FRED ASKS A QUESTION
Time, whatever may be said of it by the calendars, is not to be measured
by days, weeks, and months in all cases; expectation, hope, happiness and
grief have very different ways of counting hours, and we know from our
own experience that some are as short as a minute, and others as long as
a century. The love or the suffering of those who can tell just how long
they have suffered, or just how long they have been in love, is only
moderate and reasonable.
Madame d'Argy found the two lonely years she passed awaiting the return
of her son, who was winning his promotion to the rank of ensign, so long,
that it seemed to her as if they never would come to an end. She had
given a reluctant consent to his notion of adopting the navy as a
profession, thinking that perhaps, after all, there might be no harm in
allowing her dear boy to pass the most dangerous period of his youth
under strict discipline, but she could not be patient forever! She
idolized her son too much to be resigned to living without him; she felt
that he was hers no longer. Either he was at sea or at Toulon, where she
could very rarely join him, being detained at Lizerolles by the necessity
of looking after their property. With what eagerness she awaited his
promotion, which she did not doubt was all the Nailles waited for to give
their consent to the marriage; of their happy half-consent she hastened
to remind them in a note which announced the new grade to which he had
been promoted. Her indignation was great on finding that her formal
request received no decided answer; but, as her first object was Fred's
happiness, she placed the reply she had received in its most favorable
light when she forwarded it to the person whom it most concerned. She
did this in all honesty. She was not willing to admit that she was being
put off with excuses; still less could she believe in a refusal.
She accepted the excuse that M. de Nailles gave for returning no decided
answer, viz.: that "Jacqueline was too young," though she answered him
with some vehemence: "Fred was born when I was eighteen." But she had to
accept it. Her ensign would have to pass a few more months on the coast
of Senegal, a few more months which were made shorter by the
encouragement forwarded to him by his mother, who was careful to send him
everything she could find out that seemed to be, or that she imagined
might be, in his favor; she underlined such things and commented upon
them, so as to make the faintest hypothesis seem a certainty. Sometimes
she did not even wait for the post. Fred would find, on putting in at
some post, a cablegram: "Good news," or "All goes well," and he would be
beside himself with joy and excitement until, on receiving his poor, dear
mother's next letter, he found out on how slight a foundation her
assurance had been founded.
Sometimes, she wrote him disagreeable things about Jacqueline, as if she
would like to disenchant him, and then he said to himself: "By this, I am
to understand that my affairs are not going on well; I still count for
little, notwithstanding my promotion." Ah! if he could only have had,
so near the beginning of his career, any opportunity of distinguishing
himself! No brilliant deed would have been too hard for him. He would
have scaled the very skies. Alas! he had had no chance to win
distinction, he had only had to follow in the beaten track of ordinary
duty; he had encountered no glorious perils, though at St. Louis he had
come very near leaving his bones, but it was only a case of typhoid
fever. This fever, however, brought about a scene between M. de Nailles
and his mother.
"When," she cried, with all the fury of a lioness, "do you expect to come
to the conclusion that my son is a suitable match for Jacqueline? Do you
imagine that I shall let him wait till he is a post-captain to satisfy
the requirements of Mademoiselle your daughter--provided he does not die
in a hospital? Do you think that I shall be willing to go on living--
if you can call it living!--all alone and in continual apprehension? Why
do you let him keep on in uncertainty? You know his worth, and you know
that with him Jacqueline would be happy. Instead of that--instead of
saying once for all to this young man, who is more in love with her than
any other man will ever be: 'There, take her, I give her to you,' which
would be the straightforward, sensible way, you go on encouraging the
caprices of a child who will end by wasting, in the life you are
permitting her to lead, all the good qualities she has and keeping
nothing but the bad ones."
"Mon Dieu! I can't see that Jacqueline leads a life like that!" said M.
de Nailles, who felt that he must say something.
"You don't see, you don't see! How can any one see who won't open his
eyes? My poor friend, just look for once at what is going on around you,
under your own roof--"
"Jacqueline is devoted to music," said her father, good-humoredly.
Madame d'Argy in her heart thought he was losing his mind.
And in truth he was growing older day by day, becoming more and more
anxious, more and more absorbed in the great struggle--not for life; that
might exhaust a man, but at least it was energetic and noble--but for
superfluous wealth, for vanity, for luxury, which, for his own part, he
cared nothing for, and which he purchased dearly, spurred on to exertion
by those near to him, who insisted on extravagances.
"Oh! yes, Jacqueline, I know, is devoted to music," went on Madame
d'Argy, with an air of extreme disapproval, "too much so! And when she
is able to sing like Madame Strahlberg, what good will it do her? Even
now I see more than one little thing about her that needs to be reformed.
