CHAPTER XVIII

THE HAPPIEST OF THE FOUR

Suzanne knew the Baron's eagle eye too well to imagine that the scene in the box had entirely escaped him. How much had he seen? What did he think? These two questions were of capital importance to her. It was impossible to formulate any reply to them during the few minutes occupied--she leaning on his arm and he supporting her as though he really believed her to be ill--in passing from the box to the entrance reserved for carriages. The Baron's face remained impenetrable and she herself felt unable to exercise her usual faculties of observation. René's sudden onslaught had inspired her with such terror and pain that her indisposition had been a sham only to a certain extent. She had been afraid that the poet, evidently beside himself, might create a scene and ruin her for ever. At the same time her sincere and deep-rooted passion had received a severe blow in this terrible insult and still more terrible discovery. As she lifted up the train of her dress and descended the steps in her blue satin shoes she shuddered as we sometimes do when we escape from a danger which we have had the courage to brave. A faint smile hovered upon her quivering lips, but her face was ashy pale, and it was a real relief to her when she sat down in the corner of her carriage with her husband by her side. Before him, at least, there was no necessity to control herself. As the horses started she bent forward to bow her adieux. A gas-lamp shed its light full upon the Baron's face, which now betrayed his real thoughts. Suzanne read them in a second.

'He knows all,' she thought. 'What is to be done?'

For a few moments after the carriage had gone Desforges still stood there twirling his moustache--with him a sign of extraordinary preoccupation. It being a fine night, he had not ordered his brougham. It was his custom, when the weather was dry, to walk to his favourite club in the Rue Boissy-d'Anglas from any place in which he had been spending the evening--even if such place was some small theatre situated at the other end of the boulevards. Whilst smoking his third cigar--Doctor Noirot only allowed him three a day--he loved to stroll through the streets of that Paris which he justly prided himself upon knowing and enjoying as well as anyone. Desforges was no cosmopolitan, and had a horror of travelling, which he called 'a life of luggage.' This promenade in the evening was his delight. He utilised it for 'making up his balance'--that was his expression--for going over the different events of the day, placing his receipts in one column and his expenses in another. 'Massage, fencing, and morning ride,' were put down in the column of receipts to the credit of his health. 'Drinking burgundy or port'--his pet sin--'or eating truffles or seeing Suzanne' went into the column of expenditure. When he had indulged in some trifling excess that contravened his well-regulated lines of conduct he would carefully weigh the pros and cons, and conclude by pronouncing with the solemnity of a judge whether 'it was worth it' or 'not worth it.'

This Paris, too, in which he had dwelt since his earliest youth, always awakened in him memories of the past. His cynicism went hand in hand with cunning, and he practised only the Epicureanism of the senses. He was a master in the art of enjoying happy hours long after they had passed. In such a house, for instance, he had had appointments with a charming mistress; another recalled to his mind exquisite dinners in good company. 'We ought to make ourselves four stomachs, like oxen, to ruminate,' he used to say; 'that is their only good point, and I have taken it them.'

But when the Moraines had driven away in their brougham on this mild and balmy May evening he began his walk, a prey to most sad and bitter impressions, although the day had been a particularly pleasant one until René Vincy's entry in the box. Suzanne had not been mistaken. He knew all. The poet's visit had struck him all the more forcibly since, that very afternoon, on leaving the house in the Rue de Rivoli, he had found himself face to face with the young man, who stared hard at him. 'Where the deuce have I seen that fellow before?' he had asked himself in vain. 'Where could my senses have been?' he said, when Paul Moraines mentioned René's name to Suzanne. The expression on the visitor's face had immediately aroused his suspicions; when Suzanne went into the ante-room he had placed himself so as to follow the interview from the corner of his eye. Without hearing what the poet said, he had guessed by the look in his eyes, the frown on his brow, and the gestures of his hands that he was taking Suzanne to task. The feigned indisposition of the latter had not deceived him for a single moment. He was one of those who only believe in women's headaches when there is nothing to be gained by them. The manner in which his mistress's hand trembled on his arm as they descended the staircase had strengthened his convictions, and now, as he crossed the Place de l'Opéra, he told himself the most mortifying truths instead of going into his usual raptures before the vast perspective of the avenue, but lately lighted by electricity, or before the façade of the Opera, which he declared to be finer than Notre Dame.

