“Madame,” said the Prince of bohemia coldly, “if you desire my friendship, I consent; but there are conditions—”
“Conditions?”
“Yes, conditions—as follows: You must be reconciled with Monsieur de Rochefide, resume the honors of your position, return to your fine house in the Rue d’Anjou—you will be one of the queens of Paris. You can achieve this by making Rochefide play a part in politics and guiding your conduct with such skill and tenacity as Madame d’Espard has displayed. This is the position which any woman must fill whom I am to honor with my devotion—”
“But you forget that Monsieur de Rochefide’s consent is necessary.”
“Oh, my dear child,” replied la Palférine, “we have prepared him for it. I have pledged my honor as a gentleman that you were worth all the Schontzes of the Quartier Saint-Georges put together, and you owe it to my honor—”
For eight days, every day, Calyste called on Béatrix, and was invariably sent away by Antoine, who put on a grave face and assured him, “Madame la Marquise is seriously ill.”
From thence Calyste rushed off to la Palférine, whose servant always exclaimed, “Monsieur le Comte is gone hunting.” And each time Calyste left a letter for the Count.
At last, on the ninth day, Calyste, in reply to a note from la Palférine fixing a time for an explanation, found him at home, but with him Maxime de Trailles, to whom the younger rake wished, no doubt, to give proof of his abilities by getting him to witness the scene.
“Monsieur le Baron,” said Charles-Édouard quietly, “here are the six notes you have done me the honor of writing to me. They are unopened, just as you sent them; I knew beforehand what might be in them when I heard that you had been seeking me everywhere since the day when I looked at you out of the window, while you were at the door of a house where, on the previous day, I had been at the door while you were at the window. I thought it best to remain ignorant of an ill-judged challenge. Between you and me, you have too much good taste to owe a woman a grudge because she has ceased to love you. And to fight your preferred rival is a bad way to reinstate yourself.
“Also, in the present case, your letters were invalidated, null and void, as lawyers say, in consequence of a radical error: you have too much good sense to quarrel with a husband for taking back his wife. Monsieur de Rochefide feels the Marquise’s position is undignified. You will no longer find Madame de Rochefide in the Rue de Courcelles; six months hence, next winter, you will see her in her husband’s home. You very rashly thrust yourself into the midst of a reconciliation between a married couple to which you yourself gave rise by failing to shelter Madame de Rochefide from the mortification she endured at the opera-house. As we left, Béatrix, to whom I had already brought some friendly advances on her husband’s part, took me in her carriage, and her first words were, ‘Go and bring Arthur!’ ”
“Oh, Heavens!” cried Calyste, “she was right; I had failed in my devotion—”
“But, unfortunately, monsieur, poor Arthur was living with one of those dreadful women—that Madame Schontz, who for a long time had expected every hour to find herself deserted. Madame Schontz, who, on the strength of Béatrix’s complexion, cherished a desire to see herself some day the Marquise de Rochefide, was furious when she saw her castles in the air fallen. Those women, monsieur, will lose an eye if they can spoil two for an enemy; la Schontz, who has just left Paris, has been the instrument of spoiling six! And if I had been so rash as to love Béatrix, the sum-total would have been eight. You, monsieur, must have discovered that you need an oculist.”
Maxime could not help smiling at the change in Calyste’s face; he turned pale as his eyes were opened to the situation.
“Would you believe, Monsieur le Baron, that that wretched woman has consented to marry the man who furnished her with means of revenge? Oh! women!—You understand now why Béatrix should shut herself up with Arthur for a few months at Nogent-sur-Marne, where they have a charming little house; they will recover their sight there. Meanwhile their house will be entirely redecorated; the Marquise means to display a princely style of splendor. When a man is sincerely in love with so noble a woman, so great, so exquisite, the victim of conjugal devotion, as soon as she has the courage to return to her duties as a wife, the part of those who adore her as you do, who admire her as I do, is to remain her friends when they can be nothing more.
“You will forgive me for having thought it well to invite Monsieur de Trailles to be present at this explanation, but I was particularly anxious to make this all perfectly clear. For my part, I especially wished to assure you that, though I admire Madame de Rochefide’s cleverness as a woman, she is to me supremely odious.”
“And that is what our fairest dreams, our celestial loves end in,” said Calyste, overwhelmed by so many revelations and disenchantments.
“In a fish’s tail,” cried Maxime, “or, which is worse, in an apothecary’s gallipot! I have never known a first love that did not end idiotically. Ah, Monsieur le Baron, whatever there may be that is heavenly in man finds its nourishment in Heaven alone! This is the excuse for us rakes. I, monsieur, have gone deeply into the question, and, as you see, I am just married. I shall be faithful to my wife, and I would urge you to return to Madame du Guénic—but—three months hence.
“Do not regret Béatrix; she is a pattern of those vain natures, devoid of energy, but flirts out of vainglory—a Madame d’Espard without political faculty, a woman
