"How old?" he repeated.
"A foolish question, of course," she continued. "How could you be honest! I am twenty-nine years old. I believe that I am the richest woman in Paris. I am tired of being called brilliant and cynical, of showing fortune-hunters to the door, of living my life in loneliness. Falkenberg has sworn that if I take any steps to make a divorce possible, I shall never see my boy again. I have not seen him, as it is, for nearly two years. The threat is losing its terrors…. You are listening, my friend?"
"Of course!"
She turned to the butler. The other servants had already left the room.
"Bring coffee into the winter-garden," she ordered. "Come, Sir Julien."
She lit a cigarette and threw it away almost immediately. Her eyes were gleaming like stars. She laid her fingers upon his arm as they passed out into the perfumed air of the conservatory, and he seemed to feel some touch of the fire that was burning in her veins. She swayed a little towards him. The color in her cheeks was brilliant. Her bosom was rising and falling quickly. She was splendidly handsome, nerved up to great things, a woman inspired by a purpose. Julien was afraid. He, too, felt something of the excitement of the moment, but his brain seemed numbed. There was nothing he could say. She threw herself back into a low chair and drew him down to her side. With her other hand she caught hold of a cluster of pink roses and pressed their cool blossoms to her cheek.
"Sir Julien," she murmured, "I have looked so steadfastly into life, I have striven so hard to find a place there. I have something to give. I do not come empty-handed. I can place offerings upon the altar of the great god. I have myself, my brains such as they are, and the golden key which unlocks the wonderful doors. Can you wonder that I ask for something in return? I have stood in the marketplace of life, I have passed down between the stalls, and I am humiliated. There is no life, there is no career upon this world for a woman. It is a strange doctrine, perhaps, to preach in these days, but I have searched and I know it to be the truth. Nature meant woman for man, and if she rebels there is no seat for her alone among the mighty places. Alone I can win none of the things I desire. You see, I talk to you like this, nakedly, because we are of the order of those who understand. You very nearly married a duke's daughter and became a middle-class politician. Don't do it. Don't think of it any more, Julien. You were meant for the great places, and I think—I think—that I was meant to hold the torch to light you there!"
"Madame Christophor!"
She started at his tone. In the splendid arrogance of her assured position, her brilliant gifts, her almost inspired individuality, failure had never occurred to her. Even now she refused to read the message in his set face.
"You feel, perhaps," she went on, leaning towards him, "that you are pledged to Lady Anne. Dear Sir Julien, rub your eyes! I want you to see—all the way to the skies. Lady Anne is a sweet girl who will look nice at the head of any one's table. She will read the papers and take an intelligent interest in her husband's work, and ask him trite and obvious questions to prove that she understands all about it. She will give you phenacetin when you have a headache, she will fill your house with the right sort of people. She will be very amiable and very satisfied. She'll always read the debates and she'll sit up for you at night in a pretty dressing-gown. And all the time the wall will grow, brick by brick, and you will look up to the skies and find them empty, and listen for the music and hear none, and a web will be spun about your heart, and your brain will be clogged, and the fine thoughts will go, and you'll never be anything but a successful politician. You know very well that all the paths to the great pit of unhappiness are crowded with men who have been successful in their profession."