'I have been let in,' he said, 'and at my age, too! It's rather too bad--and for whom?' All combined to render his humiliation more complete--the absolute secresy with which Suzanne had deceived him, and without arousing the slightest suspicion; the startling suddenness of the discovery; lastly, the quality of his rival, a bit of a boy, a scribbling poet! A score of details, one more exasperating than the other, crowded in upon him. The forlorn and bashful look on the poet's face when he had seen him on the day after Madame Komof's _soirée_; Suzanne's inexplicable fits of abstraction, which he had scarcely noticed at the time and her allusions to matutinal visits to the dentist's, the Louvre, or the Bon Marché. And he had swallowed it all--he, Baron Desforges!

'I have been an ass!' he repeated aloud. 'But how did she manage it?' It was this that completely floored him; he could not understand how she had gone about it, even when René's attitude in the box left him no doubt as to their relations. No, there was no possibility of doubt.

Had Suzanne not been his mistress he would never have dared to speak to her as he did, nor would she have allowed it. 'But how?' he asked himself; 'she never received him at home, or I should have known it through Paul. She did not see him out; he goes nowhere.' Once more he repeated, 'I have been an ass!' and felt really angry with the woman who was the cause of his perturbation. He had just passed the Café de la Paix and had to brush aside two women who accosted him in their usual shameless manner. 'Bah!' he exclaimed; 'they are all alike.' He walked on for a few paces and saw that he had let his cigar go out. He threw it away with a gesture of impatience. 'And cigars are like women.' Then he shrugged his shoulders as it occurred to him how childishly he was behaving. 'Frédéric, my dear fellow,' whispered an inner voice, 'you have been an ass, and you are continuing the _rôle._' He took a fresh cigar from his case, held it to his ear as he cracked it, and went into a cigar-shop for a light. The havana proved to be delicious, and the Baron, a connoisseur, thoroughly enjoyed it. 'I was wrong,' he thought; 'here is one that is not a fraud.'

The soothing effect of the cigar changed the tenour of his ideas.

He looked about him and saw that he had almost reached the end of the boulevard. The pavement was as crowded as at midday, and the carriages and cabs went hurrying by. The gas-lamps glinted upon the young foliage of the trees in a fantastic manner, and on the right the dark mass of the Madeleine stood out against the dark blue sky studded with stars. This Parisian picture pleased the Baron, who continued his reflections in a calmer frame of mind. 'Hang it all!' he cried; 'can it be that I am jealous?' As a rule he shook his head whenever he was treated to an example of that mournful passion, and would generally reply, 'They pay your mistress attentions! But that is merely a compliment to your good taste.' 'I, jealous! Well, that would be good!'

When we have accustomed ourselves to play a certain part in the eyes of the world for years together we continue to play it even when alone. Desforges was ashamed of his weakness--like an officer who, sent out on a night expedition, blushes to find himself afraid and refuses to admit the presence of that feeling. 'It is not true,' he said to himself; 'I am not jealous.' He conjured up a vision of Suzanne in René's arms, and it tickled his vanity to feel that the picture, though not a pleasant one, did not cause him one of those fits of intense pain that constitute jealousy. By way of contrast, he recalled the poet's entry in the box, his agitated manner, and the unconquerable frenzy that betrayed itself in every lineament. There you had a really jealous man, exposed to the full fury of that terrible mania.

