But an exterior Ballau, he mused. There was something else about the man, and this thing whispered itself always to De Medici’s sensitive imagination. This man of the theater whose apartment was the haunt of a Sybarite, whose cavalierly manner was the envy of a hundred bon vivants, was, paradoxically, a puritan. A charming and unmalicious puritan.
“A man of taste,” thought De Medici, “wealthy and with an infatuation for beautiful things.... I’ve seen him rave before a Titian ... yet no women. Intrigues shadow him. Beauties pursue him. And still he remains a baffling and graceful Galahad where one looks with certainty for a Don Juan. It would be hard for him to dissemble—surrounded by so avid a pack of scandalmongers.”
De Medici nodded to himself. There was something else about Ballau—the quality toward which his own peculiar nature responded always with readiness. Secrecy—veiled things that lurked behind the smiles of men and women, furtive lights that came to their eyes when they grew silent ... he had felt this quality in Ballau. It had, in fact, precipitated their comradeship.
His thought could place no words on it, but his intuitions led him toward a mystery—an unknown Ballau, a jealously guarded stranger who lived a secret life behind the debonair and gentle exterior of the man he knew.
“I’ve been thinking it over,” Ballau began talking as he reëntered the room carrying bottle and glasses on a tray, “and I’ll supplement my advice, Julien. Let the minor details adjust themselves. If you’re in love with Florence, the thing to do, I fancy, is to tell her so.”
He seemed flushed as he placed the tray on a table. He was smiling, but De Medici noticed that his fingers trembled.
“Love,” the older man continued, “is a rare and everlasting flower....”
He paused and closed his eyes. De Medici noted the darkening pain that passed over his features. Ballau, however, continued once more in a light voice:
“I should avoid making your proposal of marriage to her a discussion on economics or a debate on whether a woman’s place is in the home ... or on the stage. You can settle all that after you’re married with just as much indignation and dissatisfaction to you both as you can before the ceremony.”
De Medici, fascinated by the nervous hands of the man, laughed.