“You could come to see them if you chose. You could send for them to come to you. Monsieur Blémont has never had any idea of depriving you of their caresses.”
“No, I am no longer worthy of them. Besides, they will grow up. What can you reply to children who ask you why you do not live with their father? It is much better that they should not see me; that they should forget their mother!”
After another interval, filled only by Eugénie’s subdued moans, she continued:
“Alas! my heart is torn by still another pang. You have guessed it—you who can read my heart so well, who are so kind to me, and whom I misunderstood and blamed for so long!”
“Hush!” said Marguerite, embracing her; “haven’t I forbidden you to mention that again? But I have some good news for you: for some days Monsieur Blémont has been to see Mademoiselle Derbin much less frequently; he passes less time with her.”
“He goes there less? Is it possible? Oh! I no longer have any right to be jealous, madame, I know; I have no claim to his heart; and yet I cannot reconcile myself to the thought that he loves another. And this Caroline is so lovely; and then she loves him—I am perfectly sure of that.”
“What makes you think so?”
“Oh! women are never mistaken about such things, you know. I discovered it at Mont-d’Or; I was certain of it when I overheard their conversation on the evening that he left. To be sure, she begged him to come back to me; but her voice trembled, she could hardly restrain her tears. In short, she spoke to him as one speaks to a person whom one loves, even when one is trying to pretend to hate him. Poor Caroline! she had thought that he was free and a bachelor. She had abandoned herself without fear to the pleasure of loving him.”
“Very well; but now when she knows perfectly well that he is married, and above all, when she thinks that it was he who deserted you, why does she bring her uncle here to Saint-Mandé, and settle down within two steps of us? Why does she invite Monsieur Blémont to come to see her? Is that the way for a woman to act with a man whom she is determined not to love, whom she is trying to forget? I confess that that has not given me a very favorable opinion of that young lady, and Monsieur Blémont must have noticed more than once that I don’t like her, although I don’t know her.”
“What can you expect? She still loves him—she longed to see him again. But if only he might not love her! Since I have seen him every day, since, thanks to you, I have been living so near him, I have indulged in illusions; I have fancied sometimes that I still reigned in his heart; and the awakening is very bitter!—No, I am nothing more than a stranger now; I can never recover the place that I once filled in his heart. Others must have his love.”