"'Because I have no claim on him as a wife; because, morally, he is not my husband; because women have sentiments, affections, amour propre, egoism, if you will; enfin, because I love another.'
"But I was careful, you may be sure, not to tell him who that other was. Before he quitted me that afternoon he had persuaded me, nothing loth, to accept the pittance left by my good-for-nothing husband; though a fortnight afterwards, having been to see me every day, he was still in torments about the unknown object, growing always more and more infatuated, in a way that would have been ludicrous had it not been simply contemptible.
"I doled him out little morsels of encouragement; I accepted from him valuable presents, and even sums of money; I tantalized, irritated, and provoked him with the ingenuity of a fiend. I shuddered when he came near me, yet I let him kiss my face once,—my baby's never! At last I gave way, with a great storm of sobs and emotion, made my confession, whispered that he, and he alone, had been the mysterious object; that I had cared for him from the first; that to him was owing my coldness towards my husband, our estrangement, and eventual separation. Finally, I promised to meet him the very next morning, never more to part; and within six hours my baby and I were established, bag and baggage, in the train for Lyons; nor have I ever seen my fat friend from that day to this.
"Except a flower I once gave him in exchange for a Spanish fan, I don't think he got anything out of our acquaintance but, as Hamlet says, 'the shame and the odd hits.'
"I wasn't altogether unhappy at Lyons. Baby was my constant companion; and, so long as my money lasted, I was contented enough only to wash and nurse him, and see him grow, and teach him to say 'Mamma.' It was a long while before I gained sufficient strength to sing again, and in the mean time I picked up a few francs by sitting to artists for a model, but I didn't like it. If I took baby, I couldn't keep him quiet; and a painting room was so bad for him. If I left him at home, I always expected to find something dreadful had happened when I came back. I was advised to put him out to nurse. Though I couldn't bear to part with my boy, I saw that, sooner or later, it must come to this; but he was over two years old before I made up my mind.
"They had offered me a six weeks' engagement at Avignon. My voice had come back, the terms were good, it looked likely to lead to something better, and I accepted eagerly.
"There was low fever then prevalent in that town. I could not take little Gustave to a hot-bed of sickness, so I left him in charge of a kind, motherly woman, who had a child of her own, in a healthy part of Lyons, only too near the river.
"Poor little darling! I am sure he knew I was going away, for he set up a dreadful howl when I put him down. It seems silly enough, but I suppose I wasn't properly trained then, for I could have howled too with all my heart.
"What a long six weeks it was! And, after all, I came back before the close of my engagement, and forfeited half my salary. There had been floods as usual in Lyons, the poor woman I had left him with couldn't write, and I was getting uneasy about my boy.
"Oh! Mrs. Lascelles, when I returned there I couldn't find him. The cottage I left him in had been swept away when the river rose. No trace even remained of the quiet little street. The authorities had done all in their power for hundreds of ruined families; what was one poor woman and a two-years old child amongst all those sufferers! I searched the markets, the streets, the hospitals. I haunted the police-office; I offered everything I possessed, freely, everything! for tidings of my boy. One Commissary of Police was especially kind and considerate, but even he let out at last that I was well rid of my child! Madame, as he expressed it, so young, so handsome, with such talents, so sympathique with himself! And this was a man, my dear, not a brute—at least, not more a brute than the rest!