Suzanne knew the Baron's eagle eye too well to imagine that the scene in the box had entirely escaped him. How much had he seen? What did he think? These two questions were of capital importance to her. It was impossible to formulate any reply to them during the few minutes occupied—she leaning on his arm and he supporting her as though he really believed her to be ill—in passing from the box to the entrance reserved for carriages. The Baron's face remained impenetrable and she herself felt unable to exercise her usual faculties of observation. René's sudden onslaught had inspired her with such terror and pain that her indisposition had been a sham only to a certain extent. She had been afraid that the poet, evidently beside himself, might create a scene and ruin her for ever. At the same time her sincere and deep-rooted passion had received a severe blow in this terrible insult and still more terrible discovery. As she lifted up the train of her dress and descended the steps in her blue satin shoes she shuddered as we sometimes do when we escape from a danger which we have had the courage to brave. A faint smile hovered upon her quivering lips, but her face was ashy pale, and it was a real relief to her when she sat down in the corner of her carriage with her husband by her side. Before him, at least, there was no necessity to control herself. As the horses started she bent forward to bow her adieux. A gas-lamp shed its light full upon the Baron's face, which now betrayed his real thoughts. Suzanne read them in a second.
'He knows all,' she thought. 'What is to be done?'
For a few moments after the carriage had gone Desforges still stood there twirling his moustache—with him a sign of extraordinary preoccupation. It being a fine night, he had not ordered his brougham. It was his custom, when the weather was dry, to walk to his favourite club in the Rue Boissy-d'Anglas from any place in which he had been spending the evening—even if such place was some small theatre situated at the other end of the boulevards. Whilst smoking his third cigar—Doctor Noirot only allowed him three a day—he loved to stroll through the streets of that Paris which he justly prided himself upon knowing and enjoying as well as anyone. Desforges was no cosmopolitan, and had a horror of travelling, which he called 'a life of luggage.' This promenade in the evening was his delight. He utilised it for 'making up his balance'—that was his expression—for going over the different events of the day, placing his receipts in one column and his expenses in another. 'Massage, fencing, and morning ride,' were put down in the column of receipts to the credit of his health. 'Drinking burgundy or port'—his pet sin—'or eating truffles or seeing Suzanne' went into the column of expenditure. When he had indulged in some trifling excess that contravened his well-regulated lines of conduct he would carefully weigh the pros and cons, and conclude by pronouncing with the solemnity of a judge whether 'it was worth it' or 'not worth it.'
This Paris, too, in which he had dwelt since his earliest youth, always awakened in him memories of the past. His cynicism went hand in hand with cunning, and he practised only the Epicureanism of the senses. He was a master in the art of enjoying happy hours long after they had passed. In such a house, for instance, he had had appointments with a charming mistress; another recalled to his mind exquisite dinners in good company. 'We ought to make ourselves four stomachs, like oxen, to ruminate,' he used to say; 'that is their only good point, and I have taken it them.'
But when the Moraines had driven away in their brougham on this mild and balmy May evening he began his walk, a prey to most sad and bitter impressions, although the day had been a particularly pleasant one until René Vincy's entry in the box. Suzanne had not been mistaken. He knew all. The poet's visit had struck him all the more forcibly since, that very afternoon, on leaving the house in the Rue de Rivoli, he had found himself face to face with the young man, who stared hard at him. 'Where the deuce have I seen that fellow before?' he had asked himself in vain. 'Where could my senses have been?' he said, when Paul Moraines mentioned René's name to Suzanne. The expression on the visitor's face had immediately aroused his suspicions; when Suzanne went into the ante-room he had placed himself so as to follow the interview from the corner of his eye. Without hearing what the poet said, he had guessed by the look in his eyes, the frown on his brow, and the gestures of his hands that he was taking Suzanne to task. The feigned indisposition of the latter had not deceived him for a single moment. He was one of those who only believe in women's headaches when there is nothing to be gained by them. The manner in which his mistress's hand trembled on his arm as they descended the staircase had strengthened his convictions, and now, as he crossed the Place de l'Opéra, he told himself the most mortifying truths instead of going into his usual raptures before the vast perspective of the avenue, but lately lighted by electricity, or before the façade of the Opera, which he declared to be finer than Notre Dame.
'I have been let in,' he said, 'and at my age, too! It's rather too bad—and for whom?' All combined to render his humiliation more complete—the absolute secresy with which Suzanne had deceived him, and without arousing the slightest suspicion; the startling suddenness of the discovery; lastly, the quality of his rival, a bit of a boy, a scribbling poet! A score of details, one more exasperating than the other, crowded in upon him. The forlorn and bashful look on the poet's face when he had seen him on the day after Madame Komof's soirée; Suzanne's inexplicable fits of abstraction, which he had scarcely noticed at the time and her allusions to matutinal visits to the dentist's, the Louvre, or the Bon Marché. And he had swallowed it all—he, Baron Desforges!
'I have been an ass!' he repeated aloud. 'But how did she manage it?' It was this that completely floored him; he could not understand how she had gone about it, even when René's attitude in the box left him no doubt as to their relations. No, there was no possibility of doubt.
Had Suzanne not been his mistress he would never have dared to speak to her as he did, nor would she have allowed it. 'But how?' he asked himself; 'she never received him at home, or I should have known it through Paul. She did not see him out; he goes nowhere.' Once more he repeated, 'I have been an ass!' and felt really angry with the woman who was the cause of his perturbation. He had just passed the Café de la Paix and had to brush aside two women who accosted him in their usual shameless manner. 'Bah!' he exclaimed; 'they are all alike.' He walked on for a few paces and saw that he had let his cigar go out. He threw it away with a gesture of impatience. 'And cigars are like women.' Then he shrugged his shoulders as it occurred to him how childishly he was behaving. 'Frédéric, my dear fellow,' whispered an inner voice, 'you have been an ass, and you are continuing the rôle.' He took a fresh cigar from his case, held it to his ear as he cracked it, and went into a cigar-shop for a light. The havana proved to be delicious, and the Baron, a connoisseur, thoroughly enjoyed it. 'I was wrong,' he thought; 'here is one that is not a fraud.'
The soothing effect of the cigar changed the tenour of his ideas.
He looked about him and saw that he had almost reached the end of the boulevard. The pavement was as crowded as at midday, and the carriages and cabs went hurrying by. The gas-lamps glinted upon the young foliage of the trees in a fantastic manner, and on the right the dark mass of the Madeleine stood out against the dark blue sky studded with stars. This Parisian picture pleased the Baron, who continued his reflections in a calmer frame of mind. 'Hang it all!' he cried; 'can it be that I am jealous?' As a rule he shook his head whenever he was treated to an example of that mournful passion, and would generally reply, 'They pay your mistress attentions! But that is merely a compliment to your good taste.' 'I, jealous! Well, that would be good!'