He left at midnight, and then he returned with stealthy tread, stepping noiselessly over the sand. He climbed over a wall and on to a balcony, and looked into Cora’s room through the half-opened door leading on to the terrace.
Someone had taken Jean’s place by his mistress’s side—quite a young man, wearing the uniform of a naval officer. He had made himself at home, and was lounging in an arm chair with an air of disdainful ease.
She was standing, and they were talking.
At first it seemed to Jean that they were speaking an unknown tongue. The words were French, yet Jean could not understand them. These scraps of speech, which they interchanged so lightly, seemed to him mocking enigmas, perfectly meaningless for him. Cora too, was no longer the same; her expression had changed; a kind of smile hovered on her lips, a smile such as he remembered to have seen on the lips of a tall girl in a place of ill-repute.
Jean found himself trembling. He felt as if all the blood had left his head, and had poured back into his heart. He heard a roaring in his ears, like the noise of the sea; his eyes grew dim.
He was ashamed of being there, yet he was determined to remain and to understand.
He heard his name spoken; they were talking about him; he drew nearer, supporting himself against the wall, and he caught some words more distinctly spoken.
“You are wrong, Cora,” said the young man in a very quiet voice, with an exasperating smile. “In the first place, he is a very handsome fellow, and then he, at all events, loves you.”
“True, but I wanted two of you. I chose you because your name is Jean, like his. Otherwise I should have been capable of making a slip in the name when I was talking to him. I am very absent-minded.”