“And now you are held no longer?”
“Now something comes before all—it is the idea of losing you, of seeing you no longer. Oh! when I learned of your flight, when I saw the bill over your door TO LET, I felt sure that it was all up with poses and grimaces, that I had nothing else to do but to set out, to run quickly after my happiness, which you were taking away. You were leaving Paris—I have left it. Everything of yours was being sold; everything of mine will be sold.”
“And she?” said Felicia trembling. “She, the irreproachable companion, the honest woman whom no one has ever suspected, where will she go? What will she do? And it is her place you have just offered me. A stolen place, think what a hell! Well, and your motto, good Jenkins, virtuous Jenkins, what shall we do with it? ‘Le bien sans esperance,’ eh!”
At this sneer, cutting his face like a whip, the wretch answered panting:
“That will do! Do not sneer at me so. It is too horrible now. Does it not touch you, then, to be loved as I love you in sacrificing everything to you—fortune, honour, respect? See, look at me. I have snatched my mask off for you, I have snatched if off before all. And now, see, here is the hypocrite.”
He heard the muffled noise of two knees falling on the floor. And stammering, distracted with love, weak before her, he begged her to consent to this marriage, to give him the right to follow her everywhere, to defend her. Then the words failed him, stifled in a passionate sob, so deep, so lacerating that it should have touched any heart, above all among this splendid impassible scenery in this perfumed heat. But Felicia was not touched. “Let us have done, Jenkins,” said she brusquely. “What you ask is impossible. We have nothing to hide from each other, and after your confidences just now, I wish to make one to you, which humbles my pride, but your degradation makes you worthy. I was Mora’s mistress.”
Paul knew this. And yet it was so sad to hear this beautiful, pure voice laden with such a confession, in the midst of the intoxicating air, that he felt his heart contract.
“I knew it,” answered Jenkins in a low voice, “I have the letters you wrote to him.”
“My letters?”
“Oh, I will give them to you—here. I know them by heart. I have read and reread them. It is that which hurts one, when one loves. But I have suffered other tortures. When I think that it was I—” He stopped himself. He choked. “I who had to furnish fuel for your flames, warm this frozen lover, send him to you ardent and young—Ah! he has devoured my pearls—I might refuse over and over again, he was always taking them. At last I was mad. You wish to burn, wretched woman. Well, burn, then!”