“If you will listen, I will tell you secrets which Nathan has kept from you, and which will show you the dangers that threaten your love for him.”
Nathan had abruptly dropped Florine’s arm in order to follow the Count, who escaped him in the crowd. Florine went to take a seat beside the Countess, who had drawn her away to a form by the side of Vandenesse, now returned to look after his wife.
“Speak out, my dear,” said Florine, “and don’t suppose you can keep me long on the tenterhooks. Not a creature in the world can get Raoul from me, I can tell you. He is bound to me by habit, which is better than love any day.”
“In the first place, are you Florine?” said Félix, resuming his natural voice.
“A pretty question indeed! If you don’t know who I am, why should I believe you, pray?”
“Go and ask Nathan, who is hunting now for the mistress of whom I speak, where he spent the night three days ago! He tried to stifle himself with charcoal, my dear, unknown to you, because he was ruined. That’s all you know about the affairs of the man whom you profess to love; you leave him penniless, and he kills himself, or rather he doesn’t, he tries to and fails. Suicide when it doesn’t come off is much on a par with a bloodless duel.”
“It is a lie,” said Florine. “He dined with me that day, but not till after sunset. The bailiffs were after him, poor boy. He was in hiding, that’s all.”
“Well, you can go and ask at the Hôtel du Mail, Rue du Mail, whether he was not brought there at the point of death by a beautiful lady, with whom he has had intimate relations for a year; the letters of your rival are hidden in your house, under your very nose. If you care to catch Nathan out, we can go all three to your house; there I shall give you ocular proof that you can get him clear of his difficulties very shortly if you like to be good-natured.”
“That’s not good enough for Florine, thank you, my friend. I know very well that Nathan can’t have a love affair.”
“Because, I suppose, he has redoubled his attentions to you of late, as if that were not the very proof that he is tremendously in love—”
“With a society woman?—Nathan?” said Florine. “Oh! I don’t trouble about a trifle like that.”
“Very well, would you like him to come and tell you himself that he won’t take you home this evening?”
“If you get him to say that,” answered Florine, “I will let you come with me, and we can hunt together for those letters, which I shall believe in when I see them.”
“Stay here,” said Félix, “and watch.”
He took his wife’s arm and waited within a few steps of Florine. Before long Nathan, who was walking up and down the promenade, searching in all directions for his mask like a dog who has lost his master, returned to the spot where the mysterious warning had been spoken. Seeing evident marks of disturbance on Raoul’s brow, Florine planted herself firmly in front of him and said in a commanding voice:
“You must not leave me; I have a reason for wanting you.”
“Marie!” whispered the Countess, by her husband’s instructions, in Raoul’s ear. Then she added, “Who is that woman? Leave her immediately, go outside, and wait for me at the foot of the staircase.”
In this terrible strait, Raoul shook off roughly the arm of Florine, who was quite unprepared for such violence, and, though clinging to him forcibly, was obliged to let go. Nathan at once lost himself in the crowd.
“What did I tell you?” cried Félix in the ear of the stupefied Florine, to whom he offered his arm.
“Come,” she said, “let us go, whoever you are. Have you a carriage?”
Vandenesse’s only reply was to hurry Florine out and hasten to rejoin his wife at a spot agreed upon under the colonnade. In a few minutes the three dominoes, briskly conveyed by Vandenesse’s coachman, arrived at the house of the actress, who took off her mask. Mme. de Vandenesse could not repress a thrill of surprise at the sight of the actress, boiling with rage, magnificent in her wrath and jealousy.
“There is,” said Vandenesse, “a certain writing-case, the key of which has never been in your hands; the letters must be in it.”
“You have me there; you know something, at any rate, which has been bothering me for some days,” said Florine, dashing into the study to fetch the writing-case.
Vandenesse saw his wife grow pale under her mask. Florine’s room told more of Nathan’s intimacy with the actress than was altogether pleasant for a romantic ladylove. A woman’s eye is quick to seize the truth in such matters, and the Countess read in the promiscuous household arrangements a confirmation of what Vandenesse had told her.
Florine returned with the case.
“How shall we open it?” she said.
Then she sent for a large kitchen knife, and when her maid brought it, brandished it with a mocking air, exclaiming:
“This is the way to cut off the pretty dears’ heads!”3
The Countess shuddered. She realized now, even more than her husband’s words had enabled her to do the evening before, the depths from which she had so narrowly escaped.
“What a fool I am!” cried Florine. “His razor would be better.”
She went to fetch the razor, which had just served Nathan for shaving, and cut the edges of the morocco. They fell apart, and Marie’s letters appeared. Florine took up one at random.
“Sure enough, this is some fine lady’s work! Only see how she can spell!”
Vandenesse took the letters and handed them to his wife, who carried them to a table in order to see if they were all there.
“Will you give them up for this?”
