"Oh, it's you, is it; you are not in bed yet?" said Henri to Renée, as
she went into his room one evening. He was smoking, and it was that
blissful moment in a man's life when, with slippers on and his feet on
the marble of the chimney-piece, buried in an arm-chair, he gives
himself up to day-dreams, while puffing up languidly to the ceiling the
smoke of his last cigar. He was thinking of all that had happened during
the past few months, and congratulating himself on having manoeuvred so
well. He was turning everything over in his mind: that suggestion about
the theatricals, which he had thrown out with such apparent indifference
when they were all sitting in the garden; then his absence from the
first rehearsals, and the coolness with which he had treated Noémi in
order to reassure her, to take her off her guard, and to prevent her
refusing point-blank to act. He was thinking of that master-stroke, of
his love suddenly rousing the mother's jealousy in the midst of the
play, and it had all appeared to be so spontaneous, as though the rôle
he was filling had torn from him the secret of his soul. He thought of
all that had followed: how he had worked that other love up to the last
extremity of despair, then his behaviour in that last interview; all
this came back to him, and he felt a certain pride in recalling so many
circumstances that he had foreseen, planned, and arranged beforehand,
and which he had so skilfully introduced into the midst of the
love-affairs of a woman of forty.
"No, I am not sleepy to-night," said Renée, drawing up a little stool to
the fire and sitting down. "I feel inclined for a little chat like we
used to have before you had your flat in Paris, do you remember? I got
used to cigars, and pipes, and everything here. Didn't we gossip when
every one had gone to bed! What nonsense we have talked by this fire!
And now, my respected brother is such a very serious sort of man."
"Very serious indeed," put in Henri, smiling. "I'm going to be married."
"Oh," she said, "but you are not married yet. Oh, please Henri!" and
throwing herself on her knees she took his hands in hers. "Come now, for
my sake. Oh, you won't do it--just for money--I'm begging you on my
knees! And then, too, it will bring bad luck to give up your father's
name. It has belonged to our family for generations--this name, Henri.
Think what a man father is. Oh, do give up this marriage--I beseech
you--if you love me--if you love us all! Oh, I beseech you, Henri!"
"What's this all mean; have you gone mad? What are you making such a
scene about? Come, that's enough, thank you; get up."
Renée rose to her feet, and looking straight into her brother's eyes she
said:
"Noémi has told me everything!"
The colour had mounted to her cheeks. Henri was as pale as if some one
had just spat in his face.
"You cannot, anyhow, marry her daughter!" exclaimed Renée.
"My dear girl," answered Henri coldly, in a voice that trembled, "it
seems to me that you are interfering in things that don't concern you.
And you will allow me to say that for a young girl----"
"Ah, you mean this is dirt that I ought to know nothing of; that is
quite true, and I should never have known of it but for you."
"Renée!" Henri approached his sister. He was in one of those white rages
which are terrible to witness, and Renée was alarmed and stepped back.
He took her by the arm and pointed to the door. "Go!" he said, and a
moment later he saw her in the corridor, putting her hand against the
wall for support.