M. Meyrin, it is true, breakfasted and dined pretty regularly at home, but Lise and he did not exchange a dozen words while they were at table, and after the meal, if the painter took his wife's hand, it was lifeless and cold in his.
And yet if Paul had had a true, spontaneous, and heartfelt impulse, Lise, strong as she believed she was and wished to seem, would perhaps not have resisted, for she had had for her husband one of those passions that find excuses for the loved one from the very fact that they are not based on admiration, esteem, and an exaltation of the soul, that is to say, those lofty sentiments which when they disappear carry with them all affection and leave room for duty alone.
It is not thus with passions born of desire. The attraction which has roused them can, in contempt of all dignity, rearouse them suddenly, the nerves being exclusively concerned in their manifestation. The heart, in its mercifulness and goodness, can pardon while mindful of the betrayal; the flesh has no nobility of pride; in yielding anew it forgets.
But Paul Meyrin knew nothing of these things. The coldness of his wife humbled his foolish pride, and, thinking that he had done enough to win her back if she desired to return, he dared make no further effort through fear of a repulse. Very infatuated with Sarah, too, by reason of the resistance that she offered, he grew used, little by little, to return to the Rue d'Assas less regularly; and as he was ignorant of the delicacy and the attentions which win pardon for so many errors in a well-bred man, he soon ceased to mention if he was going out before breakfast or did not intend to return for dinner. This was so often the case that in less than a month after the miserable event that we have related, Mme. Meyrin was for many a long hour alone with her child, her door being closed to all but Mme. Daubrel, to whom in the end she had told all, and Dumesnil, whose affection for her grew with every day.
Lise heard no mention made of her husband's family. Mme. Meyrin, the mother, blamed severely her son's conduct, and dared not come to see her daughter-in-law. As for Mme. Frantz, whose envious feelings had been the origin of all the evil, she rejoiced in secret over the sufferings of this foreign fine lady who had carried off her brother-in-law from her profitable guardianship.
This isolation had a logical and fatal result, due to the temperament of the deserted wife. An excellent mother naturally, Lise began now to worship her children with a sort of nervous, unquiet, morbid passion, which was not appeased by the care she wrapped her daughter in, or the caresses she lavished on her.
It was as if she wished to avenge herself for having, for three years, divided her heart. More than ever, from this time forward, she thought of the absent ones. She spoke constantly of Alexander and Tekla, wept over their absence, and hungered to see them, were it but for an hour or a moment. These adored ones were the one subject of her talk with Marthe and Dumesnil. In his innocent weakness for poetical citations the honest comedian compared her with Andromache and Niobe.
Added to this, the poor woman received from her mother a letter which increased her humiliation. Having learned at Ems, from the French newspapers, the adventure of the Boulevard Clichy, Mme. Podoi hastened to write to her daughter in the sharpest terms. Her letter ended with these words:
"It is true you have the resource of a second divorce. Only, whom will you marry? God alone knows how low you may descend."
Proving beyond a doubt to Mme. Meyrin that the heart of her mother, pitiless in her wounded pride, was still shut against her, this harsh letter caused her deep sorrow; but she only replied to express all the regret she felt at not having had news of her children such as her mother was wont to send when, from time to time, she wrote.