M. Descoutures, always very short, seemed to shrink two or three inches more, and, knocking over a camp-stool in his haste, murmured, "Pardon me, Madame, I thought—"
They always addressed each other in this formal style. The humble M. Descoutures did not remain long absent; merely the five minutes necessary to escort his wife to the door of her rooms and return. When he reappeared upon the terrace, M. Laviguerie had just finished reading his letter. He looked harassed and worried.
"Have you received any bad news, dear friend, in your letter?"
"No bad news; still it is very annoying."
"Corinne's husband" did not seem the same man when alone with his friend. His shyness almost entirely disappeared, and he ventured to talk, taking care to disguise his ideas somewhat in apologetic phrases, wrapping them in cotton, as it were.
"I need some advice," continued Laviguerie, "and I can not do better than to turn to you. During our long friendship, I have often admired the correctness of your judgment, and your common sense, which is never at fault. Doubtless, you have sometimes wondered that I kept my eldest daughter so far away from me. It is strange, I confess, and many have been astonished at it, I suppose. I am obliged now to change this state of affairs. Mme. Rozan is dead, and Germaine writes that she is leaving Naples to come back to her father and sister."
"But I am sure, my dear Laviguerie, that this reunion will give Odette the greatest happiness, and I do not see—"
"Why I called it annoying? I will tell you. You never met my first wife. When I married her, she was a lovely young girl, cultivated and charming. Perhaps I ought to have inquired into the antecedents of the family; but I was in love. I did nothing of the kind, and I was wrong. I soon discovered that my wife was one of those women whose nervous system rules the whole body. At first, I hoped I was mistaken; but a physiologist can never deceive himself long. She would be seized with fits of the deepest depression, morbid despair, followed by floods of tears, or else immoderate laughter. Her character changed little by little, until I no longer dared to take her out with me. When Germaine was born, she seemed to rally for a time, but soon became again a prey to the most violent nervous affection, and, in one of her spasms, died, leaving me a widower, with a little girl who, of course, had inherited the mother's disease. I had a daughter a prey to hysteria, as others have a deformed or a blind child. I married again, as you know; I wanted a home. I will say nothing of my second wife. You know how I loved her—so sweet, so calm, so gentle. She died when Odette was born. Ah! my friend, I should have died of grief, if it had not been for my work."