PART IICHAPTER ITHIRTEEN AT TABLE
“We might perhaps go in to dinner,” M. Dulaurens timidly ventured to suggest.
Upon the look which his wife threw at him he left the immediate neighborhood of the fireplace, where some enormous oak-logs were burning, and modestly seated himself at the side. Turning to her guests, Madame Dulaurens smiled and showed them a calendar with the date February 25th inscribed thereon in huge letters. Mademoiselle de Songeon, old and dried-up, drew nearer and seemed to take a special interest in the flight of time. In reality her only thought was to get possession of the corner near the fire. She had just come back from Rome. In winter she paid attention only to the southern shrines; and to accomplish this last pilgrimage she had had to seize hastily the cattle of a farmer whose rent was in arrears. While warming her large feet she considered the calendar.
“But it says the twenty-fifth of February, 1898!” she exclaimed after reading it, “and we are now at the twenty-fifth of February, 1901. You are exactly three years behind the time!”
All the ladies except Alice got up to confirm this. The calendar was passed from hand to hand. Madame Orlandi, who was holding Pistache to her heart—an old, fat, bald Pistache, whose heavy eyelids fell over bleary eyes—cried out astonished and proud of her own penetration.
“Oh,Iknow! You have kept it at the date of your daughter’s wedding. To-day is the third anniversary. How clever and delicate your motherly love is! You aresosympathetic, dear Madame Dulaurens. I too love to keep souvenirs.”
“I’ll wager you don’t remember the date of my wedding, Mamma,” said Isabelle, now Madame Landeau.
“Oh, you dreadful Isabelle! You’re always ready with a jest,” said her mother.
And, with diplomacy which lacked subtlety, the Italian countess bent over her pug and covered him with caresses.
Seeing all her guests busy, Madame Dulaurens threw a hasty glance at the clock and saw that it was a quarter to eight. Dinner was ordered for seven, and in the provinces punctuality is strictly observed.
“My dear little countess, did you see anything of Clément this afternoon?” she asked her daughter, who sat silent and absent-minded.
“No, Mamma,” answered Alice, in a low voice.
Four or five months after Marcel Guibert’s departure, the despairing Alice, crushed and submissive, had married, at her clever mother’s bidding, Count Armand de Marthenay, then Lieutenant of the 4th Dragoons at Chambéry. For the third time they were celebrating her “happiness.” Her maidenly languor and supple slenderness had changed to depression and leanness. Her limpid eyes and the drooping corners of her mouth told of profound and habitual sorrow. Without losing their refinement her features had altered. Through a greater prominence of the cheek-bones, a more pronounced thinness of the nose, a fading of color in the cheeks, the old expression of youth and innocence had given place to a sad little air of fragile resignation. She bore the marks of a sorrow which filled her life and of which her husband was certainly quite aware. To be convinced of this, it was sufficient to look at the heavy, pimply visage behind her—the vacant face of a man prematurely worn out.
The house at Chambéry where the Dulaurenses lived in the winter reminded one in its massive structure and the pillars of its staircase of the showy palaces in Genoa the Magnificent. The drawing-room lookedon to the Place Saint-Léger in the centre of the town. Ten lamps lighted up the vast room that evening, but were not sufficient to show off the fine old high-timbered ceiling.
Madame Dulaurens anxiously left her daughter, and drawing back the window-curtain looked out into the square, which she saw by the gas-jets flickering in the keen frosty air, was quite empty. She drew down the blind and looked at the party. They seem so interested in their talk that she decided to wait a few minutes longer.
“Madame Orlandi, who is always late, came too soon to-day,” she thought rather spitefully.
Round the fireplace the women were listening to Mademoiselle de Songeon, who was describing the catacombs at Rome with the devotion of a catechumen. Madame Orlandi, artlessly devoid of morality and unskilled at suitable comparisons, said she preferred the ruins at Pompeii, because the pictures there were so diverting. Mesdames de Lavernay and d’Amberlard, mature and solemn women, had no opinion at all. Their aristocracy was very pleasing to Madame Dulaurens, who gladly advertised their origin. They were well-bred, and valued existence according to the number and the importance of the invitations that they managed to procure for themselves. Their husbands, a pair of practised parasites, had retained a distinguished air from the oldroyalist days. They had the right prejudices, were sincerely ignorant of modern life, and sought pleasure unceasingly. Baron d’Amberlard had high color and liked good living; the Marquis de Lavernay, still young in spite of his white hair, reserved his polite speeches concerning feminine beauty.
