Limousin burst out laughing.
“In the meantime you would do better to keep your mouth shut, and leave our existence untroubled.”
“Oh, I won’t trouble it. There is nothing to fear from that imbecile. But it really is incredible that you should not realise how hateful he is to me, how he grates on my nerves. You always seem to love him, to shake hands frankly with him. Men are extraordinary creatures at times.”
“One must know how to dissemble, my dear.”
“It’s not a question of dissimulation, dear, but of feeling. When you men deceive another man, anyone would think you immediately began to like him better; we women hate him from the very moment that we have deceived him.”
“I don’t in the least see why a man should hate a good sort of fellow whose wife he’s taking.”
“You don’t see? … you don’t see? All you men are lacking in decent feeling. Well, it’s one of those things one feels and cannot express. And, anyhow, I oughtn’t to try. … No, it’s no use, you wouldn’t understand. You’ve no intuition, you men.”
She smiled, the gay, malicious smile of a wanton, and set her hands upon his shoulders, holding up her lips to his; he bowed his head to hers as he caught her in his arms, and their lips met. And as they were standing in front of the mirror on the mantelpiece, another couple exactly like them embraced behind the clock.
They had heard nothing, neither the sound of the key nor the creaking of the door; but suddenly Henriette uttered a shrill scream and thrust Limousin away with both arms; and they saw Parent watching them, livid, with clenched fists, his shoes off, and his hat over his brow.
He looked at them, first at one and then at the other, with a quick movement of the eyes, without turning his head. He seemed mad; without uttering a word he rushed at Limousin, took him in his arms as though to stifle him, and flung him into the corner of the drawing room with such a furious onslaught that the other, losing his footing and clawing the air with his hands, struck his head roughly against the wall.
But when Henriette realised that her husband was going to murder her lover, she threw herself on Parent and seized him by the throat. With the strength of a madman she sent her thin pink fingers into his flesh, and squeezed so tightly that the blood spurted from beneath her nails. She bit his shoulder as though she wanted to rend it to pieces with her teeth. Parent, choked and stifling, let go of Limousin in order to shake off the woman clinging to his throat; putting his arms round her waist he hurled her with one mad effort to the other end of the room.
Then, with the short-lived rage of the easygoing and the quickly spent strength of the weak, he remained standing between the two of them, panting, exhausted, not knowing what he ought to do. His brutal fury had escaped in this effort like the froth of an uncorked bottle, and his unwonted energy ended in mere gasping for breath.
“Get out!” he stammered, as soon as he could speak. “Get out, both of you, at once!”
Limousin remained motionless in his corner, huddled against the wall, too bewildered to understand anything as yet, too frightened to move a finger. Henriette, her hands resting on a table, her head thrust forward, her hair dishevelled, and her dress torn so that her bosom was bared, was waiting, like an animal about to spring.
“Get out at once!” repeated Parent more loudly. “Get out!”
Seeing that his first fury was calmed, his wife plucked up courage, stood up, took two paces towards him, and said, in a voice already almost insolent:
“Have you lost your wits? … What’s the matter with you? … Why this unjustifiable assault?”
He turned on her, raising his fist as though to strike her down.
“Oh! … Oh!” he faltered. “This is too much … too much! I … I … I heard all … all … do you understand? … all! You vile creature! … you vile creature! … You are both vile! … Get out! … both of you! … At once! … I could kill you! … Get out!”
She realized that it was all over, that he knew, that she could no longer play the innocent, but must give way. But all her impudence had come back to her, and her hatred for the man, doubled now, urged her to boldness, and woke in her an impulse to defiance and bravado.
“Come, Limousin,” she said in a clear voice, “since I am to be turned out, I will go home with you.”
But Limousin did not move. Parent, attacked by a fresh access of rage, cried:
“Clear out, then! … Get out, you vile creatures … or else … or else … !”
He snatched up a chair and whirled it above his head.
Henriette rapidly crossed the drawing room, took her lover by the arm, dragged him away from the wall, to which he appeared to be fixed, and led him to the door, repeating:
“Come along, dear, come along. … You can see that the man is mad … come along!”
In the doorway she turned to her husband, trying to think what she could do, what she could imagine, that would wound him to the heart, as she left the house. And an idea came to her, one of those venomous deadly ideas in which the sum of feminine treachery ferments.
“I want to take my child away,” she said firmly.
“Your … your child?” stammered Parent in bewilderment. “You dare to speak of your child … after … after … Oh! oh! oh! it is too much! … You dare? … Clear out, you scum! Clear out!”
She went up to him, almost smiling, almost revenged already, and defied him at close quarters, face to face.
“I want my child … and you have no right to keep him, because he’s not yours. … Do you hear? … He’s not yours. … He’s Limousin’s.”
“You’re lying, wretch, you’re
