He broke off, for something in her face appalled him. She stamped her little foot and cried:
“Great Heavens! Am I a young girl, all blushes and book-muslin? And you—what are you? A soldier? Not a bit of it! My dear old fellow, you are a prude!”
She rose up, with eyes that shot lightnings, though her mouth was smiling, and pointed to the baleful picture that hung above the fireplace, that was full of dead ashes, like her unhappy victim’s heart.
“Look at Madame there!... Does not she seem as though she laughed at you? You, who would drive Propriety and pleasure in double harness—who expect a woman like me—who have drunk with you the bowl of Life—who have given you myself, with all my secrets and pleasures—to behave as a young girl who goes into Society, with her eyes bandaged, and her ears stopped up with cotton-wool. You are not very reasonable, Monsieur!”
She had taken the diamond circlet from her hair, and dropped it on the divan. Now she thrust her white fingers into the heavy masses of her curls, and lifted them up from either temple. Her long eyes gleamed like green topaz from between the narrowed eyelids. And to the man who was the bondslave of her body she seemed like some fair, malignant spirit of the storm, about to rise and fly, borne on those silken, sable wings....
“I ...” he began stammeringly. “You——”
He broke off. For it rushed upon him suddenly in blinding, scorching certainty that she, and no other, was the night-haired, ivory-white wanton who had kissed de Moulny on the mouth and bidden him stay. The impulse to leap upon her and wring from her confession, and with it full revelation of all that had passed, and in what secret bower of lust and luxury the intervening time had been spent, nearly overcame him. But he fought it back. For full knowledge must mean severance, and——“O God!” the poor wretch cried in the depths of his tortured heart; “I cannot live without her, however vile she prove!”
It was strangely, horribly true. He had never been so completely dominated by Henriette in the days when he still believed the angel’s wing to be folded beneath her draperies. He drank her beauty in with thirsty eyes, and thirsted the more he drank; and was, to his unutterable shame and degradation, stung to yet sharper torments of desire, because of those red marks made by a rival’s furious kisses—and did not dare, poor, pusillanimous, miserable wretch! to say: “You have betrayed me! Who is the man whose brand you bear upon your bosom. You shall tell me!—even though I know!...”
As she went on talking, spreading out her hair, pressing the points of her fingers into the velvety, supple skin above her temples:
“You idiot! can one drive Propriety and Pleasure in double harness? Your mother could answer that question—that Carmelite coquette who deserted her convent for the world, and went back to the convent when she was weary of the racket. Not that I wish to insult your mother. Quite the contrary. She did as it pleased her, and I also.... Ouf! ... how my head aches!... What an hour you have chosen for a scene of reproaches and recriminations!... Still, an explanation clears the air.... Now I am going to bed, for I am ‘regularly done up,’ as the Prince says.” She phrased the English words with exaggerated elaboration, rolling the gutturals, and making a distracting mouth over them. “But for the future we shall understand each other better, shall we not, Monsieur?”