“We drink in the sunshine of admiring glances at every pore,” said the voice. “We thrive on smiles and compliments. All young and handsome men—even those who are neither young nor handsome—are our comrades or servants—until the moment arrives when the comrade becomes tyrant, and the servant commands! Then, what tears we shed!—for our dearest dream is always of pure passion—unrewarded fidelity. We are continually planting the gardens of our hearts with these fragrant, homely flowers, and Man is always tearing them up, and setting in their stead the vine of nightshade, deadly briony, sad rosemary, bitter wormwood and sorrowful rue. And as long as the world shall last, the cruel play goes on....”
The half-open, glassy eyes were dry, but the silent voice had sobs in it. And it said:
“We give all we have for love, and the love is never real, only pinchbeck of flattery and kisses; or the cruel love of an urchin for a kitten—of a baby for a tame bird.... You who sit by me to-night, dear friend, have never loved me!... Have you ever sought to find my Soul within the house of flesh that caged it? Have I not seen you smile in mockery when I knelt down to pray?”
“You are wrong—absolutely wrong, Henriette!” he wished to say to her. But a scalding wave of guilty consciousness broke over him. He dropped his shamed face into his hands and groaned.
What had he ever sought of her but sensuous pleasure? She spoke truth—their intercourse had never risen for an instant above the commerce of the flesh, to the plane of things spiritual—he had never even thought about her Soul. Now he seemed to see it, a wandering flame no bigger than a firefly’s lamp, or the phosphorescent spark the glow-worm carries—wandering through the illimitable spaces of Eternity,—looking in vain for God. Whose very greatness made it impossible for the tiny, flitting thing to find Him....
“Forgive me, Henriette!” he faltered, pierced to the quick.
“There is more to forgive,” the still voice rejoined, “even than you believe. When you found me lying cold and stark in the midst of toys and trifles—when you read the letter that proved me treacherous and vile—think! was it genuine grief that you felt, or the savage wrath of baffled appetite? And even now——”
“Have mercy! Spare me that at least!” he begged. For he knew that in another instant she would bare his own mean, petty self before him—she would tell him that even then a strife was going on in him between a cowardly cur who wanted to steal away and leave her ... and a man of common honor and ordinary decency who said: “It is my part to stay!”
For both of these men knew, fatally well, that when the morrow’s sunshine should find her lying there—when the outcries of her terrified maids should summon eager, curious strangers to gather about and stare at their dead mistress; when the scandal of the manner of her death should leak out; the world and Society, that had so good-naturedly blinked at her liaison with Dunoisse, would not spare him his well-earned wage of contumely. There could not fail to be a Medical Inquiry ... the Police would be called in to clear up suspicious mysteries.... Also, de Roux would be recalled from Algeria ... there would be a duel ... consequences much more unpleasant than a duel.... For Monseigneur would not look with complacency upon the return of an emissary proceeding to the East upon a special mission.... Worse still, that stealthy return from Joigny might be held to have been prompted by a sinister motive. Men had been imprisoned—men had been hugged headless by that Red Widow the Guillotine upon less suspicion than Dunoisse had tagged to himself by the mere fact of his secret return.