In the still, golden gloom of the drawn curtains, now striped with sunlight, a young girl suddenly sat up in bed.
"Alexandre!" she exclaimed in angry astonishment.
"You s.l.u.t!" he said, already enraged again at the mere sight of her.
"Where did you go last night!"
"What are you doing in my bedroom?" she demanded, confused but flushed with anger. "Leave it! Do you hear!--" She caught sight of the pistol in his hand and stiffened.
He stepped nearer; her dark, dilated gaze remained fixed on the pistol.
"Answer me," he said, the menacing roar rising in his voice. "Where did you go last night when you left the house?"
"I--I went out--on the lawn."
"And then?"
"I had had enough of your party: I came back to Paris."
"And _then_?"
"I came here, of course."
"Who was with you?"
Then, for the first time, she began to comprehend. She swallowed desperately.
"Who was your companion?" he repeated.
"A--man."
"You brought him here?"
"He--came in--for a moment."
"Who was he?"
"I--never before saw him."
"You picked up a man in the street and brought him here with you?"
"N-not on the street----"
"Where?"
"On the lawn--while your guests were dancing----"
"And you came to Paris with him?"
"Y-yes."
"Who was he?"
"I don"t know----"
"If you don"t name him, I"ll kill you!" he yelled, losing the last vestige of self-control. "What kind of story are you trying to tell me, you lying drab! You"ve got a lover! Confess it!"
"I have not!"
"Liar! So this is how you"ve laughed at me, mocked me, betrayed me, made a fool of me! You!--with your fierce little snappish ways of a virgin! You with your dangerous airs of a tiger-cat if a man so much as laid a finger on your vicious body! So Mademoiselle-Don"t-touch-me had a lover all the while. Max Freund warned me to keep an eye on you!" He lost control of himself again; his voice became a hoa.r.s.e shout: "Max Freund begged me not to trust you! You filthy little beast! Good G.o.d! Was I crazy to believe in you--to talk without reserve in your presence! What kind of imbecile was I to offer you marriage because I was crazy enough to believe that there was no other way to possess you! You--a Levantine dancing girl--a common painted thing of the public footlights--a creature of bra.s.serie and cabaret!
And you posed as Mademoiselle Nitouche! A novice! A devotee of chast.i.ty! And, by G.o.d, your devilish ingenuity at last persuaded me that you actually were what you said you were. And all Paris knew you were fooling me--all Paris was laughing in its dirty sleeve--mocking me--spitting on me----"
"All Paris," she said, in an unsteady voice, "gave you credit for being my lover. And I endured it. And you knew it was not true. Yet you never denied it.... But as for me, I never had a lover. When I told you that I told you the truth. And it is true to-day as it was yesterday. n.o.body believes it of a dancing girl. Now, _you_ no longer believe it. Very well, there is no occasion for melodrama. I tried to fall in love with you: I couldn"t. I did not desire to marry you. You insisted. Very well; you can go."
"Not before I learn the name of your lover of last night!" he retorted, now almost beside himself with fury, and once more menacing her with his pistol. "I"ll get that much change out of all the money I"ve lavished on you!" he yelled. "Tell me his name or I"ll kill you!"
She reached under her pillow, clutched a jewelled watch and purse, and hurled them at him. She twisted from her arm a gemmed bracelet, tore every flashing ring from her fingers, and flung them in a handful straight at his head.
"There"s some more change for you!" she panted. "Now, leave my bedroom!"
"I"ll have that man"s name first!"
The girl laughed in his distorted face. He was within an ace of shooting her--of firing point-blank into the lovely, flushed features, merely to shatter them, destroy, annihilate. He had the desire to do it. But her breathless, contemptuous laugh broke that impulse--relaxed it, leaving it flaccid. And after an interval something else intervened to stay his hand at the trigger--something that crept into his mind; something he had begun to suspect that she knew. Suddenly he became convinced that she _did_ know it--that she believed that he dared not kill her and stand the investigation of a public trial before a _juge d"instruction_--that he could not afford to have his own personal affairs scrutinised too closely.
He still wanted to kill her--shoot her there where she sat in bed, watching him out of scornful young eyes. So intense was his need to slay--to disfigure, brutalise this girl who had mocked him, that the raging desire hurt him physically. He leaned back, resting against the silken wall, momentarily weakened by the violence of pa.s.sion. But his pistol still threatened her.
No; he dared not. There was a better, surer way to utterly destroy her,--a way he had long ago prepared,--not expecting any such contingency as this, but merely as a matter of self-insurance.
His levelled weapon wavered, dropped, held loosely now. He still glared at her out of pallid and blood-shot eyes in silence. After a while:
"You h.e.l.l-cat," he said slowly and distinctly. "Who is your English lover? Tell me his name or I"ll beat your face to a pulp!"
"I have no English lover."
"Do you think," he went on heavily, disregarding her reply, "that I don"t know why you chose an Englishman? You thought you could blackmail me, didn"t you?"
"How?" she demanded wearily.
Again he ignored her reply:
"Is he one of the Emba.s.sy?" he demanded. "Is he some emissary of Grey"s? Does he come from their intelligence department? Or is he only a police jackal? Or some lesser rat?"
She shrugged; her night-robe slipped and she drew it over her shoulder with a quick movement. And the man saw the deep blush spreading over face and throat.
"By G.o.d!" he said, "you _are_ an actress! I admit it. But now you are going to learn something about real life. You think you"ve got me, don"t you?--you and your Englishman? Because I have been fool enough to trust you--hide nothing from you--act frankly and openly in your presence. You thought you"d get a hold on me, so that if I ever caught you at your treacherous game you could defy me and extort from me the last penny! You thought all that out--very thriftily and cleverly--you and your Englishman between you--didn"t you?"
"I don"t know what you mean."
"Don"t you? Then why did you ask me the other day whether it was not German money which was paying for the newspaper which I bought?"