The latter had just come from the Court of Sessions and was giving a group of men his impressions of the jury.
“You condemn a thief and let a child-murderer go scot-free,” said M. Dulaurens. But the nervous little man hastened to add: “Please note that I am not criticising you.”
M. de Lavernay laughed unreservedly.
“Ah, my dear fellow, if we sentenced child-murderers we should never have any servants.”
“What a mania there is for having children!” cried M. d’Amberlard. “One’s family should be governed by the state of one’s finances. What do you think about it, M. Landeau?”
M. Landeau admitted that he had thought nothing about it. As a millionaire, he was always fighting terrible battles with labor so as to be able to pour a golden rain upon his wife and at last with a triumphant cheque to touch her proud heart. She played with him much in the same way a tamer does with the beast that roars, threatens, and arches its back. Under the pretext of filial duty towards MadameOrlandi (who did not care at all what she did) she had refused to follow him to Lyons; so twice a week he came to see her in the splendid villa he had built for her on the Cognin road. It was an overworked man with bent shoulders and pale face that she dragged with her into society. There, tamely growling, he admired Isabelle’s beauty and listened joylessly to her bell-like laughter, as she showed her white and shining teeth.
M. d’Amberlard, stifling a yawn, began to fidget.
“I’m afraid the dinner will be spoilt. It has been kept waiting too long,” he whispered to the Marquis de Lavernay, who made no answer but hastened to an empty seat beside Madame Landeau, where he was seen shaking his long horse-like head in his efforts to please.
Armand de Marthenay, motionless and silent up to now, overheard this and woke from the torpor into which he had sunk.
“It is all Clément’s fault. He must have had a smash up.”
He spoke so loudly that everybody heard and turned towards him. The long wait had become unbearable to all. The hands of the clock pointed to eight.
Again Madame Dulaurens tried to hide her anxiety. “Clément,” she said, “is very careful. But these cars are dangerous at night. One can soeasily run into something in the dark.”
“Where did he go?” asked the women.
“That is just what is worrying me. He left for La Chênaie at five o’clock. It would hardly take him ten minutes, it is only two miles. And he hasn’t come back.”
Anxious as ever for peace, M. Dulaurens assured them that nothing had ever happened to Clément.
“Not to Clément,” Marthenay sarcastically put in. “He is a young devil! He is always running over something,—hens and dogs, and the other day it was an old woman.”
“We paid her,” said Madame Dulaurens indignantly. “And paid her very well indeed.”
“She is limping about on your money.”
M. de Lavernay gallantly, and without any suspicion of irony, explained to his hostess that there were unfortunate creatures who were in the habit of throwing themselves in front of motor cars, so as to make money out of the owners. All except Mademoiselle de Songeon, who hated progress, were in favor of this fashionable sport and were busy defending it when Clément entered, looking very jolly and with a red face, his fur coat covered with frost which shone in the light.
Madame Dulaurens rushed up to him and scolded him well instead ofsatisfying her desire to kiss him. Since her daughter’s marriage she had insisted on playing a much larger part in her son’s life. He made no attempt to excuse himself, but laughed, melting like an icicle all the time.
“Oh, well, we got stuck at Cognin. Such a bad business!”
M. d’Amberlard tossed his head furiously.
“A nice business indeed,” he said. “Dinner kept waiting! He is talking very coolly about it, the young scoundrel.” He was still raging inwardly when Madame Dulaurens took his arm to go in to dinner. Clément made as though to offer his to Mademoiselle de Songeon, who stared at him scornfully and ordered him to go and dry himself.
“You are quite right, Mademoiselle de Songeon,” he replied philosophically. “But you aren’tverykind! I shall go and dry myself and change too.”
