THE STORY OF A SUSPICION
'What a wicked woman! What a wicked woman!' muttered René as he went
down the staircase, now re-echoing with the shouts of the call-boy. He
trembled with agitation and asked himself, 'What harm have I ever done
her?' forgetting that for a quarter of an hour he had represented Claude
in Colette's eyes. Perhaps the joy felt by the actress in wounding him
to the quick might have had its rise in the malice often occasioned by a
man's unwillingness to pay his friend's mistress attentions. The loyalty
of one man to another ranks amongst the sentiments most odious to women.
'What have I done to her?' repeated the poet, unable to find an answer
to his question, unable even to collect his thoughts. There are phrases
which, flung at us unexpectedly, will stun us as surely as any blow
physically dealt. They bring about a sudden cessation of all
consciousness--a cessation even of pain. René was not quite himself
again until he stood in the Place du Palais Royal amid its throng of
traffic. The first feeling that animated him was a fit of furious rage
against Claude. 'The perfidious wretch!' he cried; 'how could he trust
my secret to a creature like that? And such a secret, too! What did he
know about it?' A slight blush and a moment's hesitation in uttering her
name. 'He thinks that is sufficient evidence upon which to slander a
woman he hardly knows, and in the ears, too, of a hussy whose infamy he
proclaims from the housetops!'
He recalled to mind every detail of the only conversation in which
Larcher might have discovered his nascent feelings for Suzanne. He saw
himself once more in Claude's rooms in the Rue de Varenne, with the
manuscripts and proofs strewn about, and the writer's face looking livid
in the greenish light of the stained-glass windows. He saw the sceptical
smile flit across that face whilst the sarcastic lips uttered the words:
'So you are not in love with her!' Borne on the same wave of memory came
other visions connected with the last. He heard Suzanne's voice saying
on the occasion of his third visit: 'Your friend M. Larcher--I am sure
he doesn't like me.' Had she not expressed her distrust of him only that
morning? Her suspicions had, indeed, been only too well justified. And
then if he had only contented himself with coupling her name with his,
René's. But he had even dared to make this other vile accusation--that
she was kept by Desforges! Not that René harboured the least shadow of
a suspicion against his divine mistress--it was not that which maddened
him--but the knowledge that Colette had not lied in claiming to have
heard this infamous thing from Larcher. If Larcher repeated it, he must
have got it from some one else. And if Suzanne had insisted, as she had
twice done, upon being told how Claude spoke of her, it was because she
knew she was exposed to the insult of this abominable calumny.
René remembered the old beau whom he had once met at her house, with
his military bearing, his red, bloated face, and his grey hair. And then
he saw her as she had looked only that morning, so fair, so white, so
dainty--with her pale blue eyes and that peculiar air of refinement that
lent an almost ideal charm to her most passionate embraces. Was it
possible that such vile calumnies could have been spread concerning this
woman! 'People are too horribly wicked!' exclaimed René aloud. 'And as
for Claude----' His affection for him had been so sincere, and it was
this man, his dearest friend, who had spoken of Suzanne in such a
shameless manner, like a blackguard and a traitor. What a contrast with
the poor angel thus insulted, who, knowing it, had taken no further
revenge than to say, 'I have forgiven him!' On every other occasion when
she had spoken of Claude it had been to admire him for his talents and
to pity him for his faults. Another phrase of Suzanne's suddenly struck
him. 'That is no reason why he should revenge himself by forcing his
attentions upon any woman chance throws in his way. I got quite angry
one day when he was seated next to me at table.' 'That is the reason!'
said the poet to himself with returning anger; 'he has paid her
attentions which she has repelled, and so he slanders her. It is too
disgusting!'
A prey to these painful reflections, René had walked as far as the
Place de l'Opéra, and, mechanically turning to the right, had ascended
the boulevard without really noticing where he was. Hatred and rancour
were so repugnant to his soul that these feelings were soon supplanted
by the love he bore the beautiful woman so basely reviled by the
vindictive actress. What was she doing at that moment? She was yonder,
in a box at the Gymnase, obliged to sit out some play with her husband,
and, no doubt, sadly dreaming of their love and their last kisses. No
sooner had he conjured up her adorable image than he was seized with an
instinctive and irresistible longing to see her in the flesh. He hailed
a passing cab and gave the driver the name of the theatre. How often had
he been similarly tempted to go to some place of amusement when he knew
Suzanne would be there! But having given his mistress a promise that he
would not do so, he had always scrupulously repelled the temptation.
