“You will always be so,” I said as I took her hand again, “because this foolishness simply consists in having what you believe Jacques has not, I mean a heart. But then he has one of a sort,” I added, “and you will be of that opinion this evening or to-morrow morning.”
“You do not know me,” she replied with a frown upon her pretty forehead and a tremor of hatred around her fine mouth, which had become bitter again. “He will have to humble himself and wait days and days for his pardon. Yesterday you only saw me as the weak and amorous woman. There is another side to my character, the bad side. You will find it out. There is another characteristic, too, pride; but don’t be any the less my friend,” she went on, introducing a subtle touch of melancholy into her anger. The grace of this sudden change of front brought the shadow of a sad smile to her face. She wiped away with her handkerchief two large tears, and added with a shrug of the shoulders in a childish tone which contrasted graciously, too, with the tragic discourse which had just preceded it: “I hear mother coming back. I don’t want her to see that I have been crying. As I am ashamed of lying to her, let us do so thoroughly.”
What a conversation this was for a man to hear who, as I, since the previous evening, had been invaded by the most passionate interests, and by an emotion so keen that it was real love! During the hours of that afternoon of confidences I could do nothing but ask myself: “Was she sincere? Would it be possible for despair to make her take that horrible course?” I could see in my mind that fat Tournade, and the gleam of the eyes of that horrible being standing out from his red face. I discerned now on reflection a will I had not realized on the previous evening, that of the rich and patient rake who is weary of play and fastens himself upon a particular woman. At the same time I could see Jacques Molan as I had left him that morning, and his look when he had spoken of his scheme for a rupture. But it was impossible that he could suspect the responsibility he was incurring. I tried to demonstrate to myself that there was more affectation than real perversity in his nature as a literary man and that it was inoffensive. It is always childish for a man to make such a parade of himself, even when, as in his case, it was diplomatic and calculated. Was he not better than his attitudes and paradoxes? Who knows? In telling him simply and frankly my impression of the evil he could do this poor girl, should I not touch in him a chord of remorse? There is, however, a sentimental honour, a probity, trivial but strictly accurate, in affairs of the heart, as there is professional honour and probity in money matters. How many people anarchists in theory recognize in practice this pecuniary probity! They preach the suppression of inheritance, and they would not rob you of a farthing in a business transaction. Why had not Jacques too a fund of scruples and probity in the presence of an obviously bad action to be committed or not?
This reasoning resulted, after weighing the pros and cons, after resolving to speak to him and then proving to myself the ridiculousness of doing so, in my once more, about six o’clock, crossing the threshold of his house in the Place Delaborde, only to discover that Molan was not there. I went to dinner hoping to meet him as I had done the previous evening; I did not do so. Seeing the impossibility of meeting him, I wanted at least to have another talk with the woman who had been the cause of my fruitless search, the seductive Camille Favier, whose frail silhouette, blue eyes and emotional smile, pursued me with an obsession much more irresistible than my pity justified. That was the pretext I found as I made my way to the Vaudeville. I reached the theatre even before the end of the first act. My weakness inflicted upon me a feeling of shame, which made me hesitate about entering. I can see myself now walking round the entrance, first of all looking at the staircase leading to the theatre and then at the stage door in the Chaussée d’Antin. At last I made up my mind to enter by the latter door, and as I did so the audience were coming out in the interval. I ran up against Jacques himself.
“Are you going to see Camille?” he asked with a heartiness through which I discerned malice, and I believe I blushed as I replied—
“No, I am running after you.”
“You have come to plead her cause, I am sure,” he said as he took my arm. “I know you had a talk with her this afternoon and even defended me. I thank you, for it would have been quite legitimate for you to try and profit by the situation. Only you are an honourable man. The cause is won and we are so reconciled, your friend and I, that to-morrow she is coming to visit me in my 'Abode of Love,’ as your friend Larcher calls it.”
“What of Madam de Bonnivet?” I asked him, surprised at this unexpected change of front.
“Madam de Bonnivet is nothing but a simpleton, a woman of the world in all her horror. She kept the appointment at Pére Lachaise. She came there with the intention of making me climb to the top of the yew trees between which we walked. She played the coquette there more coldly than in her own drawing-room. As I don’t like to be laughed at, we separated after what was almost a quarrel.”
“So Camille benefits by the desire rejected by the other woman?” I interrupted. “That is what is called a 'transfer’ in the money market.”