CHAPTER XXII
“JEAN,” said Madame Torialli, one evening late in June. “Are you in a hurry to-night?”
“Not if I can stay with you, Madame?”
Madame Torialli smiled at him; her eyes seemed almost too innocent for maternity, and yet it was maternity that she loved best to express for Jean.
“I sometimes fear that we work you too hard,” she said wistfully. “I am a vampire for my husband, I sacrifice so many to save him and serve him all I can; and in the end I often ask myself what is it that I do for him? Nothing! A woman is very helpless, Monsieur Jean.”
Jean might have pointed out that she wasn’t really very helpless when she had at least half a dozen men at her bidding from morning to night. But he felt a profound pity for Madame Torialli. He often thought Torialli did not understand her, and he knew that he was not worthy of her; only what man could be that? So he said:
“If I could help you the least little bit in the world it would make me very happy, Madame!”
“You do help me,” said Madame, slowly. She turned with him into the bronze room and sank on a low couch near the window. It was wide open, and summer came in through it—the soft, fresh breeze of the early summer when the earth has not yet grown sober with her riches, but sings to herself in her joy, and her songs bring all the fragrance of the fields. Even in Paris the scent of new-born flowers was in the air. The sounds from the street seemed far away; it was a still night, and the soft, green curtains hardly moved behind Madame’s golden head.
“Let us talk together for a little,” she said.
Jean sat down near her; he did not speak at once. It seemed to Jean that he did not need to speak much to her—she read his heart as if it were an open book, and he liked best to keep quite still near her, and hold it open for her to read.
“Just lately, the last few days, you have not been very happy,” said Madame gently at last. “I have felt it, you know, and I have said to myself, ‘It has not come to him as quickly as he had hoped—his great future!’ I have said to my husband, ‘That boy with us, we are perhaps using him too much?’ Torialli has laughed at me; his own success took long in coming, and he worked for it through long, dry, fruitless years.To him it seems that you are doing very well and getting on very fast. But for me—my blood runs quickly for you—I have an impatience, I want you so much to succeed.”
“When you talk like this,” said Jean, and his voice was not very steady, “you give me something sweeter than success, Madame.”
She was silent for a moment.
“But I would give you success too,” she said. It was Jean’s turn to be silent, but he was silent because he dared not speak.
“Our good Louis,” Madame continued, when she thought the pause had lasted long enough, “has an affection for you almost like that of a brother. We speak sometimes of your future, he and I. You have done wonders for him since you have been here, you have taken half his work off his shoulders; but have you—I sometimes ask myself—taken too much?”
“I like hard work,” said Jean quickly. “I should not complain if it were even harder than it is.”
“And you would do much willingly for a friend?” Madame asked, playing with a large paper-cutter on a table beside her. “I am quite sure of that.”
“I would do anything in the world for you, Madame,” said Jean.
“I was talking of Louis,” said Madame.
Jean was silent. Madame’s little hands still played with the paper-cutter; they looked suchhelpless little hands, Jean longed to take them in one of his and take care of them always. He did not believe that any one could ever take care of Madame Torialli enough. If he had known it, his feeling for her was very much the same as Margot’s feelings for himself; for men can have the maternal instinct as well as women; and quite as uselessly.
“Poor Louis!” said Madame softly. “He is often misunderstood, I think. His parents had good blood in them, but his mother died young, and his father fell quickly into a bad type of existence. Louis has been brought up by chance; he has the instincts of his class, but I sometimes fear his manners—”
Jean leaned forward with a nervous movement of his hands.
“He does not appear to have these instincts always, Madame!” he said bluntly. Madame leaned back in her chair and sighed. She gave up the bronze paper-cutter, as if after all she couldn’t do anything with it.
“Ah!” she said. “Youth is so intolerant of appearances. You have not learned yet, my dear Jean, that appearances are almost always against the innocent—the others know how to use them! Louis’ manners are bad, that I grant you, but he has a good heart. It is for that we love him! My husband and I have learned its value in Paris. We can trust Louis.”
Jean said nothing. If he had said all that he thought, however, it is improbable that he could have enlightened Madame more plainly than his silence did.
She gave a little laugh, and he looked up and caught her eyes.
“Do you know, Jean? Have you found out yet that there is one very funny thing about our poor Louis? Perhaps it is even more pathetic than funny. He has one great—one very great vanity—he believes that he is superlatively clever, and he would far rather be thought guilty of a crime than of a mistake. I think that it is the fault of his having been, as we were saying, badly brought up. Gentlemen are never afraid of being thought stupid, it is in fact their prerogative—but when a man doubts his social value, he at once becomes sensitive as to his intellectual powers; he falls back, as it were, upon a new line of defence, and he will not admit being mistaken! It is the vanity of ignorance, the worst type of vanity there is, I fancy, because it cannot be cured. It may make a man a Napoleon or anapâche, but there is one thing, it will never let him be for long—himself! I have seen Louis, who is naturally the most honest of men, lie and invent scandal of himself, rather than admit abêtisewhich would have made Torialli smile. You have, perhaps, come upon this little weakness and it has shocked you?”
