The soul of a thief … a furtive restless soul, hostile to the light of day. Was it indeed possible? How could he admit that this face of a simple, innocent girl, that those eyes, clear as the waters of a virgin spring, were a mirage and a lie?
He had sunk to such a depth of disillusionment that, as they passed through the little village of Yvetot, he thought of nothing but flight. But he lacked the energy to fly; and that redoubled his anger. The memory of Clarice d’Etigues rose in his mind; and in a kind of revengefulness, he summoned up before it the clear image of the gentle young girl whose selfless abandonment had been so noble.
But Josephine Balsamo did not loose her prey. However tarnished she might appear to him, however deformed the idol might have grown, she was there! An intoxicating fragrance emanated from her. He was touching her. With a movement he could take her hand and kiss that perfumed flesh. She was all the passion, all the desire, all the voluptuousness, all the troubling mystery of woman; and once more the memory of Clarice vanished from his mind.
“Josine—Josine,” he murmured so low that she did not hear him.
Moreover, what was the use of bemoaning his love and his suffering? Would she restore to him the confidence he had lost and regain in his eyes the prestige which was hers no longer?
They were drawing near the Seine. On the top of the slope which runs down to the river at Caudebec they turned to the left, among the wooded hills which dominate the valley of Saint-Wandrille. They drove along the ruins of the celebrated abbey, followed the course of the water which bathes the foot of its walls, came in sight of the river, and took the road to Rouen.
A few minutes later the carriage stopped. They stepped out of it; and Leonard drove on again, leaving them on the outskirts of a little wood from which they looked across the river. A meadow covered with waving reeds ran between it and them.
Josephine Balsamo held out her hand:
“Goodbye, Ralph. A little further on you will find Mailleraie Station.”
“But what about you?” he asked.
“I? My abode is close at hand.”
“I don’t see it.”
“Yes, you do: that barge which you can just see between the branches.”
“I’ll take you to it.”
A narrow embankment ran across the meadow through the middle of the reeds. The Countess took her way along it, followed by Ralph.
So they came to a piece of open ground, close by the barge, which was still hidden behind a curtain of willows. No one could see them or hear them. They were alone under the expanse of blue sky. And there there passed some of those minutes of which one keeps the memory for a lifetime and which influence the whole course of one’s destiny.
“Goodbye,” said Josephine Balsamo once more.
He hesitated before this hand stretched out to him in final farewell.
“Won’t you shake hands with me?” she said.
“Yes … yes …” he murmured. “But why should we separate?”
“Because we no longer have anything to say to one another,” she said sadly.
“Nothing indeed; and yet we never have said anything,” said he.
He took her warm and supple little hand in his and said:
“What those men said? … Their accusations in the garden of that inn? … Was it true?”
He craved some explanation, lie though it might be, which should permit him to retain some doubt.
But with an air of surprise she answered: “What on earth does that matter to you?”
“What? Of course it matters to me!” he cried.
“One might really imagine that those revelations could have some effect on you,” she said looking at him with just a suspicion of mockery in her expression.
“What on earth do you mean?” he said in astonished accents.
“Goodness! It’s very simple. I mean to say that I could have understood your being shocked at the confirmation of the monstrous crimes of which Beaumagnan and the Baron d’Etigues so falsely and stupidly accused me; but there is no longer any question of them.”
“But I haven’t forgotten their accusations either,” he said.
“Their accusations against the woman whose name I gave them, against the Marquise de Belmonte. But it is not a question of crimes at all. What does all that chance revealed to you a little while ago really matter to you?”
He was taken aback by this unexpected question. She looked him straight in the face, smiling, entirely at her ease, and went on a trifle ironically:
“Doubtless the Vicomte Ralph d’Andresy has had his sensibilities ruffled? The Vicomte Ralph d’Andresy must evidently have moral principles, and the delicate sentiments of a gentleman.”
“And supposing he has?” said he. “When I experienced that disillusionment—”
“Steady on!” she said sharply. “You’ve let the cat out of the bag! You’re disappointed. You ran after a beautiful dream and it all vanished, now that the woman appears to you exactly as she is. Answer frankly since we are honestly trying to get things clear. You’re disappointed, aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am,” he said dryly.
They were silent. She gazed deep into his eyes and murmured:
“I’m a thief, am I not? That’s what you mean, isn’t it? A thief?”
“Yes.”
She smiled and said: “And what about you?”
And as he started back she caught him firmly
