I remained with her even during the intermission, while my wife sat alone several feet away.
“Now that she has forgiven Ducal, he will surely go and talk to her,” I thought; and I even hoped that he would, in order that she might not appear so completely ignored.
But Ducal did not approach her. Withheld by his respect for her, he did not presume that her pardon gave him the right to address her. And he left without a word to her. What a lesson it was for me to realise that her divine forgiveness had converted the heart of so hard a cynic as Pierre Ducal.
When we returned home, I, with my consummate egotism, desired most condescendingly to express my approval of her conduct. Had she not behaved well? And I, I was very much relieved and indeed happy, and yet I could not bring myself to tell her what I had planned, for I read an expression in her eyes which seemed to say:
“Are you not satisfied with me this time? Have I not done my duty, every duty, more than my duty? I offered my hand in forgiveness to your friend who insulted me, and to the woman who took you from me and then scoffed me. But my suffering has not wrung a cry from me. I am silent, for I am your wife. My love for you and my baby Dilette binds us indissolubly, with you—how have you kept your vow?”
For one brief moment, I was tempted to draw her to me and to confess my infidelity. She would have pardoned me, I am sure that she would have forgiven me. Her virtue seemed to purge the atmosphere of my lies and insincerities. But I quickly rejected that unreasonable exaltation. Such heroism on my part would have been absurd. I thought she could have no suspicion of my intimacy with Mme. de H— because she had seen us once on the Bois. She had not been a heroine. I overestimated her conduct, for she had no doubt reached the simple conclusion that she had exaggerated the importance of Pierre Ducal’s declaration; and as for Mme. de H— well, she merely thought that the woman piqued my curiosity. Why needlessly complicate matters? The dreaded meeting had passed off uneventfully. Why consider the subject further?
* * *
I was not slow in understanding the object of Mme. de H—, who now began to affect being seen in public with me. Did she not make bold to recite a poem in which allusions were pointed and ill concealed? Our modern poets express their confidences in precise terms, not general themes. She would have liked to cause some scandal, to force Raymonde to seek a separation. All such women as she extol free love, and with an eye to the practical side as well know how to secure social advantage from it all; though once they have it they exhibit marvellous executive ability in preventing their passion from running away with them.
Growing paler and paler, more and more silent, Raymonde still accompanied me everywhere. Her preoccupied air re-established between us those distances which indelicacy thought to have wiped out. I was being apprenticed in that cruelty which Mme. de H— practised with so much ease, the cruelty which love exacts the moment it ceases to grow in the clear light of day. I might have feared the softening effect of Raymonde’s tears, but she never let me see them. I saw her pine away, but I did not believe my eyes. I saw her suffer, and told myself that she did not know. Why should she, I asked, think evil of these flirtations and preferences that are now so notorious in society, which every one sanctions? Thus one grows accustomed to his misdemeanours, if nothing happens to expose them.
Once, however, as we were going out, I saw her face contract as if through the effort of overcoming some internal pain.