And he was torn by remorse, the torturing remorse of an austere and scrupulous man.
He confessed and took the sacrament; but he was still sick at heart, obsessed by the remembrance of his fall and a feeling that he owed a debt, a sacred debt, to his wife.
He did not see her until a month later, for she had been staying with her parents, while the grand manoeuvres took place.
She came to him with open arms and a smile on her lips. He received her with the embarrassed air of a guilty man, and almost refrained from speaking to her until the evening.
As soon as they were alone together, she asked him:
“Well, what’s the matter, darling? I find you very changed.”
He answered awkwardly:
“There’s nothing the matter with me, my dear, absolutely nothing.”
“I beg your pardon, but I know you very well, and I’m sure there’s something the matter with you, some trouble or grief or annoyance or other.”
“Well, yes, I am troubled.”
“Ah! And by what?”
“I can’t possibly tell you about it.”
“Not tell me? Why not? You alarm me.”
“I have no reason to give you. I can’t possibly tell you about it.”
She was sitting on a low couch and he was striding up and down the room, hands behind his back, avoiding his wife’s eye. She went on:
“Very well, so I must hear your confession—that’s my duty—and require the truth from you—that’s my right. You can no more have secrets from me than I can have them from you.”
He turned his back on her and stood framed in the tall window.
“My dear,” he said solemnly, “there are things it is better not to tell. The thing that worries me is one of them.”
She rose, crossed the room, took him by the arm and forced him to turn round. She put her two hands on his shoulders; then, smiling, coaxing, her eyes lifted to him, she said:
“Come, Marie” (she called him Marie when she loved him very much), “you can’t hide anything from me. I believe you’ve done something wicked.”
He murmured:
“I’ve done something very wicked.”
“Oh, as bad as that?” she said gaily. “You of all people! You astonish me.”
“I won’t tell you anything more,” he answered sharply. “It’s no use your insisting.”
But she led him to an armchair, made him sit in it, rested herself on his right knee and dropped a small swift kiss, a light-winged kiss, on the upturned end of his moustache.
“If you don’t tell me anything, we shall never be friends again.”
Torn by remorse and in an agony of grief, he murmured:
“If I told you what I had done, what I had done, you would never forgive me.”
“On the contrary, darling, I would forgive you at once.”
“No, it’s impossible.”
“I promise I will.”
“I tell you it’s impossible.”
“I swear I’ll forgive you.”
“No, my dear Laurine, you couldn’t.”
“How childish you are, darling, not to say silly. By refusing to tell me what you’ve done, you leave me to believe abominable things; and I shall always be thinking about it, and I shall bear you as deep a grudge for your silence as for your unknown crime. While if you tell me about it quite frankly, I shall have forgotten it tomorrow.”
“Well, I …”
“What?”
He crimsoned to the ears, and said gravely:
“I confess to you as I would confess to a priest, Laurine.”
Her lips curved in the swift smile that sometimes hovered there, as she listened to him; in a half-mocking voice she said:
“I am all ears.”
He went on:
“You know, my dear, how little I ever drink. I never drink anything but water with a dash of light wine, and never liqueurs, as you know.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Well, do you know, towards the end of the grand manoeuvres, I allowed myself to drink a little one evening when I was very thirsty, very exhausted, very tired, and …”
“You got drunk? How horrid of you!”
“Yes, I got drunk.”
She had adopted an air of severity:
“There now, you were quite drunk, own up, too drunk to walk, weren’t you?”
“No, not so drunk as that. I lost my senses, not my balance. I talked and laughed, I was mad.”
As he was silent, she asked:
“Is that all?”
“No.”
“Ah! and … then?”
“Then … I … I did a very shameful thing.”
She looked at him, uneasy, a little troubled and moved, too.
“What did you do, darling?”
“We had supper with … with some actresses … and I don’t know how it happened, I’ve been unfaithful to you, Laurine.”
He had made his confession in a grave solemn voice.
She started slightly, and her eyes gleamed with swift amusement, an overwhelming and irresistible amusement.
She said:
“You … you … you have …”
A little, mirthless laugh, nervous and broken, escaped between her lips three times, choking her speech.
She tried to recover her gravity; but each time she opened her mouth to utter a word, laughter bubbled at the bottom of her throat, leaped forth, was stifled, and broke out again and again, like the gas of an uncorked bottle of champagne from which the froth is pouring. She pressed her hand on her lips to calm herself and to stifle this misplaced outburst of amusement in her mouth; but her laughter slipped between her fingers, came in choking gasps from her breast, escaped in spite of her. She babbled: “You … you … you have deceived me. … Oh! … oh! Oh! oh! … oh! oh! oh!”
And she gazed at him with a strange expression that she could not keep from being so mocking that he was thunderstruck and stupefied.
And abruptly she gave up her attempt at self-control and broke down completely. Then she began to laugh, and laughed like a woman with an attack of nerves. Little sharp broken cries came between her lips, sounding as though they came from the very depths of her breast; with both hands pressed on the pit of her stomach, she abandoned herself to long drawn spasms of laughter that almost choked her, like the spasms of coughing in whooping-cough.
And every effort she made to control herself brought on a fresh attack, every word
