He started, as the door opened. His wife came in.
“I’m hungry,” she said; “are you, Limousin?”
“Yes, by Jove, I am,” replied Limousin with some hesitation.
She had the mutton brought back.
“Have they had dinner,” Parent wondered, “or were they late because they’ve been lovemaking?”
Both were now eating with an excellent appetite. Henriette, quite calm, was laughing and joking. Her husband kept her under observation too, looking quickly at her and as quickly away again. She wore a pink tea-gown trimmed with white lace, and her fair hair, her white neck, and her plump hands emerged from the pretty, dainty, scented gown as from a sea shell edged with foam. What had she been doing all day long with that man? Parent saw them kissing, murmuring passionate words. How was it possible for him not to know, not to guess, seeing them thus side by side, facing him?
How they must be mocking at him, if he had been their dupe since the very first day! Was it possible that a man, a good man, should be thus tricked, merely because his father left him a little money? Why were such things not visible in the sinners’ souls, how was it possible that nothing revealed the deceit of the wicked to the upright heart, that the same voice should lie and adore, and the sly eyes of deceit look the same as the eyes of truth?
He watched them, waiting for a gesture, a word, an intonation. Suddenly he thought: “I will surprise them this evening.”
“My dear,” he said, “as I have just dismissed Julie, I must start today to try and find another servant. I’m going out directly, so as to get someone for tomorrow morning. I may be back rather late.”
“Very well, go,” she replied, “I shan’t move from here. Limousin will keep me company. We will wait for you.” And, turning to the housemaid, she added:
“Put Georges to bed, then you can clear the table and go to bed yourself.”
Parent had risen. He was swaying upon his legs, dazed, tottering. “See you again presently,” he murmured, and reached the door by dint of leaning against the wall, for the floor was heaving like a ship.
Georges had gone off in the arms of the maid. Henriette and Limousin passed into the drawing room.
“Are you mad,” he said, as soon as the door was shut, “that you bully your husband so?”
She turned to him.
“You know, I’m beginning to find your long established habit of setting up Parent as a martyr rather trying.”
Limousin sat down in an armchair and, crossing his legs, replied:
“I’m not setting him up as a martyr in the least, but I do think that, as things are, it’s preposterous to defy the man from morning to night.”
She took a cigarette from the mantelpiece, lit it, and answered:
“But I don’t defy him—on the contrary; only he irritates me by his stupidity … and I treat him as he deserves.”
“What you are doing is extraordinarily silly,” replied Limousin impatiently, “but all women are alike. Here you have an excellent fellow, too good, idiotic in his faith and goodness, who in no way annoys us, does not for one instant suspect us, and leaves us as free and easy as we could wish; and you do all that you can to make him lose his temper and ruin our lives.”
“You disgust me,” she said, turning towards him. “You’re a coward, like all men! You’re afraid of the fool!”
He sprang up, and burst out furiously:
“If it comes to that, I should very much like to know how he has treated you, and what possible grudge you can have against him! Does he make you unhappy? Does he beat you? Does he deceive you? No, it really is too much to make that poor chap suffer just because he’s too kind, and have a grudge against him simply because you are deceiving him.”
She went up to Limousin and, staring into his eyes, answered:
“And it is you who blame me for deceiving him—you, you? Must you be utterly beastly too?”
He defended himself, rather shamefacedly.
“But I don’t blame you at all, my dear, I only ask you to treat your husband with a little consideration, because we both of us need his trust. I thought you would realise that.”
They were standing close to one another; he, tall and dark, with drooping whiskers, and the rather vulgar carriage of a good-looking fellow very pleased with himself; she, dainty, pink and fair, a little Parisian, half cocotte and half suburban young woman, born in the back room of a shop, brought up to stand on its doorstep and entice customers with her glances, and married off, by the happy chance of this accomplishment, to the innocent passerby who fell in love with her because he saw her standing there at the door every day as he went in the morning and came home in the evening.
“But, you great booby,” she said, “you don’t understand that I hate him just because he married me, because he bought me, in fact; because everything that he says, everything that he does, everything that he thinks, gets on my nerves. Every instant he exasperates me by the stupidity you call his kindness, by the dullness you call his trust, and, above all, because he is my husband, instead of you. Although he hardly troubles us, I feel him between us. And then? … And then? … No, he really is too big a fool to suspect anything. I wish he were at least a little jealous; there are moments when I
