The abbé's thin features relaxed into a whimsical smile, and he slyly nodded, as with some stammering and much circumlocution she exposed her suspicions to him. Was it, or not, abominably wicked of her to have such suspicions at all? How girlish and how lovely she looked in her blushing confusion, as she enlarged on the unsavoury topic, excusing herself for harbouring such thoughts.
"You dear guileless dove of a Gabrielle!" he laughed. "Yet not so simple as you seem, for you have guessed aright. Alack, yes! Unpardonably sensitive as he may appear to you, your little escapade--you will allow me to call it an escapade?---cut him so completely to the quick that he has never recovered it, but crouches down and winces still like a well-whipped hound, dreading another scourging. You deem yourself proud? Learn that an honest man's pride is of more delicate texture than a woman's. And it is hard, you know, for a proud man to be placed before witnesses in so equivocal a position as that in which you placed your husband."
The position in which she had placed him? What of the intolerable one in which he had chosen to place her? Men always start with the absurd premise that they must be in the right. Gabrielle was deeply offended that one on whom she had vainly squandered all the treasures of her love could think this meanly--read her so amiss!
Tears of mortification due to insulted womanhood were in her eyes, and as he marked the colour, like that of an opening moss rose, that flooded plastic neck and shell-like ear, the blood of Pharamond throbbed so fiercely that he had much ado to maintain his impassible demeanour.
"Since you forgave me, I take Heaven to witness," he purred, bending as near to her as he dared, "that I have striven to heal your differences."
"Differences? There need be none; my love for him is dead," Gabrielle remarked slowly, so absorbed in the contemplation of shattered Penates as to pass unheeded the gleam of triumph on the face that was so near her shoulder. "You may tell him, if you like, that I shall not behave ill to him, because he has outraged me. A fair allowance shall be regularly paid to him, or to you if he prefers it. Monsieur Galland is coming here this afternoon about my testament, and the arrangement shall be carried out at once." Then after a gloomy pause, she added with a sigh, "To think he could ever suppose that I should want him to ask me favours!"
So her unrequited and too persistent love had perished of starvation! It was dead--quite, quite dead, at last! With its last struggle how great a barrier was swept away, and how much better was the chance for one who had obstinately persevered!
Excellent! The empty shell was ready for the hermit crab! Pharamond could see ultimate triumph, within measurable distance, and after that a ripe revenge. A fair allowance regularly paid? Gilded, degrading slavery! Clovis would repudiate the plan; refuse to have anything to do with it.
But what was this about a will?
"M. Galland--about your will, this afternoon?" the abbé echoed with raised brows. "On whose advice are you acting? I declare you are marvellously changed, every inch a woman of business. Pooh, pooh! Is there not ample time? For a beautiful young creature like yourself to prate of such grisly things seems like an untimely invitation to the worms."