CHAPTER VI

Of the few persons composing the home circle in the Rue Vaneau, it was George Liauran himself who was most anxious about the sorrow of Marie Alice, because it was to him that she most completely betrayed her pain. She understood that he was the only one who might some day be of service to her. At every visit he compared the ravages which her one thought had wrought upon her. Her features were growing thin, her cheeks hollow, and her complexion livid, while her hair, hitherto so dark, was whitening in entire tresses. It sometimes happened that George would go out into society at the conclusion of one of these visits, and meet his cousin Hubert, nearly always in the same circle as Madame de Sauve, elegant, handsome, with brilliant eyes and happy mouth.

The contrast roused within him strange feelings, which were a mixture of good and evil. On the one hand, indeed, George was very fond of Marie Alice, and with an affection which, during the early days of their youth, had been a very romantic one with them both. On the other, the, to him, indubitable connection between this charming Hubert and Theresa irritated him with a nervous anger without his well knowing why. He felt towards his cousin that insurmountable ill-will which men of more than forty and less than fifty years of age profess for the very young men whom they see making their way in society, and, in fact, taking their own places.

And then he was one of those who have been hard livers, and who hate love, whether because they have suffered too much from it, or because they feel too much regret for it. This hatred of love was complicated with a complete contempt for women who make slips, and he suspected Theresa of having already had two intrigues--one with a young deputy, named Frederick Luzel, and the other with Alfred Fanières, a celebrated writer. He was one of those who judge a woman by her lovers, wherein he was wrong, for the reasons which lead a poor creature to surrender herself are most frequently personal, and foreign to the nature and character of him who is the cause of the surrender. Now, the great frankness of Frederick Luzel's manners was a cover to complete brutality; while Alfred Fanières was a rather handsome fellow of refined manners, whose cajolery scarcely concealed the fierce egotism of the skilful artist, with whom everything is simply a means for rising, from his abilities as a prose writer to his successes of the alcove.

It was upon the germ of corruption deposited by these two characters in Theresa's heart that George secretly relied when imagining a probable termination to Hubert's attachment. He told himself that Madame de Sauve must have acquired habits of pleasure and exigencies of sensation with these two men, whose cynicism and morals were known to him. He calculated that Hubert's purity would some day leave her unsatisfied, and on that day it was almost inevitable that she should deceive him. "After all," he said to himself, "it will give him pain, but it will teach him life." George Liauran, in this respect similar to three-fourths of those of his own age and social standing, was persuaded that a young man ought, as soon as possible, to frame for himself a practical philosophy, that is to say, he should, in accordance with the old misanthropical formulas, have small belief in friendship, look upon most women as rogues, and explain all human actions by interest, avowed or disguised. Worldly pessimism has not much more originality than this. Unfortunately it is nearly always right.

Such was the state of mind of Madame Liauran's cousin respecting the sentiments of Hubert and Theresa, when, in October of the same year, he happened to find himself dining with five others in a private room at the Café Anglais. The repast had been refined and well contrived, and the wines exquisite, and coffee having been served, and cigars lighted, they were chatting as men do among themselves. The following is a scrap of dialogue which George overheard between his left-hand neighbour and one of the guests, and that at a time when he himself had just been talking with his right-hand neighbour, so that at first the full import of the words escaped him.

"We saw them," said the narrator, "through the telescope, from the upper room in Arthur's, châlet that he uses as a studio, as though they had been only three yards distant. She entered, in fact, as we had heard that she did the day before, and she had scarcely done so when he gave her a kiss--but such a kiss! . . ." and he smacked his lips as he drained a last drop of liqueur that had remained in his glass.

"Who is 'he'?" asked George Liauran.

"La Croix-Firmin."

"And 'she'?"

"Madame de Sauve."

"By Jove!" said George to himself, "this is a strange business; it was worth while accepting this fool's invitation."

And with this thought he looked at his host--an exquisite of low degree--who was exulting with joy at entertaining a few clubmen who were quite in the fashion.

"We were expecting something better," the other went on to say, "but she insisted on lowering the curtains. How we chaffed Ludovic about his jaded look in the morning! Nothing else was spoken of for a week between Trouville and Deauville. She suspected it, for she left very quickly. But I will wager a pony that she will be received everywhere this winter as well as before. The tolerance of Society is becoming----"

"Home-like," said the interlocutor, and the talk continued to go round, the cigars to be smoked, the kummel cognac to fill the little glasses, and these moralists to pass judgment upon life. The young man who had told the scandalous anecdote about Madame de Sauve in the course of the conversation, was about thirty years old, pale, slight, already used up, and, for the rest, very amiable and one of those whose name universally attracts the epithet of "good fellow." In fact he would have blown his brains out sooner than not have paid a gambling debt within the appointed time. He had never declined an affair of honour, and his friends could rely upon him for a service though difficult, or an advance of money though considerable.

