to console Armantine, who may, perhaps, regret her former position in society, but surely doesn"t regret her husband!"
"I, go to see Madame--Madame Montfort! Oh, no! no, indeed! Do you imagine that I still love her?"
"Of course! Weren"t you mad over her?"
"Love is a form of madness that can be cured, and I am surprised that you think it possible for me to love that woman still--after the scene that you witnessed on the Champs-elysees."
"What do you say? What scene?"
"Oh! my dear friend, let us not begin already to go back on the promise we made only a moment ago! You were on the Champs-elysees, were you not, when an intoxicated man claimed acquaintance with me?"
"Yes; that is, I arrived just at the end. Armantine was running away; I saw that."
"It was you who paid the man who threatened to have the unfortunate fellow I had thrown down arrested."
Frederique said nothing; she dared not deny it.
"How much did you give the man?"
"Twenty-nine francs, I believe."
"Here is the money, my dear friend; accept at the same time my thanks for your kind impulse, which did not occur to me, because I thought of nothing but that woman who was running away from me. Furthermore, I know that you also offered money to that poor devil, whom I left there."
"That is true; but he refused it."
"I know that too. Ah! Frederique, _you_ are kind-hearted; you have a generous heart, superior to the prejudices of society. You would not have run away from me, then closed your door to me, simply because a man in cap and blouse had called me his friend!"
Frederique turned her face away, but her voice trembled as she replied:
"No, of course not! But you must forgive such foibles--the result of a false way of looking at things."
"Forgive jeers, sarcasm, insults, neglect, if you please; I can understand that; but contempt! never! Love must necessarily be destroyed where contempt shows its head."
"But suppose that she has repented of her treatment of you?"
"True; she may have done so, since she has learned that her husband is a spy!"
"Rochebrune! that was a very spiteful remark of yours!"
"I am ent.i.tled to say what I think of that lady."
"You are very angry with her, which proves that you still love her."
"When you mention her to me, I remember how she treated me; but for that, I should not think of her at all. In short, I no longer love her."
"You say that because she isn"t here. But if you should find yourself looking into her lovely eyes----"
"I should remember the way they looked at me at our last interview on the Champs-elysees; and I a.s.sure you that those eyes would no longer endanger my repose."
"Really? do you no longer love Armantine?"
Frederique turned toward me as she asked the question, and I had never seen such an expression of satisfaction and pleasure in her eyes.
"If I still loved her, why should I conceal it from you? You know, we are to tell each other everything now."
"True; for we are friends now. We won"t lose our tempers with each other any more, will we?"
"I wasn"t the one who lost my temper."
"You will come to see me, I hope?"
"You will allow me to?"
"Of course, as the past is only a dream. And I will come to your rooms--as a friend. I am a man, you know. I don"t see why I should not come to see you--unless, of course, it would displease you?"
"Never!"
"In any event, when you have company, or when you expect some fair one, you can tell me so, and I will leave you at liberty. It"s agreed, isn"t it? I shall not come to see you on any other condition."
"It"s agreed."
I took Frederique"s hand again and pressed it warmly, nor did she think of withdrawing it. At that moment, we pa.s.sed a riding party. The young dandies of whom it was composed glanced into our carriage as they pa.s.sed. Frederique suddenly turned pale. I looked up, and recognized one of the cavaliers as Monsieur Saint-Bergame. At the same moment I heard his voice, and distinguished this sentence, the last words coming very indistinctly as he receded:
"Ah! so it"s that fellow now! Each in his turn!"
Madame Dauberny withdrew her hand from mine, her features contracted, her brow grew dark; but she said nothing. I too was silent; for, not knowing whether she had heard what Saint-Bergame said, I was careful not to tell her. But I had a feeling of embarra.s.sment and of wrath, which banished all the pleasurable sensations of a moment before.
We drove a considerable distance without speaking; and when she turned so that I could see her face, which she had kept averted for a long while, I detected tears in her eyes.
I quickly grasped her hand again, saying:
"What is the matter?"
Thereupon she at once resumed her usual manner, as if she were ashamed that I had observed her emotion, and answered, with a smile: