“I should have let you alone if you had not—for the second time—come between me and my desire. That day at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, when the pistol-shot.... Aha!” cried de Moulny, Dunoisse having winced at the allusion, “I see our disputed possession has told you the pretty little tale.... But it may be, with some embroidery of imagination (if she overhears what I say she will thank me for putting it so charmingly).... Possibly with some divagations from the rigid rectilinear of truth! For it amounts to this, that de Roux had borrowed from the regimental money-chest; the money had to be replaced, if unpleasant consequences were to be averted. And knowing me to be the most recent and infatuated of all her worshipers, Madame applied to me to make up the sum.”
His smile was an insult as his cold eyes went to the face upon the sofa. And an indefinable change seemed working under the rigid features, as one may see to-day in the partly-masked face of the anæsthetized patient outstretched upon the operating-table, a reflection of the torture caused by the surgeon’s dexterous knife.
“Perhaps she lied—as women will—and really wanted the money for her bonnet-maker or her Bonaparte,” went on de Moulny. “Still, I knew de Roux to be not afflicted with scruples—he had scraped by the ears out of even more questionable affairs. And I saw my chance, and got together the money.... One was a poor devil in those days—and thirty thousand francs meant much. And she took them—and threw me over. As one might have expected,” said de Moulny, dourly, “if one had not been a fool!”
“She repaid—” Dunoisse began in a strangled voice; and then it rushed on him that she had kept the money. His eyes fell in shame for her. De Moulny went on:
“Pass over that affair of the order to fire. Did it do otherwise than make your social reputation—smooth your path to possession of the woman I desired...? By Heaven!”—the speaker’s pale eyes gleamed, and he clenched his white hand unconsciously,—“when you lied with such gorgeous effectiveness before the Military Commission of Inquiry, I could have bitten myself, as patients do in rabies—knowing that I had been forestalled again! After that, your road lay open—your names were bandied from mouth to mouth all over Paris.... Your intrigue was Punchinello’s secret; she made no mystery of it when we met. But”—the brutal smile curled the fleshy lips—“perhaps it may interest you to know that I was given to understand that your proprietorship was from first to last a question of Money. And that, supposing all those Widinitz millions had been mine to pour into de Roux’s insatiable clutches—Henriette would have been sold to a man she loved, instead of to a romantic weakling whom she despised and laughed at ... even from the first ... do you hear, my good Dunoisse?”
A hoarse sound came from Dunoisse’s dry throat. It deepened the ugly smile upon the sensual face of de Moulny. He said, opening and shutting one of his big white hands, with a mechanical, rhythmic movement as he went on, slowly, deliberately, pouring himself out:
“Why do men love women?” He added with an accent of utter contempt: “They are either fools or jades! Play with them—use them as tools—they can be edged ones.... But to love them—to set the heart on them—to stand or fall by their truth or treachery—that is not for a man of sense. When I loved Henriette—she fooled and flouted me.... When I had ceased to love, and only desired her—when the day came that saw hundreds of millions stored up under my hand at the Ministry of the Interior, I knew that my time had come—do you comprehend?” He rubbed his heavy chin reflectively. “She was more charming than ever—she wanted to find out how far I would go to get what I wanted—I suspected her of spying for the Count de Morny—I had long known her to be a tool of the Prince.... So I did not show her the keys of the Orleans strong-boxes—I did not even let her know where they were kept; but I made other concessions to her, concessions that I knew were harmless....” The pale, glittering self-satisfaction in his eyes was intolerable, as he added: “They served me excellently!—and for the time being pleased her just as well!...” He added, meeting Hector’s glance of loathing: “Possibly you think me a scoundrel?... I am completely indifferent to your opinion. To pursue.... She persuaded me to join the circle at the Élysée. We met at the suppers there.... You must know I am a gourmet and a sensualist. Those suppers were everything one could imagine of a Regency. The corruption—unimaginable. The license—complete....” It was as though de Moulny smacked his lips as he added: “Yes!—the Élysée is the shortest road to Hell I know of.... But it was not until the night preceding the coup d’État that I—attained the supreme end I had had so long in view.”
He breathed heavily, and blinked his pale eyes in luxurious retrospection. Dunoisse drove his nails deep into the palms of his clenched hands, restraining the almost irresistible impulse to dash his fist in the evil, sensual face.
“Be reasonable, my excellent Dunoisse,” he heard de Moulny saying, in almost coaxing accents. “Quit the field—accept the situation—remove from the path the obstacle of yourself.... For Henriette de Roux has long been very weary of you!... Only her exquisite womanly insincerity—the characteristic softness of her nature—have prevented her from forcibly breaking her connection—has held the hand that would otherwise have administer to you the final coup de grâce.” He added, with his smooth brutality:
“Endeavor to understand that your foreign expedition has been arranged for you!—to conceive that the anonymous letter you previously received was considerately planned in the notion of opening your eyes. And receive from me the very definite assurance that where you once were ruled I am the ruler; and what you once imagined you possessed I hold and possess, and keep while it pleases me. For Henriette de Roux is my vice,” said de Moulny, dully flushed now, and with his heavy face quivering. “No other living woman has such fragrance and savor, such daring originality in the conception of sheer evil.... You have never appreciated or understood her! You were the peasant set down to the pâté of truffles—the village fiddler scraping out a country reel upon a priceless Stradivarius—the thistle-eating ass who sought to browse on tuberoses and orchids!... What?... Have I roused the devil in you at last?”