“You are an insect!” she cried, “a bit of dust! a scrub! I snap my fingers in your face, I despise you! Let me tell you that I have had enough of this folly; never speak to me of Golaud again, and if I find you with this woman Selba, you leave me for ever!”
“That is an ultimatum,” said Jean very quietly. “Your words to-night have given me no choice, Liane, except to take it. I except your dismissal, then; I go.”
This was not what Liane had meant at all. She had no intention of dismissing Jean. A woman can hold a proud man only so long as he is unaware that he is being held. Liane had made the mistake to-night of showing Jean that she considered his liberty was in her hands. It set the last touch to his freedom. Passion, which had been her tool, became his weapon, it entered into his natural distaste for her, and it turned his emotion into cold hate.
He thrust his chin forward a little and looked at her with half-closed eyes. She saw what she had done, and she trembled a little, for she was by no means tired of Jean. The end would come, of course, but it was impossible that it should come from him; this was an outrage to her pride which she could not suffer. She appealed to his heart, which she knew to be tender, but in doing so she overlooked the fact that the cold water she had flung on his passion had frozen his heart to silence.
“Mon petit!” she said gently. “We must not speak to each other like this, must we? I am tired to-night, forgive me. You know you are precious to me. Let us turn away from words. I do not talk very well, I know, Jean.”
Jean still looked at her with imperturbable, cold eyes. Thwarted passion makes a woman mean, it makes a man cruel. Jean felt very cruelly towards Liane; for the first time he realized that she was thirty-five. “She is already an old woman,” he said to himself. “I am a young man; soon she will grow fat.” He was ashamed of himself for thinking this, but he could not stop his thoughts; they came to him with the lucidity of reason stripped of glamour.
Liane saw the look in his eyes; it almost frightened her. It was as if his thoughts had become a tangible presence, and she seemed in her own heart to hear the echo: “You are growing old.” She closed her eyes for a moment, the taste of life was bitter on her lips. Age was her arch terror; once it had clutched her, there would be no release, her world would be dead, and she would be a creature without power, sick with her own insignificance!
Then she played her last card and it was a very good one. She rose with infinite grace and dignity and her most touching smile.
“Do not kiss me to-night, my friend,” she said. “Our spirits are not near enough to each other.” It was the most unfortunate reference she could possibly have made.
“Our spirits!” said Jean, and his lips curled. When had their spirits ever been near each other? It was horrible for him to think how far. The lie was an abomination to him, and he was quite merciless to Liane, as only youth, ignorant and powerful, can be merciless. He looked her full in the eyes and shrugged his shoulders very slightly.