But as to speaking, after drinking, of what one knows about the intrigues of women of the world, where should we be if we tried to forbid ourselves this subject of conversation, as well as hypotheses concerning the secrets of the birth of adulterine children? Perhaps the very chatterer who had borne eye-witness to the levity of Theresa de Sauve would have shed genuine tears of sorrow if he had known that his speech would have been employed as a weapon against the young woman's happiness. It is an exhaustless source of melancholy for one who mixes with the world without corrupting his heart, to see how cruelties are sometimes effected in it with complete security of conscience. But furthermore, would not George Liauran have learnt from another source all the details which the indiscretion of his table companion had just revealed to him so suddenly and with such unassailable precision?

Truth to tell, he was not astonished by it for a moment. Two or three times, indeed, on his way home, he repeated the words "Poor Hubert!" to himself, but he secretly felt the mean and irresistible egotistic titillation which is nine times out of ten produced by the sight of other people's misfortunes. Were not his prognostications verified? And this, too, was not devoid of a certain charm. Vulgar misanthropy has many such satisfactions, which harden the heart that feels them. When a man despises humanity with an indiscriminating contempt, he ends by feeling satisfaction at its wretchedness, instead of being distressed by it.

As for doubt, he did not admit it for a moment, especially when recalling what he knew of Ludovic de la Croix-Firmin. The latter was a species of coxcomb, who might, on reflection, appear to be devoid of any superiority; but he was liked by women, for those mysterious reasons which we men can no more understand than women can understand the secret of the influence exercised over us by some of themselves. It is probable that into these reasons there enters a good deal of that bestiality which is always present at the bottom of our personal relations. La Croix-Firmin was twenty-seven years old, the age of the fullest vigour, with light hair bordering upon red, blue eyes, a clear complexion, and teeth whose whiteness gleamed between a pair of very fresh lips at every smile. When he smiled in this way, with his dimpled chin, his square nose, and his curly locks, he recalled that type, immortal through the races, of the countenance of Faunus, which the ancients made the incarnation of happy sensuality.

To complete that quality of physical charm to which many fancies that he had inspired were due, he had a suppleness of movement peculiar to those in whom the vital force is very complete. He was of medium height, but athletic. Although his ignorance was absolute and his intelligence very moderate, he possessed the gift which renders a man of his make a dangerous person; he had, in a rare degree, that tact and perception which reveal the moment when a venture may be made, and when woman, a creature of rapid moods and fleeting emotions, belongs to the libertine who can divine it.

This La Croix-Firmin had had many intrigues, and, although his birth and his future ought to have made him a perfect gentleman, he liked to relate them; these indiscretions, instead of ruining him, served him, so to speak, as advertisements. In spite of his light conversation and his conceit, he had not made a single enemy among the women who had compromised themselves for him; perhaps because he imaged to their memories nothing but happy sensation--"'tis the material of the best recollections," the cynics say, and, in respect of souls devoid of loftiness, what can be more true?

It was precisely upon La Croix-Firmin's indiscretion that George relied for mustering some fresh proofs in support of the fact which he had learned at the dinner at the Café Anglais. Being an old bachelor, he had a gloomy imagination, and could foresee ill-fortune rather than good. He had, consequently, long been accustomed to see clearly through the surface of the social world. He understood the art of going in pursuit of secret truth, and he excelled in combining into a single whole the scattered sayings floating in the atmosphere of Parisian conversation. In this particular case there was no need of so many efforts. It was simply a matter of finding corroboration for a detail indisputable in itself.

A few visits to women in society who had spent the season at Trouville, and a single one to Ella Virieux, a woman belonging to the demi-monde, and the recognised mistress of La Croix-Firmin's best comrade, were sufficient for the inquiry. It was quite certain that Ludovic had been Madame de Sauve's lover, and that the fact was not only one of public notoriety, but had been established by his own avowal at the seaside. A hasty departure had alone preserved Theresa from an inevitable affront, and now that Parisian life was beginning again, ten new scandals were causing this summer scandal, destined to become dubious like so many others, to be already forgotten.

George Liauran perceived in it a sure means of at last breaking the connection between Hubert and Theresa. It was sufficient for this purpose to warn Marie Alice. He felt, indeed, a moment's hesitation, for after all he was meddling with a story which did not at all concern him; but the unacknowledged hatred towards the two lovers which was hidden at the bottom of his heart carried him over this delicate scrupulousness, as well as the real desire to free a woman whom he loved from mortal distress.

