"But I haven't that accent," said Freddie with raillery.
Madame Clélie laughed. "No—and I do not like you," retorted she. "No one ever did. You do not wish to be liked. You wish to be feared." Her lively brown eyes sparkled and the big white teeth in her generous mouth glistened. "You wish to be feared—and you are feared, Monsieur Freddie."
"It takes a clever woman to know how to flatter with the truth," said he. "Everybody always has been afraid of me—and is—except, of course, my wife."
He was always talking of "my wife" now. The subject so completely possessed his mind that he aired it unconsciously. When she was not around he boasted of "my wife's" skill in the art of dress, of "my wife's" taste, of "my wife's" shrewdness in getting her money's worth. When she was there, he was using the favorite phrase "my wife" this—"my wife" that—"my wife" the other—until it so got on her nerves that she began to wait for it and to wince whenever it came—never a wait of many minutes. At first she thought he was doing this deliberately either to annoy her or in pursuance of some secret deep design. But she soon saw that he was not aware of his inability to keep off the subject or of his obsession for that phrase representing the thing he was intensely wishing and willing—"chiefly," she thought, "because it is something he cannot have." She was amazed at his display of such a weakness. It gave her the chance to learn an important truth about human nature—that self-indulgence soon destroys the strongest nature—and she was witness to how rapidly an inflexible will disintegrates if incessantly applied to an impossibility. When a strong arrogant man, unbalanced by long and successful self-indulgence, hurls himself at an obstruction, either the obstruction yields or the man is destroyed.
One morning early in February, as she was descending from her auto in front of the apartment house, she saw Brent in the doorway. Never had he looked so young or so well. His color was fine, his face had become almost boyish; upon his skin and in his eyes was that gloss of perfect health which until these latter days of scientific hygiene was rarely seen after twenty-five in a woman or after thirty in a man. She gathered in all, to the smallest detail—such as the color of his shirt—with a single quick glance. She knew that he had seen her before she saw him—that he had been observing her. Her happiest friendliest smile made her small face bewitching as she advanced with outstretched hand.
"When did you come?" she asked.
"About an hour ago."
"From the Riviera?"
"No, indeed. From St. Moritz—and skating and skiing and tobogganing. I rather hoped I looked it. Doing those things in that air—it's being born again."
"I felt well till I saw you," said she. "Now I feel dingy and half sick."