§ ii
Sunday came, and no word from him. And on Sunday evening Mr. Malloy appeared. Claudine was very much taken aback; he had never before come on Sunday, and she had very humanly taken it for granted that he never would. She hadn’t told Andrée that she expected Alfred; she had planned to take her by surprise, before she could adopt a difficult and dangerous mood. If he should come now! She sat upstairs in her room, in a state of tremulous agitation, looking out of her window, trying in vain to see the street through the fog that had risen, listening for his footfall, though what she could do to forestall him she didn’t know.
Outside on the porch Andrée and Malloy were sitting, well-wrapped, coat collars turned up against the thick, chill mist of that April night. Their hands were clasped, but they spoke very little. They were in a mood of sombre depression, not unknown to lovers. Now and then Claudine heard the sound of their voices, forlorn and detached; if it had been Alfred, she thought, how different it would have been! A continuous flow of talk, and retorts from Andrée, irritated perhaps, but certainly interested....
She fancied she heard a footstep on the hilly street; she opened her window softly and leaned out. The trees were dripping on the gravel drive; hoarse whistles sounded from the bay, and—yes, undoubtedly, that was the garden gate! A step on the porch, and Andrée’s voice—
“I want to see Mrs. Vincelle!”
She flew down the stairs and opened the front door.
“Come in, Alfred!” she said.
He followed her into the sitting-room and stood before her, still in his overcoat and cap.
“So she’s out there with him?” he said. “Do you think that’s a fair way to treat me?”
“I’m sorry, Alfred. Very sorry. I had no idea he would come this evening. I wouldn’t for worlds have—”
“He does come to see her then? In your house? And you don’t mind?”
“Please sit down!” she said, gently. “I am so glad you came. I wanted so to talk to you—to explain—”
He took off his overcoat and cap and threw them on a chair. He was thinner; his face had lost its boyish and alert expression, it was set in an expression of bitterness and misery.
“I didn’t want to come,” he said. “It can’t do any good. I knew what you thought would happen. You thought if we saw each other we’d—melt. That she’d change her mind. Well, I don’t want that. We’ve had enough emotion. I don’t want any—love that comes from caprice. No more moods and impulses. I—it wasn’t that way with me. It was—real.”
“Alfred, you mustn’t be hard! It’s not like you. If you love her, you must forgive her a hundred times. She’s silly and—”
“It’s not a question of forgiving. I don’t see it that way. She’s free to do as she pleases. It’s simply that now I know she’s not capable of loyalty.”
“Alfred, I give you my word there’s been nothing wrong—”
“Oh, I believe it! She’s respectable!” he said, bitterly. “I’m not afraid of her being too generous with—anyone. She’ll be like some of those singers and geniuses I’ve read of. She’ll have half a dozen husbands, but she’ll never do anything wrong.”
“That’s very cruel and unjust! Surely you’ve seen enough of the world to understand these—infatuations.... He’s a very handsome and attractive man, and she has lost her head. That’s all it is! It won’t last!”
“I know it won’t. But it will happen again. It isn’t the infatuation that hits me so hard. I can understand that. It could happen to almost anyone. But it’s the—the rank, beastly cruelty of it! To walk off and leave me without a word. I—you don’t know—leaving all her little things there—all her little things—telling me all the time she’d come back in a few days.... It’s....”
He got up and walked over to the fire.
“No,” he said. “She can have her divorce. I always told her I’d never try to keep her against her will. But—I wish to God we’d never got married.... If we could only part now with some sort of decency ... if she could just say, ‘It’s over. Good-by!’ But now—I guess you don’t realize—I’ll have to be caught in a compromising situation—all the dirty, filthy business will have to be written down and talked about by a lot of lawyers.... The sort of thing I hate worse than death. It’s what they call acting honourably for me to do that.”
“Don’t do it, Alfred! Don’t do it, I beg you! I am sure she loves you!”
“She has a damn peculiar way of loving, then.”
“I know she has. There are horrible things in her nature. But I am sure that you know the good in her too. She is honest and—”
She covered her face with her hands.
“Can’t you see, Alfred? She needs you so! No one else can help. No one else can help her to grow into something better.”
“Please don’t cry!” he said, in great distress. “I’d do anything for you. You’re an angel!”
“I’m not! I’m not! I once—long ago—thought I’d leave my husband. But thank God I didn’t!”
“But it might have been better for you if you had,” he said, frankly.
She looked up in surprise.
“No!” she said. “It would have been—I am sure that self-sacrifice is the best way in life.”
“That depends on the object. If you sacrifice yourself for—well, humanity, it’s fine and good. But for one other human being, no!”
She had no intention of permitting an argument to begin. She pulled the conversation away from reason back to emotion, where it belonged.
“I don’t ask you to sacrifice yourself, Alfred. It would make you both happy.”
“I can’t do it!” he said, quietly. “She wants to leave me, and I must let her.”
“But you’ll see her?”
“No. Please don’t ask me any more. It’s settled. I’m sorry—on your account. I should be glad to do it for you—if I could. But I can’t.”
He went toward the chair where his coat lay and was about to put it on, when the door opened and Andrée entered. He turned and faced her. Her cheeks were rosy from the damp air, her black hair curled about her forehead; her mother looked at her loveliness with a beating heart. Surely he could not resist her!
But he picked up his cap and threw his coat over his arm.
“Good-night!” he said.
The front door closed after him.