He disappeared, returning in his dinner-jacket as they were serving the filet of beef with mushrooms. With all the coolness of the rising generation, he asked loudly for soup and fish and made no attempt to make up for his delay.
As the courses succeeded one another harmoniously, the guests’ pleasure grew and the conversation became general. Clément, having satisfiedhis appetite, was burning to take part in it and attract the attention of the table. He watched his opportunity and called across the room: “I have some great news for you.”
“What is it?” they cried on all sides.
“I heard it at Cognin. I had it from my chauffeur, who heard it from the schoolmaster.”
“Cognin news,” said Isabelle ironically. “It will interest the whole of France!”
“At the news I bring youYour lovely eyes will weep,”
“At the news I bring youYour lovely eyes will weep,”
“At the news I bring youYour lovely eyes will weep,”
“At the news I bring you
Your lovely eyes will weep,”
Clément hummed to the air of “Malbrough.”
“Ha, ha!” laughed everybody.
“You may laugh, Madame, but my newswillinterest the whole of France.”
“Then tell us what it is,” cried several voices at once.
Every eye was on the young man. He enjoyed the momentary superiority which his possession of news gave him. Holding the whole table at his mercy he had succeeded in gaining his ends. They were now serving truffled galantine “des gourmets” as it was called, the glory of a Toulouse specialist. In front of each guest costly orchids of various hues blossomed in a tall Murano vase. It was Alice’s idea to have this decoration, which she had read of in a society paper.
“Well?” said Madame Dulaurens, speaking in the name of all.
Clément could contain himself no longer. He had had time enough to appreciate his own tactlessness, but with the utmost coolness he said: “Well, Commander Guibert is dead!”
This news, dropped like a bombshell in the middle of a gay dinner-party, all but perfect in its arrangements, amid the warmth, the lights, the charming flowers, the dazzling jewels, the lovely dresses, and the general cheerfulness, seemed almost an impropriety. It would be only the unmannerly Clément, coarsened by sport, who could be guilty of such a blunder. Why, the very introduction of the subject of death seemed to imply that the pleasures of the evening were not everlasting; and does not the whole art of enjoying the present consist in supposing it will last forever? And then if it had only been the death of some unknown person, they could have passed it over! But Commander Guibert could not be so quickly disposed of; the common knowledge of his origin, his personality, and his brilliant career prevented his name from dropping out of the conversation. Stupefaction reigned at the table.
Isabelle was the first to speak, and it was to cast doubts on the truth of the story.
“But it is not possible! Last year we might have believed you. He was taking part in the Moureau Expedition to Africa. He was travelling in unknown and dangerous countries. But he came back safe and sound, and famous as well. Now he is commander and an officer of the Legion of Honour at thirty-two. He is our great man. You are all jealous of him, so you think you will just get rid of him.”
She spoke with animation, turning from right to left in her chair, as if inviting all the guests to witness her anger. On Clément’s unhappy remark she had looked at Alice and saw the blood leave her cheeks as though she were dying. This mortal pallor extended even to her hands, which shook nervously, hardly distinguishable from the white cloth. Isabelle had immediately turned the attention on herself with her hasty words.
Clément made a slight gesture.
“No, he is dead. I admire him as much as you do, but he is dead.” And he repeated this word, which should never be spoken in a dining-room.
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake do be quiet,” murmured Madame Orlandi, who had just noticed that they were thirteen at table, counting twice over in the hope that she was mistaken. Solemnly Mademoiselle de Songeon exclaimed: “May God rest his soul in peace.”
“Did he die in France?” asked M. Dulaurens. “The Expedition came back a month or two ago.”
M. d’Amberlard, quite unmoved, was enjoying a truffle that he kept on his plate so as to reserve its taste to the last, and M. de Lavernay kept his eyes fixed on Isabelle’s corsage as she bent forward.
M. de Marthenay put down his glass, which he kept emptying constantly.
“I met the Commander,” he said, “scarcely three weeks ago. He was getting out at the station. I went up to him but he seemed not to know me.”
“Probably because he didn’t want to,” Isabelle could not refrain from remarking. She hated Alice’s husband, who made persistent love to her when he had lost at cards and had nothing else to do. And to prevent any more allusions she added: “No doubt he has a contempt for officers who have resigned.”
