That cry, that voice, his wife's evident intimacy with his lieutenant—Jansoulet stopped, his frantic anger passed away, and he rushed from the room, throwing the doors open, more eager to escape the disaster and the horror whose presence he felt in his own house, than to go elsewhere to seek the help that had been promised him.
A quarter of an hour later he made his appearance at Hemerlingue's, making a despairing gesture in the banker's direction as he entered, and approached the baroness, stammering the ready-made phrase that he had heard repeated so often on the evening of his own ball: "His wife was very ill—in despair that she could not—" She did not give him time to finish, but rose slowly, like a long, slender snake in the crosswise folds of her clinging skirt, and said, in her schoolgirl accent, without looking at him: "Oh! I knew—I knew;" then moved away and paid no further heed to him. He tried to accost Hemerlingue, but that gentleman seemed deeply absorbed in his conversation with Maurice Trott. Thereupon he went and sat down beside Madame Jenkins, whose isolation was no less marked than his. But, while he talked with the poor woman, who was as languid as he himself was preoccupied, he watched the baroness do the honors of that salon, so much more comfortable than his own great gilded halls.
The guests were taking their leave. Madame Hemerlingue escorted some of the ladies to the door, bent her head beneath the benediction of the Armenian bishop, bowed smilingly to the young dandies with canes, bestowed upon every one the proper variety of salutation, with perfect self-possession; and the poor devil could not avoid a mental comparison between that Oriental slave become such a thorough Parisian, of such marked distinction in the most refined society on earth, and that other woman, the European enervated by the Orient, brutalized by Turkish tobacco and bloated by a life of sloth. His ambition, his pride as a husband were disappointed, humiliated in that union of which he now saw the peril and the emptiness, the last cruel blow of destiny which deprived him even of the refuge of domestic happiness against all his public misfortunes.
Gradually the salons became empty. The Levantines disappeared one after another, each leaving an immense void in her place. Madame Jenkins had gone, and only two or three women, strangers to Jansoulet, remained, among whom the mistress of the house seemed to be seeking refuge from him. But Hemerlingue was at liberty, and the Nabob joined him just as he was sidling furtively away in the direction of his offices, which were on the same floor opposite the state apartments. Jansoulet went out with him, forgetting in his confusion to salute the baroness; and when they were safely out on the landing, arranged as a reception-room, the corpulent Hemerlingue, who had been very cold and reserved so long as he felt his wife's eye upon him, assumed a somewhat more open expression.
"It's a great pity," he said in a low tone, as if he were afraid of being overheard, "that Madame Jansoulet would not come."
Jansoulet replied with a gesture of despair and savage helplessness.
"Too bad—too bad!" said the other, blowing his nose and feeling in his pocket for his key.
"Look here, old fellow," said the Nabob, taking his arm, "because our wives don't hit it off together, is no reason—That doesn't prevent our remaining friends. What a nice little chat we had the other day, eh?"
"To be sure," said the baron, withdrawing his hand to unlock the door, which opened noiselessly, disclosing the lofty private office with its one lamp burning in front of the capacious, empty armchair.
"Ya didon, Mouci,"[5] said the poor Nabob, trying to jest, and resorting to the sabir patois to remind his old chum of all the pleasant reminiscences they had overhauled the day before. "Our visit to Le Merquier still holds. The picture we were going to offer him, you know. What day shall we go?"