Besides, he took a curious pleasure in dwelling upon the absolute
distinction between the two Suzannes--between the woman of fashion and
his simple love--above all, he feared to meet Paul Moraines. He had read
Ernest Feydeau's 'Fanny,' and was more afraid of the terrible jealousy
described in that fine work than of death itself. To an analytical
writer, like Claude, this would have been an excellent reason for
seeking an encounter with the husband, so as to have a new kind of wound
to examine under the microscope. The poets who have not turned their art
into a trade nor their hearts into a raree-show are possessed of an
instinct which makes them avoid such degrading experiments; they respect
the beauty of their own feelings.
Whilst the cab was rolling along towards the Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle
all these scruples, which René had once so religiously observed,
returned to him. But Colette's words had moved him more deeply than he
cared to admit. A hideous vision had flashed across his brain. He half
feared that it might come again, and he knew that Suzanne's presence was
the best preventive. Lovers frequently have these apparently unwarranted
ideas--the results of an instinct of self-preservation which our
feelings, like animate beings, possess. The cab rolled on whilst René
defended his infraction of the agreement made with his mistress. 'If she
could know what I have been obliged to hear, would she not be the first
to say, "Come and read my love for you in my face?" Besides, I shall
only look at her for a quarter of an hour, and then go away purged of
this stain. And what of the husband? Well, I must see him sooner or
later, and she tells me he is nothing to her!' Madame Moraines had not
failed to make her favourite lover swallow the improbable fable served
up by all married women to their paramours, though sometimes the fable
is true--for woman will be a riddle to all eternity--as the reports of
the divorce cases prove. In the delicacy with which Suzanne had allayed
his most secret and least legitimate feelings of jealousy René found an
additional pretext for denouncing those who slandered this sublime
creature. 'This woman the mistress of Desforges! Why? For money? What
nonsense! She, the daughter of a Cabinet Minister and the wife of a
business man! Claude, Claude! how could you?'
This tumult of ideas was somewhat stilled by the necessity for action as
soon as the poet reached the doors of the Gymnase. He was most anxious
that he should not be seen by Suzanne, and stood on the steps outside
for a moment lost in reflection. The first act was just over, as he
could see by the people flocking out, and this circumstance furnished
him with an idea for beholding his mistress without being observed by
her. He would first take a ticket for one of the cheaper seats in order
to get into the house; then, having found out where Suzanne was
sitting--which he could easily do during the interval from the corridor
at the side of the stalls--he would take a better seat, from which he
could safely feast his eyes upon her adorable features.
As he entered the theatre he was startled for a moment by coming face to
face with the Marquis de Hère, one of the swells he had seen at Madame
Komof's; the young nobleman, wearing a sprig of heather in his
button-hole, was swinging his stick and humming an air from the then
popular 'Cloches de Corneville' so lightly that he could hardly hear it
himself. He brushed past René without recognizing him, or appearing to
do so, any more than Salvaney had done an hour ago. The poet quickly
made his way to one of the entrances to the stalls. He had not long to
look; Madame Moraines was in the third box from the stage, almost
opposite him. She occupied the front seat, and there were two men in the
background; one, a fine young fellow, with a long beard and a pale
complexion--the husband, no doubt--was standing up. The other, who was
seated----
But why had chance--it could only be chance--brought into that box on
this very night the man whose name the wretched actress had just coupled
with Suzanne's? Yes, it was indeed Desforges who occupied the chair
behind Madame Moraines. The poet had not the slightest difficulty in
recognizing the Baron's energetic countenance, his piercing brown eyes,
his fair moustache, his high colour, and his forehead surmounted by a
wealth of almost white hair. Why did it distress René to see this old
beau talking so familiarly to Suzanne as she sat there fanning herself,
her face turned towards him, whilst Moraines scanned the boxes with his
opera-glass? Why did it cause him such pain as to make him turn hastily
away? For the first time since he had had the happiness to catch sight
of this woman on the threshold of the Komof mansion, looking so fair and
slim in her red gown, suspicion had entered his soul.
