'The painter loved her, and she betrayed him for one of his friends. At Vienna there is a picture painted by himself in which you see his sweet, sad eyes resting upon his treacherous friend, who approaches him with a gleaming dagger concealed behind his back.'
Yes—the same words! When Rosalie heard the story she had turned her eyes upon him, and he had distinctly read the thoughts that filled her. 'How can any woman betray the man who loves her?' With her the question, had remained a dumb one, but Suzanne, after having stared curiously at the mysterious woman with the thin lips, gave expression to her thoughts with a sigh and a shake of her fair head. 'And yet she looks so good. It is terrible to think that a woman with a face like that could lie!'
As she spoke she too turned her eyes upon René; and, gazing into the clear depths that presented such a contrast to Rosalie's dark orbs, he felt a strange remorse. By one of those ironies of the inner life which a comparison of consciences would often reveal, Suzanne, unspeakably happy in strolling amidst these pictures, which she pretended to admire, was keenly enjoying the impression that her beauty was making on her companion, whilst the latter, a simple child, reproached himself with the double treachery of leading this ideal creature through places that he had once visited with another. The fatal comparison which, since his first meeting with Madame Moraines, was effacing poor little Rosalie from his mind was becoming more obtrusive than ever.
A vision of his betrothed floated before him, humble as she herself, but beside him walked Suzanne, a living sister of the aristocratic beauties the old masters had portrayed on their canvases. Her golden hair shone brightly under her little bonnet; the short astracan jacket fitted her like a glove, and her grey check skirt hung in graceful folds. In her hand was a small muff, from which peeped out the corner of an embroidered handkerchief; the muff matched her jacket, and every now and then she would hold it up just above her eyes in order to get the right light to see the pictures well. How could the present fail to conquer the absent—an elegant woman fail to oust a simple, modest girl, especially since in Suzanne all the refinement of an æsthetic soul seemed allied to the most exquisite charm of external appearance and attitude?
She who in her crass ignorance would have been unable to distinguish a Rembrandt from a Perugino, or a Ribera from a Watteau, had a clever way of listening to what René said, and of supporting the opinions he expressed with an ingenuity that would have deceived men with more experience of feminine duplicity than this young poet of twenty-five. This meeting was to him a source of happiness so complete, such perfect realisation of his most secret dreams, that he felt sad at the thought of having attained his highest ambition. The time slipped by, and an indescribable sensation invaded him; it was made up of the nervous excitement that the sight of masterpieces always produces in an artist, of the remorse he felt for his treachery in profaning the past by the present and the present by the past, and finally of the knowledge of Time's unrelenting flight. Yes, that delightful hour was slipping by, to be followed by so many cold and empty ones—for never, no, never would he dare to ask his adorable companion for another such meeting.
She, the sensual Epicurean, was only eager to prolong the delight of mental possession. Voluptuously, carefully, and secretly did she watch the poet from the corner of her blue eye that looked so modest beneath its golden lashes. She was unable to take exact account of all the changes of feeling he underwent, for although she was already well acquainted with his inner nature, she was so entirely ignorant of all the facts of his life that sometimes she would ask herself with a thrill whether he had ever loved before. It was impossible to follow his thoughts in detail, but it was not difficult to see that he was now looking at her much more than at the pictures, and that his distress was increasing every minute. She attributed this distress to a fit of shyness—a shyness that delighted her, for it proved the presence of a passionate longing tempered by respect. How pleased she was to be the object of a desire that expressed itself with such modesty! It enabled her to measure more correctly the gulf that separated her little René—as she already called him in her thoughts—from the bold and dangerous men with whom she usually mixed. His looks were full of love, though devoid of insolence, and contained an amount of suffering that finally decided her to lead him on to the declaration which she had promised herself to provoke.
'Mon Dieu!' she suddenly cried, catching hold of the iron bar that runs round the walls, and turning to René with a smile that was meant to hide some sharp pain. 'It's nothing,' she added, in reply to the poet's look of anxiety. 'I twisted my foot a little on this slippery floor.' Then, standing on one leg, she put out the foot that she said was hurt, and moved it about in the soft boot with a graceful effort. 'Ten minutes' rest and it will be all right, but you must be my crutch.'
As her pretty lips uttered this ugly word she took hold of René's arm, the poet little thinking, as he almost piously helped her along, that this imaginary accident was but one episode more in the comedy of love in which he was playing so innocent a part. Taking care to throw her whole weight upon him, she managed to redouble his passionate ardour and to completely intoxicate him by the rhythmic and communicated movement of her lithe and supple limbs. The trick succeeded only too well. He could scarcely speak, overwhelmed as he was by the proximity of this woman and penetrated by the subtle perfume she exhaled. It was as much as he dared do to look at her, and then he found beside him a face both proud and playful, a cheek of ideal colouring, and a pair of mobile cherry lips upon which from time to time there hovered a sweet little smile that meant mischief, though when their eyes met this smile would change into an expression of such frank sympathy that it dispelled René's timidity. This she knew by the greater assurance with which he now supported her.
She had been careful to choose one of the most isolated rooms—the salle Lesueur—for acting the episode of her twisted foot. Arm-in-arm they passed through a small passage, and, crossing one of the galleries of the French school, entered a dark, deserted chamber in which were then exhibited Lebrun's pictures representing the victories of Alexander the Great. The Ingres and Delacroix gallery, by which this room is now reached, was not yet opened, and in the centre of the floor stood a large round ottoman covered in green velvet. Though in the very heart of Paris, this spot was more secluded than a room in any provincial museum, and there was no likelihood of being disturbed except by the attendant, who was himself deep in conversation with his colleague in the next apartment.
Suzanne took in the place at a glance, and, pointing to the ottoman, said to René, 'Shall we sit down there for a few minutes? My foot is much better already.'