'I gave up all for fickle Sylvia's sake,
She leaves me now and takes another swain . . .'
His fine and well-trained tenor voice had once gained him some success in the drawing-rooms, and he hummed the refrain of the well-known lament with a variation of his own:
'Love's pangs last but a moment,
Love's pleasures last for life . . .'
'If you will place this shepherd and shepherdess on a corner of your table, they will be better than with me.'
'How you spoil me!' said Suzanne, with some embarrassment.
'No,' replied Desforges, 'I spoil myself. Am I not your friend before all else?' Then, kissing her hand, he added in a serious tone that contrasted with his usual bantering accents, 'And you will never have a better.'
That was all. One word more and he would have compromised his dignity. One word less and Suzanne might have believed him her dupe. She felt deeply grateful for the consideration with which he had treated her—the more so since that consideration left her free to devote her mind to René. All her thoughts had been concentrated during her sleepless night upon this one question—how to manage the one while keeping the other, now that the two men had seen and understood each other? Break with the Baron? She had thought of it, but how could it be done? She saw herself caught in the web of lies which she had spun for her husband this many a year. Their mode of life could not be kept up without the aid of her rich lover. To break with him was to condemn herself to immediately seek a new relationship of the same kind. On the other hand, to keep Desforges meant breaking with René. The Baron, she had said to herself, would never understand that in loving another she was not robbing him of a whit of affection. Do men ever admit such truths? And now he was kind and considerate enough not even to mention whatever he had noticed. Never, even when paying the heaviest bills, had he appeared so generous as at that moment, when, by his attitude, he allowed her to devote herself to the task of winning back her young lover and the kisses she neither could nor would do without.
'He is right,' she said to herself when Desforges had gone; 'he is my best friend.' And immediately, with that marvellous facility women possess for indulging in fresh hopes on the slightest provocation, she was ready to believe that matters would arrange themselves as easily on the other side. As she lay at full length on the sofa, her fingers idly toying with the pretty little watch, her thoughts were busied with the poet and with the means she should employ to win him back. She must examine the situation carefully and look it full in the face. What did René know? This first point had been already answered by himself; he had seen both her and the Baron come out of the house in the Rue du Mont-Thabor. Now Desforges, from motives of prudence, never went out the same way as she did. René must therefore know of the existence of the two exits. Had he seen her leave her carriage and walk as far as the entrance in the Rue de Rivoli. It was very probable. If chance alone had brought him into contact with her first, and then with the Baron, he could have drawn no conclusions from the double meeting. No, he must have watched her and followed her. But what had induced him to do so? At their last interview at the beginning of the week she had left him so reassured, so full of love and happiness! There was only one thing that could possibly have caused a revival of suspicion so violent as to lead him to watch her movements—Claude's return. Once more a feeling of rage against that individual came over her.
'If it is to him that I owe this fresh alarm, he shall pay for it,' she thought. But she soon returned to the real danger, which, for the moment, was of more importance to her than her rancour against the imprudent Larcher. The fact remained that in some way or other René had detected the secret of her meetings with Desforges, and this evidently caused him such intense pain that he had been compelled to fling his discovery at her as soon as it was made. His mad conduct at the Opera was but a proof of love, though it had nearly ruined her, and, instead of her being angry with him for it, she only cherished him the more. His passion was a sign of her power over him, and she concluded that a lover who loved so madly would not be difficult to win back. Only she must see him, speak to him, and explain her visit to the Rue du Mont-Thabor with her own lips. She could say that she had gone to see a sick friend who was also a friend of the Baron's. But what of the carriage sent back from Galignani's? She had wanted to walk a little way. But the two entrances? So many houses are built like that. She had had too much experience of René's confiding nature to doubt that she would convince him somehow or other. He had simply been overwhelmed at the moment by proofs that corroborated his suspicions, and was probably already doubtful and pleading with himself the cause of his love.
Her reflections had carried her as far as this when her carriage was announced. The desire to get René back had taken such a hold upon her, and she was, moreover, so convinced that her presence would overcome all resistance, that a bold plan suddenly occurred to her. Why should she not see the poet at once? Why not, now that she had nothing to fear from Desforges? In love quarrels the quickest reconciliations are the best. Would he have the courage to repulse her if she came to him in the little room that had witnessed her first visit, bringing him a fresh and indisputable proof of love? She would say, 'You have insulted, slandered, and tortured me—yet I could not bear to think you in doubt and pain—and I came!' No sooner had she grasped the possibility of taking this decisive step than she clung to it as if it were a sure way out of the anguish that had tortured her since the preceding evening. She dressed so hurriedly that she quite astonished her maid, and yet she had never looked prettier than in the light grey gown she had chosen. Without a moment's hesitation, she told her coachman to drive to the Rue Coëtlogon. To that point had this woman, generally so circumspect and so careful of appearances, come.