What suspicion? He could not possibly have expressed it in words. And
yet? When Suzanne had spoken to him about the theatre that morning she
had told him that she was going alone with her husband. What motive had
led her to pervert the truth? The detail, it was true, was of no
importance. But a lie, be it great or small, is still a lie. After all,
perhaps Desforges was only visiting them in their box during the
interval. This explanation seemed so natural as well as acceptable that
René adopted it on the spot.
Returning to the box-office, he asked for an outside stall, on the left,
having calculated that from this seat he would have the best opportunity
of watching the Moraines without being seen himself. Meanwhile the
audience had again settled down and the curtain rose. Desforges did not
leave the box. He kept his seat at the back, leaning forward to talk to
Suzanne. But why not? Could not his presence be explained in a thousand
ways without Suzanne having lied? Could not Moraines have invited him
without his wife's knowledge? He spoke familiarly to the woman, it is
true, and she answered him in a similar manner. But had not he, René,
met him at her house? A gentleman is sitting down in a theatre talking
to a lady he knows. Does that prove that there is a vile bond of sin
existing between them?
The poet argued in this fashion, and his arguments would have seemed to
him irrefutable if he had seen on Suzanne's face a single one of those
traits of melancholy he had expected to find. On the contrary, as she
sat there in her elegant theatre-gown of black lace, with a little pink
bonnet on her fair hair, eating, with dainty fingers, from the box of
crystallised fruit that stood before her, she looked thoroughly happy,
and as though she had not a care in the world. She laughed so heartily
at the jokes in the piece, and her eyes were so bright and sparkling as
she chatted with her two companions, that it seemed impossible to
imagine she had only that morning paid a visit to the shrine of her most
secret and heartfelt love. The emotions called forth by her meeting with
her lover had left so few traces on her face, now beaming with pleasure,
that René scarcely believed his own eyes. He had expected to find her
so very different.
The husband, too, with cordial joviality expressed in his manly
features, seemed by no means the crabbed and suspicious recluse Suzanne
had led her credulous lover to imagine. The unhappy fellow had come to
the theatre to get rid of the pain which Colette's words had caused him,
but when he reached home his distress had only increased. It has often
been said that we should not keep many friends if we could hear those to
whom we give that title speak of us behind our back. It is an even less
satisfactory experiment to take by surprise the woman we love. René had
just tried it, but he was too passionately fond of Suzanne to believe in
this first vision of his Madonna's duplicity.
'What am I worrying about after all?' he thought, on waking next
morning, and finding that he was still a prey to his painful feelings.
'That she was in a good temper last night? I must be very selfish to
reproach her with that! That Baron Desforges was in her box when she had
told me that she was going to the theatre with her husband alone? She
will explain that next time I see her. That her husband's face was not
in keeping with his character? Appearances are so deceptive! How
thoroughly have I been deceived in Claude Larcher, with his wheedling
ways and his frank face! How often has he done me a favour and then
pretended he had forgotten it, and yet how basely he has betrayed me
after all!'
All the cruel impressions he had experienced on the preceding evening
were now concentrated in a fresh and more furious fit of resentment
against the man who, by his wicked gossip, had been the primary cause of
his trouble. In the excess of his unjust anger René ignored the
unquestionable merits of his friend and protector--absolute
disinterestedness, a devotion that hoped for no return, and a total lack
of literary envy. He was not even charitable enough to admit that Claude
might have spoken to Colette unthinkingly and incautiously, but without
any treacherous intentions. Suzanne's lover felt that he could not
remain the friend of a man who had gone so far as to say what Larcher
had said of his mistress. That is what René kept repeating to himself
the whole day. On his return from the Bibliothèque, where he had found
it almost impossible to work, he sat down to his table to write this
villain one of those letters that are not easily forgotten. Having
finished it, he read it over. The terms in which he defended Madame
Moraines proclaimed his love, and now more than ever did he wish to keep
that a secret from Claude.