Jean started. Was it then after all only stupidity of which Flaubert was guilty? Madame had known him for a long time. Then he remembered the deadly terror in Flaubert’s face and his broken word.
“The motive may be as you say, Madame; but there are some things that a man does not allow himself to do if he wishes to be considered—” Jean paused.
“Yes, Jean,” said Madame very gently.
“A man of honour, Madame,” said Jean.
Madame moved a little restlessly against the green curtain.
“Women are so ignorant about such things,” she murmured. “But, Jean, when we do not understand we nevertheless sometimes arrive. I have arrived at this: I believe that Louis has shown himself at his worst to you. He has made some foolish mistake, and because he respects and admires you, more than you think perhaps (what he has said in confidence to me about you I cannot, of course, repeat, but it has touched me), he has tried to cover up his folly by a falseness which has disgusted you; and you are judging him harshly because it is one of your code sins. Have you ever thought that it is not quite fair to use a gentleman’s code for a man who is, perhaps more by the fault of others than his own, not quite a gentleman?”
Jean flushed; he felt ashamed of himself, afterall. Hadn’t he been rather hasty? He was touched too, also, to hear of Flaubert’s feeling for himself. He had not guessed it; indeed, he had been conscious of a certain mutual antagonism between himself and the other man—and all this time Louis had been praising him to Madame!
“Well, Madame,” he said, smiling a little uncertainly. “I will try to be less intolerant. I cannot promise to like Flaubert, because I’m afraid I don’t; but I will try not to show it, and perhaps I shall understand him better after what you have said.”
“Thank you, Jean,” said Madame. “And now I am going to ask more of you. I want you to write to all these addresses for me, on that nice new rough paper I bought the other day, and invite everyone to Louis’ ball. You see these are all my friends, and he wants the affair to be a great success; some of these names may help to make it so. I specially want the two princes to come—Prince Ivan and Prince Rudolph—tell them La Salvi is going to sing; I must make her, for otherwise perhaps she would refuse—the good Salvi is a person with whom one must go very gently. She comes to town to-morrow, I think, and Louis has set his heart on it; it will be a chance for us to show him that we are his very good friends.”
Jean took the little address book out of her hand. He thought, perhaps, that he might stoopand kiss it, and that Madame would not be very angry; she was not very angry. But at this moment a knock came at the door and the butler announced with immense ceremony, “Madame Salvi!”
Madame Torialli gave a little cry of surprise and delight, and sprang forward to meet her, while Jean, after a hasty glance at the new arrival, turned into the adjoining room. The new rough paper Madame had mentioned was on her desk, and Jean sat there, as he often did to write her notes for her.
The door was open between the two rooms, for the night was hot. As for Madame Torialli, the new arrival had swept poor Jean as completely from her mind as if he were an autumn leaf before a gale. It was not every day that Salvi came unannounced to call upon her.
La Salvi had advanced into the room, with all the air of expecting to be met which marks a royal personage. For in Paris Salvi was royalty. She had the greatest voice in the world and she had ruled it for twenty years. She was a big, fat woman with a large red wig; tucked under her arm she carried a small King Charles spaniel, which yapped dolefully. He was also too fat, and was addicted, like his mistress, to sweet cakes and cream. Unfortunately his resemblance ended there, for though he used his voice quite as much as she did, he was not so gifted in its timbre.
“My dear! what a surprise and what a pleasure! And how well you are looking!” cried Madame Torialli. “But fancy not telling me though! Think if I had had the misfortune to be out!”
Madame Salvi sat down with a doubtful glance at the slim delicate chair-legs before she answered. The dog yelped and she panted.
“I didn’t know I was coming myself,” she explained at length. “How was I to imagine, when I had left particular orders with the servants always to expect me back at any moment, that the cook should have gone to his mother’s funeral!”
“My dear, have you had anything to eat? But how shocking!” exclaimed Madame Torialli, with sympathy.
“Yes, thanks, I went to a restaurant. I had a man in the motor. It doesn’t matter, dear. I’ve sent him away now, but I might have been alone; if I had been, consider how I should have bored myself.” Salvi shuddered.
Jean, looking up from his writing-table, thought it was like the shudder of an enormous jelly fish.
“The thoughtlessness of that class of person!” said Salvi, with righteous indignation. “And of all things what I dislike most is to hear any talk of funerals!”
“Yes, my dear, I quite understand,” murmured Madame Torialli, soothingly. “Let us talk ofsomething pleasanter. Who was the man in the motor?”
“Only my doctor,” said Madame Salvi, still gloomily. “He’s a new one, the last one interfered with my diet; it was terrible, I suffered agonies; he said pastry was bad for the voice, as if I hadn’t eaten it for twenty years! This one is an improvement; he says the great thing is to go on doing what you like, and only to stop when it becomes inconvenient. He says, too, that I ought always to wear green, or certain shades of yellow with black; they effect the nerves favourably.”
“But, my dear, aren’t they your favourite colours?” asked Madame Torialli.