M. de Marthenay had left the army the year before.
“Hehada contempt, you mean,” said Clément cruelly. He would not allow them to rob him of his dead, and when he had reconquered the general attention he gave a few details.
“My brother-in-law is quite right,” he said. “Commander Guibert did come back to Savoy last month. He stayed two days with his mother andsister at Le Maupas and then returned to his barracks at Timmimun, in Southern Algiers.”
“At the entrance to Touât,” explained the ex-dragoon, who since he left the army was exceeding keen about all military questions. “But General Lervières passed Timmimun to-day, so the Berbers and the Doui-Menia must have attacked him from the rear.”
Young Dulaurens stuck his monocle in his eye and stared impertinently at Marthenay.
“Armand,” said he, “I don’t recognise you. Have you gone in for strategy?”
With another look at her friend’s bloodless face, Isabelle made a fresh interruption.
“I do not understand. He had scarcely returned from crossing the Sahara, a trip which lasted eighteen months or two years, I don’t quite remember which. After these expeditions one generally has a long leave. Then he evidently took no rest? He went back at once to this expedition? Because, if he is dead, he must have been killed in battle.”
Raising his eyebrows, Clément let his eyeglass fall.
“When a man is a hero he is not one by halves. He asked for this post on account of the danger.”
M. de Lavernay, bending towards his neighbor, whispered in her ear:
“I like to see you get excited. Your cheeks color and your eyes flash.”
But it was not at either her cheeks or her eyes that he was looking. The impatient Isabelle cut him short with that sharpness which marriage had not cured.
“Do be quiet, you old sinner!” she cried.
Alice had taken up her bouquet of orchids and was smelling it, half hiding her paleness. At last Isabelle, giving full vent to the uneasiness which had tortured her for the last few minutes, said,
“And Captain Berlier? He was coming back from the Sahara too. He belonged to the same regiment as Commander Guibert. Had he gone with him to Timmimun?”
Did Clément Dulaurens guess her anxiety from the tone of her voice? Too often had he suffered from her sarcastic remarks not to take a cruel pleasure in tormenting her a little now.
“Yes, that is true,” he said. “Jean Berlier must have been there as well.”
“Now what do you know exactly?” demanded Isabelle imperiously.
“Tell us what you heard,” put in Madame Dulaurens. Annoyed at the course of the conversation, she had given up all hope of diverting it and was resigned to hearing the whole story.
“Well, here you are! While they were mending my car at Cognin I went into the Café National. There were only the mayor, the schoolmaster,and three or four municipal councillors there. When they saw me they looked at me mysteriously. ‘Hallo,’ I said to them, ‘are you holding a meeting?’ ‘No, we are just chatting,’ the mayor said. And that was as far as we got.”
“And then?”
“That was all that concerned me. I went out, and sent my chauffeur to have a drink in his turn. He is very thick with the schoolmaster. They are both anarchists.”
“Anarchists!” repeated Mademoiselle de Songeon wrathfully.
“Certainly. Everybody is nowadays. It is the fashion. My chauffeur came back. ‘I know what it is,’ he said. ‘They have had a wire from the Minister about Commander Guibert’s death in Africa.’ ‘Are you sure? I said. ‘Quite,’ he said. ‘He was killed by savages defending a town called Timou—Timmimun?—that’s it. Then of course they had to tell his people the news. They were very puzzled how to do it. At last they sent a policeman.’”
“A policeman?” said M. Dulaurens, a stickler for legalities. “But the mayor should have taken the fatal telegram in person.”
“The Guiberts are conservatives,” said M. de Lavernay. “These republicans will not trouble themselves in such cases.”
“But the Guiberts are not interested in politics.”
“The grandfather was a councillor, of conservative views, and the father was mayor of Cognin. That is quite enough.”
Madame Dulaurens was trying to catch a glimpse of her daughter, who was separated from her by a candelabrum. Alice’s orchids were drooping under the warm rain of her tears. In the general confusion no one had seen her cry.
“How did he die?” questioned one of the ladies.
