replaced it discreetly in its former position: 'I think, miss, that we can very well talk standing.'
'As you please, madame,' replied Rose-Pompon, steadying herself the more bravely the more uneasy she felt. And the interview of the lady and the grisette began in this fashion.
CHAPTER XXXVI. THE INTERVIEW.
After a minute's hesitation, Rose-Pompon said to Adrienne, whose heart was beating violently: 'I will tell you directly, madame, what I have on my mind. I should not have gone out of my way to seek you, but, as I happen to fall in with you, it is very natural I should take advantage of it.'
'But, miss,' said Adrienne, mildly, 'may I at least know the subject of the conversation we are to have together?'
'Yes, madame,' replied Rose-Pompon, affecting an air of still more decided confidence; 'first of all, you must not suppose I am unhappy, or going to make a scene of jealousy, or cry like a forsaken damsel. Do not flatter yourself! Thank heaven, I have no reason to complain of Prince Charming—that is the pet name I gave him—on the contrary, he has made me very happy. If I left him, it was against his will, and because I chose.'
So saying, Rose-Pompon, whose heart was swelling in spite of her fine airs, could not repress a sigh.
'Yes, madame,' she resumed, 'I left him because I chose—for he quite doted on me. If I had liked, he would have married me—yes, madame, married me—so much the worse, if that gives you pain. Though, when I say 'so much the worse,' it is true that I meant to pain you. To be sure I did—but then, just now when I saw you so kind to poor Mother Bunch, though I was certainly in the right, still I felt something. However, to cut matters short, it is clear that I detest you, and that you deserve it,' added Rose-Pompon, stamping her foot.
From all this it resulted, even for a person much less sagacious than Adrienne, and much less interested in discovering the truth, that Rose Pompon, notwithstanding her triumphant airs in speaking of him whom she represented as so much attached to her, and even anxious to wed her, was in reality completely disappointed, and was now taking refuge in a deliberate falsehood. It was evident that she was not loved, and that nothing but violent jealousy had induced her to desire this interview with Mdlle. de Cardoville, in order to make what is vulgarly called a scene, considering Adrienne (the reason will be explained presently) as her successful rival. But Rose-Pompon, having recovered her good-nature, found it very difficult to continue the scene in question, particularly as, for many reasons, she felt overawed by Adrienne.
Though she had expected, if not the singular speech of the grisette, at least something of the same result— for she felt it was impossible that the prince could entertain a serious attachment for this girl—Mdlle. de Cardoville was at first delighted to hear the confirmation of her hopes from the lips of her rival; but suddenly these hopes were succeeded by a cruel apprehension, which we will endeavor to explain. What Adrienne had just heard ought to have satisfied her completely. Sure that the heart of Djalma had never ceased to belong to her, she ought, according to the customs and opinions of the world, to have cared little if, in the effervescence of an ardent youth, he had chanced to yield to some ephemeral caprice for this creature, who was, after all, very pretty and desirable—the more especially as he had now repaired his error by separating from her.
Notwithstanding these good reasons, such an error of the senses would not have been pardoned by Adrienne. She did not understand that complete separation of the body and soul that would make the one exempt from the stains of the other. She did not think it a matter of indifference to toy with one woman whilst you were thinking of another. Her young, chaste, passionate love demanded an absolute fealty—a fealty as just in the eyes of heaven and nature as it may be ridiculous and foolish in the eyes of man. For the very reason that she cherished a refined religion of the senses, and revered them as an adorable and divine manifestation, Adrienne had all sorts of delicate scruples and nice repugnances, unknown to the austere spirituality of those ascetic prudes who despise vile matter too much to take notice of its errors, and allow it to grovel in filth, to show the contempt in which they hold it. Mdlle. de Cardoville was not one of those wonderfully modest creatures who would die of confusion rather than say plainly that they wished for a young and handsome husband, at once ardent and pure. It is true that they generally marry old, ugly, and corrupted men, and make up for it by taking two or three lovers six months after. But Adrienne felt instinctively how much of virginal and celestial freshness there is in the equal innocence of two loving and passionate beings—what guarantees for the future in the remembrance which a man preserves of his first love!
