Here she broke down, her bosom racked with convulsive sobs, and as the poet tenderly kissed her tears away her head once more fell upon his breast. She lay there for a few moments listening to the wild beating of his heart—then, like a tired child, she entwined her arms about his neck, and heaved a sigh of peace.
CHAPTER XIV
HAPPY DAYS
When Suzanne left the house in the Rue Coëtlogon her next meeting with René was already arranged. After taking a few steps down the little street she stopped and turned her head, although it would have been more prudent to walk straight on, as she always did in the Rue du Mont-Thabor. But so firm a hold had passion obtained upon this usually cold-blooded woman that she smiled and waved her hand at the poet as he stood watching her from the window of the room in which she had enjoyed such a triumph—for all her calculations had turned out perfectly correct. Getting into a cab at the corner of the Rue d'Assas, she drove to the Bon Marché, where she had ordered her carriage to meet her; on the way the details of the conversation she had had with René recurred to her, and, going over them again, she congratulated herself upon the manner in which she had acquitted herself. As soon as the first real step has been taken in an intrigue of this kind the discussion of further arrangements becomes as easy and as delightful as it was before hateful and difficult.
Suzanne had been the first to attack this delicate question. 'I want you to promise me something. If you do not wish me to reproach myself with this love as with a crime, promise me that you won't go out into Society at all. You are not accustomed to that kind of life, and you ought to be at work. You would fritter away your magnificent talents and genius in idle nonsense, and I should look upon myself as the cause. Promise me that you won't go and see anyone'—and in a whisper—'any of those women who flocked round you the other night.'
How tenderly René had kissed her for those words, in which the author could read a tribute of devotion paid to his future work and the lover a delicate expression of secret jealousy. He asked a little timidly, 'Mayn't I come even to your house?'
'To mine least of all,' she replied. 'I could not bear to see you touch my husband's hand now. You know what I mean,' she added, passing her fingers caressingly through his hair. He was sitting at her feet, while she was still in the arm-chair. She bent forward and hid her face on René's shoulder. 'Don't make me say any more,' she sighed; then, after a few minutes, 'What I should like to be to you is the friend who only enters into a man's life to bring him the sweet and noble gifts of joy and courage, the friend who loves and is beloved in secret, away from the mocking world that sneers at the purest feelings of the soul. I have committed a great sin as it is'—here she hid her face in her pretty hands—'do not let it grow into that series of base and sordid acts which fills me with such horror in others. Spare me this, René, if you love me as you say you do . . . But tell me, do you really love me so much?'
In delivering herself of this pretty batch of lies she had seen in the face of her simple and romantic victim the rapturous joy with which these beautiful sentiments inspired him. The Madonna resumed the halo which she had temporarily laid aside. Then, by a skilful combination of ruse and affection, by giving to cool calculation an appearance of tenderest susceptibility, she had led him to agree to the following convention as being the only one befitting the poetry of her love. He was to look out for a small suite of rooms somewhere not very far from the Rue Murillo; he would engage them in an assumed name, and they could meet there two, three, or four times a week. She had suggested Batignolles, but it was so cleverly done that he almost imagined he had hit upon it himself, as indeed upon the rest of her ideas. He was to start out the very next day, and then write to her, poste restante, in certain initials, at a certain office. All these unnecessary precautions gave René an idea of the state of slavery in which his poor angel lived—if such an existence could be called living! 'Poor angel' he had called her, as she gave utterance to a half-stifled complaint concerning her husband's despotism and compared herself to a hunted animal, 'how you must have suffered!' And she had lifted her eyes to the ceiling with such a well-feigned expression of grief that, years afterwards, the man for whose benefit all this was done still asked, 'Was she not sincere?'
There was, however, no need for so much theatrical display to make René joyfully accede to the plan proposed by the clever pupil of Desforges. Simply out of love for her he would have agreed with pleasure and alacrity to any kind of scheme she put forward. But the programme laid before him corresponded well with the romantic side of his nature. It enchanted the poet to dwell upon the idea of carrying such a delightful secret with him through life, whilst the phraseology in which Suzanne had posed as the patron saint of his work had flattered his vanity, dreaming as he did of reconciling art and love, of uniting indulgence of the baser passions with that independence and solitude his work required.
And now René, after so many days of torture, felt as though both his mind and his heart had wings. So great was his happiness that he did not even notice the look of pained surprise that his sister wore during the evening that followed Suzanne's visit. What had Françoise heard? What had she told Madame Fresneau? That the latter was deeply agitated was very evident. The profound ignorance of certain women who are both romantic and pure exposes them to these rude surprises. They interest themselves in love affairs because they are women, and assist in the establishment of relations which they believe to be as innocent as they are themselves. Then, when they see the brutal consequences to which these relations almost necessarily lead, their surprise is so great that but for its cruelty it would be comical.