'What is the use of writing to him at all?' he thought; 'when he comes
back I will tell him what I think of him--that is much better.'
He was just about to destroy this dangerous letter when Emilie came in,
as she often did before dinner, to ask him how he was getting on with
his work. With a woman's innate curiosity, she read the address on the
envelope, and said, 'Oh! is Claude in Venice? Then you've heard from
him!'
'Never utter that name before me again!'replied René, tearing up the
letter in a kind of cool rage.
Emilie said no more. She had not been mistaken in her brother's accents.
René was in pain, and his anger against Claude was very great; but
since he was silent concerning its cause, his sister knew that the
latter must be something more than a mere literary dispute. By that
intuition which always accompanies tender affection, Emilie guessed that
the two writers had quarrelled on account of Madame Moraines, whose name
René never mentioned now, and whom she was beginning to hate for the
same reasons that had at first prompted her to like her. For some weeks
past she had noticed a great mental and physical change coming over her
brother. Although a model of purity herself, she was shrewd enough to
attribute this degeneration to its true cause. She noticed it as she
copied the fragments of the 'Savonarola' in the same way as she had
copied the 'Sigisbée'; and although her admiration for the lightest
trifle that came from René's pen was intense, there were many signs by
which she could see how differently the two works had been
inspired--from the number of lines written at each sitting to the
continual reconstruction of the scenes and even to the handwriting,
which had lost a little of its bold character.
The bubbling spring of clear, fresh poetry in which the 'Sigisbée' had
had its source seemed to have dried up. What change had taken place in
René's life? A woman had entered it, and it was therefore to this
woman's influence that Emilie attributed the momentary impairment of the
poet's faculties. She went still further, and hated this unknown but
formidable creature for the pain inflicted on Rosalie. By a strange
lapse of memory, frequently met with in generous natures, she forgot
what part she had herself taken in her brother's rupture with his former
_fiancée._ It was Madame Moraines whom she blamed for it all, and now
this same woman was embroiling René with the best and most devoted of
his friends--the one whom his faithful sister preferred because she had
gauged the strength of his friendship.
'But how could it have happened,' she thought, 'since Claude is not
here?'
She cudgelled her brains for a solution to this problem whilst attending
to her household duties, hearing Constant's home lessons, making out
Fresneau's bills, and conscientiously examining every button-hole and
seam of her brother's linen. René was shut up in his room, where
everything reminded him of Suzanne's one heavenly visit, and with
feverish impatience he awaited the day appointed for their next meeting.
Slander was doing its secret work, like some venomous sting. A poisoned
man will go about without knowing that he is ill, except for a vague
feeling of restlessness, but all the while the virus is fermenting in
his blood and will produce sudden and terrible results.
The poet still treated the shameful accusations brought by Colette
against Suzanne with scorn, but, by dint of pondering on her words in
order to refute them, his mind became more accustomed to their tenour.
At the moment when the actress had made her terrible charge he had not
stooped to rebut it; but now, as he turned it over in his mind, he tried
to save himself from a terrible abyss of doubt and from the most
degrading jealousy by clutching at the marks of sincerity Suzanne had
given him. What, then, were his feelings when, at the very outset of
their next meeting, he received undeniable proofs that her sincerity was
not what he had thought it?
He had reached the Rue des Dames with a troubled look on his face that
had not escaped Suzanne. In reply to her solicitous inquiries he had
pretended that it was due to an unfair article that had appeared in some
paper, but had almost immediately felt ashamed of this innocent excuse,
so sweetly had his mistress rebuked him.
'You big baby, you cannot have success without inspiring jealousy.'
'Let us talk about you instead,' he replied, and then asked, with a
beating heart: What have you been doing since I saw you last?'
Had Suzanne been watching him at that moment she must have seen his
agitation. It was a trap--innocent and simple enough--but a trap for all
that. In three times twenty-four hours suspicion had brought the
enthusiastic lover to this degree of distrust. But Suzanne could not
know this, for he was treating her in exactly the same way as she was
treating Desforges. She did not think René capable of stepping out of
the only _rôle_ in which she had seen him. How could she imagine that
this simple boy was trying to catch her?
