Esther released him, and fell back on her divan like a dead thing.
In these circumstances, most women babble like parrots. Oh! how they love! At the end of five years they feel as if their first happiness were a thing of yesterday, they cannot give you up, they are magnificent in their indignation, despair, love, grief, dread, dejection, presentiments. In short, they are as sublime as a scene from Shakespeare. But make no mistake! These women do not love. When they are really all that they profess, when they love truly, they do as Esther did, as children do, as true love does; Esther did not say a word, she lay with her face buried in the pillows, shedding bitter tears.
Lucien, on his part, tried to lift her up, and spoke to her.
“But, my child, we are not to part. What, after four years of happiness, is this the way you take a short absence.—What on earth do I do to all these girls?” he added to himself, remembering that Coralie had loved him thus.
“Ah, monsieur, you are so handsome,” said Europe.
The senses have their own ideal. When added to this fascinating beauty we find the sweetness of nature, the poetry, that characterized Lucien, it is easy to conceive of the mad passion roused in such women, keenly alive as they are to external gifts, and artless in their admiration. Esther was sobbing quietly, and lay in an attitude expressive of the deepest distress.
“But, little goose,” said Lucien, “did you not understand that my life is at stake?”
At these words, which he chose on purpose, Esther started up like a wild animal, her hair fell, tumbling about her excited face like wreaths of foliage. She looked steadily at Lucien.
“Your life?” she cried, throwing up her arms, and letting them drop with a gesture known only to a courtesan in peril. “To be sure; that friend’s note speaks of serious risk.”
She took a shabby scrap of paper out of her sash; then seeing Europe, she said, “Leave us, my girl.”