“She is an idiot, a goose, a mere brute; let us not bestow another thought on her!”
When he got home, he found in his study a letter of eight pages on blue glazed paper, with the initials “R. A.”
It began with friendly reproaches.
“What has become of you, my dear? I am getting quite bored.”
But the handwriting was so abominable, that Frederick was about to fling away the entire bundle of sheets, when he noticed in the postscript the following words:
“I count on you to come tomorrow and drive me to the races.”
What was the meaning of this invitation? Was it another trick of the Maréchale? But a woman does not make a fool of the same man twice without some object; and, seized with curiosity, he read the letter over again attentively.
Frederick was able to distinguish “Misunderstanding—to have taken a wrong path—disillusions—poor children that we are!—like two rivers that join each other!” etc.
He kept the sheets for a long time between his fingers. They had the odour of orris; and there was in the form of the characters and the irregular spaces between the lines something suggestive, as it were, of a disorderly toilet, that fired his blood.
“Why should I not go?” said he to himself at length. “But if Madame Arnoux were to know about it? Ah! let her know! So much the better! and let her feel jealous over it! In that way I shall be avenged!”
X
At the Races
The Maréchale was prepared for his visit, and had been awaiting him.
“This is nice of you!” she said, fixing a glance of her fine eyes on his face, with an expression at the same time tender and mirthful.
When she had fastened her bonnet-strings, she sat down on the divan, and remained silent.
“Shall we go?” said Frederick. She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece.
“Oh, no! not before half-past one!” as if she had imposed this limit to her indecision.
At last, when the hour had struck:
“Ah! well, andiamo, caro mio!” And she gave a final touch to her headbands, and left directions for Delphine.
“Is Madame coming home to dinner?”
“Why should we, indeed? We shall dine together somewhere—at the Café Anglais, wherever you wish.”
“Be it so!”
Her little dogs began yelping around her.
“We can bring them with us, can’t we?”
Frederick carried them himself to the vehicle. It was a hired berlin with two post-horses and a postilion. He had put his manservant in the back seat. The Maréchale appeared satisfied with his attentions. Then, as soon as she had seated herself, she asked him whether he had been lately at the Arnouxs’.
“Not for the past month,” said Frederick.
“As for me, I met him the day before yesterday. He would have even come today, but he has all sorts of troubles—another lawsuit—I don’t know what. What a queer man!”
Frederick added with an air of indifference:
“Now that I think of it, do you still see—what’s that his name is?—that ex-vocalist—Delmar?”
She replied dryly:
“No; that’s all over.”
So it was clear that there had been a rupture between them. Frederick derived some hope from this circumstance.
They descended the Quartier Bréda at an easy pace. As it happened to be Sunday, the streets were deserted, and some citizens’ faces presented themselves at the windows. The carriage went on more rapidly. The noise of wheels made the passersby turn round; the leather of the hood, which had slid down, was glittering. The manservant doubled himself up, and the two Havanese, beside one another, seemed like two ermine muffs laid on the cushions. Frederick let himself jog up and down with the rocking of the carriage-straps. The Maréchale turned her head to the right and to the left with a smile on her face.
Her straw hat of mother-of-pearl colour was trimmed with black lace. The hood of her burnous floated in the wind, and she sheltered herself from the rays of the sun under a parasol of lilac satin pointed at the top like a pagoda.
“What loves of little fingers!” said Frederick, softly taking her other hand, her left being adorned with a gold bracelet in the form of a curb-chain.
“I say! that’s pretty! Where did it come from?”
“Oh! I’ve had it a long time,” said the Maréchale.
The young man did not challenge this hypocritical answer in any way. He preferred to profit by the circumstance. And, still keeping hold of the wrist, he pressed his lips on it between the glove and the cuff.
“Stop! People will see us!”
“Pooh! What does it signify?”
After passing by the Place de la Concorde, they drove along the Quai de la Conférence and the Quai de Billy, where might be noticed a cedar in a garden. Rosanette believed that Lebanon was situated in China; she laughed herself at her own ignorance, and asked Frederick to give her lessons in geography. Then, leaving the Trocadéro at the right, they crossed the Pont de Jéna, and drew up at length in the middle of the Champ de Mars, near some other vehicles already drawn up in the Hippodrome.
The grass hillocks were covered with common people. Some spectators might be seen on the balcony of the Military School; and the two pavilions outside the weighing-room, the two galleries contained within its enclosure, and a third in front of that of the king, were filled with a fashionably dressed crowd whose deportment showed their regard for this as yet novel form of amusement.
The public around the course, more select at this period, had a less vulgar aspect. It was the era of trouser-straps, velvet collars, and white gloves. The ladies, attired in showy colours, displayed gowns with long waists; and seated on the tiers of the stands, they formed, so to speak, immense groups of flowers, spotted here and there
