"If I do not go in," he said to himself, looking towards the lodge, "this odious individual will understand that we have quarrelled. He is capable of carrying his effrontery so far as to speak to Theresa of my interrupted visit. I owe it to her to spare her this humiliation, and besides, the matter of the rooms must be settled once for all. Shall I never be a man?"
It was at this moment, after the lightning flash of this sudden reasoning, that he opened the door, being aware the while that there was one in the adjoining room who was being thrown into agitation from feet to hair by this simple noise. He had often warmed those slender feet with many kisses, and so often handled that long black hair!
"If she has come, it is because she loves me still."
This thought moved him in spite of himself, and he was trembling as he passed into the drawing-room, where the dying of the twilight was striving with the flames on the hearth. He was surprised by the caressing aroma of the flowers standing in the vases on the mantel-shelf, with which was blended the odour of a perfume that he knew too well. On the divan at the back of the room he saw the prostrate form of a body, then the movement of a bust, the paleness of a face, and he found himself face to face with Theresa, now sitting up and looking at him.
The silence of both was such that he could hear the sharp beats of his own heart and the breathing of the woman, who was evidently wild with emotion. The presence of his mistress had suddenly restored to him all his nervous anger. What he felt at this moment was that frightful longing to brutally ill-treat the woman, the being of stratagem and falsehood, which takes hold of the man, the being of strength and fierceness, whenever physical jealousy awakes the primitive male within him, placed opposite the female in the truth of nature. At a certain depth, all the differences of education and character are annihilated before the inevitable necessities of the laws of sex.
It was Theresa who first broke the silence. She understood too well the gravity of the explanation which was about to ensue not to bring all her powers of feminine artifice into play. She loved Hubert at this moment as passionately as on the day when she confessed her inexplicable fault to him; but she was mistress of herself now, and could measure the scope of her words. Moreover, she had no play to act. It was enough for her to show herself just as she was, in the infinite humility of the most repentant tenderness, and it was in a nearly hoarse voice that she began to speak from the corner of the shadow in which she remained seated.
"I ask your forgiveness for being here," she said; "I am just going. When I allowed myself to come into this room sometimes, quite alone, I did not think that I was doing anything to displease you. It was the pilgrimage to that which has been the only happiness in my life; but I promise you that I will never do so again."
"It is for me to withdraw, madame," replied Hubert, who, at the sound of her voice, found himself disquieted by an emotion impossible of definition. "She has come several times," he thought, and the notion irritated him, as happens when one is unwilling to give way to a tender feeling. "I acknowledge," he continued, in quite a loud voice, "that I did not expect to see you here again after what has taken place. It seemed to me that you would fly from certain memories rather than seek for them again."
"Do not speak harshly to me," she replied, still more softly. "But why should you speak to me otherwise?" she added, in a melancholy tone; "I cannot justify myself in your eyes. Yet reflect that had I not clung, as I did, to the beauty of the feeling which united us, I should not have been sincere with you as I was. Alas! it was because I loved you as I love you still, as I shall always love you."
"Do not employ the word 'love,'" returned Hubert; "you have no longer the right to do so."