The antithesis between the relative calm he felt within him and his rival's despair was so flattering to the Baron's vanity that for a moment he was absolutely happy. He caught himself making use of his customary expression, one he had inherited from his father, a clever speculator, who had again had it from his mother, a fine Normandy woman who had linked her fortunes with those of the first Baron Desforges, a Prefect under the _grand empereur_, 'Gumption! Why should I be jealous? In what has Suzanne deceived me? Did I expect her to love me with a love such as this fool of a poet no doubt dreamt of? What could a man of more than fifty ask of her? To be kind and amiable? That she has been. To afford me an opportunity of spending my evenings agreeably? She has done so. Well, what then? She has met a strapping youth, a bit wild, with a fresh-looking complexion, and a fine pair of lips. As she couldn't very well ask me to get him for her, she has indulged in a little luxury on her own account. But, of the two of us, I should say that he is the cuckold!'

This reflection, so purely Gallic in form, occurred to him just as he reached the door of his club. The plain language in which it had found expression relieved him for a moment. 'That's all very well,' he thought; 'but what would Crucé say?' The adroit collector had once sold him a worthless daub at an exorbitant figure, and Desforges had ever since entertained for him that mixture of respect and resentment felt by very clever men for those who have duped them well. He drew a picture of the small club-room and the cunning Crucé relating Suzanne's adventure with René to two or three of his most envious colleagues. The idea was so hateful to the Baron that it stopped him from entering the club, and he walked away in the direction of the Champs-Elysées trying to shake off its influence. 'Bah! Neither Crucé nor the others will know anything of it. It's lucky after all that she didn't hit upon any of these men about town.' He threw a glance at the club windows that looked out upon the Place de la Concorde, and which were all lit up. 'Instead of that she has taken some one who is not in Society, whom I never meet, and whom she has neither patronised nor presented. I must do her the justice to admit that she has been very considerate. Her trepidation, too, just now, was entirely on my account. Poor little woman!'

'Poor little woman!' he repeated, continuing his soliloquy under the trees of the avenue. 'This beast is capable of making her repent her caprice most bitterly. He seemed in a pretty rage to-night! What want of taste and manners! In my box, too! What irony! If this good Paul were not the husband I have made him, she would be a ruined woman. And then he has discovered the secret of our meetings, and we shall have to leave the Rue du Mont-Thabor. No--the fellow is impossible!' This was one of his favourite expressions. A fresh fit of ill humour had seized him, this time directed against the poet, but, as he prided himself upon being a man of sense and upon his clear-sightedness, he suppressed it at once. 'Am I going to be angry with him for being jealous of me? That would be the height of folly! Let me rather think upon what he is likely to do. Blackmail! No. He is too young for that. An article in some paper? A poet with pretensions to sentiment--that won't be in his line. I wonder whether his indignation will lead him to cast her off altogether? That seems too good to be true. A young scribbler, as poor as a church mouse, shall give up a beautiful and loving mistress, surrounded by all the refinements of luxury, who costs him nothing! Get out! But what if he asks her to break with me, and she is foolish enough to yield?' He saw at once and clearly what disturbance such a rupture would create in his life. 'Firstly, there would be the loss of Suzanne, and where should I find another so charming, so sprightly, so accustomed to my ways and habits? Then, again, I should have to find something to do in the evenings, to say nothing of the fact that I have no better friend in Paris than this excellent Paul.' To remove his fears concerning these contingencies he was obliged to recapitulate the bonds of interest that made him indispensable to the Moraines. 'No,' he concluded, as he reached the door of his mansion in the Cours-la-Reine, 'he will not let her go, she will not give me up, and everything will come right. Everything always comes right in the end.'

This assurance and philosophy were probably not so sincere as the Baron's vanity--his only weakness--would have him believe, and for the first time in his life he got out of patience with his valet, a pupil of his who for years had helped him to undress. Though he was still anxious about the future, and more inwardly upset than he cared to admit, this easy-going egoist nevertheless slept right off for seven hours, according to his wont. Thanks to a life of moderate and continual activity, to a careful system of diet, to absolute regularity in rising and retiring, and, above all, to the care he took to rid his brain at midnight of all troublesome thoughts, he had acquired such a fixed habit of dropping off to sleep at the same hour that nothing less than the announcement of another Commune--the most terrible calamity he could think of--would have kept him awake. On opening his eyes in the morning, his mind refreshed by his recuperative slumbers, all irritation was so completely dispelled that he recalled the events of the preceding night with a smile.

