'They shouldn't have let you come up, sir!' he said. 'I shall get into trouble.'
'Is Monsieur Larcher at work?' asked René, smiling at the man's terror.
'No,' replied Ferdinand in an undertone, and quite at a loss what to do with a visitor whom his master had evidently not expected. 'But Madame Colette is here.'
'Ask him whether he can see me for a minute,' said the poet, curious to know how the two lovers stood after the scene of the preceding evening; and, in order to conquer the valet's hesitation, he added: 'I'll take all the responsibility.'
'You may come up, sir,' was the answer with which he returned, and, preceding René through the ante-room, he took him up the small inner staircase that led to the three apartments usually inhabited by Claude, and which the writer either called his 'laboratory' or his 'torture-chamber,' according to the mood he was in.
The staircase and the first two of the three rooms were remarkable for the richness of their carpets and hangings. The faint light that filtered through the stained-glass windows on this dull February afternoon scarcely cast a shadow, either in the smoking-room with its morocco-covered furniture or in the large salon lined with books. Claude's favourite nook was a den at the end, the walls of which were hung with some dark material and adorned with a few canvases and aquarelles of the most modern painters of the day—these being what the writer's extravagant fancy preferred. There were two opera boxes by Forain, a dancing girl by Degas, a rural scene by Raffaelli, a sea-piece by Monet, four etchings by Félicien Rops, and on a draped pedestal a bust of Larcher himself by Rodin. The bust was a splendid piece of work, in which the great sculptor had reproduced with marvellous skill all that might be read in his model's face—qualms of morality mingled with libertinism, bold reflection allied to a weak will, innate idealism hand in hand with an almost systematically acquired corruption. A low bookcase, a desk in one corner, three fauteuils in Venetian style with negroes supporting the arms, and a wide green leather couch completed the furniture of this retreat, clouded at that moment with the smoke of Colette's Russian cigarette.
The young lady was lying at full length on the couch, her fair hair tumbling about her ears, and attired in somewhat masculine style, with a stand-up collar and an open jacket. Her short plain cloth skirt revealed a pair of neat ankles and long narrow feet encased in black silk stockings and patent leather shoes. Her sunken cheeks were pale—that pallor produced in most theatrical women by the constant use of paint, by late hours, and by the fatigues of an arduous profession.
'Ah! mon petit Vincy,' she cried, holding out her hand to the visitor, 'you have come just in time to save me from a beating. I only wish you knew how badly this boy treats me! Come, Claudie,' she added, shaking her finger at her lover, who was seated at her feet, 'say it's not true if you dare.' And with a graceful movement of her lithe and supple body—she herself would confess that she scarcely ever wore a corset—the charming creature rose to a sitting posture, laid her fair head on Claude's shoulder, and placed between his lips the cigarette she had just been smoking. The wretched man looked at his young friend with shame and supplication written on his face; then, turning to Colette, his eyes filled with tears. At this the actress's behaviour became more wanton still, and leaning forward upon her lover's shoulder, she gazed into his eyes until she saw in them the look of passion that she knew so well how to turn to her own advantage.
A dead silence ensued. The fire burned brightly in the grate, and a solitary sunbeam, making its way through the coloured glass, fell in a long red streak upon the girl's face. René had been present at scenes of this kind too often to feel surprised at the want of modesty of either his friend or Colette. He was well acquainted with the strange cynicism of their nature; but he also remembered Claude's terrible language the night before, and the cruel words his mistress had uttered after his disappearance. He was astounded to see to what depths of degradation the writer's weakness dragged him down, and to witness such proofs of this wretched woman's inconsistency. In the close atmosphere of this room, impregnated with the perfume that Colette used, and before the almost immodest attitude of the pair before him, there came over him a feeling of sensuality with which he was already too familiar. The sight of this depraved creature—though her depravity was generally clothed in graceful forms—had often awakened in him ideas of a physical passion very different from any he had hitherto known. She had frequently received him in her dressing-room at the theatre, and as she stood in careless dishabille before her glass putting the finishing touches to her face, or completing, with unblushing indifference, the more hidden details of her toilet, she had appeared to him like some temptress personifying the highest forms of voluptuousness, and at such times he would envy Claude as much as he sometimes pitied him. But these feelings would soon be dispelled by the disgust with which the moral degradation of the actress inspired him and by the burning scruples of friendship that animate and restrain the young. René would have been horrified to find himself, even for a moment, coveting what he considered his friend's property, and perhaps the knowledge of this delicacy of feeling went for something in Colette's behaviour. Out of sheer wantonness she amused herself by displaying her beauty before him, just as we hold up a flower to be smelt when we know the hands will not be put out to seize it. Wantonness it was, too, that led the misguided girl to dally with Claude and to lavish such caresses upon him before René.
All this, however, produced in the poet a vague physical longing that he could not repress; it grew upon him unconsciously, and, by an association of desires, more difficult to interrupt in its secret workings than an association of ideas, the vision of Madame Moraines was once more before him, surrounded by the halo of seduction that had so completely dazzled him on the previous evening. Two things were now obvious to René: one was, that he must go and call on that woman to-day; the other, that he would never be able to utter her name and ask for her address before the lascivious creature who was torturing Claude with her kisses.