“At the head of his men—after the victory—with a bullet in his forehead. I quote the telegram that my man read.”
“Did he receive the last sacrament?” asked Mademoiselle de Songeon shaking her grey head.
The ever-correct M. Dulaurens summed up the affair. “He is a great loss to his country.”
“Yes,” added his wife, in a noble impulse of eloquence. “We will honor his glorious memory. We will get up a memorial service whose magnificence shall astonish all Chambéry. It is the duty of our class to show France how genuine merit must be recognised and rewarded, at a time when mediocrity has taken possession of the country, when envious equality drags it down to the lowest level.” She had read this last sentence that very morning in a leading article of theGaulois.
Alice, surprised to hear all this, thought in her sorrow, “Why then, did she refuse to let me give myself to him?” And Isabelle was silent, thinking of Jean Berlier, whose fate was still unknown.
Madame Orlandi, forgetting Pistache for a minute, noticed how abstracted her daughter was. She looked at her with loving admiration and praised herself for the depth of her maternal affection. In an outburst in which the thought of self did not swallow up all pity she expressed her concern for Madame Guibert.
“Does his mother know?” she asked. And she stopped confusedly, as though she felt herself guilty of a scandal. All eyes turned to Clément Dulaurens. The young man answered in a free and easy way, the bad taste of which was due rather to his youth than to any lack of feeling.
“She must know all by now. As I was coming home I met her driving back to Le Maupas in her old cart. She was passing under a gas lamp; I recognised her quite well, I had to go slowly on account of my damaged car.”
These words brought a dreadful feeling of actuality into the company. It seemed as if the cold outside air had suddenly frozen this comfortable dining-room.
Instinctively M. d’Amberlard, who was completely bored, examinedthe windows to see if they were open. A shudder passed through the assembly, all of whom were haunted by the same vision: the picture of an old woman, already heavily tried by life’s sorrows, going home through the snow, contented and unsuspecting, to that home where news of death awaited her.
This inevitable catastrophe which was about to take place—which was perhaps taking place at this very moment—came home to them all even more than the glorious faraway death of Commander Guibert on African soil.
A sob from Alice broke the oppressive silence. In a frightened voice Isabelle murmured: “She knows by now.”
The mothers all broke down unreservedly, and Madame Dulaurens promptly resolved to comfort and console the poor woman in an early visit.
With all these solemn faces round him, Clément, who loved gaiety at table, at last recognised his thoughtlessness and admitted to himself, “Now I’ve done it!” His father, a slave to punctilio, without paying any attention to the rest of the conversation, returned to the discussion of an accessory point which he had not sufficiently developed.
“The mayor of Cognin should have gone to them and broken the news delicately, instead of just rudely sending a policeman,” he stated.
Profiting by the interposition of this enlightening remark, M. d’Amberlard thought it time to unburden himself of a protest which he had been keeping back with difficulty for some time.
“All our regrets can make no change,” he said, “and we might as well talk about something more cheerful. When I was in Paris I always used to ask if a play ended happily before I took seats for it. A party, like a comedy, should avoid all gloomy subjects.”
The Marquis de Lavernay quite agreed with this, and so death was forgotten. Champagne filled the gilded glasses. Flowers spread their perfume over the table which was laden with baskets of preserved fruits. The jewels of the women sparkled in the lights. It was a pleasure to recover the former luxurious and comfortable atmosphere which the unhappy news had disturbed. Alice and Isabelle were left alone in their distress.
The guests all drank the health of the young de Marthenay couple, whose wedding anniversary was being celebrated, and a move was made to the drawing-room. Alice, unable to bear it any longer, rushed to her mother’s room. In the darkness she gave way to her grief. She had been able to smile bravely during the toast they had drunk in her honor, with its allusion to her “enviable happiness.” Her happiness! She hadlooked in vain for it both in the present and in the past, and how could she expect it in the future? With the clear sight which the great shocks of destiny give us when we expect the bitterness of life to crush us, she lived again despairingly through the last years of her life. In a rapid succession of vivid pictures she saw her sad days pass before her eyes.
