For a moment her bright eyes were scintillant with wrath and indignation. He who had racked her all day for his pleasure was bound and prostrate now. Should she not do as much for her revenge?
"I have no other friend now," he pleaded; "my nights have been sleepless, solitary. In the days I have drunk deeply, squandered my money, tried all dissipations, and proved them disappointments. If you leave me I swear that I will plague myself and you."
"Oh! Ralph," said Suzette, "I do not wonder at the artfulness of women after this day's lesson. Something impels me to return your cruelty; it is a bad impulse, and I shall disobey it. I thank God, my baby, that I cannot do as you have done to me."
She wept again for the last time, but he kissed her tears away, and wondered where the great shame lay, upon that child or upon him?
PART VI.
DESERTION.
When the last fresh passion was over, Suzette, whose face had grown purer and sadder, roused Ralph Flare to his more legitimate ambition. "My child," she said, "if you will work in the gallery every day I will sew in one of the great magasans."
To see that he commenced fairly, she went with him into the Louvre, and he selected a fine Rembrandt—an old man, bearded and scarred, massively characterized, and clothed in magic light and shadow.
As Ralph stood at his easel, meditating the master, Suzette now fluttered around him, now ran off to the far end of the long hall, where he could see her in miniature, the sweetest portrait in France. At last he was really absorbed, and she went into the city to fulfil her promise. She was nimble of finger, and though the work distressed her at first, she thought of his applause, and persevered.