The sight of the woman, as she stood with arms outstretched, had made his pulses pound in his veins, but the heat was suddenly chilled by the wave of tragedy which had passed over him. When he had climbed out of the flume, and opened the lever for the river to rush through, he had felt as though ice—cold liquid flowed in his veins, not blood; and all day he had been like that. He had moved much as one in a dream, and he had felt for the first time in his life that he was not ready to bluff creation. He had always faced things down, as long as it could be done; and when it could not, he had retreated, with the comment that no man was wise who took gruel when he needn’t. He was now face to face with his greatest problem. One thing was clear—they must either part for ever, or go together, and part no more. There could be no half measures. She was a remarkable woman in her way, with a will of her own, and a kind of madness in her; and there could be no backing and filling. They only had three minutes to talk together alone, and two of them were up.
Her arms were held out to him, but he stood still, and before the fire of her eyes his own eyes dropped. “No, not yet!” he exclaimed. “It’s been a day—heaven and hell, what a day it’s been! He had me like that!” He opened and shut his hand with fierce, spasmodic strength. “And he let me go—oh, let me go like a fox out of a trap! I’ve had enough for one day—blood of St. Peter, enough, enough!”
The flame of desire in her eyes suddenly turned to fury. “It is farewell, then, that you wish,” she said hoarsely. “It is no more and farewell then? You said it to him”—she pointed to the other room—“you said it to Jean Jacques, and you say it to me—to me that’s given you all I have. Ah, what a beast you are, George Masson!”
“No, Carmen, you have not given me all. If you had, there would be no farewell. I would stand by you to the end of life, if I had taken all.” He lied, but that does not matter here.
“All—all!” she cried. “What is all? Is it but the one thing that the world says must part husband and wife? Caramba! Is that all? I have given everything—I have had your arms around me—”
“Yes, the Clerk of the Court saw that,” he interrupted. “He saw from the hill behind the Manor on Tuesday last.”
There was a tap at the door of the other room; it slowly opened, and the figure of the Clerk appeared. “Two minutes—just two minutes more, old trump!” said the master-carpenter, stretching out a hand. “One minute will be enough,” said Carmen, who was suffering the greatest humiliation which can come to a woman.
The Clerk looked at them both, and he was content. He saw that one minute would certainly be enough. “Very well, monsieur and madame,” he said, and closed the door again.
Carmen turned fiercely on the man. “M. Fille saw, did he, from Mont Violet? Well, when I came here I did not care who saw. I only thought of you—that you wanted me, and that I wanted you. What the world thought was nothing, if you were as when we parted last night.... I could not face Jean Jacques’ forgiveness. To stay there, feeling that I must be always grateful, that I must be humble, that I must pretend, that I must kiss Jean Jacques, and lie in his arms, and go to mass and to confession, and—”
“There is the child, there is Zoe—”