She had not wished to marry Armand de Marthenay: it was so constantly forced upon her that at last she had yielded. She came down the aisle of the church in her wedding dress on the arm of the husband she had not chosen. And since then? Could she look back upon one hour of joy, that deep, pure joy that her childish soul had imagined? The first days of her married life had been deadened by a kind of merciful stupor, like a fog which hides the desolation of a blasted plain. She forgot to feel she had a heart. Her husband still retained the good humor of a man with something to do. He rode, he fulfilled his military duties, he received his friends, he got up parties. She allowed herself to be occupied by her new household duties and by the many society calls. Instead of the husband of her dreams, she had a companion proud of her fortune and her pretty face, a man without much delicacy of feeling and with no great intelligence, not even clever, but possessed of a good digestion and an idiotic fatuity which enabled him to admire himselfunceasingly all his life. When her little girl was born she thought she had at last found the oblivion for which at times she still sought.
From this tolerable time in her existence her thoughts travelled on to the present, which was always with her. After a series of unforeseen incidents, the regiment stationed at Chambéry had been designated for a distant Eastern garrison. M. de Marthenay tried to exchange, but it was impossible. He had either to go away and leave Savoy, or to spoil his career. At the prospect of this departure Madame Dulaurens had shown such violent grief that the young wife was foolish enough to remind her husband of the solemn promise he had made her when they became engaged. As a man of honor the dragoon sacrificed himself. In twenty-four hours he had resigned. He then gave way to his idle instincts, which a soldier’s life had kept in check. And from that time he went steadily from bad to worse.
He began by becoming a constant habitué of the cafés. In summer he was a member of the Club at Aix-le-Bains and of the Villa des Fleurs. He began to play baccarat and won. While his wife was slowly recovering after their child’s birth he was engaged in low adventures, and reports were spread about concerning him by the visitors to thesewatering-places. One day Alice learned of his base unfaithfulness. She had kept her innocence after her marriage and learnt the cruel fact of unfaithfulness before she well knew what unfaithfulness meant. She rebelled against it, but instead of finding the repentance which she expected and could have pardoned, she received only this humiliating answer:
“You wanted me to resign the service and I resigned. You have only yourself to blame if I try to make up for the loss of my career in my own way. A man must have something to do. I sacrificed the object of my life for your sake. What have you given up in return?”
Overwhelmed at his reproaches she retired into herself from that time and wrapped herself in a mournful silence. She was not resigned, but she followed the bent of her passive nature.
Losses at cards soured M. de Marthenay’s character. After the season, idle and unsettled, he began to drink. His wife saw him try to captivate her friend Isabelle before her very eyes, and was so discouraged that she noted his failure with indifference. Thus she was obliged to follow the only too rapid phases of his fall, of which she was perhaps indirectly the cause. She could not shut her eyes to it, yet felt the impossibility of saving him.
Thinking over all the details of her miserable past, Alice felt astonished that she suffered so much. She had grown accustomed to living amid such thoughts. Their dull monotony was now familiar to her. But to-day a new sorrow had come to reinforce their bitterness. Fresh melancholy pictures rose up in her memory as if to remind her of the part she had played in her own destiny. She remembered the day when Paule Guibert in the oakwood had stirred her heart with an unknown desire. She saw once more the vivid light of the setting sun through the trees and heaven descending upon her transfigured soul, saw Marcel’s tall figure bending down to her with his words of love. And then ... then she saw him lying dead in a distant, sun-scorched land, a bullet through his head, pale and terrible, his reproachful eyes fixed upon her. Oh, those eyes of agony! How well she knew their look! They had gazed on her like that when she had kept that obstinate silence—that wicked silence which had ruined their happiness. Now in this dark room she vainly hid her face so as not to see them. “Marcel, forgive me!” Distracted and trembling, her love made supplication to him. “Don’t look at me like that! I did not know. I was a child. That is my excuse. Yes, I was a coward, I was afraid to strive for you, to fight for my love. I was afraid to wait, to love, to suffer, to live.But God has punished me—oh, how cruelly! Close your eyes and forgive me....”
