The game went on till eleven o’clock. Two players had retired; the Baron and du Halga were asleep in their armchairs. Mariotte had made some buckwheat cakes; the Baroness brought out her tea-caddy; and before the Kergarouëts left, the noble house of du Guénic offered its guests a collation, with fresh butter, fruit, and cream, for which the silver teapot was brought out, and the English china tea-service sent to the Baroness by one of her aunts. This air of modern splendor in that antique room, the Baroness’ exquisite grace, accustomed as a good Irishwoman to make and pour out tea, a great business with Englishwomen, were really delightful. The greatest luxury would not have given such a simple, unpretending, and dignified effect as this impulse of glad hospitality.
When there was no one left in the room but the Baroness and her son, she looked inquiringly at Calyste.
“What happened this evening at les Touches?” she asked.
Calyste told her of the hope Camille had put into his heart and of her strange instructions.
“Poor woman!” exclaimed Fanny, clasping her hands, and for the first time pitying Mademoiselle des Touches.
Some minutes after Calyste had left, Béatrix, who had heard him leave the house, came into her friend’s room, and found her sunk on a sofa, her eyes wet with tears.
“What is the matter, Félicité?” asked the Marquise.
“That I am forty and in love, my dear!” said Mademoiselle des Touches, in a tone of terrible fury, her eyes suddenly dry and hard. “If only you could know, Béatrix, how many tears I shed daily over the lost days of my youth! To be loved out of pity, to know that one’s pittance of happiness is earned by painful toil, by catlike tricks, by snares laid for the innocence and virtue of a mere boy—is not that shameful? Happily, we find a sort of absolution in the infinitude of passion, in the energy of happiness, in the certainty of being forever supreme above other women in a young heart, on which our name is graven by unforgettable pleasure and insane self-sacrifice. Yet, if he asked it of me, I would throw myself into the sea at his least signal. Sometimes I catch myself wishing that he would desire it; it would be a sacrifice, and not suicide.
“Oh! Béatrix, in coming here you set me a cruel task! I know how difficult it is to triumph against you; but you love Conti, you are noble and generous, and you will not deceive me; on the contrary, you will help me to preserve my Calyste. I was prepared for the impression you would make on him, but I have not been so foolish as to seem jealous; that would but add fuel to the fire. On the contrary, I announced your arrival, depicting you in such bright colors that you could never come up to the portrait, and unluckily you are handsomer than ever.”
This vehement lament, in which truth and untruth were mingled, completely deceived Madame de Rochefide. Claude Vignon had told Conti his reasons for leaving; Béatrix was, of course, informed, so she showed magnanimity by behaving coldly to Calyste; but at this instant there awoke in her that thrill of joy which every woman feels at the bottom of her heart on hearing that she is loved. The love she inspires in any man implies an unfeigned flattery which it is impossible not to appreciate; but when the man belongs to another woman, his homage gives more than joy, it is heavenly bliss. Béatrix sat down by her friend, and was full of little coaxing ways.
“You have not a white hair,” said she; “you have not a wrinkle; your temples are smooth still, while I know many a woman of thirty obliged to cover hers. Look, my dear,” she added, raising her curls, “what my journey cost me.” She showed the faintest pucker that ruffled the surface of her exquisite skin; she turned up her sleeve and displayed the same wrinkles on her wrists, where the transparent texture already showed lines, and a network of swollen veins, and three deep marks made a bracelet of furrows.
“Are not these the two spots which can tell no lies, as a writer, investigating our miseries, has said? We must suffer much before we see the truth of his terrible shrewdness; but, happily for us, most men know nothing about it, and do not read that atrocious writer.”
“Your letter told me all,” replied Camille. “Happiness is not fatuous; you boasted too much of yours. In love, truth is deaf, dumb, and blind. And I, knowing you had reasons for throwing over Conti, dreaded your visit here. My dear, Calyste is an angel; he is as good as he is handsome; the poor innocent will not resist one look from you, he admires you too much not to love on the smallest encouragement; your disdain will preserve him to me. I confess it with the cowardice of true passion: If you take him from me, you kill me. Adolphe, that terrible book by Benjamin Constant, has told us of Adolphe’s sufferings; but what of the woman’s, heh? He did not study them enough to depict them, and what woman would dare reveal them? They would discredit our sex, humiliate our virtues, add to our vices. Ah! if I may measure them by my fears, these tortures are like the torments of hell. But if he deserts me, my determination is fixed.”
“And what have you determined?” asked Béatrix, with an eagerness that was a shock to Camille.
On this the two friends looked at each other with the keenness of two Venetian inquisitors of State, a swift glance, in which their souls met and struck fire
