"No, no, I am very well, I assure you."
She disappeared into the lobby. Abashed for a moment, he decided to follow her and sit a few rows behind her during Mass, so that she would not know of his presence. While her children's clothes were very carefully looked after, she was wearing a modest black dress, which must have seen hard service and was beginning to look shiny. As she had drawn her mourning veil over her shoulder in front, he could see her blonde hair, of such childish fairness, so delicate, so silky, and a corner of her white neck. When she rose or knelt, in accordance with the rites of the service, he noticed the flexibility of her movements and that suave grace, as of a young girl with whom one could not dare to associate impure ideas. At intervals her profile was invisible, then again he would catch a glimpse of it, like a bright spot between her dark hat and dress. How little she resembled the blooming, but apathetic, unresponsive wife of Albert Derizel Sorrow, loneliness, the care of disposing of her time, had sharpened her features, and even the lines of her figure. Her slender body swayed like the long stalk of a flower. In her slimness, which began to grow alarming, she retained that look of youth, which she formerly had as a result of lack of all occupation, and which now suggested a sort of recoil from the disillusioning revelations of life.
"She will break down," thought Philippe. "She will die of it. What can be done to save her?"
He was no longer actuated by selfish motives. In his heart, devoid of faith, but eager, she was his religious ideal, the Madonna with whom the little Italian had compared her.
The winter following Mme. Derize's death—(one of those long winters to which the region of the Alps is exposed)—had not been kind to Elizabeth. She had lost her firmest support, the contagious courage which emanates from calmness in time of trial, and also the last effective tie which linked her with her husband. Thus she had followed a more difficult path. As that plain at Grenoble, surrounded by mountains, appears colder in its circle of ice, so she felt desolation and loneliness about her like high walls. Mme. Molay-Norrois, it is true, realizing this dangerous state of mind, had given more expression to her maternal tenderness, but in the way natural to her passive nature, and rather by lamentations than by actions. Was she not—excellent woman—monopolized by her husband, who was embittered by illness and was accepting old age without resignation? He had always exercised the despotism of his pleasure at home. But his bad temper was preferable to his infidelity. He might not have rebelled against the effects of old age, if he could have endured them with Mme. Passerat, instead of being aggravated by knowing she was taking advantage of her slimness to wear more youthful clothes, and that by a bold maneuver she had just taken away the attentions of M. de Vimelle from the rich Mme. Bonnard-Basson. Providence was watching over her in all her ventures. This last conquest aroused a sort of exasperation in M. Molay-Norrois which helped the circulation of bad blood and increased his bad temper. What comfort could anyone find in such a home?
Elizabeth had not given up her self-imposed duty of giving her children the elements of their education. Marie Louise was almost nine years old and Philippe was six. She must think of their futures. She desired a busy, well-filled youth for them, remembering the weakening relaxation she had known in hers, and hoped to be able to accustom them to find their happiness in everyday things. But her moods, even with them, were now more changeable. She varied from prostration to feverish desire to amuse and occupy herself. Must one not live every day? She cried, she laughed nervously over nothing. Consumed with fever, she spent too much energy, and then fell back into a state of languor. She tried to follow, as far as possible, the plans she had laid out for herself, but advanced unevenly, sometimes slowly, sometimes hurriedly.
Out of society, because of her mourning and her sorrow, she did not care to receive anyone, except her friend Blanche Vernier, whose discreet devotion was restful, but without influence, and whose four children were in themselves quite a company for play and study. She had even been obliged to reject the attentions of M. de Vimelle who had suddenly begun to take her under his protection. Wearied by the vulgarity of his mistress and the thankless rôle that she made him fill he had thought of taking an honorable revenge by paying attention to a woman whom nobody defended. His natural vanity gave him erroneous ideas of his own value. Defeated by Elizabeth he fell back on the mature, lively and more accommodating Mme. Passerat, the conquest of whom would be attended with more publicity. He avenged himself for his setback by reporting to society the infrequent visits of Philippe Lagier to the Rue Haxo. Mme. Molay-Norrois, told by her husband, warned her daughter of this.
Elizabeth was indignant. Upon introspection, however, she found she might reproach herself. It was true, these visits of Philippe were more pleasant to her than she had admitted to herself. He came in shyly, afraid of not being received, and began by talking commonplaces. Shyness in a man of his worth and self-possession is in itself a homage. Then he changed his tone, and spoke with all his wit which was quick and pointed, and which, under the influence of a new tenderness, opened out and became more scintillating. What he said—apart from the lasting pleasure which his words gave, and which helped to make her forget the limitations of her life,—revealed a silent adoration that could never again be directly expressed. In that sort of mystic exaltation which comes with a love that is repressed, he cleverly managed to encourage in her a hope, which all reason and his soul denied.
As a self-imposed task, he wrote very regularly to his friend. At first Albert had sent only hasty replies; but little by little he acquired the habit of confidence. His bitter critical letters did not breathe happiness, and now he began to ask for news of his children. Thus the tie broken by the death of Mme. Derize was cleverly mended by Philippe Lagier's sincere friendship. Elizabeth, in the selfishness of her love, was not conscious that she had made such use of this friendship. Yet after rebelling against her mother's warning, she was guided by it. Besides actual honesty, there is an honesty of appearances of which women of to-day think very little. Above all, she had not the right to take advantage of a sentiment, which, however respectful, had its origin in a generous devotion, and in which she took a certain pride, owing to her deserted state—so harmful to a woman in her prime.
Philippe, delicately warned by her, came to the Rue Haxo only at rare intervals. It was a cruel deprivation for him. There he had really spent intense hours, realizing the greatest of all joys,—the joy of sacrifice. So, not having seen Elizabeth for almost a month, it was excusable that he should stop in the Cathedral Square at the hour of High Mass, in the hope of meeting her there; and he was better able than anyone who saw her daily to notice how thin she was, and all the symptoms of illness that she showed.