He was too much of a gentleman to make even the least slighting remark about a woman of whom he had been the lover. The bitter, profound grudge he bore her manifested itself in a strange way. As he could not, as he would not speak any evil of her, he began to praise her husband, the man whom he detested the most in the world.
"I never knew why they could not agree," he said. "She is very intelligent, and he is one of the first men of his time. He is one of the three or four important personages, with the Emperor of Brazil, the Prince of Monaco, and the Archduke of Bavaria, who have taken a place in the ranks of science to the honor of royalty. It appears that he is a true scientist."
"He may be a true scientist," replied Hautefeuille; "I don't deny it. But he is a detestable creature.—If you had only seen him as I did, in his wife's salon, making a violent scene before six people, you would admire her for supporting life with that monster, even for a single day, and you would pity her."
He spoke now with a passionate seriousness. At any time Olivier would have been surprised at the intensity of this openly avowed interest, for he knew Pierre to be very undemonstrative. But now, agitated as he was, the sincerity of his friend surprised him still more, stirred him more deeply. He looked at him again. He perceived an expression that he had never before seen on the face he had known from childhood. In a sudden blinding flash of overpowering intuition, he understood. He did not grasp the entire truth as yet. But he saw enough to stun him. "Does he love her?" he asked himself. The question sprang into being in his mind suddenly, spontaneously, as though an unknown voice had whispered it in him in spite of himself.
The idea was too unexpected, too agonizing, for a reaction to fail to follow instantly. "I am mad," he thought; "it is impossible." And yet he felt that it was beyond his strength to question Pierre about the way he had made the acquaintance of Madame de Carlsberg, about their trip to Genoa, about the life he led at Cannes. Such inability to lay bare the truth seizes one before certain hypotheses which touch the tenderest, most sensitive part of the heart. He replied simply:—
"Perhaps you are right. I was only going upon hearsay."
The conversation continued without any further mention of the Baroness Ely's name. The two friends spoke of their travels, of Italy, of Egypt. But when the spirit of observation is once aroused, it is not soothed to slumber by a mere act of the will. It is like an instinctive and uncontrollable force working within us and around us, in spite of us, until the moment that it has satisfied its desire to know. During the long promenade, upon their return, during and after dinner, all Olivier's powers of attention were involuntarily, unceasingly, painfully concentrated upon Pierre. It was as though there were two beings in him. He joked, replied to his wife, gave orders about the service. And yet all his senses were upon the qui vive, and he discovered signs by the score that he had not noticed at first, absorbed as he had been by the joy of revisiting his friend, and then later by his thoughts about himself and his destiny.
In the first place, he saw the indefinable but unmistakable indications of a more virile, more decided personality in Pierre, in his looks, in his features, in his gestures and attitude. His former farouche timidity had yielded to the proud reserve that the certainty of being loved gives to some delicate, romantic natures. Next he noted the principal, the infallible sign of secret happiness, the expression of tender ecstasy that seemed to lurk in the depths of his eyes, and a constant faraway look. Never had Olivier noticed this abstraction in their former conversations. Never had Pierre's thoughts been in other climes while his friend spoke. Lovers are all alike. They speak to you. You speak to them. They know not what to say, nor do they hear you. Their soul is elsewhere. At this moment Pierre's thoughts were upon the deck of a yacht illumined by the moonbeams; upon the staircase of an old Italian palace; in the patio of the Villa Helmholtz, far away from the little table of the hotel dining-room; far away from Madame du Prat, upon whom he forgot to attend; far away from Olivier, whom he no longer even saw!
And then Olivier noticed tiny details of masculine adornment, little nothings which disclosed the tender coquetting of a mistress who would not have her lover make a gesture without being reminded of her by some caressing souvenir. Pierre wore a ring upon his little finger that his friend had never seen, two golden serpents interlaced, with emerald heads. A St. George medal, which he did not recognize, was hanging to his watch-chain. In taking out his handkerchief it gave forth a delicate perfume that Pierre had never formerly used. Olivier had been engaged in too many intrigues to be mistaken for an instant about any of these evidences of feminine influence. They were only additional proofs. They simply confirmed the change he had noticed in Pierre's inexplicable acquaintance with Corancez, in his liking for cosmopolitan society, in the unexpected frivolity of his mode of life, in his evident sympathy for things at Cannes that Olivier had expected would have most shocked his friend.
How was it possible not to put these facts together? How was it possible not to draw the conclusion from them that Pierre was in love? But with whom? Did the energy with which he had attacked the Archduke prove that he loved Madame de Carlsberg? Had he not defended Madame de Chésy with the same energy? Had he not equally warmly sung the praises of Madame Bonnacorsi's beauty, of Miss Marsh's grace?