He sat still, his arms crossed, his eyes turned skyward, his mind too agitated to think as yet. He only felt within him the rancor fermenting and the anger swelling which lurk at the heart of all mankind in presence of the caprices of feminine desire. He felt for the first time that vague anguish of the husband who suspects. He was jealous at last, jealous on behalf of the dead, jealous on Forestier"s account, jealous in a strange and poignant fashion, into which there suddenly entered a hatred of Madeleine. Since she had deceived the other, how could he have confidence in her himself? Then by degrees his mind became calmer, and bearing up against his pain, he thought: "All women are prost.i.tutes. We must make use of them, and not give them anything of ourselves." The bitterness in his heart rose to his lips in words of contempt and disgust. He repeated to himself: "The victory in this world is to the strong. One must be strong. One must be above all prejudices."
The carriage was going faster. It repa.s.sed the fortifications. Du Roy saw before him a reddish light in the sky like the glow of an immense forge, and heard a vast, confused, continuous rumor, made up of countless different sounds, the breath of Paris panting this summer night like an exhausted giant.
George reflected: "I should be very stupid to fret about it. Everyone for himself. Fortune favors the bold. Egotism is everything. Egotism as regards ambition and fortune is better than egotism as regards woman and love."
The Arc de Triomphe appeared at the entrance to the city on its two tall supports like a species of shapeless giant ready to start off and march down the broad avenue open before him. George and Madeleine found themselves once more in the stream of carriages bearing homeward and bedwards the same silent and interlaced couples. It seemed that the whole of humanity was pa.s.sing by intoxicated with joy, pleasure, and happiness. The young wife, who had divined something of what was pa.s.sing through her husband"s mind, said, in her soft voice: "What are you thinking of, dear? You have not said a word for the last half hour."
He answered, sneeringly: "I was thinking of all these fools cuddling one another, and saying to myself that there is something else to do in life."
She murmured: "Yes, but it is nice sometimes."
"It is nice--when one has nothing better to do."
George"s thoughts were still hard at it, stripping life of its poesy in a kind of spiteful anger. "I should be very foolish to trouble myself, to deprive myself of anything whatever, to worry as I have done for some time past." Forestier"s image crossed his mind without causing any irritation. It seemed to him that they had just been reconciled, that they had become friends again. He wanted to cry out: "Good evening, old fellow."
Madeleine, to whom this silence was irksome, said: "Suppose we have an ice at Tortoni"s before we go in."
He glanced at her sideways. Her fine profile was lit up by the bright light from the row of gas jets of a cafe. He thought, "She is pretty.
Well, so much the better. Jack is as good as his master, my dear. But if ever they catch me worrying again about you, it will be hot at the North Pole." Then he replied aloud: "Certainly, my dear," and in order that she should not guess anything, he kissed her.
It seemed to the young wife that her husband"s lips were frozen. He smiled, however, with his wonted smile, as he gave her his hand to alight in front of the cafe.
XI
On reaching the office next day, Du Roy sought out Boisrenard.
"My dear fellow," said he, "I have a service to ask of you. It has been thought funny for some time past to call me Forestier. I begin to find it very stupid. Will you have the kindness to quietly let our friends know that I will smack the face of the first that starts the joke again?
It will be for them to reflect whether it is worth risking a sword thrust for. I address myself to you because you are a calm-minded fellow, who can hinder matters from coming to painful extremities, and also because you were my second."
Boisrenard undertook the commission. Du Roy went out on business, and returned an hour later. No one called him Forestier.
When he reached home he heard ladies" voices in the drawing-room, and asked, "Who is there?"
"Madame Walter and Madame de Marelle," replied the servant.
His heart beat fast for a moment, and then he said to himself, "Well, let"s see," and opened the door.
Clotilde was beside the fireplace, full in a ray of light from the window. It seemed to George that she grew slightly paler on perceiving him. Having first bowed to Madame Walter and her two daughters, seated like two sentinels on each side of their mother, he turned towards his late mistress. She held out her hand, and he took it and pressed it meaningly, as though to say, "I still love you." She responded to this pressure.
He inquired: "How have you been during the century that has elapsed since our last meeting?"
She replied with perfect ease: "Quite well; and you, Pretty-boy?" and turning to Madeleine, added: "You will allow me to call him Pretty-boy still?"
"Certainly, dear; I will allow whatever you please."
A shade of irony seemed hidden in these words.
Madame Walter spoke of an entertainment that was going to be given by
Jacques Rival at his residence, a grand a.s.sault-at-arms, at which ladies of fashion were to be present, saying: "It will be very interesting. But I am so vexed we have no one to take us there, my husband being obliged to be away at that time."
Du Roy at once offered his services. She accepted, saying: "My daughters and I will be very much obliged to you."
He looked at the younger daughter, and thought: "She is not at all bad looking, this little Susan; not at all." She resembled a fair, fragile
doll, too short but slender, with a small waist and fairly developed hips and bust, a face like a miniature, grayish-blue, enamel-like eyes, which seemed shaded by a careful yet fanciful painter, a polished, colorless skin, too white and too smooth, and fluffy, curly hair, in a charming aureola, like, indeed the hair of the pretty and expensive dolls we see in the arms of children much smaller than their plaything.
The elder sister, Rose, was ugly, dull-looking, and insignificant; one of those girls whom you do not notice, do not speak to, and do not talk about.
The mother rose, and, turning to George, said:
"Then I may reckon upon you for next Thursday, two o"clock?"
"You may reckon upon me, madame," he replied.
As soon as she had taken her departure, Madame de Marelle rose in turn, saying: "Good afternoon, Pretty-boy."
It was she who then clasped his hand firmly and for some time, and he felt moved by this silent avowal, struck again with a sudden caprice for this good-natured little, respectable Bohemian of a woman, who really loved him, perhaps.
As soon as he was alone with his wife, Madeleine broke out into a laugh, a frank, gay laugh, and, looking him fair in the face, said, "You know that Madame Walter is smitten with you."
"Nonsense," he answered, incredulously.
"It is so, I tell you; she spoke to me about you with wild enthusiasm.
It is strange on her part. She would like to find two husbands such as you for her daughters. Fortunately, as regards her such things are of no moment."
He did not understand what she meant, and inquired, "How of no moment?"
She replied with the conviction of a woman certain of the soundness of her judgment, "Oh! Madame Walter is one of those who have never even had a whisper about them, never, you know, never. She is una.s.sailable in every respect. Her husband you know as well as I do. But with her it is quite another thing. She has suffered enough through marrying a Jew, but she has remained faithful to him. She is an honest woman."
Du Roy was surprised. "I thought her a Jewess, too," said he.
"She, not at all. She is a lady patroness of all the good works of the Church of Madeleine. Her marriage, even, was celebrated religiously. I do not know whether there was a dummy baptism as regards the governor, or whether the Church winked at it."
George murmured: "Ah! so she fancied me."
"Positively and thoroughly. If you were not bespoken, I should advise you to ask for the hand of--Susan, eh? rather than that of Rose."
He replied, twisting his moustache: "Hum; their mother is not yet out of date."
Madeleine, somewhat out of patience, answered:
"Their mother! I wish you may get her, dear. But I am not alarmed on that score. It is not at her age that a woman is guilty of a first fault. One must set about it earlier."
George was reflecting: "If it were true, though, that I could have married Susan." Then he shrugged his shoulders. "Bah! it is absurd. As if her father would have ever have accepted me as a suitor."