"Friendship," said Guy, "is all very well, it is very good, very
agreeable, but--"
"But--?"
"Love--"
"Do not mention that to me! That takes wings, b-r-r! Like swallows. It
flits. It leaves for Italy. But friendship--"
She extended her small firm hand as rigid as steel.
"When you desire to visit me over there, I shall be at home. I will give
you the address. But it is not Guy who will come, but Monsieur de
Lissac, remember. Is that understood?"
"I should be very silly if I answered _yes_."
Marianne shrugged her shoulders.
"Compliments! How foolish you are! Keep that sort of talk for others. It
is a long time since they were addressed to me."
She took that man's face between her hands and kissed his cheeks in a
frank, friendly way. Guy became somewhat pale.
"I have loved you, and truly, that is enough. Do not complain or ask
aught besides."
Ah! what an eager desire now prompted him to possess her again, to find
in her his mistress once more, to restrain her from leaving until she
had become his, as of old.
She had already thrown her cloak over her shoulders, and said, as she
gently pushed open the door:
"So it is agreed? I am to go to Madame Marsy's?"
"To Madame Marsy's. I will have an invitation sent you."
"And I will call for you and take you. Yes, I, here, like a jolly
companion. Or I'll go with my uncle. You will present me to Rosas. We
shall see if he recognizes me."
She burst out laughing. "You will also introduce me--since that is your
occupation--" and here her smile disclosed her pretty, almost
mischievous-looking teeth--"to Monsieur Vaudrey, your comrade. A
minister! Such people are always useful for something. _Addio, caro!_"
Guy de Lissac had hardly taken two steps toward Marianne before she had
vanished behind the heavy folds of the Japanese portière that fell in
its place behind her. He opened the door. Mademoiselle Kayser was
already in the hall, with her hand on the handle of the door.
"At nine o'clock I shall be with you," she said to Lissac as she
disappeared.
She waved a salutation, the valet de chambre hastened to open the door,
and her outline, that for a moment stood out in the light of the
staircase, vanished. Guy was almost angry, and returned to his room.
Now that she had left, he opened his window quickly. It seemed to him
that a little blue smoke escaped from the room, the cloud emitted by
Marianne's cigarette. And with this bluish vapor also disappeared the
odor of new-mown hay, bearing with it the passing intoxication that for
a moment threatened to ensnare this disabused man.
The cold outside air, the bright sunshine, entered in quivering rays.
Without, the snow-covered roofs stood out clearly against a soft blue
sky, limpid and springlike. Light wreaths of smoke floated upward in the
bracing atmosphere.
Guy freely inhaled this buoyant atmosphere that chased away the blended
odor of tobacco and that exhaled from the woman. It seemed to him that a
sort of band had been torn from his brow which, but a moment ago, felt
compressed. The fresh breeze bore away all trace of Marianne's kisses.
"Must I always be a child?" he thought. "It is not on my account that
she came here, but on Rosas's. Our friends' friends are our lovers.
Egad! on my word, I was almost taken in again, nevertheless! Compelled,
in order to cut adrift again, to make another journey to Italy,--at my
age."
Then, feeling chilly, he closed the window, laughing as he did so.
V
On the pavement of the Boulevard Malesherbes, two policemen, wrapped in
their hooded coats, restrained the crowd that gathered in front of the
huge double-door of the house occupied by Madame Marsy. A double row of
curious idlers stood motionless, braving benumbed fingers while
watching the carriages that rolled under the archway, which, after
quickly depositing at the foot of the brilliantly lighted perron women
enveloped in burnooses and men in white gloves, their faces half-hidden
by fur collars, turned and crossed the row of approaching coupés.
For an hour past there had been a double file of carriages, and a
continuous stream of guests arriving on foot, who threw their cigars at
the foot of the perron, chatting as they ascended the steps, which were
protected by a covering of glass. The curious pointed out the faces of
well-known persons. It was said in the neighborhood that the greater
part of the ministers had accepted invitations.
Madame Marsy's salons were brilliant under the blazing lights. Guests
jostled each other in the lobbies. Overcoats and mantles were thrown in
heaps or strung up in haste, the gloved hands reaching out as in the
lobby of a theatre to receive the piece of numbered pasteboard.
"You have No. 113," said Monsieur de Lissac to Marianne, who had just
entered, wearing a pale blue cloak, and leaning on his arm.
She smiled as she slipped the tiny card into her pocket.
"Oh! I am not superstitious!"
She beamed with satisfaction.
People in the hall stood aside in order to allow this pretty creature
to pass by; her fair hair fell over her plump, though slender, white
shoulders, and the folds of her satin skirt, falling over her
magnificent hips, rustled as she walked.
Lissac, with his eyeglass fixed, and ceremoniously carrying his
flattened opera-hat, advanced toward the salon, amid the greedy
curiosity of the guests who contemplated the exquisite grace of the
lovely girl as if they were inhaling its charm.
Madame Marsy stood at the entrance of the salon, looking attractive in a
toilet of black silk which heightened her fair beauty, and, with
extended hands, smilingly greeted all her guests, while the charming
Madame Gerson, refined and tactful, aided her in receiving.
Sabine appeared perfectly charmed on perceiving Marianne. She had felt
the influence formerly of this ready, keen and daring intelligence. She
troubled herself but little about Marianne's past. Kayser's niece was
received everywhere, and had not Kayser decided to accompany her? He
followed in the rear of the young girl. People had not observed him. He
chatted with a man about sixty years old, with a white beard and very
gentle eyes who listened to him good-naturedly while thinking perhaps of
something else.
