To remain faithful to my oath, I forbade myself going to see Jacques. He came to see me on the day following the day I had received his mistress’ confidences which were so hard for me to keep. He had the previous evening been to the theatre to see Camille. He had not been able to talk to her because of her mother’s presence. This presence, which was obviously at the daughter’s desire, had astonished him a little; then he thought he noticed in the latter’s eyes and also in her acting something strange, a sort of unhealthy excitement. As often happens when a person has not a clear conscience, this something had sufficed to make him uneasy. He therefore, had come to the studio with the vague hope of meeting Camille and the certain object of making me talk. His epigrams upon my part as eternal confidant were well justified. It is true that a very simple pretext offered an explanation of his visit.
“I have had an invitation sent you for Madam de Bonnivet’s evening party,” he stated after our greetings; “you will go, won’t you? Shall we dine together that evening? Has Camille told you that she is acting there?”
“Yes,” I replied, “and I thought the idea was in somewhat doubtful taste.”
“It was not my idea,” he said with a laugh; “I am a little afraid of complications, and I avoid useless ones as much as possible. There are already too many unavoidable ones. Senneterre and Bonnivet arranged the party, one advising the other. They want to know the truth of my courting Queen Anne. Seeing that Camille is my mistress, they think that if Madam de Bonnivet is really her rival, the two women must detest each other. You follow their reasoning? In that case Madam de Bonnivet would refuse to have Camille there and Camille would refuse to go. I should also decline the invitation to avoid any meeting between the two women. But I accepted and so did Camille. Madam de Bonnivet placed no obstacle in the way. I should like you to have seen the stupor, and then the joy, first of Senneterre and then of Bonnivet. Ah! they are observers, analysts, and psychologists, like Larcher or Dorsenne.” After this irony he added: “I have not seen Camille for some days. How is the portrait progressing?”
“You can judge for yourself,” I hastened to say, only too happy to seize this pretext to avoid his questions, and I turned to show him the tall canvas upon which was drawn the slender silhouette of the Blue Duchess offering her flower—offering her flower to him who hardly looked at her. Has he ever given five minutes’ attention to the artistic efforts of a comrade? That day at least he had as an excuse his little inquiry to make, and thus his critical situation between his two mistresses rendered urgent. I was not offended when he continued, without the least gleam of interest lighting up the glance, almost a wandering one, which he fixed upon the picture.
“Is she still jealous of Madam de Bonnivet?” he asked.
“We have hardly mentioned that subject,” I replied with a blush at my impudent untruth.
“Well, so much the better,” he went on without insisting. “She would choose her time very badly. I must tell you that Queen Anne and I have recognized that we have made a misdeal and have given up the game. Yes, we are in a state of armed peace. We have measured our weapons and concluded an armistice. It was written that I should not seduce her and that she should not seduce me. We are good friends now, and I think we shall remain so. I like it better that way, it is more comfortable.”
He looked at me, as he delivered this speech in a hesitating way, with a keen perspicacity before which I did not flinch. If my face expressed astonishment, it was at his assurance in the comedy. He no doubt attributed it to my surprise at his fresh relations with her whom he continued to call Queen Anne, and whom I knew deserved to be brutally called Anne the Courtesan. I realize to-day that in observing this strange discretion about his triumph he did not yield to a simple prudent calculation. Without a doubt he was prudent, but he also counted on my thinking him sincere, and putting more energy into destroying my model’s ever-recurring suspicions. There was, too, in this discretion succeeding the cynicism of his former confidences a singular turn in his self-conceit, which is more obvious now at a distance of time.
I have often noticed in the person whom women call in their slang “the man who talks” this anomaly. It is quite apparent. He tells you one by one, embellishing them where necessary, the least important preliminaries of an adventure with a person whose most trifling imprudence ought to be sacred to him. Then when he sees that you are quite convinced that he is going to become that woman’s lover, he defends himself at the last stage with a defence which compromises her as much as a positive avowal. This final silence prevents him from judging himself too severely. The same vanity which made him talkative before makes him silent afterwards. Vanity or remorse, calculation or a last remnant of honour, whatever was the cause of this sudden interruption in Jacques’ confidences, it is certain that on this occasion he did not depart from his correct attitude of discretion. It made my discretion seem the less meritorious. But suddenly events were precipitated with the frightful rapidity of catastrophies in which discussions and half-confidences have no place. I should like to narrate this dénouement, not such as I saw it, but such as it was told to me. God! if I could reproduce for this story the natural and violent eloquence with which little Favier used to retrace these tragic scenes, this clumsy narrative would live and become tinted with passion’s warm tinge. Why did I not at once put it on paper in the form of notes, these burning avowals which so long pursued me?