"The peculiar honour
Of being the successor...."
He sat up on the couch and threw a savage glance round him. How glad he
would have been to find someone in his room! He would have torn him limb
from limb without any hesitation.
The clock struck eight. At eight-thirty the Countess expected him.
Should he disappoint her? Why, indeed, should he ever see Massigny's
mistress again? He lay down again on the couch and shut his eyes. "I
will try to sleep," he said. He lay still for half a minute, then he
leapt to his feet and ran to the clock to see how the time was going.
"How I wish it were half-past eight!" he thought. "It would be too late
then for me to start." If only he were taken ill. He had not the courage
to stop at home unless he had an excuse. He walked up and down his room,
then he sat down and took a book, but he could not read a syllable. He
sat down in front of his piano, but had not enough energy to open it. He
whistled; then he looked out of his window at the clouds, and tried to
count the poplars. At length he looked at the clock again, and saw that
he had not succeeded in whiling away more than three minutes. "I cannot
help loving her," he burst out, grinding his teeth and stamping his
feet; "She rules me, and I am her slave, just as Massigny was before me.
Well, since you have not sufficient courage to break the hated chain,
poor wretch, you must obey."
He picked up his hat and rushed out.
When we are carried away by a great passion it is some consolation to
our self-love to look clown from the height of pride upon our weakness.
"I certainly am weak," he said to himself; "but what if I wish to be
so?"
As he walked slowly up the footpath which led to the garden gate, he
could see in the distance a white face standing out against the dark
background of trees. She beckoned to him with her handkerchief. His
heart beat violently, and his knees trembled under him; he could not
speak, and he had become so nervous that he feared lest the Countess
should read his ill-humour.
He took the hand she held out to him, and kissed her brow, because she
threw herself into his arms. He followed her into her sitting-room in
silence, though scarce able to suppress his bursting sighs.
A single candle lighted the Countess's room. They sat down, and
Saint-Clair noticed his friend's coiffure; a single rose was in her
hair. He had given her, the previous evening, a beautiful English
engraving of Leslie's "Duchess of Portland" (whose hair was dressed in
the same fashion), and Saint-Clair had merely remarked to the Countess,
"I like that single rose better than all your elaborate coiffures." He
did not like jewels, and inclined to the opinion of a noble lord who
once remarked coarsely, "The devil has nothing left to teach women who
overdress themselves and coil their hair fantastically." The night
before, while playing with the Countess's pearl necklace (he always
would have something between his hands when talking), Saint-Clair had
said, "You are too pretty, Mathilde, to wear jewels; they are only meant
to hide defects." To-night the Countess had stripped herself of rings,
necklaces, earrings and bracelets, for she stored up his most trivial
remarks. He noticed, above everything else in a woman's toilet, the
shoes she wore; and, like many other men, he was quite mad on this
point. A heavy shower had fallen at sunset, and the grass was still very
wet; in spite of this the Countess walked on the damp lawn in silk
stockings and black satin slippers.... Suppose she were to take cold?
"She loves me," said Saint-Clair to himself.
He sighed at his folly, but smiled at Mathilde in spite of himself,
tossed between his sorry mood and the gratification of seeing a pretty
woman, who had sought, by those trifles which have such priceless value
in the eyes of lovers, to please him.
The Countess was radiant with love, playfully mischievous and
bewitchingly charming. She took something from a Japanese lacquered box
and held it out to him in her little firmly closed hand.
"I broke your watch the other night," she said; "here it is, mended."
She handed the watch to him and looked at him tenderly, and yet
mischievously, biting her lower lip as though to prevent herself from
laughing. Oh, what beautiful white teeth she had! and how they gleamed
against the ruby red of her lips! (A man looks exceedingly foolish when
he is being teased by a pretty woman, and replies coldly.)
Saint-Clair thanked her, took the watch and was about to put in his
pocket.
"Look at it and open it," she continued. "See if it is mended all right.
You, who are so learned, you, who have been to the Polytechnic School,
ought to be able to tell that."
"Oh, I didn't learn much there," said Saint-Clair.
He opened the case in an absent-minded way, and what was his surprise to
find a miniature portrait of Madam de Coursy painted on the interior of
the case? How could he sulk any longer? His brow cleared; he thought no
longer of Massigny; he only remembered that he was by the side of a
beautiful woman, and that this woman loved him.
* * * * * *
"The lark, that harbinger of dawn," began to sing, and long bands of
pale light stretched across the eastern clouds. At such an hour did
Romeo say farewell to Juliet, and it is the classic hour when all lovers
should part.
Saint-Clair stood before a mantelpiece, the key of the garden gate in
his hand, his eyes intently fixed on the Etruscan vase, of which we have
already spoken. In the depths of his soul he still bore it a grudge,
although he was in a much better humour. The simple explanation occurred
to his mind that Thémines might have lied about it. While the Countess
was wrapping a shawl round her head in order to go to the garden gate
with him he began to tap the detested vase with the key, at first
gently, then gradually increasing the force of his blows until it seemed
as though he would soon smash it to atoms.
"Oh, do be careful!" Mathilde exclaimed. "You will break my beautiful
Etruscan vase!"
She snatched the key out of his hands.
Saint-Clair was very angry, but he resigned himself and turned his back
on the chimney-piece to avoid temptation. Opening his watch, he began to
examine the portrait that had just been given him.
"Who painted it?" he asked.
"Monsieur R----, and it was Massigny who introduced him to my notice.
(After Massigny had been in Rome he discovered that he had exquisite
taste in art, and constituted himself the Macænas of all young
painters.) I really think the portrait is like me, though it is a little
too flattering."
Saint-Clair had a burning desire to fling the watch against the wall, to
break it beyond all hope of mending. He controlled himself, however, and
put the watch in his pocket. Then he noticed that it was daylight, and,
entreating Mathilde not to come out with him, he left the house and
crossed the garden with rapid strides, and was soon alone in the
country.
"Massigny! Massigny!" he burst forth with concentrated rage. "Can I
never escape him?... No doubt the artist who painted this portrait
painted another for Massigny.... What a fool I am to imagine for a
moment that I am loved with a love equal to my own!... just because she
put aside her jewels and wore a rose in her hair!... Jewels! why, she
has a chest full.... Massigny, who thought of little else save a woman's
toilette, was a lover of jewellery!... Yes, she has a gracious nature,
it must be granted; she knows how to gratify the tastes of her lovers.
Damn it! I would rather a hundred times that she were a courtesan and
gave herself for money. Just because she was my mistress and unpaid I
thought she loved me indeed."
Soon another still more unhappy idea presented itself. In a few weeks'
time the Countess would be out of mourning, and Saint-Clair had promised
to marry her as soon as her year of widowhood was over. He had promised.
Promised? No. He had never spoken of it, but such had been his intention
and the Countess had understood it so. But for him this was as good as
an oath. Last night he would have given a throne to hasten the time for
acknowledging his love publicly; now the very thought of marrying the
former mistress of Massigny filled him with loathing.
"Nevertheless, I owe it to her to marry her," he said to himself, "and
it shall be done. No doubt she thinks, poor woman, I heard all about her
former _liaison_; it seems to have been generally known. Besides, she
did not then know me.... She cannot understand me; she thinks that I am
only such another lover as Massigny."