“If I can be of any service, Mrs. Uxeley,” said Brox, “I have some little talent as a cotillon-leader.”
Mrs. Uxeley was delighted. It was arranged that De Breuil and Urania, Gilio and the Countess Costi and Brox and Cornélie should lead the figures in turns.
“You poor darling!” Urania said in Cornélie’s ear. “Can you manage it?”
Cornélie smiled:
“Yes, yes, I’m all right again,” she whispered.
And she moved towards the ball-room on Brox’s arm. Urania stared after her in amazement.
CHAPTER XLIX
It was twelve o’clock when Cornélie woke that morning. The sun was piercing the golden slit in the half-parted curtains with tiny eddying atoms. She felt dog-tired. She remembered that Mrs. Uxeley, on the morning after one of these parties, left her free to rest: the old lady herself stayed in bed, although she did not sleep. And Cornélie lacked the smallest capacity to rise. She remained lying where she was, heavy with fatigue. Her eyes wandered through the untidy room; her handsome ball-dress, hanging listlessly, limply over a chair, at once reminded her of yesterday. For that matter, everything in her was thinking of yesterday, everything in her was thinking of her husband, with a tense, hypnotized consciousness. She felt as if she were recovering from a nightmare, a bout of drunkenness, a swoon. It was only by drinking glass after glass of champagne that she had been able to keep going, had been able to dance with Brox, had been able to lead the figure when their turn came. But it was not only the champagne. His eyes also had held her up, had prevented her from fainting, from bursting into sobs, from screaming and waving her arms like a madwoman. When he had taken his leave, when everybody had gone, she had collapsed in a heap and been taken to bed. The moment she was no longer under his eyes, she had felt her misery and her weakness; and the champagne had as it were suddenly clouded her brain.
Now she lay thinking of him in the dejected slackness of her overwhelming morning fatigue. And it seemed to her as if her whole Italian year had been an interlude, a dream. She saw herself at the Hague again, with her pretty little face and her little flirting ways and her phrases always to the point. She saw their first meetings and how she had at once fallen under his influence and been unable to flirt with him, because he laughed at her little feminine defences. He had been too strong for her from the first. Then came their engagement. He laid down the law and she rebelled, angrily, with violent scenes, not wishing to be controlled, injured in her pride as a girl who had always been spoiled and made much of. And then he subdued her as though with the rude strength of his fist—and always with a laugh on his handsome mouth—until they were married, until she created a scandal and ran away. He had refused to be divorced at first, but had consented later, because of the scandal. She had freed herself, she had fled!...
The feminist movement, Italy, Duco.... Was it a dream? Was the great happiness, the delightful harmony, a dream and was she awaking after a year of dreams? Was she divorced or was she not? She had to make an effort to remember the formalities: yes, they were legally divorced. But was she divorced, was everything over between them? And was she really no longer his wife?