“As long as Bonnivet does not see these two women face to face, his suspicion may be again aroused, and suspicion is like apoplexy, the first attack can be cured but there is no remedy for the second.”
His theory was right. But while he retailed it to me, as a conclusion, my thoughts were only for the real drama he had just narrated. I can still hear myself crying, “Oh, the wretches!” When he described to me Camille in the anteroom of the suite of rooms, while Madam de Bonnivet was listening to her repeated ringing of the bell, pale with terror, I can realize to-day that this story of Jacques’ was most indelicate on his part, for he must needs begin by this phrase. “First of all I will tell you the whole truth. I am Madam de Bonnivet’s lover.” I was no longer astonished at my colleague’s cynicism. When he had finished, the misery of this adventure overwhelmed me with sorrow, and there were tears in my voice when I asked him—
“And after that you want Camille to act at that woman’s house?”
“She must,” he replied, “and I am relying upon you to ask her.”
“Upon me,” I cried, “you must be mad.”
“Not a bit,” he went on. “It is very simple. While listening to you she will only think of the risk I have run and say 'yes.’ That is the a. b. c. of jealousy.”
“But if she refuses. You seem to think she has no malice against you.”
“Not a bit,” he replied with his frightful smile; “either I am quite ignorant of the human heart, or else she has never loved me so much, since I have never treated her so badly.”
“If she does not tell me the story you have just told me, how am I to turn the conversation?”
“She will tell you; then be the first to begin. Confess that I have told you in the madness of my emotion and remorse. It will not be a lie, for it is a fact that in the cab yesterday while I looked at Camille sitting in her corner with fixed gaze and excited face, I would have given everything to love her at that moment as she loved me. Explain that I was not thinking of the other woman. I called upon the latter to-day. What a woman, my dear friend, and how the crack of the whip of danger made her vibrate! I found her with her husband after breakfast, and he left us together after a quarter of an hour’s affectionate talk, which proves that his suspicion is at any rate a little allayed. That man does not know how to pretend. Lately he has hardly shaken hands with me. We did not abuse his complaisance and we were right, for I met him returning home, as I was leaving twenty minutes later, to find out how long my visit had lasted. There was just time for Anne to give me the two or three most indispensable items of information. You admire Camille’s courage, don’t you? But what will you say to the presence of mind of this great lady who was indeed risking something, her life perhaps, her honour without a doubt, her position and everything which constitutes her reasons for existence. Do you know where she went when she was able to escape. She drove straight to a furrier’s, where she purchased an astrakhan jacket as like the other one as possible. She had no money to pay for it and did not like to leave her name. The idea struck her to go to her jeweller and borrow the money. She pretended that she had lost her purse, and then returned to the furrier’s to pay for her jacket, picked up her own carriage, which, she had left at a friend’s house and ordered to meet her outside the shops near the Louvre, and reappeared at home dressed as she was when she went out. These are the true details. Would you believe them? Her visit to the jeweller’s and furrier’s moved me very much. How frightened she must have been at risking them. Now all she has to do is to tell her maid a lie to account for the difference of jackets. A mistake after calling or trying on, that is all. But every fresh little lie is a new landmark if the husband pursues his inquiries. This man would shrink from questioning the servants. That is what saved us this time. He will have had me followed, not his wife, but I was imprudent enough to accompany her to the rooms. My luck makes me frightened,” he added seriously, after being silent for a time.