At the end of a couple of hours, whilst she was lying back half buried in one of the great arm-chairs, enjoying a caviar sandwich and a thimbleful of fine old sherry, Desforges, who was watching her dainty movements as she ate, could not help exclaiming: 'Ah! Suzon! At my age, too! What would Noirot say?'
This Noirot who had so suddenly troubled the Baron's mind was a doctor who treated him to a course of massage every morning and watched over his general health. Everything in the life of this systematic voluptuary was carefully planned out, from the amount of exercise to be taken each day to the attendance he should receive when in his dotage. He had taken into his house a poor and pious female relative, to whose good works he annually subscribed a pretty round sum. When complimented on his generosity, he would reply in his own jocular and cynical way: 'What can I do? I must have some one to look after me in my old age. My cousin will be my nurse, and make the best one in Paris.'
Generally these outbursts of unblushing egotism amused Suzanne. She saw in them a conception of life whose pronounced materialism was far from displeasing her. But to-day she looked a little more closely at the Baron as he uttered his doctor's name, and sitting there with the lamp-light full upon his wrinkled face, his drooping moustache and his swollen eyelids, he looked so broken down and so fully his age that the hideousness of her own life suddenly burst upon her. It is a horrible thing for a young and beautiful woman to endure the caresses of a man she does not love, even when that man is young, full of passion and ardour. But when he is bordering on old age, when he pays for the right to pollute this fair woman whose love he cannot win, then it is prostitution so terrible that disgust gives way to sorrow. For the first time, perhaps, Desforges looked old in Suzanne's eyes, and by an irresistible impulse of her whole soul she called to mind, as a contrast, the fresh lips and fair young face of the man whose image had haunted her for the past two days. She felt how foolishly she had behaved in hesitating for an instant, and, being a person of determination, she commenced to act at once.
She was now dressed, and having put on her bonnet and buttoned her gloves, she said to Desforges before tying on her veil, 'When are you coming to lunch with me? Once upon a time you often used to come without being asked—it was so nice of you.'
'To-morrow I can't,' he replied, 'nor the next day either, but the day after that——'
'Tuesday, then? That's an understood thing. And to-night I shall see you at Madame de Sermoises', sha'n't I?'
'Charming woman!' thought the Baron, as he was left alone. 'She might have so many adventures, and her only thought is of pleasing me.'
'The day after to-morrow, then, I am sure of being alone,' said Suzanne to herself as she swept along the pavement of the Rue du Mont-Thabor, casting cautious glances to the right and left, but with such art that her eyes scarcely seemed to move. 'But what excuse can I give René'—she already called him by that name in her thoughts—'to make him come? I know—I'll ask him to write a few lines on a copy of the "Sigisbée" that I'm going to send to a friend.'
She had to pass a bookseller's in the Rue Castiglione, and went in to buy the book, being in that state of mind when the execution of an idea follows almost automatically upon its conception. 'I hope he'll not do anything foolish before then. And I hope he won't hear anything about me that will dampen his ardour.' Claude Larcher once more came into her mind. 'Yes—he's certainly dangerous,' she thought, and saw at once the means of avoiding the danger provided René came to her before speaking to Claude. Then it suddenly struck her that she did not know the poet's address, but that difficulty could be got over by calling on Madame Komof. 'It is past six now, and she is sure to be at home.' Hailing a cab, she drove to the Rue du Bel-Respiro, and was lucky enough to find the Comtesse alone, from whom it was easy to obtain the information she wanted.
The worthy lady, whose soirée had been a success, was loud in her praise of the poet. 'Idéal!' she exclaimed, with one of her wild gesticulations, 'charming! And so modest! He will be your modern Poushkin.'