“Ah! Nicette, you loved him, and yet you say that you don’t understand me!”
“I—love him! Great God! who told you that?”
“I saw it; I know that he was your lover.”
“My lover! O heaven! then I am a most despicable creature in your eyes! And you believed that!”
Tears suffocated her; she could say no more. I ran to her, threw my arms about her, and covered her with kisses; the mere suspicion that Raymond had lied to me was perfect bliss.
“Nicette, dear Nicette, tell me how it all happened? I saw him in your shop; he held your hands—and you admitted it yourself.”
“Ah! could you believe that I loved anybody but you? I, who would give my life for you—who have never given a thought to anybody else since I first saw you! Oh! forgive me for loving you so much; perhaps it offends you, but I must tell you now the whole secret of my heart. When I lived in my shop, the only joy I had was to see you; every day I expected or hoped to see you pass; but it happened very seldom. I used to bring you bouquets as a pledge of my gratitude, and I would seize a moment when the concierge was out to run up and tie them on your door. Sometimes I saw you go by with a lady on your arm. Then I used to cry, for I would say to myself: ‘I shall never walk like that with him’—When I went a long while without seeing you, I used to long to know something about you, but I didn’t dare go to your house to inquire. One day Monsieur Raymond stopped to buy some flowers of me; he looked at me very hard, recognized me, I suppose, and came again the next day. While he was looking at my flowers, he paid me compliments, but I didn’t listen to him. Then he mentioned you, and I was very glad to listen to him. He noticed that, for every time he came he talked about you, and I always urged him to stay. He was the only person from whom I heard anything about you; what he said made me sad, and yet I wanted to hear it. He told me that you had twenty mistresses, that you loved all the women, and that you had made fun of me; then he showed me the bouquets I had carried to you, which he said you had given to him.”
“The miserable cur! And you believed him, Nicette?”
“Alas! when I saw you come to buy flowers with that lady who—who called you her dear friend and looked at me with such a sneering expression, I thought he had told me the truth. That made me so unhappy that I couldn’t stay at home; I went out and walked about the streets most of the night, hardly knowing what I did. It was while I was out that you came. The next morning, when you came again, you seemed to be very angry, and you left me very suddenly, you know; I wanted to call you back, but I didn’t dare. That evening Monsieur Raymond came; he talked about you; I cried, and he tried to comfort me; he may have taken my hands in his, but if he did I didn’t feel it; I was thinking only of you. He came again the next night, and then he wanted to talk about himself: he said that he adored me, and a lot of other things; but he said nothing more about you, and I wouldn’t listen to him. I didn’t let him in again; he wrote me a long love letter, calling me cruel and wicked. I have kept it to show you. At last he let me alone. I never saw you after that. I came to this house and learned that you had gone away, but had kept your apartment; that made me hope you would return. But one day Monsieur Raymond passed my shop, and, being delighted to make me unhappy, told me you were married. Alas! I should have expected it; I knew that there must be many other women who loved you; and yet, I became so miserable that I didn’t have the courage to keep my shop; besides, I was rich enough to get along without it. I came to this house and found that the other apartment on your landing was empty, so I hired it on the spot. That brought me nearer to these rooms where I passed that night which changed the whole course of my life. But when you came back here to live, I didn’t dare to let you see me, because I was afraid that the sight of me would not be pleasant to you.—That is the truth; do you believe now that I have loved any man but you?”
When she had finished her story, Nicette went for Raymond’s letter and brought it to me. I no longer needed it to induce me to believe her; but that final proof thoroughly convinced me that I had been deceived by appearances and by Raymond’s lies.