'I am sure that _he_ has not done as much,' he said to himself, thinking of the sleepless hours that René must have spent, 'nor Suzanne either'--she had been so agitated--'nor Moraines.' An indisposition of his wife's always turned that poor fellow upside down. 'What a fine title for a play--"The happiest of the four!" I must take credit for its invention.' His joke pleased him immensely, and when Doctor Noirot, during the process of massage, had said to him, 'Monsieur le Baron's muscles are in excellent condition this morning; they are as healthy, supple, and firm as those of a man of thirty,' the sensation of well-being abolished the last traces of his ill humour.

He had now but one idea--how to prevent last night's scene from bringing any change into his comfortable existence, so well adapted to his dear person. He thought of it as he drank his chocolate, a kind of light and fragrant froth which his valet prepared according to the precepts of a master of the culinary art. He thought of it as he galloped through the Bois on this bright spring morning. He thought of it as he sat down to luncheon about half-past twelve opposite the old aunt whose duties consisted of looking after the linen, the silver, and the servants' accounts, until such time as she should be called upon to look after him. He decided to adopt the principle of every wise policy, both public and private--to wait! 'Better give the young man time to make a fool of himself and slip away of his own accord. I must be very kind, and pretend I have seen nothing.'

Turning this resolve over in his mind, he made his way on foot to the Rue Murillo about two o'clock. He stopped before the shop window of an art dealer whom he knew very well, and his eyes fell upon a Louis XVI. watch, its chased gold case set in a wreath of roses and bearing a charming miniature. 'An excellent means,' he thought, 'of proving to her that I am for the _status quo._' He bought the pretty toy at a reasonable price, and congratulated himself upon its acquisition when, on entering Suzanne's little _salon_, he saw how anxiously she had awaited his coming. Her careworn look and her pallor told him that she must have spent the night in concocting plans to get out of the dilemma into which the scene with René had led her, and by the way in which she eyed him the Baron saw that she knew she had not escaped his perspicacity. This compliment was like balm to his wounded vanity, and he felt real pleasure in handing her the case containing the little bauble with the words, 'How do you like this?'

'It is charming,' said Suzanne; 'the shepherd and shepherdess are most life-like.'

'Yes,' replied Desforges; 'they almost look as though they were singing the romance of those days:

'I gave up all for fickle Sylvia's sake, She leaves me now and takes another swain . . .'

His fine and well-trained tenor voice had once gained him some success in the drawing-rooms, and he hummed the refrain of the well-known lament with a variation of his own:

'Love's pangs last but a moment, Love's pleasures last for life . . .'

'If you will place this shepherd and shepherdess on a corner of your table, they will be better than with me.'

'How you spoil me!' said Suzanne, with some embarrassment.

'No,' replied Desforges, 'I spoil myself. Am I not your friend before all else?' Then, kissing her hand, he added in a serious tone that contrasted with his usual bantering accents, 'And you will never have a better.'

That was all. One word more and he would have compromised his dignity. One word less and Suzanne might have believed him her dupe. She felt deeply grateful for the consideration with which he had treated her--the more so since that consideration left her free to devote her mind to René. All her thoughts had been concentrated during her sleepless night upon this one question--how to manage the one while keeping the other, now that the two men had seen and understood each other? Break with the Baron? She had thought of it, but how could it be done? She saw herself caught in the web of lies which she had spun for her husband this many a year. Their mode of life could not be kept up without the aid of her rich lover. To break with him was to condemn herself to immediately seek a new relationship of the same kind. On the other hand, to keep Desforges meant breaking with René. The Baron, she had said to herself, would never understand that in loving another she was not robbing him of a whit of affection. Do men ever admit such truths? And now he was kind and considerate enough not even to mention whatever he had noticed. Never, even when paying the heaviest bills, had he appeared so generous as at that moment, when, by his attitude, he allowed her to devote herself to the task of winning back her young lover and the kisses she neither could nor would do without.

