My voice broke. “You—devil!” I cried at him. “You dared to tell Raoul that?”
Opposite, on her narrow little seat, Marianne stirred uneasily. Till now our tones had been quiet, and she could not understand one word we said. She is the soul of discretion and a triumph of good training in her walk of life; but she loves me more than she loves any other creature on earth, and now she could see and hear that the man had driven me to the brink of hysterics. She would have liked to tear his face with her nails, or choke him, I think. If I had given her the word, I believe she would have tried with all her strength—which is not small—and a very good will, to kill him. I was dimly conscious of what her restlessness meant, and vaguely comforted too, by the thought of her supreme loyalty. But I forgot Marianne when Godensky answered my question.
“Yes, I told him. It was the truth. And I’ve always understood that you made a great point of never doing anything which you considered in the least risqué. So why should I suppose you would rather du Laurier didn’t know? You might already have mentioned it to him.”
“He wouldn’t believe you!” I exclaimed, desperately. And my only hope was that I might be right.
“As a matter of fact, he didn’t seem to at first, so I at once understood that you hadn’t spoken of our appointment. But it was too late to atone for my carelessness, and I did the next best thing: justified my veracity. I suggested that, if he didn’t take my word for it, he might stand where he could see us speaking together at the stage door, and—”
“Ah, I am glad of that!” I cut in. “Then he saw that we didn’t drive away together.”
“You jump at conclusions, just like less clever women. I hardly thought you’d receive me into your carriage at the theatre, so I took the precaution of warning du Laurier that he needn’t expect to see that. You would suggest a place for me to meet you, I said. When I knew it, I would inform him if he chose to wait about somewhere for a few minutes.”
“Raoul du Laurier would scorn to spy upon me!” I broke out.
“How hard you are on spies. And how little knowledge of human nature you have, after all, if you don’t understand that a man suddenly out of his head with jealousy will do things of which he’d be incapable when he was sane.”
The argument silenced me. I knew—I had known for a long time—that jealousy could rouse a demon in Raoul. And only to-night he had reminded me that he was a “jealous brute.” I remembered what answer he had made when I asked him what he would do if I deceived him. He said that he would kill me, and kill himself after. As he spoke, the blood had streamed up to his forehead, and streamed back again, leaving him pale. A flash like steel had shot out of his eyes—the dear eyes that are not cold. It was true, as this cruel wretch reminded me, Raoul would do things under the torture of jealousy that he would cut off his hand sooner than do when his own, sweet, poet-nature was in ascendancy.