'What have I been doing?' she repeated. 'First of all I went to the
Gymnase the other evening with my husband. Fortunately we haven't much
to say to each other, so I could think of you just as well as if I were
alone--I do feel so alone when I am with him. You talk of the troubles
of your literary life--if you only knew the misery of my so-called life
of pleasure and the loneliness of these weary _tête-à-têtes!_'
'Did you feel bored at the theatre, then?' continued René.
'You were not there,' she replied with a smile, and looked more intently
at him. 'What is the matter, love?'
She had never seen this bitter, almost hard, expression on René's face.
'It's very stupid of me, but I can't forget that article,' said the
poet.
'Was it so very bad, then? Where did it appear?' she asked, her instinct
of danger thoroughly aroused; but René, being unable to reply to this
unexpected question, merely stammered, 'It isn't worth your troubling to
read it.'
This only confirmed her suspicions--he was angry with her about
something. A question rose to her lips: 'Has some one been speaking ill
of me?' Her diplomacy, however, got the better of her impetuosity. Is
not anxiety to disarm suspicion almost a confession in itself? The
really innocent are quite callous. Her best course was to find out what
René had been doing himself, and what persons he had seen who might
have told him something.
'Did you go and see Mademoiselle Rigaud?' she asked, indifferently.
'Yes,' replied René, unable to disguise his embarrassment at the
question.
'And has she forgiven poor Claude?' continued Suzanne.
'No,' he rejoined, adding: 'She is a very bad woman,' and in such a
bitter tone that Madame Moraines at once guessed part of the truth. The
actress must certainly have spoken of her to René. She was again seized
with a desire to provoke his confidence, and reflected that the surest
means of attaining her object was by intoxicating her lover with
passion. She knew how powerless he would be to resist the emotions her
caresses would let loose, and at once sealed his lips with a long kiss.
By the silent and frenzied ardour with which he returned it Suzanne
understood not only that René had suffered, but that she had, to a
great extent, been the cause.
In her sweetest voice, and in tones best calculated to reach that heart
which had always been open to her, she said, 'What is this trouble that
you won't tell me?'
Had she uttered those words at the beginning of their interview he would
not have been able to resist them. Amidst tears and kisses, he would
have repeated what Colette had said! But alas! it was no longer
Colette's words that caused him his present sufferings. What now gave
him frightful pain and pierced his heart like a dagger was the fact of
having caught her, his idol, in a deliberate lie. Yes, she had lied;
this time there was no doubt about it. She had told him that she had
been to the theatre with her husband only, and that was false; that she
had been sad, and that was false too. Could he reply to her question,
which betrayed affectionate concern, by two such clear, explicit, and
irrefutable charges? He had not the courage to do it, and got out of the
dilemma by repeating his former reply. Suzanne looked at him, and he was
obliged to turn his head. She only sighed and said, 'Poor René!' and,
as it was almost time for her to go, she pushed her inquiries no
further.
'He will tell me all about it next time,' she thought as she went home.
In spite of herself she was worried by René's silence. Her love for the
poet was sincere, though it was a very different passion from that which
she expressed in words. Before all else it was a physical love, but,
corrupted as Suzanne was by her life and her surroundings, or perhaps
because of this very corruption, the poet's nobility of soul did not
fail to impress her. And to such an extent that she imagined their
romance would be robbed of half its delight if ever the circle of
illusions she had drawn round him were broken. That some one had tried
to break this magic circle was evident, and this some one could only be
Colette. Everything seemed to prove it. But, on the other hand, what
reason could the actress have for hating her, Suzanne, whom she probably
did not know, even by name? Colette and Claude were lovers, and here
Madame Moraines again came upon the man whom she had distrusted from the
first day. If Colette had spoken to René about her, Claude himself must
have spoken about her to Colette. At this point her ideas became
confused. Larcher had never seen her with René. And the latter, whose
word she did not doubt, had told her that he had confided nothing to his
friend.
'I am on the wrong track,' thought Suzanne. Argue as she would, she
could not convince herself that René was so troubled on account of this
pretended newspaper article. There was danger in store for the dear
relations that existed between them. She felt it, and the feeling became
still more pronounced by what her husband told her on the very next day
after her unsatisfactory interview with René.
