While Olivier was studying his friend with a super-acute and almost mechanical tension of the nerves, these three names occurred to him again and again. Ah! how he longed for another sign among all these indications; for one irrefutable proof, something that would drive away and annihilate the first hypothesis, the one that he had seen for an instant as in a flash, and yet plainly enough for him to be already possessed by it as by the most ghastly, threatening nightmare.
Toward eleven o'clock Pierre withdrew upon the pretext that the travellers must be longing to rest. Olivier, having taken leave of his wife, felt that it was impossible any longer to support this uncertainty. Often, in former days, when Pierre and he were together in the country, if one was suffering from insomnia, he would awake the other, and they would go out for a walk in the night air, talking incessantly. Olivier thought that this would be the surest way of exorcising the idea that was again beginning to haunt him, an idea that stirred up in him, without his knowing why, a wave of unreasoning, violent, almost savage, revolt. Yes, he would go and talk to Hautefeuille. That would do him good, although he did not know how nor of what they would talk.
The most elementary delicacy would prevent him speaking a word that could arouse the suspicions of his friend, no matter what were the relations that existed between Pierre and Ely de Carlsberg. But the conversations of close friends afford such opportunities! Perhaps an intonation of the voice, a look, a movement, would furnish him with the passionately desired sign after which he would never again even think of the possibility of Pierre having a sentiment for his former mistress.
He was already in bed when this idea seized him. Automatically, without any further reflection, he rose. He descended the staircases of the immense hotel, now silent and in semi-darkness. He arrived at Hautefeuille's door. He knocked. There was no reply. He knocked again, and again there was silence. The key was in the lock. He turned it and entered. By the light of the moon that flooded the room through the open window, he saw that the bed was undisturbed. Pierre had gone out.
Why did Olivier feel a sudden pain at his heart, followed by an inexpressible rush of melancholy, as he noticed this? He went and leaned on the window rail. He glanced over the immense horizon. He saw all the serene beauty of the Southern night, the stars that glittered in the soft, velvety blue of the sky, the bronzed golden moon whose beams played caressingly with the sea—the sea that rolled supple and vast afar off. He saw the lights of the town shining among the black masses of shrubbery in the gardens. The warm breeze enveloped him with the languorous, enthralling, enchanting odor of lemon blossom. What a divine night for the meeting of lovers! And what a divine night for a lover dreaming of his mistress, as he wandered along the solitary paths!—Was Pierre that lover? Had he gone to meet his mistress? Or was he simply pursuing his vision in the perfumed solitude of the gardens?—How was he to know?—Olivier thought of the Yvonne de Chésy with whom he had danced. He recalled all the Americans and the Italians he had ever known, in order to compose a Marchesa Bonnacorsi and an ideal Florence Marsh.—It was in vain! Always did his imagination return to the souvenir of Ely de Carlsberg, to that mistress of a so short time ago, whose image was still so present. Always did his thoughts return to the memory of those caresses, whose intoxicating tenderness he had tested. And he sighed, sadly and mournfully, in the pure night air:—
"Ah! What unhappiness if he loves her! My God! What unhappiness!"
His sigh floated off and was lost in the soft voluptuous breeze which bore it away from him who unconsciously called it forth. At this moment Pierre was making his way through the shrubbery of the Villa Helmholtz gardens as he had done once before. He arrived at the door of the hothouse. A woman awaited him there, trembling with love and terror.—What caused the terror? Hot the fear of being surprised in this secret meeting. Ely's courage was superior to such weaknesses. No. She knew that Olivier had returned that day. She knew that he had passed the afternoon talking with Pierre. She knew that her name must have been pronounced between them. She was certain that Pierre would not betray their dear secret. But he was so young, so innocent, so transparent to the observer, while the other was so penetrating, so keen!—She was going to learn if their love had been suspected by Olivier, if this man had warned his friend against her in revenge.—When she heard Pierre's slow, furtive footsteps upon the pathway, her heart beat so strongly that she seemed to hear it echo through the deathly silence of the hothouse!—He is here. She takes his hand. She feels that the beloved fingers reply with their old confident pressure. She takes him in her arms. She seeks his mouth and their lips unite in a kiss in which she feels that he is all hers to the depths of his soul. That other has not spoken! And now tears begin to flow down the cheeks of the loving woman, warm tears that the lover dries with his burning kisses, as he asks:—
"What, are you weeping! What is it, my beloved?"
"I love you," she replies, "and they are tears of joy."