“Well, haven’t you any questions to ask me?” he said.
“What questions? You said yourself that I had taken the portmanteau. And afterwards I put it in a safe place.”
“And you didn’t make sure that it was all right?”
“Gracious, no. What was the point in opening it? The ropes and seals were intact.”
“You didn’t notice the mark of a hole in the side—an opening made between the strands of wickerwork?”
“An opening?” she said faintly.
“Goodness, you don’t suppose that I spent two hours with a portmanteau full of jewels without doing anything? Come: I’m not such a fool as that.”
“Then—then—” she said in a yet fainter voice.
“Then, my poor friend, little by little, patiently, I extracted all the contents of the portmanteau with the result that—”
“With the result that?”
“—when you open it you will find nothing inside but a roughly equivalent weight of trifles of no great value—just what I had to hand, finding them in the sacks of provisions—a good many pounds of lentils and haricot beans—merchandise for which it is hardly worth your while perhaps, to pay the rent of a strongroom in a London bank.”
She struggled not to believe him and protested: “It isn’t true! You can’t have been able—” Her voice died away before this paralyzing revelation.
He reached up to a shelf and took down a little wooden bowl, from which he poured into the palm of his hand two or three dozen diamonds and rubies and sapphires and carelessly made them dance and sparkle and clink.
“And there are others,” he said with an air of satisfaction. “Undoubtedly the imminence of the explosion prevented me from bringing the lot of them away; and the bulk of the treasure of the monks is scattered about the bottom of the sea. But all the same there’s something to amuse a young man and help him to bear up. What do you think, Josine? You don’t answer. … But hang it all! What’s the matter now, confound it? You’re never going to faint! Oh, these infernal women! They can’t even lose a thousand millions without going off. What milksops they are!”
Josephine did not “go off,” as Ralph had phrased it. She drew herself up, livid with raised arms. She wished to insult him. She wished to strike him. But she was suffocating. Her hands beat the air like the hands of a drowning man waving above the surface of the sea; and she fell upon the bed, moaning hoarsely.
Unmoved, he waited for the end of the attack. But he had still something to say to her.
“Well, have I beaten you? Have madam’s shoulders touched the mat? Are you knocked out? Defeat all along the line. What? That’s what I wanted to bring home to you, Josephine. You will go away from here completely convinced that you can do nothing against me and that it is best to give up all idea of plotting against me. I shall be happy in spite of you, and so will Clarice, and we shall have lots and lots of children. So you will have to make up your mind to face these facts.”
He began to walk up and down and went on in accents that grew more and more cheerful: “Moreover what would you? You struck a streak of bad luck when you went to war with a stout young fellow who is ten times as strong and smart as you, my poor girl. I’m often astonished myself at my strength and smartness. Heavens! What a marvel of cleverness, cunning, intuition, energy, and clearsightedness! A veritable genius! Nothing escapes me. I read the minds of my enemies like an open book. Their slightest thoughts are known to me. So, at this very moment you’ve got your back to me, haven’t you? You’re spread out on the bed and I cannot see your charming face. All the same I’m perfectly well aware that you’re slipping your hand into your bodice and pulling out a revolver and that you’re going—”
The sentence was not finished. Suddenly Josephine twisted round, revolver in hand.
The report rang out. But Ralph, who was ready had time to grasp her wrist and twist it back—towards herself. She fell back wounded in the bosom.
The scene had been so brutal and the dénouement so unexpected that he stood speechless before this suddenly inert form which lay before him, the face colorless.
However he felt no anxiety. He did not believe that she was dead; and as a matter of fact, when he bent down and looked into it, he found that her heart was beating steadily. He cut away the top of her bodice with his nail-scissors. The bullet, striking aslant, had glanced off after ploughing through the flesh, a little above the black mark on top of her breast.
“It isn’t a serious wound,” he said to himself, thinking that the death of such a creature would have been only right and desirable.
He stood over her, still holding the scissors in his hand, and asking himself if it was not his duty to destroy this too perfect beauty, to mangle that charming face and so to rob the siren of her power to injure. A scar in the shape of a deep cross across her face, which raised ridges of skin would render indelible, what a just punishment and what a valuable precaution! What evil deeds avoided and what crimes prevented!
He had not the courage to do so; he did not wish to arrogate to himself the right to do so. Besides he had loved her too well.
He stood for a long time motionless, gazing down at her with infinite sadness. The struggle had exhausted him. He found himself full of bitterness and disgust. She was his first love, his first real love, and that passion to which the innocent heart brings so much freshness and of which it retains so sweet a memory, had brought him in the end nothing but rancor and hate. All his life his lips would retain a
