“Yes, what about you, my young friend? What are you? The time has come for you to lay your cards on the table also. Who are you?”
“My name is Ralph d’Andresy.”
“Rubbish! Your name is Arsène Lupin. Your father Theophrastus Lupin, who combined the occupation of professor of boxing and gymnastics with the more lucrative profession of crook, was convicted and imprisoned in the United States, and died there. Your mother resumed her maiden name and lived as a poor relation at the house of a distant cousin, the Duke of Dreux-Soubise, One day the Duchess discovered that jewels of the greatest historical value, nothing less, in fact, than the famous necklace of Queen Marie Antoinette, had disappeared. In spite of the most exhaustive attempts to discover it no one ever knew who was the author of this theft, executed with a diabolical daring and cleverness. But I, I do know. It was you. You were six years old.”
Ralph listened, pale with anger and grinding his teeth.
He muttered. “My mother was unhappy and humiliated. I wished to set her free.”
“By thieving?”
“I was six years old,” he protested.
“Today you’re twenty; your mother is dead; you’re robust, intelligent, and overflowing with energy. How do you make a living?”
“I work!” he snapped.
“Yes: in other people’s pockets.”
She gave him no time to deny it.
“You needn’t say anything, Ralph,” she went on quickly. “I know your life down to the last details. And I could tell you things about yourself that would astonish you, things that happened this year, and things that happened years ago. For I’ve been following your career for a very long time and the things I should tell you would certainly not be a bit more pleasant hearing than the things you heard not so very long ago at the inn. Detectives? Policemen? Inquiries? Prosecutions? … You’ve been perfectly well acquainted with them, quite as well acquainted with them as I am, and you’re not twenty! Is it really worthwhile for us to reproach one another? Hardly. Since I know your life and since chance has uncovered for you a corner of mine, let us throw a veil over both. The act of theft is not a pretty one. Let us turn away our eyes and say nothing about it.”
He remained silent. A great weariness invaded him. All at once he saw existence in a gloomy and depressing light in which nothing any longer had color, nothing beauty or graciousness. He could have wept. She paused, frowning thoughtfully and rather sadly, then she said: “Well, for the last time, goodbye.”
“N-n-no. … N-n-no!” he stammered.
“But it must be goodbye, Ralph. I should only do you harm. Do not try to mingle your life with mine. You have ambition, energy, and such qualities that you can choose your path.”
She paused and said in a lower voice: “The path I follow is not a good one, Ralph.”
“Why do you follow it, Josine? That’s exactly what frightens me.”
“It’s too late to find another,” she murmured.
“Then it’s too late for me too!”
“No: you’re young. Save yourself. Fly from the fate with which you are threatened.”
“But you, Josine. … But you?”
“It’s my life,” she declared.
“A dreadful life, which simply causes you suffering,” he asserted.
“If you think so, why do you wish to share it?”
“Because I love you.”
“All the more reason to fly from me, my dear. Any love between us is damned beforehand. You would blush for me; and I should distrust you.”
“I love you,” he persisted.
“Today. But tomorrow? Obey the order I gave you on my photograph the very first night we met: ‘Do not seek to see me again.’ Now go.”
“Yes,” he said slowly. “Yes. You’re right. But it’s terrible to think that everything is at an end between us before even I have had the time to hope … and that you will forget me.”
“One does not forget a person who has saved one’s life twice.”
“No: but you will forget that I love you.”
She shook her head and said: “I shall not forget.”
Then with a thrill of emotion in her tone she went on more quickly: “Your enthusiasm, your initiative … everything that is sincere and spontaneous in you … and other qualities that I have not yet had time to discover in you … all that touches me profoundly.”
Their two hands were still clasped; their eyes still gazed into one another. Ralph was quivering with tenderness.
She sighed and said gently: “When one says goodbye forever, one is bound to return one another’s gifts. Give me back my portrait, Ralph.”
“No, no! Never!” he cried.
“Then I,” she said with a smile which intoxicated him, “I shall be more honest than you and honestly give back to you the gift you gave me.”
“But what gift?” he asked, for he could remember no gift.
“The first night … in the barn … while I was sleeping … you leaned over me; and I felt your lips.”
She bent towards him, put her arms round his neck, drew his head towards her, and their mouths met.
“Oh, Josine!” he cried, lost. “Do what you like with me. I love you. … I love!”
They walked along the bank of the Seine, the waving reeds below them. They brushed against the long narrow spears shaken by the breeze. They went towards happiness with no other thoughts in their hearts but those which make lovers, walking hand in hand, tremble.
“One word, Ralph,” she said, suddenly stopping short. “I feel that with you I shall be violent and exacting. Is there another woman in your life?”
“Not one,” he said firmly.
“A lie already!” she said bitterly.
“A lie?”
“What about Clarice d’Etigues? You used to meet her in the fields. You were seen together.”
He was a trifle ruffled, and he said sharply: “That’s an old story. … The merest flirtation.”
“You swear it?”
“I swear it.”
“All the better,” she said with a somber air. “All the better for her. And let her never come between us! If she does—”
He drew her along, protesting: “I love you only, Josine! I have never loved anyone but