“Yes,” said Salvi. “That’s what makes it so convenient. Still I thought I had better be on the safe side, so I ordered ten new dresses to-day.” Madame Salvi was not telling the truth, but then her friend did not suspect her of it; she only told the truth when she had nothing more picturesque to tell.
“But, my love, what riches!” cried Madame Torialli.
“On the contrary, what poverty!” said Madame Salvi. “I shall have to economize; I shall leave my bills unpaid!”
“How free you are!” said Madame Torialli sighing. “For me, my husband utterly refuses to buy me a new motor until next quarter day. I think it is so foolish! ‘After all,’ I say to him,‘one need not pay for it immediately, and by next quarter day I shall, perhaps, be wanting something else.’ Have you heard that our good Louis has just built himself a magnificent set of new rooms, and is to give a ball in them on Saturday week? I can’t think how he can afford it; but Torialli and I can never afford anything; we live like the little birds!”
Madame Salvi laughed rather maliciously.
“Like the little birds who have feathered their nests, you should say!” she replied.
Madame Torialli gave a graceful gesture of denial.
“But indeed it is true about Louis,” she went on. “He is rising in the world, he has become very ambitious; you will never guess to what he aspires now?”
“My dear, I have always guessed it,” said Salvi calmly. “It is you who never see these things; it was inevitable that he should adore you——”
Madame Torialli laughed lightly.
“It is another inevitable avoided then,” she answered. “He has not confided his passion to me—for myself, dear friend; on the contrary he aspires very much higher—it appears that he wants you to sing for him on the great night itself. When you are going to sing for us on the following Wednesday, too, it is a little too ambitious, is it not?”
Madame Salvi frowned.
“I am not surprised to hear that he gets on,” she said. “If he is so little afraid of being snubbed.”
“It is amusing, is it not?” said Madame Torialli. “He is not like poor Torialli, who always says that he will never let business interfere with pleasure.”
“Well, my dear, he has no need to, since he has married you,” said Salvi.
“You are too kind to me,” Madame Torialli murmured; “but think of our poor Louis, so certain that you would agree to sing for him that he has sent out invitations already to Prince Ivan and Prince Rudolph, asking them to hear you.”
Jean started. He had written all the invitations and Flaubert had given no such order; it was Madame herself who had invited the princes to hear Salvi.
“Mon Dieu!” cried Salvi indignantly. “Do you know, Gabrielle, I am a good-natured woman, but there is one liberty I do not stand lightly, and that is a liberty about my voice.”
“Oh, my dear!” cried Madame Torialli, “don’t be too angry with the good Louis; his head is perhaps a little turned with his new toy, but he has, I know, such an eagerness to have you.”
“His head had better be turned round theother way, then,” said Salvi, grimly. “And as for his eagerness, as far as I know, that is no new quality in people who ask favours. You may tell him from me that I shall do nothing of the kind! You have reminded me that I sing for you on Wednesday. I shall not sing twice in one week.”
“Our poor Louis will be horribly desolated,” said Madame cheerfully; “but of course you are right. However, my dear, don’t refuse to come to the ball; that will be magnificent and quite amusing.”
“No, I will come to the ball,” said Salvi. “And I shan’t tell him that I won’t sing till I get there; that will pay him out!”
Madame Torialli laughed her gay child’s laughter.
“But what a mind you have!” she said. “It would be enough even without your voice, dear Salvi.”
“I flatter myself that I was not born a fool,” said Madame Salvi, complacently; and it is true that she flattered herself.
“What has become of the new littleaccompagnateur? Has he too fallen in love with you like the last?” she said.
Jean moved hastily. There was a sudden pause between the two ladies. Madame Torialli realized that Jean had overheard the conversation; she did not change a muscle of her face.
“But he is writing letters for me in the nextroom,” she said. “You must ask him yourself, my dear; Monsieur Jean?” she added.
Jean came into the room; he could not hide his feelings as well as Madame Torialli. His eyes were full of pain and bewilderment.
“I think you have already met Madame Salvi?” said Gabrielle quietly.
Jean bowed very low.
Madame Salvi chuckled till she shook again like a vast crumpled jelly fish.
“You came in first, or I was going to be very indiscreet,” she said. “If you had been a wise young man you would have waited and profited by the indiscretion.”
“Madame is too kind,” murmured Jean. He wanted immensely to get away. Madame Torialli held him for a moment with her eyes.
“Madame,” asked Jean, “am I still to post these letters?”
Madame stared at him.
“But why not?” she said. “Of course!”
Jean would have given anything in the world for her to have told him to tear them up; they were the letters to the Princes asking them to hear Salvi sing, and Madame Torialli knew it.
“I am consumed with curiosity,” cried Salvi. “Dear good Monsieur Jean, have the kindness to show me those addresses. I am an expert in handwriting.”
“My dear!” said Madame Torialli, “that must be for some other time—the post goes.”
Jean seized the opportunity to make his farewells and to hurry downstairs and out of the house. He posted the letters, and when he had posted them he obeyed a sudden impulse and, calling a taxi, he drove direct to Margot’s. He felt that he wanted to hear her voice.