The suspicion flashed like lightning through her consciousness, and she blamed herself for it; but she made up her mind to look for the note, which, in the midst of her alarms on the previous day, she had tossed into her letter-box.
After breakfast Calyste went out, telling his wife he should soon return; he got into one of the little low one-horse carriages which were just beginning to take the place of the inconvenient cabriolet of our grandfathers. In a few minutes he reached the Rue des Saints-Pères, where the Vicomte lived, and begged him to do him the little kindness of lying in case Sabine should question the Vicomtesse—he would do as much for him next time. Then, when once out of the house, Calyste, having first bidden the coachman to hurry as much as possible, went in a few minutes from the Rue des Saints-Pères to the Rue de Courcelles. He was anxious to know how Béatrix had spent the rest of the night.
He found the happy victim of fate just out of her bath, fresh, beautified, and breakfasting with a good appetite. He admired the grace with which his angel ate boiled eggs, and was delighted with the service of gold, a present from a music-mad lord for whom Conti had written some songs, on ideas supplied by his lordship, who had published them as his own. Calyste listened to a few piquant anecdotes related by his idol, whose chief aim was to amuse him, though she got angry and cried when he left her. He fancied he had been with her half an hour, and did not get home till three o’clock. His horse, a fine beast given him by the Vicomtesse de Grandlieu, looked as if it had come out of the river, it was so streaming with sweat.
By such a chance as a jealous woman always plans, Sabine was on guard at a window looking out into the courtyard, out of patience at Calyste’s late return, and uneasy without knowing why. She was struck by the condition of the horse, its mouth full of foam.
“Where has he been?”
The question was whispered in her ear by that power which is not conscience—not the devil, nor an angel—the power which sees, feels, knows, and shows us the unknown; which makes us believe in the existence of spiritual beings, creatures of our own brain, going and coming, and living in the invisible spheres of ideas.
“Where have you come from, my darling?” said she, going down to the first landing to meet Calyste. “Abdel-Kader is half dead; you said you would be out but a few minutes, and I have been expecting you these three hours …”
“Well, well,” said Calyste to himself, improving in the art of dissimulation, “I must get out of the scrape by a present.—Dear little nurse,” he said, putting his arm round his wife’s waist with a more coaxing pressure than he would have given it if he had not felt guilty, “it is impossible, I see, to keep a secret, however innocent, from a loving wife …”
“We don’t tell secrets on the stairs,” she replied, laughing. “Come along!”
In the middle of the drawing-room that led to the bedroom, she saw, reflected in a mirror, Calyste’s face, in which, not knowing that it could be seen, his fatigue and his real feeling showed; he had ceased to smile.
“That secret?” said she, turning round.
“You have been such a heroic nurse that the heir-presumptive of the du Guénics is dearer to me than ever; I wanted to surprise you—just like a worthy citizen of the Rue Saint Denis. A dressing-table is being fitted for yon which is a work of art—my mother and Aunt Zéphirine have helped—”
Sabine threw her arms around Calyste, and held him clasped to her heart, her head on his neck, trembling with the weight of happiness, not on account of the dressing-table, but because her suspicions were blown to the winds. It was one of those glorious gushes of joy which can be counted in a lifetime, and of which even the most excessive love cannot be prodigal, for life would be too quickly burnt out. Men ought, in such moments, to kneel at the woman’s feet in adoration, for the impulse is sublime; all the powers of the heart and intellect overflow as water gushes from the urn of fountain-nymphs. Sabine melted into tears.
Suddenly, as if stung by a viper, she pushed Calyste from her, dropped on to a divan, and fainted away; the sudden chill on her glowing heart had almost killed her. As she held Calyste, her nose in his necktie, given up to happiness, she had smelt the same perfume as that on the notepaper!—Another woman’s head had lain there, her face and hair had left the very scent of adultery. She had just kissed the spot where her rival’s kisses were still warm.
“What is the matter?” said Calyste, after bringing Sabine back to her senses by bathing her face with a wet handkerchief.
“Go and fetch the doctor, and the accoucheur—both. Yes, I feel the milk has turned to fever. … They will not come at once unless you go yourself—” Vous, she said, not tu, and the vous startled Calyste, who flew off in alarm. As soon as Sabine heard the outer gate shut, she sprang to her feet like a frightened deer, and walked round and round the room like a crazy thing, exclaiming, “My God! my God! my God!”
The two words took the place of thought. The crisis she had used as a pretext really came on. The hair on her head felt like so many eels, made red hot in the fire of nervous torment. Her heated blood seemed to her to have mingled with her nerves, and to be bursting from every pore. For a moment she was blind. “I am dying!” she shrieked.
At this fearful