It was just before seven, and Suzanne was alone in the little _salon_
where she had first cast her net over the poet--a net as finely woven
and as yielding as the web in which the spider catches the unwary fly.
She had had more callers than usual that afternoon, and Desforges had
only just gone. Suddenly Paul came in his wonted noisy way and in
high animal spirits. Seizing her by the waist--for she had started up at
his boisterous entry--he said, 'Give me a kiss--no, two kisses,' taking
one after the other, 'as a reward for having been good.' Seeing the look
of interrogation in Suzanne's eyes, he added, 'I have at last paid
Madame Komof that visit I've owed her for so long. Whom do you think I
met there? Guess--that young poet, René Vincy. I can't understand why
Desforges doesn't like him. He's a charming fellow; he pleased me
immensely. We had quite a long talk. I told him that you would be very
glad to see him. Was I doing right?'
'Quite right,' replied Suzanne; 'and who else was there?'
Whilst her husband was reciting a list of familiar names she was
thinking: 'What reason had René for going to Madame Komof's?' This was
the first call of that kind he had made since the beginning of their
attachment. He had so often said to his mistress: 'I want only you and
my work.' It had been his custom during the past few months to give her
a full account not only of what he had done, but of what he was going to
do, and yet he had said nothing of this visit, so entirely out of
keeping with his present mode of life. And he had met Paul, who had no
doubt proved himself the very opposite of what his wife had described
him to be.
Suzanne felt quite out of temper with the kindhearted fellow who had
been guilty of calling on the Comtesse on the same day as the poet, and
she said, in an almost petulant tone: 'I am sure you haven't written to
Crucé for that Alençon.'
'I have written,' replied Moraines, with an air of triumph, 'and you
shall have it.' Crucé, who acted as a sort of private art broker, had
spoken to Suzanne about some old lace, and it was this she wished her
husband to get her. From time to time she would ask him for something
that she could show her friends and say, 'Paul is so good to me. This a
present he brought me only the other day.' She would forget to add that
the money for such presents generally came from Desforges--in an
indirect way, it is true. Although the Baron seldom troubled himself
with business matters except so far as the careful investment of his
capital necessitated, he often had opportunities for speculating with
almost absolute safety, and always gave Moraines a chance of doing the
same. The Compagnie du Nord, of which Desforges was a director, had
recently taken over a local line that was on the brink of ruin. Paul had
succeeded in making a profit of thirty thousand francs by purchasing
some shares at the right moment, and it was out of this profit that
Suzanne was going to have her lace. This little business operation, too,
had indirectly led to a somewhat strange scene between René and his
mistress.
In the course of conversation she had asked him how much the 'Sigisbée'
had produced, adding, 'What have you done with all that money?'
'I don't know,' René had replied, with a laugh. 'My sister bought me
some stock with the first few thousand francs, and I have kept the rest
in my drawer.' 'Will you let me talk to you like a sister, too?' she had
said. 'A friend of ours is a director of the Compagnie du Nord, and he
has given us a valuable tip. Do you promise to keep it a secret?'
Thereupon she had explained to him how to get hold of some shares. 'Give
your orders to-morrow, and you can make as much as you like.'
'Hold your tongue!' René had said, putting his hand over her mouth. 'I
know it's very kind of you to talk like that, but I can't allow you to
give me that sort of information. I should feel ashamed of myself.'
He had spoken so seriously that Suzanne had not dared to press the
matter, though his scruples had appeared to her somewhat ridiculous. But
then, if he had not been so unsophisticated and such a _gobeur_, as she
called him in that horrible Parisian slang that spares not even the
highest forms of sentiment, would she have been so fond of him? And yet
it was this very innocence of soul that she feared. If ever he should
get to hear what her life was really like, how his noble heart would
turn against her, and how incompatible it would be with his high sense
of honour ever to forgive her! A hint had, nevertheless, somehow reached
him. In going over the different signs of danger that she had noticed
one after another--René's trouble, his anger against Colette Rigaud,
his reticence and his unexpected visit to Madame Komof--Suzanne said to
herself: 'I made a mistake in not getting him to explain at once.'
