"No, never!"
"What reason will you give for prolonging your stay in Paris?"
"I don't know. I shall say the doctors dread the effect of the Russian climate on my health. The prince will believe me. Meantime he will be hunting, and will trouble himself very little about me. When I have been confined we shall see."
Mme. Daubrel dared not add, "And your child—do you not think of him?" She knew that that was the only vulnerable point of the princess, who, in spite of her mad love for Paul, never spoke of her son except with tenderness, tears filling her eyes. When the passion infusing all her being let her think of anything else, she could not pardon herself for leaving him.
In consequence of this interchange of confidences, the friendship between Lise Olsdorf and Mme. Marthe Daubrel became closer, day by day, and very soon the princess—an adulterous wife—happy in her sin, had as her most devoted friend this little woman of the people, parted from her husband and repentant.
The tender, loving heart of Marthe had found a very feeble echo in Mme. Meyrin's, a woman of cold and reserved temperament; while the affection of her mother, who had not pardoned her for the past, could not satisfy all her longings. She therefore conceived the liveliest affection for this stranger, whose situation one day might be so like her own. Mme. Daubrel would have done anything to turn aside the danger that threatened Lise Olsdorf. She would even have declared herself the mother of the expected babe, but that before she could make this proposition to her, the princess had determined on a course from which there was no turning.
After hesitating long on what her conduct toward the prince should be, after deliberating with herself whether or not she should conceal her state from him, Lise Olsdorf felt that if she hid it she would be drawn into a chain of lies and condemned to a life as dangerous as it would be difficult. She therefore wrote to her husband shortly after her arrival in Paris to tell him that she was enceinte.
The prince, whose confidence in her was absolute, replied that he was happy at the event, and that, as she was in France, it would be best that she should remain there until after her confinement. Besides, in each of his succeeding letters, while affectionately recommending the greatest prudence, he had added that he would not fail to come to Paris for her accouchement.
This promise was a thunder-bolt for Lise Olsdorf, and from that moment she had made up her mind to lie on the point, for if the prince were with her she could not stir out-of-doors, it would be a separation from her lover, and that she would not suffer at any cost. She therefore wrote to her husband that she did not expect to be confined before the end of April, whereas she was almost certain that she would be again a mother some weeks earlier.
Meanwhile, as she could not decently show herself in public with Paul Meyrin in the state she was in, the princess went out scarcely at all, except on her visits to her lover's family, whose mother and sister-in-law always gave her a warm welcome. Of course the Mmes. Meyrin understood everything, but they pretended to see nothing out of the common in what was happening. The Princess Olsdorf, a married woman, had come to Paris to be confined; what could be more natural? If they had allowed it to be supposed that they knew anything more they would have had to break with this charming and generous woman. Both hypocrisy and interest closed their eyes. They were blind.