I took out a cigarette, lit it, and smiled at her.
"You--you would get under the table?" she asked me.
"You catch my meaning perfectly."
"Then aren"t you ashamed to sit at it?"
"Yes," said I, and laughed.
"Ah!" she cried, shaking her fist at me, and herself laughing. Then she leaned over toward me and whispered, "You shall retract that."
Wetter looked up and saw her whispering to me, and laughing as she whispered. He frowned, and I saw his hand tremble on the table. Though I laughed and fenced with her and defied her, I was myself in some excitement. I seemed to be playing a match; and I had confidence in my game.
Wetter spoke abruptly in a harsh but carefully restrained voice.
"It is not for me to question the King"s account of himself," he said, "but so far as I am concerned your question did me a wrong. Openly I come here, openly I leave here. All know why I come, and what I desire in coming. I ask nothing better than to declare it before all the city."
She rose and made him a curtsey, then she gave a slight yawn and observed:
"So now we know just where we are."
"The King has defined his position with great accuracy," said Wetter with an open sneer.
"Yes? What is it?" she asked.
"His own words are enough; mine could add no clearness--and--"
"Might give offence?" she asked.
"It is possible," said he.
"Then we come to this: which is better, a king under the table or a politician at it?" She burst out laughing.
Madame Briande had fled to a remote corner. Wetter was in the throes of excitement. A strange coolness and recklessness now possessed me. I was insensible of everything at this moment except the impulse of rivalry and the desire for victory. Nothing in the scene had power to repel me, my eyes were blind to everything of ugly aspect in it.
"To define the question, mademoiselle, should be but a preliminary to answering it," said I, with a bow.
"I would answer it this minute, sire, but----"
"You hesitate, perhaps?"
"Oh, no; but my hair-dresser is waiting for me."
"Let no such trifle detain you then," I cried. "For I, even I the coward, had sooner----"
"Be misunderstood?"
"Why, precisely. I had sooner be misunderstood than that your hair should not be perfectly dressed at the theatre."
Wetter rose to his feet. He said "Good-bye" to Coralie, not a word more.
To me he bowed very low and very formally. I returned his salutation with a cool nod. As he turned to the door Coralie cried:
"I shall see you at supper, _mon cher_?"
He turned his head and looked at her.
"I don"t know," he said.
"Very well. I like uncertainty. We will hope."
He went out. I stood facing her for a moment.
"Well?" said she, looking in my eyes, and seeming to challenge an expression of opinion.
"You are pleased with yourself?"
"Yes."
"You have done some mischief."
"How much?"
"I don"t know. But you love uncertainty."
"True, true. And you seem to think that I love candour."
"Don"t you?"
"I think that I love everything and everybody in the world except you."
I laughed again. I knew that I had triumphed.
"Behold your decision," I cried, "and the hair-dresser still waits!"
She did not answer me. She stood there smiling. I took her hand and kissed it with much and even affected gallantry. Then I went and paid a like attention to Madame Briande. As the little woman made her curtsey she turned alarmed and troubled eyes up to me.
"Oh, _mon Dieu_!" she murmured.
"Till to-night," smiled Coralie.
CHAPTER XVI.
A CHASE OF TWO PHANTOMS.
I was reading the other day the memoirs of an eminent English man of letters, now dead. He had paid a long visit to Forstadt, and had much to say (sometimes, I think, in a vein of veiled irony) about Victoria, her literary tastes and her literary circle. Finding amus.e.m.e.nt enough to induce me to turn over a few more pages, I came on the following pa.s.sage: