"'I see that I must get to my explanation quickly,' he apologised. 'May I sit down? Thank you.... That lady, as you have guessed, is my wife. Or, more correctly, she was my wife until two years ago. Since when she has been so only in name. I use the language of convention so that you may the more quickly understand me.... She loved me, but she ceased to love me. It happens thus. And though I love her still, it is without fire or passion; it is not the love of a possesser, but of a connoisseur. I love her as I love a vase, a marble, any really beautiful thing. You understand?... We married four years ago, in Paris. She is of the best Sicilian blood, but a rebel, an aristo in revolt. She believes in only one law, and that is the law of lawlessness. We met without the formal courtesies of an introduction—if I may draw a parallel, as you and she met a few hours ago. And again, since I am as sensitive a person as yourself—it is our charm, my dear sir—the same happened to me four years ago as to you to-night. The night took wings, and carried us away to the very pinnacles of wonderful adventure—she and I, king and queen of more than one world! To the very pinnacles of that enchanting adventure towards which the poets and philosophers of ages have been vainly scrambling, that adventure for which cities have been sacked and battles won. You, too, have been on those heights, and you know. In most men's lives those heights are never attained, but you and I have been supremely fortunate. I regret nothing.... Night became morning, romance became life. The adventure ended. And I found myself in the street, with her last command ringing in my ears, not to look where the house was, to forget—everything! The Seine seemed alluring to my agony.... But I am Italian, I have at least the courage of my passions, and so I broke my promise. I called the very next afternoon. And how can I express to you, even now, my great surprise at the warmness of my reception! For the fingers with which I had given the concierge my card had trembled with fear—had she not commanded me never to see her again! But it needed only one second of her presence to soothe my fear, she was so gay, so cordial, so quite delighted to see me! No word of any promise, no word of last night, passed her lips—we had met before, that is all! But we were not long together before another joined us—a short chic little man, of an agreeable air. He looked that rarest of all human beings, a banker from whom it would be a pleasure to borrow money. And as he came towards us I wondered if this was yet one more slave of this marvellous lamp, but she introduced him to my bewilderment as her husband. And then—imagine it—presented me to him as her future husband! All in the most casual and un-ostentatious way, as though she were performing a mere formality; and as such, indeed, this amazing husband accepted it. For instead of knocking me down, he bowed politely and took my hand. As for her, I didn't dare look at her, I was so embarrassed. But when at last, as tea was served, I did look, she smiled at me, and I knew that her smile was to say, "This is your punishment for breaking your oath. I am so sorry...." The husband did not stay for more than five minutes; obviously he did not wish to intrude. But before he left us he turned to me, and with the most charming deference, said: "You will find everything arranged. Madame will explain. I beg you to accept my sincerest wishes for your happiness." And then his lips touched her fingers, and he left us—to let himself be divorced so that Madame could marry me, who had never dared even to dream of such supreme happiness. And so it was that we married.
"'I am sorry to be so tiresome and detailed, but the worst is over. For the rest of my tale is a commonplace in the history of the world—you realise? She tired of me. Gently, but remorselessly. As such wonderful women will, you know. It is no use kicking—no man, neither Hector, nor Adonis, nor Machiavelli, can supply the deficiencies of the sphinx. She smiles and says "no," she says "no" even to the wisdom of Solomon, and besotted man sprawls at her feet and murmurs frantically that, anyway, it is better to be miserable about her than to be happy about any one else.... Yes, my friend, men have been known to say that to women. I myself have said it more than once, but I only believed it once. That was two years ago. But it was no use, her love was as dead as though it had never been—I was a man, I had become a God, and now I was a man again. And so the revolt of man ended in submission, and I had to acquiesce in her mere affection for me—that affection with which all splendid women enshroud their dead loves. And how much in oneself dies with their dead love! Why, there dies the ritual of love, the sacrament of sex! for sex can be exalted to a sacrament only once in a lifetime, for the rest it's just a game, an indoor sport....
"'You see, such women as she make their own laws. It is not her fault, nor her arrogance, it is ours, who are so consistently susceptible. Physically she belongs to the universe, not to one single man. She never belonged to me, I was just an expression of the world to her. She has never belonged to any one, she never will—for she is in quest of the ideal which even she will never find. And so she will go on, testing our—our quality and breaking our hearts. Men have killed themselves because of her, poor dear, and I too would have considered it seriously if I had not found that she ranked suicide high in the list of supreme impoliteness from men to women.
"'I had suggested that she should divorce me, but she would not do that, for she complained of a nervous fear of being left alone in a house. We were in Rome then, and we could envisage no possible husband for her from among our acquaintance—so she begged me to continue in my capacity for a while. Of course, I was only too pleased.... In the end we hit upon the only way out of the impasse—that she should do what she had (so successfully, she sweetly said) done before, and risk the adventure; and if the young man was acceptable, and broke his solemn promise, and came to see her, then he would be made to suffer the penalty of his weakness—happy, wretched youth! But I would not let her take the risk without some guarantee as to her safety, for even adventures can sometimes become unpleasant, and so I insisted that I should be her chauffeur for the occasion—and from beginning to end of the adventure, I insisted. To which she replied, smiling, that it would not always be the same—"you will not be kept waiting long," she said.
"'And it happened as she said, for in the two adventures before this of yours I was indeed not kept waiting long. Not for more than an hour, in fact—in each case the wretched young man had a good supper and left immediately after, wondering how this most unattainable of women had ever come, so informally, to invite him. The first happened in Vienna, the second in Paris—they bored her utterly to death, she told me. And thus the occasion for the promise, the pivot of the adventure, as you realise, never arose in those two cases. But in yours, the third....'
"'Yes?' I asked eagerly.
"'The night air was certainly chilly,' he demurred gently.
"He was silent for a few long minutes. I waited intently. And then he leaned forward towards me, and put a hand lightly on my knee.
"'Young man, will you forgive an impertinence?' His eyes held in them the kindliest light; my silence answered them, and he continued: 'I am perhaps twelve or thirteen years older than you, so I may be allowed the liberty of advising you—about something in which I am an expert. Never, never try to find the house to which you went a few hours ago—never, I say! And I say it because I like you, and because I know that she is the most enchanting woman in the world; and if she likes you, so she is the more enchanting—and the more dangerous! As she was dangerous to me.... You forgive the liberty I have taken?'