'I thought you liked the society of that kind of man,' observed Claude.
'What a clever thing to say!' she replied, with a graceful shrug of her shoulders. 'They're smart, it's true—it's their business to be. They know how to dress, to play tennis, to ride, and to talk of horses, whilst you, with all your brains, will never be anything but a cad. How I wish you were now what you were eight years ago when I first met you in that restaurant at the corner of the Rue des Saints-Pères! I had just come from the Conservatoire with my mother and Farguet, my professor, and we were having some lunch. You looked so good, sitting in the corner—as though you had come from a monastery, and were having your first peep at the world. It was that, I think, that made me like you. Are you coming to the theatre to-night?' she asked René, as he closed the book and rose to go. He had found what he wanted; Madame Moraines lived in the Rue Murillo, near the Parc Monceau. 'No? Well, to-morrow then, and mind you don't get gadding about like this boy! Such fine ladies as they are, too, your Society women—I know something of them! Oh, look at his face—won't he storm as soon as you're gone! You're surely not going to be jealous of women?' she said, lighting a fresh cigarette. 'Good-bye, René.'
'She is like that before you,' observed Claude, as he let his friend out; 'but you wouldn't believe how gentle and affectionate she can be when we are alone!'
'And how about Salvaney?' asked René unthinkingly.
Claude turned pale. 'She says that she merely went to his rooms to look at some drawings for her next rôle: she swears that there was nothing wrong in it With women, everything is possible—even what is good,' he added, giving René a hand that was not very steady. 'I can't help it—I must believe her when she looks at me in her peculiar way.'
CHAPTER VII
THE FACE OF A MADONNA
'Can a man of sense, and a good fellow into the bargain, fall as low as that?' René asked himself on leaving his unhappy friend. Then, thinking of Colette's handsome face, he muttered, 'She is very pretty. Heavens! if one could only get Rosalie's beauty of soul united to this creature's incomparable grace and elegance!'
But was not such union to be found? The inner or moral beauty, without which a woman is more bitter than death to the heart of a right-thinking man, and the outer or physical glamour that enables her to attract and captivate his grosser nature—was not such complete and supreme harmony to be found in those creatures whom the accidents of birth and fortune have surrounded by the attributes of real aristocracy, and whose personal charms are in keeping with their surroundings? Was not Madame Moraines an example of this? In any case, that was the poet's first impression of her, and he took a delight in strengthening this impression by argument. Yes, he was sure that this woman, whose soothing image floated through his brain, did indeed possess that double charm—not only beauty and grace superior to Colette's, but a soul as unsullied as Rosalie's. The refinement of her manners, the sweetness of her voice, and the ideality of her conversation gave abundant proofs of it.
René walked on, his mind occupied with these thoughts, and his eyes fixed upon a sort of mirage that made him insensible to all around him. He awoke from this fit of somnambulism on reaching the end of the Pont des Invalides, and found himself in the middle of the Avenue d'Antin. His footsteps had mechanically turned towards the quarter where dwelt the woman to whom his thoughts were so constantly recurring that day. He smiled as he remembered how often he had made a pilgrimage to this Rue Murillo when Gustave Flaubert still lived there. René was such an ardent admirer of the author of the 'Tentation' that it had always been a great treat to him to gaze up at the house of the eminent and powerful writer. How long ago those times seemed now, and how rapturous they would have been had he then known that the woman who was to realise his fondest ideal would live in that very street! Should he go and see her to-day? The question became more pressing as time advanced. One sweep more of the large hand round the dial, and it would be five o'clock—he could see her. He could see her! The idea of this being a real possibility took such a hold upon his mind that all the objections his timidity could devise arose at once. 'No,' he muttered, 'I shall not go; she would be surprised to see me so soon. She only asked me to come because she knew all the others had invited me. She did not want to seem less polite.'