"Can you get out of the hotel alone?"
"Yes. I know how to undo the little door."
"Well, when the doorkeeper has gone to bed, towards midnight, come and
meet me on the Place de la Concorde. You will find me in a cab drawn up
in front of the Ministry of Marine."
"I will come."
"Really?"
"Really."
He took her hand and pressed it. "Oh! how I love you. How good and brave
you are! So you don't want to marry Monsieur de Cazolles?"
"Oh! no."
"Your father was very angry when you said no?"
"I should think so. He wanted to send me back to the convent."
"You see that it is necessary to be energetic."
"I will be so."
She looked at the vast horizon, her head full of the idea of being ran
off with. She would go further than that with him. She would be ran away
with. She was proud of it. She scarcely thought of her reputation--of
what shame might befall her. Was she aware of it? Did she even suspect
it?
Madame Walter, turning round, exclaimed: "Come along, little one. What
are you doing with Pretty-boy?"
They rejoined the others and spoke of the seaside, where they would soon
be. Then they returned home by way of Chatou, in order not to go over
the same road twice. George no longer spoke. He reflected. If the little
girl had a little courage, he was going to succeed at last. For three
months he had been enveloping her in the irresistible net of his love.
He was seducing, captivating, conquering her. He had made himself loved
by her, as he knew how to make himself loved. He had captured her
childish soul without difficulty. He had at first obtained of her that
she should refuse Monsieur de Cazolles. He had just obtained that she
would fly with him. For there was no other way. Madame Walter, he well
understood, would never agree to give him her daughter. She still loved
him; she would always love him with unmanageable violence. He restrained
her by his studied coldness; but he felt that she was eaten up by hungry
and impotent passion. He could never bend her. She would never allow him
to have Susan. But once he had the girl away he would deal on a level
footing with her father. Thinking of all this, he replied by broken
phrases to the remarks addressed to him, and which he did not hear. He
only seemed to come to himself when they returned to Paris.
Susan, too, was thinking, and the bells of the four horses rang in her
ears, making her see endless miles of highway under eternal moonlight,
gloomy forests traversed, wayside inns, and the hurry of the hostlers to
change horses, for every one guesses that they are pursued.
When the landau entered the court-yard of the mansion, they wanted to
keep George to dinner. He refused, and went home. After having eaten a
little, he went through his papers as if about to start on a long
journey. He burnt some compromising letters, hid others, and wrote to
some friends. From time to time he looked at the clock, thinking:
"Things must be getting warm there." And a sense of uneasiness gnawed at
his heart. Suppose he was going to fail? But what could he fear? He
could always get out of it. Yet it was a big game he was playing that
evening.
He went out towards eleven o'clock, wandered about some time, took a
cab, and had it drawn up in the Place de la Concorde, by the Ministry of
Marine. From time to time he struck a match to see the time by his
watch. When he saw midnight approaching, his impatience became feverish.
Every moment he thrust his head out of the window to look. A distant
clock struck twelve, then another nearer, then two together, then a last
one, very far away. When the latter had ceased to sound, he thought: "It
is all over. It is a failure. She won't come." He had made up his mind,
however, to wait till daylight. In these matters one must be patient.
He heard the quarter strike, then the half-hour, then the quarter to,
and all the clocks repeated "one," as they had announced midnight. He no
longer expected her; he was merely remaining, racking his brain to
divine what could have happened. All at once a woman's head was passed
through the window, and asked: "Are you there, Pretty-boy?"