When, therefore, she made her appearance in the Rue des Dames a few days
later she was fully determined not to fall into the same error again.
She saw at once that the poet was even more distressed than before,
though she pretended not to notice this distress nor the cool manner in
which he received her first kiss. With a sad smile she said to him:
'It was very silly of you, dear, not to tell me you were about to call
on the Comtesse. I would have taken care that you were spared a meeting
which must have been very painful?'
'Painful?' repeated René in an ironical tone that Suzanne had never
heard him use before, 'why, M. Moraines was charming.'
'Yes,' she replied, 'you have made a conquest. He, so sarcastic as a
rule, spoke of you with an enthusiasm that really pained me. Didn't he
invite you to call on us? You may be proud. It is so rare that he
welcomes a new face. Poor René,' she continued, placing both her hands
on her lover's shoulder, and laying her cheek on her hands, 'how you
must have suffered!'
'I have indeed suffered,' replied René, in a hollow voice. He looked at
the pretty face so near his own and remembered what Suzanne had said to
him in the Louvre before the portrait of the Giorgione's mistress, 'How
can anyone lie with a face like that?' Yet she had lied to him. And what
proof had he that she had not been lying all along? Whilst a prey to the
torments of suspicion, and especially since his meeting with Paul, the
most frightful conjectures had entered his mind. The contrast between
the Moraines he had seen and the tyrannical husband described by Suzanne
had been too great. 'Why has she deceived me on that point too?' René
had asked himself.
He had called on Madame Komof without any distinct aim, but in the
secret hope of hearing Suzanne spoken of by those of her own set. They
at least would be sure to know her! But alas! his conversation with
Moraines had sufficed to involve him in more horrible doubt than ever.
One thing was now very plain to him; Suzanne had used her husband as a
bugbear to keep him, René, from visiting their house. Why--if it were
not that she had something in her life to hide? What was this something?
Colette had taken upon herself to answer this question in advance. Under
the influence of that horrible suspicion, René had conceived a plan,
very simple of execution, and the result of which he thought would prove
decisive. He would take advantage of the husband's invitation to ask
Suzanne for permission to visit her at home. If she said yes, she had
nothing to hide; if she said no----
And as this resolution recurred to the poet he continued to gaze upon
that adorable face resting on his shoulder. Each one of those dear
features recalled fresh memories! Those eyes so clear and blue--what
faith he had had in them! That noble brow--what refined thoughts he had
imagined it to shelter! Those delicate, mobile lips--with what sweet
abandonment had he heard them speak! No--what Colette had told him was
impossible! But why these lies--a first, a second, and a third time?
Yes, she had lied three times. There is no such thing as a trivial lie.
René understood this now, and felt that confidence, like love, is
governed by the great law of all or nothing. We have it or we have it
not. Those who have lost it know this only too well.
'My poor René!' repeated Suzanne. She saw that he was in that state
when compassion softens the heart and opens it wide.
'Poor indeed!' replied the poet, moved by this mark of pity, that came
just when he had most need of it; then, looking into her eyes, he
unburdened himself.
'Listen, Suzanne, I prefer to tell you all. I have come to the
conclusion that the life we are leading now cannot last. It makes me too
unhappy--it does not satisfy my love. To see you only by stealth, an
hour to-day and an hour in a few days' time, to know nothing of what you
are doing, to share no part of your life, is too cruel. Be quiet--let me
speak. There was a weighty objection to my being received in your
house--your husband. Well--I have seen him. I have borne the ordeal. We
have shaken hands. Since it is done, allow me at least to benefit by my
effort. I know there is nothing very noble in what I am saying, but I
have no desire to be noble--I love you. I feel that my mind is getting
full of all kinds of ideas about you. I entreat you to let me come to
your house, to live in your world, to see you elsewhere than here, where
we meet only to--'
'To love each other!' she exclaimed, interrupting him and shaking her
head; 'do not utter blasphemy.' Then, sinking down into a chair, she
continued, 'Alas! my beautiful dream is over then--that dream in which
you seemed to take as much delight as I--the dream of a love all to
ourselves, and only for ourselves, with none of those compromises that
horrified us both!'
