“You saw him?”
“I opened the window.”
Beatrix fell half fainting on the sofa. Then she negotiated in order to gain time; she asked to have the journey postponed for a week, under pretence of making preparations; inwardly resolving to turn Calyste off in a way that she could satisfy La Palferine,—for such are the wretched calculations and the fiery anguish concealed with these lives which have left the rails along which the great social train rolls on.
When Calyste had left her, Beatrix felt so wretched, so profoundly humiliated, that she went to bed; she was really ill; the violent struggle which wrung her heart seemed to reach a physical reaction, and she sent for the doctor; but at the same time she despatched to La Palferine the following letter, in which she revenged herself on Calyste with a sort of rage:—
To Monsieur le Comte de la Palferine.
My Friend,—Come and see me; I am in despair. Antoine sent you
away when your arrival would have put an end to one of the most
horrible nightmares of my life and delivered me from a man I hate,
and whom I trust never to see again. I love you only in this
world, and I can never again love any one but you, though I have
the misfortune not to please you as I fain would—
She wrote four pages which, beginning thus, ended in an exaltation too poetic for typography, in which she compromised herself so completely that the letter closed with these words: “Am I sufficiently at your mercy? Ah! nothing will cost me anything if it only proves to you how much you are loved.” And she signed the letter, a thing she had never done for Conti or Calyste.
The next day, at the hour when La Palferine called, Beatrix was in her bath, and Antoine begged him to wait. He, in his turn, saw Calyste sent away; for du Guenic, hungry for love, came early. La Palferine was standing at the window, watching his rival’s departure, when Beatrix entered the salon.
“Ah! Charles,” she cried, expecting what had happened, “you have ruined me!”
“I know it, madame,” replied La Palferine, tranquilly. “You have sworn to love me alone; you have offered to give me a letter in which you will write your motives for destroying yourself, so that, in case of infidelity, I may poison you without fear of human justice,—as if superior men needed to have recourse to poison for revenge! You have written to me: ‘Nothing will cost me anything if it only proves to you how much you are loved.’ Well, after that, I find a contradiction between those words and your present remark that I have ruined you. I must know now if you have had the courage to break with du Guenic.”
“Ah! you have your revenge upon him in advance,” she cried, throwing her arms around his neck. “Henceforth, you and I are forever bound together.”