Again she grew pale and blushed, as if the blood were moving in waves from the heart to the brain, from the brain to the heart.
“Do you curse that evening?” she asked slowly.
“I curse it every instant, and despise myself for my mistake, for my ineptitude, for my weakness. Every one, every one is laughing at me, who have been dishonoured, who have enjoyed the dishonour, and retaken, as if it were nothing, the woman who inflicted this incancellable dishonour on me.”
“Other men have pardoned like you,” she said slowly, and somewhat absorbed.
“Others! others!” he exclaimed, suddenly touched on the bleeding wound of his heart, “men different, quite different to me. Perhaps they were perfect cynics: I am not cynic enough, and I suffer for my dishonour, as if it were yesterday, as it were to-day. Or perhaps they were simple people. I also am not simple enough; I understand, I know, I measure, and I remember everything. Perhaps they had children, these men, and it was necessary at any cost to recompose the family: we have no children. Or perhaps grave questions of interest came in between; money, you know, money! That had nothing to do with that stupid cowardly pardon I gave you that evening; nothing. Certainly, certainly, many men have pardoned their faithless wives, will pardon, and are pardoning them for so many reasons and causes; but I should like to question them one by one, as man to man, alone and with open heart, and you would see the reply would always be the same from however many of them.”
“That is——” she said quietly.
“That it is cowardice to pardon this offence; that one ought not to pardon betrayal in a mistress, but one never pardons betrayal in a wife.”
“Is that your idea?”
“It is mine.”
“When you pardoned you didn’t think so. Do you believe that now you can again change your opinion?” she asked, as she strove in vain to hide a little anxiety in the question.