“I have, however, made up my mind to follow you wherever you go,” said Jenkins resolutely.
There was an instant of silence. Paul asked himself if it was worthy of him to listen to this conversation which was full of terrible revelations. But in spite of his fatigue an invincible curiosity nailed him to the spot. It seemed to him that the enigma which had so long been perplexing and troubling him was going to be solved at last, to show the woman sad or perverse, concealed by the fashionable artist. He remained there, still holding his breath, needlessly, however; for the two, believing themselves to be alone in the hotel, let their passions and their voices rise without constraint.
“Well, what do you want of me?”
“I want you.”
“Jenkins!”
“Yes, yes, I know; you have forbidden me to say such words before you, but other men than I have said them, and nearer still.”
“And if it were so, wretch! If I have not been able to protect myself from disgust and boredom, if I have lost my pride, is it for you to say a word? As if you were not the cause of it; as if you had not forever saddened and darkened my life for me!”
And these burning and rapid words revealed to the terrified Paul de Gery the horrible meaning of this apparently affectionate guardianship, against which the mind, the thought, the dreams of the young girl had had to struggle so long, and which had left her the incurable sadness of precocious regret, the heart-break of a life hardly begun.
“I loved you! I love you still! Passion excuses everything,” answered Jenkins in a hollow voice.
“Love me, then, if that amuses you. As for me, I hate you not only for the wrong you have done me, all the beliefs and energy you have killed in me, but because you represent what is most execrable, most hideous under the sun—hypocrisy and lies. This society masquerade, this heap of falsity, of grimaces, of cowardly and unclean conventions have sickened me to such an extent, that I am running away exiling myself so as to see them no longer; rather than them I would have the prison, the sewer, the streets. And yet it is your deceit, O sublime Jenkins, which horrifies me most. You have mingled our French hypocrisy, all smiles and politeness, with your large English shakes of the hand, with your cordial and demonstrative loyalty. They have all been caught by it. They said, ‘The good Jenkins; the worthy, honest Jenkins.’ But I—I knew you, and in spite of your fine motto on the envelopes of your letters, on your seal, your sleeve-links, your hat-bands, the doors of your carriage, I always saw the rascal you are.”