“It is not a free gift. It is to be mine if I consent to run away from my husband and live in Paris as Mr. Lemuel’s mistress. I am to have a villa at Passy, and fifteen hundred a year.”
“Princely!” exclaimed Desrolles.
“And I am to leave Jack free to live his own life. Don’t you think he would be glad?”
There was something almost tigerish in the look which emphasised this question.
“I think that it would not matter one jot to you whether he were glad or sorry. He would make a row, I suppose, but you would be safe on the other side of the Channel.”
“He would get a divorce,” said La Chicot. “Your English law breaks a marriage as easily as it makes one. And then he would marry that other woman.”
“What other woman?”
“I don’t know—but there is another. He owned, as much the last time we quarrelled.”
“A divorce would make you a great lady. Joseph Lemuel would marry you. The man is your slave; you could twist him round your little finger. And then, instead of your little box at Passy, you might have a mansion in the Champs Élysées, among the ambassadors. You could go to the races in a four-in-hand. You might be the most fashionable woman in Paris.”
“And I began life washing dirty linen, in the river at Auray, among a lot of termagants who hated me because I was young and handsome. I had not much pleasure in those days, my friend.”
“Your Parisian life would be a change. You must be very tired of London.”
“Tired! But I detest it prettily, your city of narrow streets and dismal Sundays.”
“And you must have had enough dancing.”
“I begin to be tired of it. Since my accident I have not the old spirit.”
She had the jewel-case in her hand still, and was turning it about, admiring the brightness of the stones, which sparkled in the dim light. Presently she went back to her low chair by the fire, and let the case lie open in her lap, with the fire glow shining on the gems, until the pure white stones took all the colours of the rainbow.
“I can fancy myself in a box at the opera, in a tight-fitting ruby velvet dress, with no ornaments but this necklace and single diamonds for eardrops,” mused La Chicot. “I do not think there are many women in Paris who would surpass me.”
“Not one.”
“And I should look on while other women danced for my amusement,” she pursued. “After all, the life of a stage dancer is poor thing at best. There are only so many rungs of the ladder between me and a dancing girl at a fair. I am getting tired of it.”
“You will be a good deal more tired when you are a few years older,” said Desrolles.
“At six and twenty one need not think of age.”
“No; but at six and thirty age will think of you.”
“I have asked for a week to consider his offer,” said La Chicot. “This day week I am to give him an answer, yes or no. If I keep the diamonds, it will mean yes. If I send them back to him, it will mean no.”
“I can’t imagine any woman saying no to such a necklace as that,” said Desrolles.
“What is it worth, after all? Fifteen years ago a string of glass beads bought in the market at Auray would have made me happier than those diamonds can make me now.”
“If you are going to moralise, I can’t follow you. I should say, at a rough guess, those diamonds must be worth three thousand pounds.”
“They are to be taken or left,” said La Chicot, in French, with her careless shrug.
“Where do you mean to keep them?” inquired Desrolles. “If your husband were to see them, there would be a row. You must not leave them in his way.”
“Pas si bête,” replied La Chicot. “See here.”
She flung back the loose collar of her cashmere morning gown, and clasped the necklace round her throat. Then she drew the collar together again, and the diamonds were hidden.
“I shall wear the necklace night and day till I make up my mind whether to keep it or not,” she said. “Where I go the diamonds will go—nobody will see them—nobody will rob me of them while I am alive. What is the matter?” she asked suddenly, startled by a passing distortion of Desrolles’ face.
“Nothing. Only a spasm.”
“I thought you were going to have a fit.”
“I did feel queer for the moment. My old complaint.”
“Ah, I thought as much. Have some brandy.”
Though La Chicot made light of Mr. Lemuel’s offering in her talk with Desrolles, she was not the less impressed by it. After she had come from the theatre that night she sat on the floor in her dingy bedroom with a looking-glass in her hand, gloating over her reflection with that string of jewels round her neck, turning her swan-like throat every way to catch the rays of the candle, thinking how glorious she would look with those shining stars upon her ivory neck, thinking what a new and delightful life Joseph Lemuel’s wealth could give her; a life of riot and dissipation, fine clothes, epicurean dinners, late hours, and perfect idleness. She even thought of all the famous restaurants in Paris where she would like to dine; fairy places on the Boulevard, all lights, and gilding, and crimson velvet, which she knew only from the outside; houses where vice was more at home than virtue, and where a single cutlet in its paper frill cost more than a poor man’s family dinner. She looked round the shabby room, with its blackened ceiling and discoloured paper, on which the damp had made ugly blotches; the tawdry curtains, the rickety deal dressing-table disguised in dirty muslin and ragged Nottingham lace—and the threadbare carpet. How miserable it all was! She and her husband had once gone with the crowd to see the house of a
