“And what is this horrible thing?” she asked.
“You may as well hear it,” said Louise recklessly. “If I can bear it, I should think you could too. While I was away, Eric wired me he was going out of town for a few days. He didn’t say where. I know now. He was seen at a small hotel in Paris with a—a questionable-looking woman. So our idol has feet of clay.”
There was both bitterness and triumph in her voice. Madame Claire gripped the arms of her chair and tried not to laugh. What should she do? Good had been known to come out of evil. Should she and Eric let Louise think—what she thought? Her crying need was evidently to find Eric in the wrong. Should they let her?
“I won’t say it wasn’t a shock to me,” Louise went on. “It was. I heard it while I was at Mistley. I know that it is true.”
Madame Claire was thinking:
“She is bound to know the facts sooner or later, and then she’ll feel she has been made a fool of—a thing only saints can forgive. And yet, it’s an opportunity of a sort. But what a paltry business!”
“Suppose this were really true, Louise,” she said. “At the moment I am neither denying the possibility of it, nor affirming it. But suppose it were true. How would it affect your feeling for Eric?”
“As a good woman—and I hope I am that—it revolts me. But … perhaps I’ve been hard … perhaps he’s found a lack in me.… I dare say he has.… Oh!” she cried suddenly with real emotion, “I want to forgive him! I would forgive him.”
Madame Claire felt she was hearing something she had no right to hear. She must leave this to Eric. Stupid mistake as it was, it might be the means of clearing the air. She would have nothing to do with it.
“My dear,” she said, “I am going to forget you have told me this. Later you’ll understand why. I think the whole thing can be explained, but for your explanation I prefer you should go to Eric. It concerns him the most.”