We say, then, that Adrienne was only half-satisfied, though convinced by the vexation of Rose-Pompon that Djalma had never entertained a serious attachment for the grisette.
'And why do you detest me, miss?' said Adrienne mildly, when Rose-Pompon had finished her speech.
'Oh! bless me, madame!' replied the latter, forgetting altogether her assumption of triumph, and yielding to the natural sincerity of her character; 'pretend that you don't know why I detest you!—Oh, yes! people go and pick bouquets from the jaws of a panther for people that they care nothing about, don't they? And if it was only that!' added Rose-Pompon, who was gradually getting animated, and whose pretty face, at first contracted into a sullen pout, now assumed an expression of real and yet half-comic sorrow.
'And if it was only the nosegay!' resumed she. 'Though it gave me a dreadful turn to see Prince Charming leap like a kid upon the stage, I might have said to myself: 'Pooh! these Indians have their own way of showing politeness. Here, a lady drops her nosegay, and a gentleman picks it up and gives it to her; but in India it is quite another thing; the man picks up the nosegay, and does not return it to the woman—he only kills a panther before her eyes.' Those are good manners in that country, I suppose; but what cannot be good manners anywhere is to treat a woman as I have been treated. And all thanks to you, madame!'
These complaints of Rose-Pompon, at once bitter and laughable, did not at all agree with what she had previously stated as to Djalma's passionate love for her; but Adrienne took care not to point out this contradiction, and said to her, mildly: 'You must be mistaken, miss, when you suppose that I had anything to do with your troubles. But, in any case, I regret sincerely that you should have been ill-treated by any one.'
'If you think I have been beaten, you are quite wrong,' exclaimed Rose Pompon. 'Ah! well, I am sure! No, it is not that. But I am certain that, had it not been for you, Prince Charming would have got to love me a little. I am worthy of the trouble, after all—and then there are different sorts of love—I am not so very particular—not even so much as that,' added Rose-Pompon, snapping her fingers.
'Ah!' she continued, 'when Ninny Moulin came to fetch me, and brought me jewels and laces to persuade me to go with him, he was quite right in saying there was no harm in his offers.'
'Ninny Moulin?' asked Mdlle. de Cardoville, becoming more and more interested; 'who is this Ninny Moulin, miss?'
'A religious writer,' answered Rose-Pompon, pouting; 'the right-hand man of a lot of old sacristans, whose money he takes on pretense of writing about morality and religion. A fine morality it is!'
At these words—'a religious writer'—'sacristans' Adrienne instantly divined some new plot of Rodin or Father d'Aigrigny, of which she and Djalma were to have been the victims. She began vaguely to perceive the real state of the case, as she resumed: 'But, miss, under what pretence could this man take you away with him?'
'He came to fetch me, and said I need not fear for my virtue, and was only to make myself look pretty. So I said to myself: 'Philemon's out of town, and it's very dull here all alone: This seems a droll affair; what can I risk by it?'—Alas! I didn't know what I risked,' added Rose Pompon, with a sigh. 'Well! Ninny Moulin takes me away in a fine carriage. We stop in the Place du Palais-Royal. A sullen-looking man, with a yellow face, gets up in the room of Ninny Moulin, and takes me to the house of Prince Charming. When I saw him—la! he was so handsome, so very handsome, that I was quite dizzy-like; and he had such a kind, noble air, that I said to myself, 'Well! there will be some credit if I remain a good girl now!'—I did not know what a true word I was speaking. I have been good—oh! worse than good.'
'What, miss! do you regret having been so virtuous?'
'Why, you see, I regret, at least, that I have not had the pleasure of refusing. But how can you refuse, when nothing is asked—when you are not even thought worth one little loving word?'
'But, miss, allow me to observe to you that the indifference of which you complain does not see to have prevented your making a long stay in the house in question.'
'How should I know why the prince kept me there, or took me out riding with him, or to the play? Perhaps it is the fashion in his savage country to have a pretty girl by your side, and to pay no attention to her at all!'
'But why, then, did you remain, miss?'
'Why did I remain?' said Rose-Pompon, stamping her loot with vexation. 'I remained because, without knowing how it happened, I began to get very fond of Prince Charming; and what is queer enough, I, who am as gay