On the very evening of the day of his conversation with Ella Virieux, who, without attaching any further importance to the matter, had reported to him the secrets which Ludovic had confided to her lover, he was at the Rue Vaneau and relating to Madame Liauran, who was reclining beside Madame Castel's easy chair, the unlooked-for news which was at a stroke to change the aspect of the strife between mother and mistress.

"Ah! the wretch!" cried the poor woman, half-dead from her lengthened anguish, "she was not even capable of loving him----"

She uttered these words in a deep tone, wherein were condensed all the ideas which she had formed so long before about her son's mistress. She had thought so much about what the nature of this guilty creature's passion could possibly be to render it more potent over Hubert's heart than her own love, which, for all that, she knew to be infinite! Shaking her whitened head, so wearied with musing, she went on:

"And it is for such a woman as this that he has tortured us! Ah! mamma, when he compares what he has sacrificed with what he has preferred, he will not understand his own behaviour."

Then, holding out her hand to George:

"Thank you, cousin," she said. "You have saved me. If this horrible intrigue had lasted, I should have died."

"Alas, my poor daughter," said Madame Castel, stroking her hair, "do not feed upon vain hopes. If Hubert has ever loved you he loves you still. Nothing is changed. There is only one evil action the more committed by this woman, and she must be accustomed to it."

"Then you think that he will not know of all this?" said Marie Alice, raising herself. "But I should be the basest of the base if I were not to open this unhappy child's eyes. So long as I believed that she loved him, I was able to keep silence. Guilty as such love might be, it nevertheless had passion; it was something sincere after all, something erring, yet exalted--but now, what name can you give such abominations?"

"Be prudent, cousin," said George Liauran, somewhat disquieted by the anger with which these last words had been uttered; "remember that we are not in a position to give poor Hubert such palpable and undeniable proofs as would baffle all discussion."

"But what further proof do you want," she broke in, "than the assertion of a spectator?"

"Pooh!" said George; "for those who are in love----"

"You do not know my son," returned the mother, proudly. "There is no such compliance in him. I only want a promise from you before taking action. You will relate to him what you have told to us, and as you have told it to us, if he asks you."

"Certainly," said George, after a pause; "I will tell him what I know, and he will draw what conclusions he pleases."

"And what if he were to pick a quarrel with this Monsieur de la Croix-Firmin?" asked Madame Castel.

"He could not," rejoined the mother, whose hopeful over-excitement rendered her at that moment as keen-sighted respecting the laws of society as George himself could have been; "our Hubert is too honourable a man to allow a woman's name to be talked about through him, even though it were hers."

Yes, poor Hubert! Hour by hour there was thus drawing closer to him that destiny which the sound of the sea, as heard in the night, would have symbolised to him during his divine waking at Folkestone had he possessed more knowledge of life. It was drawing closer, this destiny, taking for its instrument alternately George Liauran's malevolent indifference and Marie Alice's blind passion. The last-named, at least, believed that she was working for her son's happiness, not understanding that, when in love, it is better to be deceived even a great deal than to suspect the fact a little.

And yet, notwithstanding what she had said in her conversation with her cousin, she did not feel equal to speaking herself to her son. She was incapable of enduring the first outbreak of his grief. Assuredly the proofs given by George appeared to her impossible of refutation, and again, in her conscience as a pious mother, she considered that it was her absolute duty to snatch her son from the monster who was corrupting him. But how could she receive the counter-stroke of rebellion which would follow the revelation?

Nevertheless, she hoped that he would return to her in his moments of despair. She would open her arms to him, and all this nightmare of misunderstandings would vanish in effusiveness--as of old. Involuntarily, through a mirage familiar to all mothers as to all fathers, she took no accurate account of the change of soul which possibly had been wrought in her son. She still saw in him the child that once she had known, coming to her with his smallest troubles.

Through the false logic of her tenderness it seemed to her that, the obstacle which had separated them once removed, they would find themselves again face to face and the same as before. Her first thought was to send him immediately to see George; then, with her delicate woman's sense, she reflected that this would involve an inevitable wounding of his pride. Once more, therefore, she had recourse to General Scilly's old friendship, requesting him to tell the young man all.

"You are giving me a terribly difficult commission," he replied, when she had explained everything to him. "I will obey you if you require it. I have gone through it myself," he added, "and under almost similar conditions. A quean is a quean, and they are all like one another. But the first man who had hinted as much to me would have spent a bad quarter of an hour. Besides, they had not to speak to me about it, for I learnt it all myself."

"And what did you do?" asked Marie Alice.

"What a man does when he has a leg broken by the bursting of a shell," said the old soldier; "I amputated my heart bravely. It was hard, but I cut clean."

"You can quite see that my son must learn all," replied the mother, in a tone at once of triumph and of pity.