Early in the affair, Clavel found a better-paying position in another company. Adrienne urged him to accept it, for the temporary parting promised to bring nearer the day of their marriage. And Clavel, to please her, took the offer.
So, again, Adrienne found herself alone. But it was a loneliness that vibrated with hope. It was at this time that she chose for herself a motto, which thereafter emblazoned her letters and lingerie.
It was, "Que Faire Au Monde Sans Aimer?" ("What is living without loving?") She was soon to learn the grim answer to the challenge-query she so gayly hurled at fate.
Clavel's letters grew few. They waned in warmth. Odd rumors with which the theater world has ever been rife began to reach Adrienne. And at last she wrote her absent lover a missive that has been numbered by cognoscenti among the great love letters of the ages. Here it is, in part—a halting translation:
I scarce know what to believe, from your neglect. But be certain always that I love you for yourself a hundred times more dearly than on my own account. Oh, love me, dear, as I shall forever love you! That is all I ask from life.
But don't promise to, unless you can keep your word. Your welfare is far more precious to me than my own. So always follow the course that seems most pleasant to you. If ever I lose you and you are still happy, I shall have the joy of knowing I have not been a bar to your happiness.
The worthy Clavel took Adrienne at her word. He proceeded to "follow the course that seemed most pleasant to him"—by breaking the engagement and marrying a lesser woman who had a dot of several thousand francs. He explained his action by saying that he must look out for his own future, and that Adrienne had no prospects of success on the stage.
And thus the thrifty actor passes out of history. Thus, too, he lost a future chance to handle the funds of Europe's richest actress, and of starring as her husband. Peace to his puny soul!
Adrienne Lecouvreur no longer clamored to die. She was older now—nearly twenty. And the latest blow hardened instead of crushing her. By this time the girlish chrysalis had been shed and a gloriously beautiful woman had emerged. Already she was hailed as the "Actress Heart Queen." Men were straining the vocabulary of imbecility to coin phrases for her.
And for the first and last time in her career, Adrienne resolved to capitalize her charms. It was the one adventuress-moment in all her story. And the Hand that ever guided her course picked her up and set her back, very hard and very promptly, in the destined path of tragedy from which she had tried to stray.