“I am very glad to welcome you again,” was Mme. de Saunois’ greeting to Raymonde. “How very well you are looking!”
These stereotyped phrases, expected of her as the hostess, were spoken at random; as a matter of fact, Raymonde had never looked so delicate and pale. In fear and trembling she looked about the room. Pierre Ducal was there. After an absence of several months, he had come back; his old interests had reasserted themselves. At first he had been missed, but his return did not cause much of a stir. How many attempts one makes, how many backward steps one takes, before one can give up society! It seems we are the slaves of habits from which we cannot break ourselves. We often prefer them to the ideals of our better nature, ideals that might lead us to undreamed heights. It took a long time and very deep suffering for me to realise the nothingness of social life. We could not avoid Ducal. Mme. de Saunois had been speaking to him, and when she came to greet some new arrivals we were brought face to face. He bowed respectfully to my wife, without saying a word, while she, conquering her feelings, extended her hand to him.
That action on her part was an expression of her tenderness for me and of her complete self-immolation, and yet, at the same time, it affected me disagreeably, because it caused me to admire her magnanimity when I knew that I myself was still disloyal. I greeted my old friend cordially, but he only bowed to me. I was for a moment jealous of the forgiveness he had received. Would he not thus recover his wounded pride if, as every indication led me to believe, he had loved and still loved her?
But this feeling gave way to one of interest as I saw Mme. de H— enter the room with a train of admirers. She stopped short a few steps from us and continued her conversation in a loud tone of voice. Nothing could have been more vulgar than that apparently accidental but carefully planned halt.
She was possibly the only person in the room who was talking, for all other conversations ceased, as people observed the direction she was taking. No doubt an interesting scene was expected, of which no one wanted to lose the slightest detail. My private life was not a secret, in a world where every one knows every one’s else remissness and finds self-justification in it, or, if necessary, material for revenge. But why did Mme. de H— seek a demonstration which might so easily have been avoided? Accustomed to publicity, and having won great popularity, she had every possible advantage over Raymonde, whose timidity, interpreted as disdain, had not made her a favourite. But in that salon, as when hunting in a forest, one lay in wait for death and inhaled an odour of blood.
I was standing behind my wife, and a change of position would have meant coming very close to Mme. de H—, whose manœuvres completely non-plussed me. It was very evident that she intended to make no advance to Raymonde, who, paralysed with fear, had become so pale that she kept up only with difficulty. She was exposed to public gaze like the little Christian martyrs of old, exhibited in full view before they were thrown to the wild beasts at the Coliseum. And I read contempt for me in the eyes of Pierre Ducal, who stood looking at me.
As soon as Raymonde gained her self-control she stepped forward and heroically extended her hand to Mme. de H—. As she did so, the picture of it all impressed itself on my mind: her beautiful profile looked like an alabaster bas-relief of a saint, with a halo about her head. But this fleeting image quickly faded from my mind in the contemplation of the simplicity of the situation which I had feared would be so complex.
“She knows nothing,” I assured myself, “how could she know? One always unnecessarily exaggerates the importance of things which do not happen and never will. It is a vicious habit to worry.”
On the other hand one often minimises the import of incidents, as was the case with me in this instance, because I could not understand the magnanimity of which my wife was capable. We are prone to forget bullets which have missed their mark, and, their danger once averted, promptly disregard their deadly power.
A concert was to be given during this evening of which I am writing. Mme. de H—, who was playing a game which I did not understand, invited me to a chair which she had reserved for me. No one seemed to take any notice of this fact, for other dramas, some suspected and others definitely known, had absorbed the general attention.