Here are some of the duties to which his passion gave the first place. Almost every day between two and three o’clock he rode to the Bois de Boulogne in the style of the purest dandy. He then learned in what house or at what theatre he might meet Mme. de Vandenesse again that evening. He never left a reception till close upon midnight, when he had at last succeeded in snapping up some long watched-for words, a few crumbs of tenderness, artfully dropped below the table, or in a corridor, or on the way to the carriage. Marie, who had launched him in the world of fashion, generally got him invitations to dinner at the houses where she visited. Nothing could be more natural. Raoul was too proud, and also too much in love, to say a word about business. He had to obey every caprice and whim of his innocent tyrant; while, at the same time, following closely the debates in the Chamber and the rapid current of politics, directing his paper, and bringing out two plays which were to furnish the sinews of war. If ever he asked to be let off a ball, a concert, or a drive, a look of annoyance from Mme. de Vandenesse was enough to make him sacrifice his interests to her pleasure.
When he returned home from these engagements at one or two in the morning, he worked till eight or nine, leaving scant time for sleep. Directly he was up, he plunged into consultations with influential supporters as to the policy of the paper. A thousand and one internal difficulties meantime would await his settlement, for journalism nowadays has an all-embracing grasp. Business, public and private interests, new ventures, the personal sensitiveness of literary men, as well as their compositions—nothing is alien to it. When, harassed and exhausted, Nathan flew from his office to the theatre, from the theatre to the Chamber, from the Chamber to a creditor, he had next to present himself, calm and smiling, before Marie, and canter beside her carriage with the ease of a man who has no cares, and whose only business is pleasure. When, as sole reward for so many unnoticed acts of devotion, he found only the gentlest of words or prettiest assurances of undying attachment, a warm pressure of the hand, if by chance they escaped observation for a moment, or one or two passionate expressions in response to his own, Raoul began to feel that it was mere Quixotism not to make known the extravagant price he paid for these “modest favors,” as our fathers might have called them.
The opportunity for an explanation was not long of coming. On a lovely April day the Countess took Nathan’s arm in a secluded corner of the Bois de Boulogne. She had a pretty little quarrel to pick with him about one of those molehills which women have the art of turning into mountains. There was no smiling welcome, no radiant brow, the eyes did not sparkle with fun or happiness; it was a serious and burdened woman who met him.
“What is wrong?” said Nathan.
“Oh! Why worry about trifles?” she said. “Surely you know how childish women are.”
“Are you angry with me?”
“Should I be here?”
“But you don’t smile, you don’t seem a bit glad to see me.”
“I suppose you mean that I am cross,” she said, with the resigned air of a woman determined to be a martyr.
Nathan walked on a few steps, an overshadowing fear gripping at his heart. After a moment’s silence, he went on:
“It can only be one of those idle fears, those vague suspicions, to which you give such exaggerated importance. A straw, a thread in your hands is enough to upset the balance of the world!”
“Satire next! … Well, I expected it,” she said, hanging her head.
“Marie, my beloved, do you not see that I say this only to wring your secret from you?”
“My secret will remain a secret, even after I have told you.”
“Well, tell me …”
“I am not loved,” she said, with the stealthy side-look, which is a woman’s instrument for probing the man she means to torture.
“Not loved!” exclaimed Nathan.
“No; you have too many things on your mind. What am I in the midst of this whirl? You are only too glad to forget me. Yesterday I came to the Bois, I waited for you—”
“But—”
“I had put on a new dress for you, and you did not come. Where were you?”
“But—”
“I couldn’t tell. I went to Mme. d’Espard’s; you were not there.”
“But—”
“At the opera in the evening my eyes never left the balcony. Every time the door opened my heart beat so that I thought it would break.”
“But—”
“What an evening! You have no conception of such agony!”
“But—”
“It eats into life—”
“But—”
“Well?” she said.
“Yes,” replied Nathan, “it does eat into life, and in a few months you will have consumed mine. Your wild reproaches have torn from me my secret also. … Ah! you are not loved? My God, you are loved too well.”
He drew a graphic picture of his straits. He told her how he sat up at nights, how he had to keep certain engagements at fixed hours, and how, above all things, he was bound to succeed. He showed her how insatiable were the claims of a paper, compelled, at risk of losing its reputation, to be beforehand with an accurate judgment on every event that took place, and how incessant was the call for a rapid survey of questions, which chased each other like clouds over the horizon in that period of political convulsions.
In a moment the mischief was done. Raoul had been told by the Marquise d’Espard that nothing is so ingenuous as a first love, and it soon appeared that the Countess erred in loving too much. A loving woman meets every difficulty with delight and with fresh proof of her passion. On seeing the panorama of this varied life unrolled before her, the Countess was filled with admiration.
