"It will never be like that with you, dear hostess," he assured her.
"There are things which one does not forget."
She did not withdraw her hand. Its pressure upon his fingers was faint but insistent.
"Do you remember when we first met," she said softly, "how bitter we were against the others—even at first against one another? You had been betrayed by that unimportant woman and the whole sex was hateful to you. I had just come from seeing the tragedy caused by a man's crass selfishness. I, too, was wearing the fetters. To me the whole of your sex seemed abominable…. You see," she went on, "my marriage was a terrible disappointment. I fancied that I was marrying a great man, a genius, an inspired statesman, and I found myself allied to a political machine. My wealth—have I told you, I wonder, that I am very wealthy?—helped him. For the rest, I was a puppet by his side. I lived in Berlin for one year. Official life in Berlin for an American woman, even though she be Princess von Falkenberg, is still intolerable. The men were bad enough, the women worse. I could not breathe. I was no part of my husband's life. I was no part of any one's life. The German women did not understand me. My husband—oh, he is very German in his heart!—only laughed at my complaints. He would have been perfectly willing to see me become as those others—hausfrauen, bearers of children, a domestic article. So we separated—divorce at that moment was impossible. I came back to Paris."
"You had no children?" Julien asked.
"One boy," she answered, her eyes becoming very soft. "Do not let us speak of him for a moment."
The service of dinner continued. Outside, the water from the fountain fell into the basin with a gentle, monotonous sound. The perfume of the roses stole through the open doorway. One softly-shaded lamp had been lit, but the rest of the lofty room remained in shadowy obscurity. The light from that one lamp seemed to fall full upon Madame Christophor's beautiful face.
"I loved my boy," she went on. "It was part of my husband's cruelty to detach him from me. He has the law on his side. I may not even see Rudolf. Very well, I do my best to steel my heart. I come here to live. I have many friends, but Falkenberg is the only man to whom I have ever belonged, and he has treated me as he would have treated one of those others—his companions for the moment. I have occupied myself here in work of different sorts. I have tried in my way to do good among women less happy, even, than I. Wherever I went I saw that every woman who has sinned, every woman who is miserable, every woman who has become a blot upon the earth, is what she is by reason of man's selfishness. Can you wonder that I have grown a little bitter?"
"I wonder at nothing in the woman who has been Falkenberg's wife," Julien replied. "He seems to me the most unscrupulous person who ever breathed. Yet in his way he is marvelously attractive."
"He is," she admitted. "I fell in love with him against my will. Directly my reason intervened, the madness was over. How old do you think I am, Sir Julien?"
Julien was a little startled.