“Weak to allow himself to be spoken to like that, and I am astonished that he does so on account of his broad shoulders. He might well reply with an evil look. But he is weak, I repeat, very weak.”
“Yes,” Jacques went on, “their relations are stranger than you would think. Bonnivet, you see, is a Parisian husband like many others, who by himself would not move in any circle of society, and who owes his whole position to his wife’s coquetry. Husbands of this kind do not always do this by design. But they profit by it and can be divided into three groups: the noodles, who are persuaded against the weight of evidence that this coquetry is innocent; the philosophic ones, who have made up their minds never to find out how far this coquetry goes; and the jealous ones, who wish to profit by this coquetry to have a full drawing-room and elegant dinners. Besides, they go into a cold sweat at the thought that their wife might take a lover. That was Bonnivet’s case. He accepted all the flirtations of Queen Anne with a good grace. He shook my hand. He assisted in silence like the most complaisant of men his better half’s manœuvres. Very well, I am of opinion that if he suspected this woman of the least physical familiarity beyond this moral familiarity, he would kill her on the spot like a rabbit. She knows it and is afraid, and that is the reason that she prefers him in her heart to us all, and that in my humble opinion she has not yet deceived him. But she loves to brave his anger in her moments of nerves. She has one of them every hour. Camille is too pretty. Between ourselves that was the origin of the supper: she does not want the little Blue Duchess to be in her admirer’s company this evening. I think, too, that was the reason she did not invite you. She hopes you will profit by my absence. It is high comedy. Moliére, where is your pen?”
“But,” I said to him, as I thought of the two half-mute persons whose rather tragic picture he was painting to me, “if that is your opinion of M. de Bonnivet, it is not reassuring for you when you become his wife’s lover.”
“If,” he answered shrugging his shoulders. “My dear fellow, I have calculated. To take any woman at all as your mistress is to always run the same number of risks of meeting face to face some one who will kill. It is just like travelling in a carriage or on the railway, or drinking a glass of fresh water which chemists declare is infested with microbes. I brave the dangers, railway accidents, runaway horses, typhoid fevers, and jealous husbands because I love to travel quickly, to refresh and amuse myself. Then Madam de Bonnivet knows her tyrant, her Pierre, who rejoices in the idyllic names of Pierre Amédié Placidi; she knows of what he is capable. She amuses herself by exciting him just far enough to procure for herself that little tremor of fear. When she wants to overstep the mark, she will do it like the reasonable creature she is. Suspicious husbands are like vicious animals. They are ridden more safely after they have been carefully studied and their peculiarities discovered. But now have you a pencil? Good. I will scribble on my card in the box. While we are waiting, let me arrange with the attendant about the letter I want brought to me.”
We were at the door of our box. He stopped and exchanged a few words with the attendant, and I saw him hand her a letter which he took from his pocket-book. At this moment his face assumed its real expression, that of a beast of prey, feline and supple, and his fashionable elegance became almost repulsive.
“That is it,” he said, “and now we are going to applaud our friend as if we were not the author and his friend. We owe that to her, poor little girl! She will be so disappointed! Write me a line to-morrow or come and see me to let me know how she takes it. I am not at all uneasy as to the result. A woman who loves never suspects the truth. She swallows the most improbable things like a carp does the hook and a yard of string as well.”
“But if she guesses that I am lying?” I interrupted. This trick which made me his accomplice weighed upon my conscience, and I was upon the point of refusing my assistance. But if I refused it I should not see Camille again that evening.
“She will not guess,” he replied.
“But if she insists and demands my word of honour?”
“Give it to her. In the case of women false oaths are permissible. But she will not ask you. Here she is! Are we not like two conspirators. How pretty she is! To think that if I might have——But no, there is an old French saying, that the woman a man adores is not the one he possesses, but one he has not yet possessed. You must admit that these words contain more truth than all the works of our analytical friends the hair splitters, Claude Larcher and Julien Dorsenne?”