How can she escape spoiling in that crowd of Slavs and Yankees, people of
no position probably in their own countries, with whom you permit her to
associate? People nowadays are so imprudent about acquaintances! To be
a foreigner is a passport into society. Just think what her poor mother
would have said to the bad manners she is adopting from all parts of the
globe? My poor, dear Adelaide! She was a genuine Frenchwoman of the old
type; there are not many such left now. Ah!" continued Madame d'Argy,
without any apparent connection with her subject, "Monsieur de Talbrun's
mother, if he had one, would be truly happy to see him married to
Giselle!"
"But," faltered M. de Nailles, struck by the truth of some of these
remarks, "I make no opposition--quite the contrary--I have spoken several
times about your son, but I was not listened to!"
"What can she say against Fred?"
"Nothing. She is very fond of him, that you know as well as I do. But
those childish attachments do not necessarily lead to love and marriage."
"Friendship on her side might be enough," said Madame d'Argy, in the tone
of a woman who had never known more than that in marriage. "My poor Fred
has enthusiasm and all that, enough for two. And in time she will be
madly in love with him--she must! It is impossible it should be
otherwise."
"Very good, persuade her yourself if you can; but Jacqueline has a pretty
strong will of her own."
Jacqueline's will was a reality, though the ideas of M. de Nailles may
have been illusion.
"And my wife, too!" resumed the Baron, after a long sigh. "I don't know
how it is, but Jacqueline, as she has grown up, has become like an
unbroken colt, and those two, who were once all in all to each other, are
now seldom of one mind. How am I to act when their two wills cross mine,
as they often do? I have so many things on my mind. There are times
when--"
"Yes, one can see that. You don't seem to know where you are. And do
you think that the disposition she shows to act, as you say, like an
unbroken colt, is nothing to me? Do you think I am quite satisfied with
my son's choice? I could have wished that he had chosen for his wife--
but what is the use of saying what I wished? The important thing is that
he should be happy in his own way. Besides, I dare say the young thing
will calm down of her own accord. Her mother's daughter must be good at
heart. All will come right when she is removed from a circle which is
doing her no good; it is injuring her in people's opinion already, you
must know. And how will it be by-and-bye? I hear people saying
everywhere: 'How can the Nailles let that young girl associate so much
with foreigners?' You say they are old school-fellows, they went to the
'cours' together. But see if Madame d'Etaples and Madame Ray, under the
same pretext, let Isabelle and Yvonne associate with the Odinskas! As to
that foolish woman, Madame d'Avrigny, she goes to their house to look up
recruits for her operettas, and Madame Strahlberg has one advantage over
regular artists, there is no call to pay her. That is the reason why she
invites her. Besides which, she won't find it so easy to marry Dolly."
"Oh! there are several reasons for that," said the Baron, who could see
the mote in his neighbor's eye, "Mademoiselle d'Avrigny has led a life so
very worldly ever since she was a child, so madly fast and lively, that
suitors are afraid of her. Jacqueline, thank heaven, has never yet been
in what is called the world. She only visits those with whom she is on
terms of intimacy."
"An intimacy which includes all Paris," said Madame d'Argy, raising her
eyes to heaven. "If she does not go to great balls, it is only because
her stepmother is bored by them. But with that exception it seems to me
she is allowed to do anything. I don't see the difference. But, to be
sure, if Jacqueline is not for us, you have a right to say that I am
interfering in what does not concern me."
"Not at all," said the unfortunate father, "I feel how much I ought to
value your advice, and an alliance with your family would please me more
than anything."
He said the truth, for he was disturbed by seeing M. de Cymier so slow in
making his proposals, and he was also aware that young girls in our day
are less sought for in marriage than they used to be. His friend
Wermant, rich as he was, had had some trouble in capturing for Berthe a
fellow of no account in the Faubourg St. Germain, and the prize was not
much to be envied. He was a young man without brains and without a sou,
who enjoyed so little consideration among his own people that his wife
had not been received as she expected, and no one spoke of Madame de
Belvan without adding: "You know, that little Wermant, daughter of the
'agent de change'."
Of course, Jacqueline had the advantage of good birth over Berthe, but
how great was her inferiority in point of fortune! M. de Nailles
sometimes confided these perplexities to his wife, without, however,
receiving much comfort from her. Nor did the Baroness confess to her
husband all her own fears. In secret she often asked herself, with the
keen insight of a woman of the world well trained in artifice and who
possessed a thorough knowledge of mankind, whether there might not be
women capable of using a young girl so as to put the world on a wrong
scent; whether, in other words, Madame de Villegry did not talk
everywhere about M. de Cymier's attentions to Mademoiselle de Nailles in
order to conceal his relations to herself? Madame de Villegry indeed
cared little about standing well in public opinion, but rather the
contrary; she would not, however, for the world have been willing, by too
openly favoring one man among her admirers, to run the risk of putting
the rest to flight. No doubt M. de Cymier was most assiduous in his
attendance on the receptions and dances at Madame de Nailles's, but he
was there always at the same time as Madame de Villegry herself. They
would hold whispered conferences in corners, which might possibly have
been about Jacqueline, but there was no proof that they were so, except
what Madame de Villegry herself said. "At any rate," thought Madame de
Nailles, "if Fred comes forward as a suitor it may stimulate Monsieur de
Cymier. There are men who put off taking a decisive step till the last
moment, and are only to be spurred up by competition."
