If all this were written, as Paul came most devoutly to believe in later days, with the single-minded desire to enslave him yet more completely, it was truly heartless, but that was certainly the end it gained. It seemed to him the most pathetic and womanly of effusions, for what woman would write that she could have loved a man in happier conditions unless she did truly love him? She suffered as he suffered. Without her warrant it would have been coxcombical to believe it But the belief made her altogether sacred in his eyes, and he vowed a thousand times that no word or tone of his should ever offend that angel delicacy and tenderness. A curious part of this maniac experience was his estimate of himself as it proceeded. He was in a mood entirely heroical. The Baron de Wyeth, who was making money to supply the most whimsical needs of the absent Gertrude, never entered into his head. It did not offer itself on any single occasion to his intelligence to think that there was anything to be reprehended in this sterile dalliance.
As for Annette, she had grown to be impossible. She resented the guardianship exercised over her with an increasing fierceness. When she could smuggle her contraband through the enemy’s lines, she locked herself in her room, and remained there until the supply was exhausted She would emerge blotched, pale, and haggard, and companionship between herself and her husband was out of question.
At the time at which the letter just cited reached Paul Annette’s cunning had been unequal to the war for at least a fortnight, and her constitution was still youthful and strong enough to enable her to return to something of her earlier aspect after a few days of abstinence.
‘I have business which will take me to Paris in a little while,’ her husband told her.
‘Very well,’ she said indifferently.
‘Do you prefer to come with me, or to stay here?’ he asked.
‘To go with you?’ she demanded. ‘Under what conditions?’
‘Under the conditions I have always offered,’ he returned: ‘that you are accompanied by a female companion of my choice.’
‘I shall stay here,’ Annette said curtly.
‘As you will.’