And since then she had consulted only her own pure young conscience in regard to her actions. Otherwise she was a Parisian, a woman of the world to her finger-tips, and disliked the bad taste in displays of independence. If Numa wished to go to church she would go with him, as for a long while she had gone with her mother; but at the same time she would not lie or pretend to believe that in which she had lost all faith.
Numa listened to her in speechless amazement, alarmed to hear such sentiments expressed with a firmness and conviction in her own moral being that dissipated all his Southern ideas about the dependency of women.
“Then you don’t believe in God?” he asked in his best forensic manner, his raised finger pointed solemnly toward the moldings of the ceiling. She gave a cry of astonishment: “Is it possible to do so?”—so spontaneously and with such conviction that it was as good as a confession of faith. Then he fell back on what the world would say, on social conventions, on the intimate connection between religion and monarchy. All the ladies whom they knew went to church, the duchess and Mme. d’Escarbès; they had their confessors to dine and at evening parties. Her strange views would have a bad effect upon them socially, were they known. He suddenly ceased speaking, feeling that he was floundering about in commonplaces, and the discussion ended there. For several Sundays in succession he went through a grand and hollow form of taking his wife to mass, whereby Rosalie gained the boon of a pleasant walk on her husband’s arm; but he soon wearied of the business, pleaded important engagements and let the religious question drop.
This first misunderstanding made no breach between them. As if seeking pardon, the young wife redoubled her devotion to her husband and her usual clever, smiling deference to his wishes. No longer so blind as in the earlier days, perchance she sometimes felt a vague premonition of things that she would not admit even to herself; but she was happy still, because she wished to be so, and because she lived in that dreamlike atmosphere enveloping the new life of a young married woman still surrounded by the dreams and uncertainty which are like the clouds of white tulle of the wedding dress that drape the form of a bride. The awakening was bound to come; to her it was sudden and frightful.
One summer day—they were staying at Orsay, a country seat belonging to the Le Quesnoys—her father and husband had already gone up to Paris, as they did every morning, when Rosalie discovered that the pattern for a little garment she was making was not to be found. The garment was part of the outfit for the expected heir. It is true there are beautiful things to be bought ready-made at the shops, but real mothers, the women who feel the mother-love in advance, like to plan and cut and sew; and as the pile of little clothes increases in the box, as each garment is finished, feel that they are hastening the matter and each object is bringing the advent of the longed-for birth one step nearer. Rosalie would not for worlds have allowed any other hand to touch this tremendous work which had been begun five months before—as soon as she was sure of her coming happiness. On the bench where she sat under the big catalpa tree down there at Orsay were spread out dainty little caps that were only big enough to be tried on one’s fist, little flannel skirts and dresses, the straight sleeves suggesting the stiff gestures of the tiny form for which they were designed—and now, here she was without this most important pattern!
“Send your maid up town for it,” suggested her mother.
A maid, indeed! What should she know about it? “No, no, I shall go myself. I will have finished my shopping by noon, and then I shall go and surprise Numa and eat up half his luncheon.”
It was a beautiful idea, this bachelor luncheon with her husband, alone in the half-darkened house in the Rue Scribe, with the curtains all gone and the furniture covered up; it would be a regular spree! She laughed to herself as all alone she ran up the steps, her errands done, and put her key softly in the lock so that she might surprise him. “It is pretty late, he has probably finished.”
Indeed, she did find only the remnants of a dainty meal for two upon the table in the dining room, and the footman in his checked jacket hard at it emptying all the bottles and dishes. She thought of nothing at first but that her want of punctuality had spoiled her little plan. If only she had not loafed so long in that shop over those adorable little garments, all lace and embroideries!
“Has your master gone out?”