So every opportunity was given to Fred to talk freely with Jacqueline
when he returned to Paris. By this time he wore two gold-lace stripes
upon his sleeve. But Jacqueline avoided any tete-a-tete with him as if
she understood the danger that awaited her. She gave him no chance of
speaking alone with her. She was friendly--nay, sometimes affectionate
when other people were near them, but more commonly she teased him,
bewildered him, excited him. After an hour or two spent in her society
he would go home sometimes savage, sometimes desponding, to ponder in his
own room, and in his own heart, what interpretation he ought to put upon
the things that she had said to him.
The more he thought, the less he understood. He would not have confided
in his mother for the world; she might have cast blame on Jacqueline.
Besides her, he had no one who could receive his confidences, who would
bear with his perplexities, who could assist in delivering him from the
network of hopes and fears in which, after every interview with
Jacqueline, he seemed to himself to become more and more entangled.
At last, however, at one of the soirees given every fortnight by Madame
de Nailles, he succeeded in gaining her attention.
"Give me this quadrille," he said to her.
And, as she could not well refuse, he added, as soon as she had taken his
arm: "We will not dance, and I defy you to escape me."
"This is treason!" she cried, somewhat angrily. "We are not here to
talk; I can almost guess beforehand what you have to say, and--"
But he had made her sit down in the recess of that bow-window which had
been called the young girls' corner years ago. He stood before her,
preventing her escape, and half-laughing, though he was deeply moved.
"Since you have guessed what I wanted to say, answer me quickly."
"Must I? Must I, really? Why didn't you ask my father to do your
commission? It is so horribly disagreeable to do these things for one's
self."
"That depends upon what the things may be that have to be said. I should
think it ought to be very agreeable to pronounce the word on which the
happiness of a whole life is to depend."
"Oh! what a grand phrase! As if I could be essential to anybody's
happiness? You can't make me believe that!"
"You are mistaken. You are indispensable to mine."
"There! my declaration has been made," thought Fred, much relieved that
it was over, for he had been afraid to pronounce the decisive words.
"Well, if I thought that were true, I should be very sorry," said
Jacqueline, no longer smiling, but looking down fixedly at the pointed
toe of her little slipper; "because--"
She stopped suddenly. Her face flushed red.
"I don't know how to explain to you;" she said.
"Explain nothing," pleaded Fred; "all I ask is Yes, nothing more. There
is nothing else I care for."
She raised her head coldly and haughtily, yet her voice trembled as she
said:
"You will force me to say it? Then, no! No!" she repeated, as if to
reaffirm her refusal.
Then, alarmed by Fred's silence, and above all by his looks, he who had
seemed so gay shortly before and whose face now showed an anguish such as
she had never yet seen on the face of man, she added:
"Oh, forgive me!--Forgive me," she repeated in a lower voice, holding out
her hand. He did not take it.
"You love some one else?" he asked, through his clenched teeth.
She opened her fan and affected to examine attentively the pink landscape
painted on it to match her dress.
"Why should you think so? I wish to be free."
"Free? Are you free? Is a woman ever free?"
Jacqueline shook her head, as if expressing vague dissent.
"Free at least to see a little of the world," she said, "to choose, to
use my wings, in short--"
And she moved her slender arms with an audacious gesture which had
nothing in common with the flight of that mystic dove upon which she had
meditated when holding the card given her by Giselle.
"Free to prefer some other man," said Fred, who held fast to his idea
with the tenacity of jealousy.
"Ah! that is different. Supposing there were anyone whom I liked--not
more, but differently from the way I like you--it is possible. But you
spoke of loving!"
"Your distinctions are too subtle," said Fred.
"Because, much as it seems to astonish you, I am quite capable of seeing
the difference," said Jacqueline, with the look and the accent of a
person who has had large experience. "I have loved once--a long time
ago, a very long time ago, a thousand years and more. Yes, I loved some
one, as perhaps you love me, and I suffered more than you will ever
suffer. It is ended; it is over--I think it is over forever."
"How foolish! At your age!"
"Yes, that kind of love is ended for me. Others may please me, others do
please me, as you said, but it is not the same thing. Would you like to
see the man I once loved?" asked Jacqueline, impelled by a juvenile
desire to exhibit her experience, and also aware instinctively that to
cast a scrap of past history to the curious sometimes turns off their
attention on another track. "He is near us now," she added.