Frightened at the sound of her own voice, she laid her hand on her bosom. She was choking as on the day her child was born. At last in her broken heart rose up the knowledge of life in all its strength and dignity. Her soul had won its freedom, and she loved Marcel as he had loved her, nobly and proudly. For her sake, to seek forgetfulness, he had travelled over Africa and met glory and death. Perhaps, as he fell, he had recalled her face. That she might have been his last thought, though that thought might be but disdainful, was now her most ardent prayer. Comparing her existence with the one she had thrust from her she regretted not being a hero’s widow instead of sharing the dull life of a man incapable of inspiring or feeling love.
The door opened and Madame Dulaurens, anxious at her daughter’s long absence, called in the darkness.
“Alice, are you there? Answer me.”
“Yes, what do you want?”
Madame Dulaurens was surprised at the unexpected hardness of tone. She went back to the lighted corridor and returned with a lamp. She found her daughter lying motionless and white, and recognised traces of tears on her hastily dried cheeks. She sat down beside her at once and triedto take her in her arms. But Alice shrank from her embrace. All the mother in Madame Dulaurens was aroused, and she winced with pain.
“Dearest,” she said, “you are suffering. Tell me your trouble. I am your mother. What the matter to-night?”
Although her masterful nature was irritated by this rebellion, she understood that now she must not put pressure on her child. She covered her with kisses and overwhelmed her with kind words, but it was all in vain.
“What is the matter with you to-night?” she repeated.
“Nothing,” said Alice in a firm voice, which her mother did not recognise.
In the face of such profundity of sorrow Madame Dulaurens hesitated, not knowing which to ask of the two questions that burned her lips.
“Is it about your husband?” she asked at last.
She had guessed that Commander Guibert’s death had something to do with these tears. But she did not dare to allude to the secret which she had once treated so lightly.
“Yes,” whispered Alice, weakening again. And they both accepted this lie, by which they were spared the reproach which no passing of time could wipe away. Both were thinking of Marcel Guibert and they talkedabout Armand de Marthenay.
Alice began to complain of her joyless life.
“We were wrong to ask him to resign.”
“Oh, my dearest,” said her mother, “how you hurt me! So you would have agreed to desert me?”
“Was it better that my husband should desert me?”
“I should have died,” exclaimed Madame Dulaurens energetically, “if you had had to go. You will never know how I love you and how I want to make you happy!”
She spoke in entirely good faith. Deceived by her daughter’s words, she had regained the serenity which the memory of death had almost destroyed. Taught by her own experience, she was not in the least surprised at the disillusionment of Armand’s neglected wife. Was it not the lot of most women? And had she not, what so many women lacked, the consolation of a warm motherly heart to fly to?
But Alice saw another mother, who at this hour was draining her cup of sorrow, a poor old woman by whose side she longed to be, where she would have been if she had listened to the dictates of her heart. Like all weaklings who revolt, she went beyond the bounds and did not stop short of injustice to her own mother.
They looked at each other. Madame Dulaurens understood at last and felt a deep anguish. A gulf yawned between her and her daughter. There had suddenly and relentlessly been revealed to both of them the difference of their two natures, the one imperious and under the sway of worldly prejudices, the other shrinking, docile, and under no sway but that of the heart.
When they went back to the drawing-room a few minutes later, calm, and leaning on each other’s arms, nobody could have suspected the domestic drama which had just parted them asunder.
Isabelle was leading the conversation, talking loudly, making jokes, and showing her white teeth. And from time to time she looked at her surroundings, at her husband, at her admirers, M. de Marthenay, M. de Lavernay, and particularly at Clément Dulaurens, with eyes full of hatred and scorn. She detested them all, because they could not tell her that Jean Berlier was still alive.
She saw that Alice had been crying and envied her the reality of her sorrow. When the time for departure came, as her friend went to the hall to help her on with her furs, she took advantage of their being alone to throw her arms round her neck, and at last giving way to the grief which she had choked back all the evening she whispered a fewwild words, which were understood at once.
“My poor Alice! What cowards we have been! Oh, why can we not be allowed to mourn for our dead this evening? Our lives belonged to them, and we denied it. Let us weep for them and for our dull existence which might have been so bright!”
“Yes,” said Alice, “sorrow itself is more to be desired than the fate that is ours.”