'Then won't you let me come and see you as I ask?' said René, returning
to the charge.
'What you are asking me to do is to kill our happiness,' cried Suzanne;
'so sensitive as I know you to be, you would never stand the shocks to
which you would be exposed. You know nothing of that world in which I am
obliged to live, and how unfitted you are for it. And afterwards you
would hold me responsible for your disenchantment. Give up this fatal
idea, love, give it up for my sake.'
'What is there then in this life of yours that I may not see?' asked the
poet, looking at her fixedly. He could not be aware that Suzanne had
only one aim in view--to get him to tell her the reason of this sudden
desire--for she concluded that it must be the same reason which had
caused his distress the other day, and which had taken him to Madame
Komof's so unexpectedly. She was not mistaken as to René's meaning, and
replied in the broken accents of a woman unjustly accused:
'How can you talk to me like that, René? Some one must have poisoned
your mind. You cannot have got hold of such ideas yourself. Come to my
house, love! Come as often as you like! "Something in my life that you
may not see"--I, who would rather die than tell you a lie!'
'Then why did you tell me a lie the other day?' cried René. Conquered
by the despair he thought he could see in those beautiful eyes, disarmed
by the permission she had just given him, unable to keep the secret of
his grief any longer, he felt that necessity of unbosoming himself
which, in a quarrel with a woman, is as good as putting one's head into
a noose.
'I told you a lie?' exclaimed Suzanne.
'Yes, when you told me you went to the theatre with your husband.'
'But I did go----'
'So did I,' said René; 'there was some one else in your box.'
'Desforges!' cried Suzanne; 'you're mad, my dear René--mad! He came
into our box during one of the intervals, and my husband made him stay
till the piece was over. Desforges!' she repeated with a smile, 'why,
he's nobody. I didn't even think of mentioning him. Seriously, you don't
mean to say you're jealous of Desforges?'
'You looked so bright and happy,' rejoined René, in a voice that
already showed signs of relenting.
'Ungrateful man,' she said; 'I wish you could have read what was going
on within me! It is this necessity for continual dissimulation which is
the bane of my life; and now, to have you reproach me with it! No,
René--this is too cruel, too unjust!'
'Forgive me! Forgive me!' cried the poet, now perfectly convinced by the
natural manner of his mistress. 'It is true. Some one has poisoned my
mind. It was Colette! How justified you were in your distrust of Claude
Larcher!'
'I did not allow him to pay me attentions,' said Suzanne; 'men never
forgive that.'
'The wretch!' cried the poet angrily, and then, as if to rid himself of
his grief by telling it, he went on: 'He knew that I loved you. How?
Because I hesitated and got confused the only time I ever mentioned your
name to him. He knows me so well! He guessed my secret and told his
mistress all about it--and a lot of other lies. I can't repeat them to
you.'
'Tell me, René, tell me,' said Suzanne, wearing at that moment the
noble look of resignation that is seen on the faces of those who go to
the scaffold innocent. 'Did they say that I had had lovers before you?'
'Would that it were only that!' exclaimed René.
'What then, _mon Dieu?_' she cried. 'What does it matter to me what they
said, but that you, René, should believe it! Come, confess, so that you
may have nothing on your mind. I have at least the right to demand
that.'
'True,' replied the poet, and looking as shamefaced as though he were
the guilty one, he stammered rather than pronounced the following words:
'Colette told me she heard from Claude that you were . . . No--I can't
say it--well, that Desforges . . .'
'Still Desforges,' said Suzanne, interrupting him with a sweet but
ironical smile; 'it is too comical.' She did not want René to formulate
the charge that she could now guess. It would have wounded her dignity
to descend to such depths. 'You were told that Desforges had been my
lover--that he was still so, no doubt. But that is not slander--it is
too ridiculous to be that. Poor old friend--he who knew me when I was as
high as that!--he and my father were always together. He has seen me
grow up, and loves me as if I were his own child. And it is this man
whom---- No, René, swear to me that you didn't believe it. Have I
deserved that you should think so badly of me?'