"Ah! my old Ramel, how glad I am to see you!" he said with theatrical
effusion.
"It is a fact that we rarely see each other. What has become of you,
Kayser?"
"I? I work. I protest, you know, I have never compromised--Never--The
dignity of art--"
Their voices were drowned by the hubbub of the first salon, already
filled with guests; Sabine meanwhile took Marianne, whom Lissac
surrendered, and led her toward a larger salon with red decorations,
wherein the chairs were drawn up in lines before an empty space,
forming, thanks to the voluminous folds of the curtains, a sort of stage
on which, doubtless, some looked-for actor was about to appear.
Nearly all these chairs were already occupied. The lovely faces of the
women were illuminated by the dazzling light. Everybody turned toward
Marianne as she entered the room, under the guidance of Sabine, who led
her quickly toward one of the unoccupied seats, close to the improvised
stage on which, evidently, Monsieur de Rosas was going to speak.
Madame Gerson had taken her seat near Marianne, who searched her black,
bright eyes with a penetrating glance in order to interrogate the
thoughts of this friend of the family. Madame Gerson was delighted.
Sabine, dear Sabine, had achieved a success, yes, a success! Monsieur
Vaudrey was there! And Madame Vaudrey, too! And Monsieur Collard--of
Nantes--the President of the Council! And Monsieur Pichereau, who, after
all, had been a minister!
"That makes almost three ministers, one of whom is President of the
Council! Sabine is overcome with joy, yes, absolutely crazy! Think of
it: Madame Hertzfield, Sabine's rival, never had more than two ministers
at a time in her salon."
She added, prattling in soft, linnet-like tones, that Madame
Hertzfield's salon was losing its prestige. Only sub-prefects were
created there. But Sabine's salon was the antechamber to the
prefectures!
"And if you knew how charming Monsieur Vaudrey is--a delightful
conversationalist--he has dined excellently--he was twice served with
an entrée!"
Marianne listened, but her mind was wandering far away. She was debating
with herself as to when Monsieur de Rosas would appear on that narrow
strip of waxed floor before her.
Guy had correctly surmised: it was Rosas and Rosas only whom this woman
was seeking in Sabine's salon. She wished to see him again, to talk to
him, to tempt destiny. A fancy.--A final caprice. Why not?
Marianne thought that she played a leading part there. She remembered
this José very well, having met him more than once in former days with
Guy. A Parisian Castilian, more Parisian than Spanish, he spoke with
exquisite finish the classic tongue, and with the free-and-easy manner
of a frequenter of the boulevards, chatted in the slang of the pavement
or of the greenroom; he was an eminent virtuoso and collector, an author
when the desire seized him, but only in his own interest, liberal in
his opinions, lavish in his disposition, attractive in his manners; an
eager traveller, he had, at thirty years of age, seen all that was to be
seen, he had visited India and Japan, drunk camel's milk under the tents
of the Kirgheez, and eaten dates with the Kabyles, and narrated with a
sort of appetizing irony, love adventures which might have seemed
romantic brag, if it were not that he lessened their improbability by
his raillery. He was a kind of belated Byron, who might have been cured
of his romantic tastes by the wounds and contact of reality.
She especially recalled a visit in Guy's company to José at an apartment
that the duke had furnished in Rue de Laval. He occupied a painter's
large studio, draping it with Oriental tapestry, crowding it with
knickknacks and panoplies of weapons: an extravagant luxury,--something
like the embarrassment of riches in a plundered caravansary. It was
there that José had regaled Marianne and Guy with coffee served in
Turkish fashion, and while they chatted, they had smoked that pale
Oriental tobacco, that the Spaniard, quoting some Persian poets,
gallantly compared to the perfumed locks of Mademoiselle Kayser.
During her years of hardship, she had many a time recalled that
auburn-haired, handsome fellow, with his blue eye, pensive and
searching, and lower lip curled disdainfully over his tawny beard
trimmed in Charles V. style, as he reclined there, stretched on Hindoo
rugs, chanting some monotonous song as slow as the movement of a
caravan.
"Isn't my friend Rosas a delightful fellow?" Guy had asked her.
"Delightful!"
"And clever! and learned! and entertaining! and, what is not amiss, a
multi-millionaire!"
Marianne thought of the absolute power, satisfied desires, whims and
possible dreams that were linked with that man. He was a mass of
perambulating gold. How many times she had dreamed, in the mists of her
recollection, of that somewhat haughty smile that curled his delicate
mustache, and those keen-edged teeth gleaming though his reddish beard,
as if greedy to bury themselves deep in flesh!
But where was the duke now? Among the Kabyles or the Mormons? At Tahiti,
Greenland, or gone to the devil? The papers had once announced that he
was organizing an expedition to the North Pole. Perhaps he was lost
among the icebergs in the Arctic Seas! She smiled at that, sighing
involuntarily with sincere emotion, but prompted by selfish regret.
It had seemed to her that José had more than once permitted himself to
express his affection for her. Politely, correctly, of course, as a
gallant man addresses a friend's mistress, but manifesting in his
reserve a host of understood sentiments and tender restraint that
suggested hidden or implied declarations. Marianne had pretended not to
understand him. At that time, she loved Guy or thought that she loved
him, which amounts to the same thing. She contented herself with smiling
at the flirtation of Monsieur de Rosas.
"I have perhaps been very stupid," she said to herself. "Pshaw! he might
have been as silly as I, if occasion demanded. The obligations of
friendship! The phantom of Guy!"