“Mon Dieu!” said Romain. “This is worse than his poor father! But surely he would not think of contemplating such a step without speaking to me?”
“He is very weak,” said Liane. “He has romantic ideas, and he is in the hands of a little girl who boasts of respectability. One knows what that means.”
“I am certainly very much obliged to you,” said Romain, after a pause. “The affair needs looking into; they must, at any cost, be separated.”
Liane rose to her feet.
“Tell him that he has my good wishes,” she said with a melancholy smile. “I have done what I could for him. Was it my fault that I could not give him what he asked?”
“From what I have gathered,” said Romain, holding out his hand to her, “I should imagine that it was entirely his own.”
They parted. Romain smoked for some time in silence. Then he laughed.
“Rather clever of Jean,” he said to himself, “to begin his career by tantalizing a born coquette. But, Mon Dieu! How they hate, these women! I would not give much for Mademoiselle Margot, if she found herself under Madame’s heel! After all it is possible that what she says is true. I really cannot go to see the boy again—a sick room after six flights of stairs would be worse than one’s wife in the country! But I can write him a letter. It’s a pity that I haven’t any money just now. I should like to send him some. Perhaps after all I had better wait till Marie comes back. It’s the kind of thing one ought to talk over with one’s wife, it makes one feel like the father of a family! The good Liane is decidedly going off, I fear. Jealousy is never becoming in a woman after thirty. It is something for a boy of Jean’s age to have made a woman of experience so much excited. Ah! Henri, is that you? Bring me a marnier. I shall not be in to dinner to-night, and put my latch-key in the pocket of my dress clothes.” And the domesticated Romain lit another cigarette, and went over in imagination his interesting evening programme, which did not altogether coincide with his new character of père de famille.
CHAPTER XVII
JEAN opened dreamy eyes to look at Margot, who sat by his bedside reducing with swift competent hands a pile of his clothes that she was mending. His body felt blissfully light and at ease, and for the first time since his illness his mind was alive.