And while Fred's angry eyes, under his frowning brows, were wandering all
round the salon, she pointed to Hubert Marien with a movement of her fan.
Marien was looking on at the dancing, with his old smile, not so
brilliant now as it had been. He now only smiled at beauty collectively,
which was well represented that evening in Madame de Nailles's salon.
Young girls 'en masse' continued to delight him, but his admiration as an
artist became less and less personal.
He had grown stout, his hair and beard were getting gray; he was
interested no longer in Savonarola, having obtained, thanks to his
picture, the medal of honor, and the Institute some months since had
opened its doors to him.
"Marien? You are laughing at me!" cried Fred.
"It is simply the truth."
Some magnetic influence at that moment caused the painter to turn his
eyes toward the spot where they were talking.
"We were speaking of you," said Jacqueline.
And her tone was so singular that he dared not ask what they were saying.
With humility which had in it a certain touch of bitterness he said,
still smiling:
"You might find something better to do than to talk good or evil of a
poor fellow who counts now for nothing."
"Counts for nothing! A fellow to be pitied!" cried Fred, "a man who has
just been elected to the Institute--you are hard to satisfy!"
Jacqueline sat looking at him like a young sorceress engaged in sticking
pins into the heart of a waxen figure of her enemy. She never missed an
opportunity of showing her implacable dislike of him.
She turned to Fred: "What I was telling you," she said, "I am quite
willing to repeat in his presence. The thing has lost its importance now
that he has become more indifferent to me than any other man in the
world."
She stopped, hoping that Marien had understood what she was saying and
that he resented the humiliating avowal from her own lips that her
childish love was now only a memory.
"If that is the only confession you have to make to me," said Fred, who
had almost recovered his composure, "I can put up with my former rival,
and I pass a sponge over all that has happened in your long past of
seventeen years and a half, Jacqueline. Tell me only that at present you
like no one better than me."
She smiled a half-smile, but he did not see it. She made no answer.
"Is he here, too--like the other!" he asked, sternly.
And she saw his restless eyes turn for an instant to the conservatory,
where Madame de Villegry, leaning back in her armchair, and Gerard de
Cymier, on a low seat almost at her feet, were carrying on their platonic
flirtation.
"Oh! you must not think of quarrelling with him," cried Jacqueline,
frightened at the look Fred fastened on De Cymier.
"No, it would be of no use. I shall go out to Tonquin, that's all."
"Fred! You are not serious."
"You will see whether I am not serious. At this very moment I know a man
who will be glad to exchange with me."
"What! go and get yourself killed at Tonquin for a foolish little girl
like me, who is very, very fond of you, but hardly knows her own mind.
It would be absurd!"
"People are not always killed at Tonquin, but I must have new interests,
something to divert my mind from--"
"Fred! my dear Fred"--Jacqueline had suddenly become almost tender,
almost suppliant. "Your mother! Think of your mother! What would she
say? Oh, my God!"
"My mother must be allowed to think that I love my profession better than
all else. But, Jacqueline," continued the poor fellow, clinging in
despair to the very smallest hope, as a drowning man catches at a straw,
"if you do not, as you said, know exactly your own mind--if you would
like to question your own heart--I would wait--"
Jacqueline was biting the end of her fan--a conflict was taking place
within her breast. But to certain temperaments there is pleasure in
breaking a chain or in leaping a barrier; she said:
"Fred, I am too much your friend to deceive you."
At that moment M. de Cymier came toward them with his air of assurance:
"Mademoiselle, you forget that you promised me this waltz," he said.
"No, I never forget anything," she answered, rising.
Fred detained her an instant, saying, in a low voice:
"Forgive me. This moment, Jacqueline, is decisive. I must have an
answer. I never shall speak to you again of my sorrow. But decide now--
on the spot. Is all ended between us?"
"Not our old friendship, Fred," said Jacqueline, tears rising in her
eyes.
"So be it, then, if you so will it. But our friendship never will show
itself unless you are in need of friendship, and then only with the
discretion that your present attitude toward me has imposed."
"Are you ready, Mademoiselle," said Gerard, who, to allow them to end
their conversation, had obligingly turned his attention to some madrigals
that Colette Odinska was laughing over.
Jacqueline shook her head resolutely, though at that moment her heart
felt as if it were in a vise, and the moisture in her eyes looked like
anything but a refusal. Then, without giving herself time for further
thought, she whirled away into the dance with M. de Cymier. It was over,
she had flung to the winds her chance for happiness, and wounded a heart
more cruelly than Hubert Marien had ever wounded hers. The most horrible
thing in this unending warfare we call love is that we too often repay to
those who love us the harm that has been done us by those whom we have
loved. The seeds of mistrust and perversity sown by one man or by one
woman bear fruit to be gathered by some one else.