Jean capitulated. He answered that he would try and draw out the sum his mother had left for the special emergency.
Liane became pacific; they would dismount, she said, and take a stroll in the Bois, where they would have tea—the whole world was out this afternoon.
She did not at all mind what money Jean used, the great thing was that they should both be well dressed and that she should have what she wanted without any dispute about it.
“Now, mon ami, are you happy?” she asked Jean, with the acquired sublimity of the Liane smile as she led the way under the sun-touched, wintry trees of the Bois. Jean could not honestly say that he was happy, but he was at least glad that Liane should be so. Lately, he was beginning to realize that the desire to appease her was taking the place of finding in her his own tremendous joy. Instead of rapture at the miracle of her presence he felt relief if they succeeded in spending a peaceful hour together; and once or twice he had not been quite sure that the relief was due to the peace so much as to the fact that the hour was over, and he could go back once more to his stolen moments at the piano, the only free ones of his life. He began to think, too, more good-naturedly of Maurice, and less—very much less—proudly of himself; but he still thought that he loved Liane. It takes a great deal to kill love, for after the glory of the individual has faded, there still remains the inmost unquenchable fire—the love of love. Perhaps it would not be true to say that Jean still loved Liane. She had very much disgusted and distressed him, but she could still make him love love, and while she could do that there was no real danger of his escaping her.
CHAPTER IX
IT was the night of the presentation of Liane’s new play. Jean sat down on a box in one of the wings; he could see part of the sloping stage from where he sat, and far up above him in the distance the pale gleam of the footlights, with now and then the graceful sweep of a woman’s dress.
He heard without listening to the words the sound of Liane’s rich, penetrating voice; it did not seem to him as sweet as usual. There was a strange sense of fatigue and bitterness upon him to-night, in the moments when he had time to think, his life seemed cheap, he could not forgive the world its failure to meet his passionate expectations. It was not remorse that possessed him, but the revolt of the soul against the senses, which is sometimes more bitter even than remorse.
Had he reached the truth, he asked himself, about Maurice? Surely Liane had kept her promise not to see him again? But had she? Did people in Liane’s world ever keep their promises?
For the moment Jean shrank from asking her, he dared not put his love to the test of her possible treachery; it seemed to Jean like undermining something already frail. He was sick of the great foyer of the Odéon—everyone had business there but himself. He had to stand aside while the stage carpenters made their way here and there in the busy scene-shifting foyer behind him, pulling great planks forward, or manipulating yards of rope with one hand while they pushed the next scene’s furniture further forward with the other. The supers hung about, giggling as loud as they dared, and every now and then, one of the more important artists swept in and out of the distant dressing-rooms.
A voice sounded at Jean’s shoulder; it was low, but pitilessly distinct and sharp, “Voyons Selba,” it said, “we have gone through this before, and I am telling you now for the last time, I cannot employ an untrained voice here. It is not any use for you to say you cannot afford to have it trained; you have lived long enough in Paris to know that is not true. There are Marcet and Dubarras—have they not both made you offers? Eh bien! accept, then, one of them. Accept, or leave my company. I am giving you this one more chance because there are qualities in your voice that please; it is a pity, too, for so young a girl to throw away a career. Go to Torialli or Barrière and learn the new part. Do not dare to come here again without an idea and stand up on the stage like a charity-school girl saying her prayers!