He looked at her a moment and then departed. She went back slowly through the garden. Her eyes wandered over the flowers. She picked a rose and for the first time in the year felt a little joy at its scent. She thought of her brother’s death in an unexpected way and repeated Jean’s words, of whose lesson she felt the full force: “We must honor the dead but we must also have faith in life.”
Do those words not sum up the incitement to live well which the example of all heroes gives us? They were great in that they did not bargain over their deeds, that in their careers, whether short or long, were manifest the marks of souls free from all fear and weakness. So Paule found consolation and comfort in that very thing which was the source of her heart’s disorder. She swore to herself, as she smelt the flower, that henceforward she would bear the burden of her days bravely, without bitterness, without revolt. Her despised youth would not be useless if she spent herself in willing sacrifice. And when she rejoined her mother she greeted her with an embrace of protection for the old age confided to her care. It was as though she sealed with a kiss the promise of her new-born courage.
CHAPTER VI
ISABELLE
In the middle of the front tier of boxes at the Club Theatre at Aix-les-Bains Madame de Marthenay and Madame Landeau displayed their beauty, one shyly, the other with the utmost composure, to the eyes and opera-glasses of the audience. They were a good foil for each other. Isabelle wore a soft silk dress, of buttercup yellow, whose V-shaped opening revealed the curve of her breast; and round her slender neck, to set off its whiteness, was a black velvet ribbon in which flashed a diamond of extraordinary coloring. The gentle Alice was dressed in black lace, without a jewel. She had chosen this sombre color the better to efface herself, but it suited her fair complexion admirably.
Behind the women were seated Count de Marthenay, M. Landeau, and Captain Jean Berlier. That evening Gluck’s “Iphigenia in Tauris” was being sung. As the first swelling notes of the orchestra called for silence and attention throughout the house, the ex-lieutenant of dragoons silently opened the door and glided out of the box. He made at once for the gaming room. His wife turned round a moment later and noticed his flight. Alone in her sorrow, she was mourning as she saw Marcel’s friend once more; mourning for what might have been and was not. Isabelle was radiant. She was experiencing the joyous sensations of the cat who has made sure of her prey and gloatingly prolongs her anticipations, imagining she felt the breath of the young man behind her on her neck, just below her dark hair. M. Landeau was divided between desire for this beautiful, cruel creature and anxiety to run off to the reading-room to see the latest reports from the Stock Exchange, the scene of his unending battles.
Jean alone was listening to the divine simplicity of the music, as gracious as the lines of a Greek temple. Iphigenia was addressing to the chaste goddess her touching prayer for the boon of death in her exile on the savage coasts of Tauris. The singer, in the youthful glory of her body draped in harmonious folds of white, in the majesty of her attitude, in the purity of her face, recalled, though with the added grace of living flesh, those ancient marbles whose motionless charm appeals so strongly to all souls that love beauty and whose empire grows the greater by their defiance of the flight of ages. Only half aware of the inspiration of the art to which they were listening, the audience applauded enthusiastically.
Isabelle, leaning back, saw with surprise the joy in Jean’s eyes. His glance passed over her and was centred on the stage. She addressed a question to him in a low voice to compel him to draw nearer to her and to inhale the perfume of her body.
After the first act Madame de Marthenay wished to ask Jean to take her to the gambling-room and to call her husband. She burned to put a question to him. Yet she dared not and was obliged to take M. Landeau’s arm. Favoured by this double departure Isabelle signed to Jean to sit down beside her.
“Do you know,” said she, “that I have mourned your death?”
“My death? That was rather premature.”