‘She is next door with our friends, isn’t she? All right; let’s be off, quick!’
And he took the painter with him, telling him all manner of strange stories of that creature Mathilde.
‘But you used to say that she was frightful,’ said Claude, laughing.
Jory made a careless gesture. Frightful? No, he had not gone as far as that. Besides, there might be something attractive about a woman even though she had a plain face. Then he expressed his surprise at seeing Claude in Paris, and, when he had been fully posted, and learned that the painter meant to remain there for good, he all at once exclaimed:
‘Listen, I am going to take you with me. You must come to lunch with me at Irma’s.’
The painter, taken aback, refused energetically, and gave as a reason that he wasn’t even wearing a frock-coat.
‘What does that matter? On the contrary, it makes it more droll. She’ll be delighted. I believe she has a secret partiality for you. She is always talking about you to us. Come, don’t be a fool. I tell you she expects me this morning, and we shall be received like princes.’
He did not relax his hold on Claude’s arm, and they both continued their way towards the Madeleine, talking all the while. As a rule, Jory kept silent about his many love adventures, just as a drunkard keeps silent about his potations. But that morning he brimmed over with revelations, chaffed himself and owned to all sorts of scandalous things. After all he was delighted with existence, his affairs went apace. His miserly father had certainly cut off the supplies once more, cursing him for obstinately pursuing a scandalous career, but he did not care a rap for that now; he earned between seven and eight thousand francs a year by journalism, in which he was making his way as a gossipy leader writer and art critic. The noisy days of ‘The Drummer,’ the articles at a louis apiece, had been left far behind. He was getting steady, wrote for two widely circulated papers, and although, in his inmost heart he remained a sceptical voluptuary, a worshipper of success at any price, he was acquiring importance, and readers began to look upon his opinions as fiats. Swayed by hereditary meanness, he already invested money every month in petty speculations, which were only known to himself, for never had his vices cost him less than nowadays.
As he and Claude reached the Rue de Moscou, he told the painter that it was there that Irma Bécot now lived. ‘Oh! she is rolling in wealth,’ said he, ‘paying twenty thousand francs a year rent and talking of building a house which would cost half a million.’ Then suddenly pulling up he exclaimed: ‘Come, here we are! In with you, quick!’
But Claude still objected. His wife was waiting for him to lunch; he really couldn’t. And Jory was obliged to ring the bell, and then push him inside the hall, repeating that his excuse would not do; for they would send the valet to the Rue de Douai to tell his wife. A door opened and they found themselves face to face with Irma Bécot, who uttered a cry of surprise as soon as she perceived the painter.