"We were expecting something better," the other went on to say, "but she insisted on lowering the curtains. How we chaffed Ludovic about his jaded look in the morning! Nothing else was spoken of for a week between Trouville and Deauville. She suspected it, for she left very quickly. But I will wager a pony that she will be received everywhere this winter as well as before. The tolerance of Society is becoming——"
"Home-like," said the interlocutor, and the talk continued to go round, the cigars to be smoked, the kummel cognac to fill the little glasses, and these moralists to pass judgment upon life. The young man who had told the scandalous anecdote about Madame de Sauve in the course of the conversation, was about thirty years old, pale, slight, already used up, and, for the rest, very amiable and one of those whose name universally attracts the epithet of "good fellow." In fact he would have blown his brains out sooner than not have paid a gambling debt within the appointed time. He had never declined an affair of honour, and his friends could rely upon him for a service though difficult, or an advance of money though considerable.
But as to speaking, after drinking, of what one knows about the intrigues of women of the world, where should we be if we tried to forbid ourselves this subject of conversation, as well as hypotheses concerning the secrets of the birth of adulterine children? Perhaps the very chatterer who had borne eye-witness to the levity of Theresa de Sauve would have shed genuine tears of sorrow if he had known that his speech would have been employed as a weapon against the young woman's happiness. It is an exhaustless source of melancholy for one who mixes with the world without corrupting his heart, to see how cruelties are sometimes effected in it with complete security of conscience. But furthermore, would not George Liauran have learnt from another source all the details which the indiscretion of his table companion had just revealed to him so suddenly and with such unassailable precision?
Truth to tell, he was not astonished by it for a moment. Two or three times, indeed, on his way home, he repeated the words "Poor Hubert!" to himself, but he secretly felt the mean and irresistible egotistic titillation which is nine times out of ten produced by the sight of other people's misfortunes. Were not his prognostications verified? And this, too, was not devoid of a certain charm. Vulgar misanthropy has many such satisfactions, which harden the heart that feels them. When a man despises humanity with an indiscriminating contempt, he ends by feeling satisfaction at its wretchedness, instead of being distressed by it.
As for doubt, he did not admit it for a moment, especially when recalling what he knew of Ludovic de la Croix-Firmin. The latter was a species of coxcomb, who might, on reflection, appear to be devoid of any superiority; but he was liked by women, for those mysterious reasons which we men can no more understand than women can understand the secret of the influence exercised over us by some of themselves. It is probable that into these reasons there enters a good deal of that bestiality which is always present at the bottom of our personal relations. La Croix-Firmin was twenty-seven years old, the age of the fullest vigour, with light hair bordering upon red, blue eyes, a clear complexion, and teeth whose whiteness gleamed between a pair of very fresh lips at every smile. When he smiled in this way, with his dimpled chin, his square nose, and his curly locks, he recalled that type, immortal through the races, of the countenance of Faunus, which the ancients made the incarnation of happy sensuality.
To complete that quality of physical charm to which many fancies that he had inspired were due, he had a suppleness of movement peculiar to those in whom the vital force is very complete. He was of medium height, but athletic. Although his ignorance was absolute and his intelligence very moderate, he possessed the gift which renders a man of his make a dangerous person; he had, in a rare degree, that tact and perception which reveal the moment when a venture may be made, and when woman, a creature of rapid moods and fleeting emotions, belongs to the libertine who can divine it.
This La Croix-Firmin had had many intrigues, and, although his birth and his future ought to have made him a perfect gentleman, he liked to relate them; these indiscretions, instead of ruining him, served him, so to speak, as advertisements. In spite of his light conversation and his conceit, he had not made a single enemy among the women who had compromised themselves for him; perhaps because he imaged to their memories nothing but happy sensation—"'tis the material of the best recollections," the cynics say, and, in respect of souls devoid of loftiness, what can be more true?
It was precisely upon La Croix-Firmin's indiscretion that George relied for mustering some fresh proofs in support of the fact which he had learned at the dinner at the Café Anglais. Being an old bachelor, he had a gloomy imagination, and could foresee ill-fortune rather than good. He had, consequently, long been accustomed to see clearly through the surface of the social world. He understood the art of going in pursuit of secret truth, and he excelled in combining into a single whole the scattered sayings floating in the atmosphere of Parisian conversation. In this particular case there was no need of so many efforts. It was simply a matter of finding corroboration for a detail indisputable in itself.
A few visits to women in society who had spent the season at Trouville, and a single one to Ella Virieux, a woman belonging to the demi-monde, and the recognised mistress of La Croix-Firmin's best comrade, were sufficient for the inquiry. It was quite certain that Ludovic had been Madame de Sauve's lover, and that the fact was not only one of public notoriety, but had been established by his own avowal at the seaside. A hasty departure had alone preserved Theresa from an inevitable affront, and now that Parisian life was beginning again, ten new scandals were causing this summer scandal, destined to become dubious like so many others, to be already forgotten.
George Liauran perceived in it a sure means of at last breaking the connection between Hubert and Theresa. It was sufficient for this purpose to warn Marie Alice. He felt, indeed, a moment's hesitation, for after all he was meddling with a story which did not at all concern him; but the unacknowledged hatred towards the two lovers which was hidden at the bottom of his heart carried him over this delicate scrupulousness, as well as the real desire to free a woman whom he loved from mortal distress.