“No! only the fire is so hot.”
The Countess went to fling herself down on a sofa. All at once an incalculable impulse, inspired by the consuming ache of jealousy, drove her to her feet. Trembling in every limb, she crossed her arms, and advanced slowly towards her husband.
“How much do you know?” she asked. “It is not like you to torture me. Even were I guilty, you would give me an easy death.”
“What should I know, Marie?”
“About Nathan?”
“You believe you love him,” he replied, “but you love only a phantom made of words.”
“Then you do know—?”
“Everything,” he said.
The word fell like a blow on Marie’s head.
“If you wish,” he continued, “it shall be as though I knew nothing. My child, you have fallen into an abyss, and I must save you; already I have done something. See—”
He drew from his pocket her guarantee and Schmucke’s four bills, which the Countess recognized, and threw them into the fire.
“What would have become of you, poor Marie, in three months from now? You would have been dragged into Court by bailiffs. Don’t hang your head, don’t be ashamed; you have been betrayed by the noblest of feelings; you have trifled, not with a man, but with your own imagination. There is not a woman—not one, do you hear, Marie?—who would not have been fascinated in your place. It would be absurd that men, who, in the course of twenty years, have committed a thousand acts of folly, should insist that a woman is not to lose her head once in a lifetime. Pray Heaven I may never triumph over you or burden you with a pity such as you repudiated with scorn the other day! Possibly this wretched man was sincere when he wrote to you, sincere in trying to put an end to himself, sincere in returning that very evening to Florine. A man is a poor creature compared to a woman. I am speaking now for you, not for myself. I am tolerant, but society is not; it shuns the woman who makes a scandal; it will allow none to be rich at once in its regard and in the indulgence of passion. Whether this is just or not, I cannot say. Enough that the world is cruel. It may be that, taken in the mass, it is harsher than are the individuals separately. A thief, sitting in the pit, will applaud the triumph of innocence, and filch its jewels as he goes out. Society has no balm for the ills it creates; it honors clever roguery, and leaves unrewarded silent devotion. All this I see and know; but if I cannot reform the world, at least I can protect you from yourself. We have here to do with a man who brings you nothing but trouble, not with a saintly and pious love, such as sometimes commands self-effacement and brings its own excuse with it. Perhaps I have been to blame in not bringing more variety into your peaceful life; I ought to have enlivened our calm routine with the stir and excitement of travel and change. I can see also an explanation of the attraction which drew you to a man of note, in the envy you roused in certain women. Lady Dudley, Mme. d’Espard, Mme. de Manerville, and my sister-in-law Émilie count for something in all this. These women, whom I warned you against, have no doubt worked on your curiosity, more with the object of annoying me than in order to precipitate you among storms which, I trust, may have only threatened without breaking over you.”
The Countess, as she listened to these generous words, was tossed about by a host of conflicting feelings, but lively admiration for Félix dominated the tempest. A noble and high-spirited soul quickly responds to gentle handling. This sensitiveness is the counterpart of physical grace. Marie appreciated a magnanimity which sought in self-depreciation a screen for the blushes of an erring woman. She made a frantic motion to leave the room, then turned back, fearing lest her husband should misunderstand and take alarm.
“Wait!” she said, as she vanished.
Félix had artfully prepared her defence, and he was soon recompensed for his adroitness; for his wife returned with the whole of Nathan’s letters in her hand, and held them out to him.
“Be my judge,” she said, kneeling before him.
“How can a man judge where he loves?” he replied.
He took the letters and threw them on the fire; later, the thought that he had read them might have stood between him and his wife. Marie, her head upon his knees, burst into tears.
“My child, where are yours?” he said, raising her head.
At this question, the Countess no longer felt the intolerable burning of her cheeks, a cold chill went through her.
“That you may not suspect your husband of slandering the man whom you have thought worthy of you, I will have those letters restored to you by Florine herself.”
“Oh! surely he would give them back if I asked him.”
“And supposing he refused?”
The Countess hung her head.
“The world is horrid,” she said; “I will not go into it any more; I will live alone with you, if you forgive me.”
“You might weary again. Besides, what would the world say if you left it abruptly? When spring comes, we will travel, we will go to Italy, we will wander about Europe, until another child comes to need your care. We must not give up the ball tomorrow, for it is the only way to get hold of your letters without compromising ourselves; and when Florine brings them to you, will not that be the measure of her power?”
“And I must see that?” said the terrified Countess.
“Tomorrow night.”
Towards midnight next evening Nathan was pacing the promenade at the masked ball, giving his arm to a domino with a very fair imitation of the conjugal manner. After two or three turns two masked women came up to them.
“Fool! you have done for yourself; Marie is
