She had seen the poet twice. That she, the mistress, almost the pupil, of the elegant Desforges; she, the very pattern of the Society belle, who had sold herself for all this fine perfumed linen in which she wrapped her beauty—for these soft, silken skirts which her maid was now fastening about her waist and for the countless luxuries that a licentious woman of fashion delights in, that she could so forget herself as to be captivated by the eyes and words of a chance poetaster, seen to-day and forgotten to-morrow, was well nigh impossible. She had said 'Impossible!' and yet here she was thinking of him again. How strange it was that ever since meeting René she had been unable to rid herself of the alluring hope of winning him! If anyone had used that old-fashioned phrase, 'Love at first sight,' in her hearing, she would have shrugged those pretty shoulders whose graceful contours were now revealed by her low-necked Opera gown and whose whiteness was enhanced by the single string of pearls she wore; and yet, what other words could describe the sudden and ardent feelings that her meeting with the poet had inspired—feelings that were hourly growing more intense?
The fact of the matter was that for some months past Suzanne had been somewhat bored between her husband—'the dear, good fellow'—and her 'dear, kind friend,' the Baron. The life of pleasure and of luxury for which she had made so many sacrifices seemed to her empty and dull. This she called 'being too happy.' 'I ought to have a little trouble,' she would say, with a laugh. Incessant indulgence had destroyed her appetite for enjoyment and made her a prey to the moral and physical weariness that frequently causes demi-mondaines to suddenly throw up a position which it has cost them much labour to attain. They require fresh sensations, and, above all, that of love. They will commit any folly when once they have met the man who is able to make them feel something beyond their former empty delights—one whom their less elegant sisters would expressively term 'their sort.'
For Madame Moraines, who had just attained her thirtieth year, and who, satiated as she was with every kind of luxury, with no ambition to realise, and without the least respect for the men she met in her set, the apparition of a new being like René, so entirely different to the usual drawing-room 'swell,' might and did become an event in its way. It was curiosity that led her to take a seat next to him at Madame Komof's supper-table, and her feminine tact had at once told her in what rôle she would be most seductive in his eyes. His conversation had delighted her, but on her return home she had gone to sleep after uttering the 'Impossible!' which is used as a charm against all complaints of this kind by Society belles, a class more bound down in their narrow paths of pleasure than any busy housewife by her daily duties. Then René had called, and the impression he had already made on her was intensified a hundred-fold. She was pleased with all she saw or imagined in the young man—his good looks, his true-heartedness, his awkwardness, and his timidity. It was in vain that she kept repeating 'Impossible!' as she put the finishing touch to her dress by fastening one or two diamond pins in her bodice—in spite of that word she was already capitulating. She turned the idea over again and again, and all kinds of plans for bringing the adventure to a successful issue passed through her practical mind. 'Desforges is very sharp,' she reflected, adding, as she remembered the Baron's tirade against literary men, 'and he has already smelt a rat.' This tirade had at first afforded her amusement, but now it annoyed her, and made her feel a desire to act in a manner entirely opposed to her excellent friend's wishes. She was so completely absorbed in thought that it attracted her maid's attention, and caused that young person to say to the footman, 'There's something wrong with Madame. Can Monsieur have found out anything?'
This unreasonable and irresistible abstraction lasted all through dinner, then on the way to the theatre, and even during the performance, until Madame Ethorel suddenly remarked, 'Isn't that Monsieur Vincy looking at us over there—in the stalls near the door on the right?'
'Madame Komof's poet?' asked Suzanne indifferently. During René's visit she had mentioned that she was going to the Opera that night. She remembered it now as she put up her own glasses, mounted in chased silver—another present from the Baron. She saw René, and as he timidly turned away his glance a sudden thrill ran through her. Had Desforges, from his place at the back of the box, overheard Madame Ethorel's remark? No, she thought not; he was in deep conversation with Crucé.
'He is talking shop,' she said to herself as she listened, 'and has heard nothing. What is going on in me?'
It was the first time for many a day that the music touched some chord of feeling within her. She spent the evening between the happiness that René's presence caused her and the mortal dread that he might visit her in her box. The shame of having been remarked no doubt paralysed the poet, for he dared not even look towards the place where Suzanne sat, and when she went down to her carriage his face was not to be seen in the double row of men who lined the staircase. There was therefore nothing to prevent her from giving herself up to the idea that had obtained such a hold upon her, and as she laid her fair head upon the lace-covered pillow she had got so far as to say: 'Provided he doesn't ask his friend Larcher for information about me!'
CHAPTER IX
AN ACTRESS IN REAL LIFE
Every morning a little before nine Paul Moraines entered his wife's room. By that time she had had her bath and was employed in attending to little trifles. Her small white feet, showing their blue veins, played in and out of her slippers, her dressing gown of soft clinging material was gathered round her slim waist by a silken cord, and her hair hung down in a thick golden plait. The bedroom, in which the big bedstead took up a good deal of space, was aired and perfumed, and to Paul the three-quarters of an hour he spent in taking his morning cup of tea with Suzanne at a little table near the window was the happiest part of the day. He had to be at his office by ten, and was too busy to come home for lunch. He was the kind of man who sits down in a first-class restaurant about half-past twelve, orders the plat du jour, a small bottle of wine, and a cup of coffee, and goes away after having spent the smallest sum possible. It pleased him to rival his wife's economy in this fashion. But his morning cup of tea was the reward he looked forward to during the six or seven hours he devoted to the Company's work.