'He is right,' she said to herself when Desforges had gone; 'he is my best friend.' And immediately, with that marvellous facility women possess for indulging in fresh hopes on the slightest provocation, she was ready to believe that matters would arrange themselves as easily on the other side. As she lay at full length on the sofa, her fingers idly toying with the pretty little watch, her thoughts were busied with the poet and with the means she should employ to win him back. She must examine the situation carefully and look it full in the face. What did René know? This first point had been already answered by himself; he had seen both her and the Baron come out of the house in the Rue du Mont-Thabor. Now Desforges, from motives of prudence, never went out the same way as she did. René must therefore know of the existence of the two exits. Had he seen her leave her carriage and walk as far as the entrance in the Rue de Rivoli. It was very probable. If chance alone had brought him into contact with her first, and then with the Baron, he could have drawn no conclusions from the double meeting. No, he must have watched her and followed her. But what had induced him to do so? At their last interview at the beginning of the week she had left him so reassured, so full of love and happiness! There was only one thing that could possibly have caused a revival of suspicion so violent as to lead him to watch her movements--Claude's return. Once more a feeling of rage against that individual came over her.

'If it is to him that I owe this fresh alarm, he shall pay for it,' she thought. But she soon returned to the real danger, which, for the moment, was of more importance to her than her rancour against the imprudent Larcher. The fact remained that in some way or other René had detected the secret of her meetings with Desforges, and this evidently caused him such intense pain that he had been compelled to fling his discovery at her as soon as it was made. His mad conduct at the Opera was but a proof of love, though it had nearly ruined her, and, instead of her being angry with him for it, she only cherished him the more. His passion was a sign of her power over him, and she concluded that a lover who loved so madly would not be difficult to win back. Only she must see him, speak to him, and explain her visit to the Rue du Mont-Thabor with her own lips. She could say that she had gone to see a sick friend who was also a friend of the Baron's. But what of the carriage sent back from Galignani's? She had wanted to walk a little way. But the two entrances? So many houses are built like that. She had had too much experience of René's confiding nature to doubt that she would convince him somehow or other. He had simply been overwhelmed at the moment by proofs that corroborated his suspicions, and was probably already doubtful and pleading with himself the cause of his love.

Her reflections had carried her as far as this when her carriage was announced. The desire to get René back had taken such a hold upon her, and she was, moreover, so convinced that her presence would overcome all resistance, that a bold plan suddenly occurred to her. Why should she not see the poet at once? Why not, now that she had nothing to fear from Desforges? In love quarrels the quickest reconciliations are the best. Would he have the courage to repulse her if she came to him in the little room that had witnessed her first visit, bringing him a fresh and indisputable proof of love? She would say, 'You have insulted, slandered, and tortured me--yet I could not bear to think you in doubt and pain--and I came!' No sooner had she grasped the possibility of taking this decisive step than she clung to it as if it were a sure way out of the anguish that had tortured her since the preceding evening. She dressed so hurriedly that she quite astonished her maid, and yet she had never looked prettier than in the light grey gown she had chosen. Without a moment's hesitation, she told her coachman to drive to the Rue Coëtlogon. To that point had this woman, generally so circumspect and so careful of appearances, come.

'Just for once!' she said to herself as her brougham rolled along; 'I shall get there quicker.' The ideas of worldly prudence had soon made way for others. 'I wonder whether René is at home? Of course he is. He is waiting for a letter from me, or for some sign of my existence.' It was almost the same question she had asked herself and the same answer she had given on the occasion of her first visit in March, two months and a half before. By the difference in her feelings she could measure the progress she had made since that time. Then, she had hastened to the poet's dwelling in obedience to a violent caprice--but still only a caprice. Now, it was love that coursed through her veins, the love that thirsts for love in return, that sees nought else in the world but the object it desires, and that would unflinchingly make for its goal under the cannon's mouth. She loved now with all her body and soul; she had proofs of it in her unreasonable impatience to get along still faster and in her fears that the step she had taken might be in vain. Her agitation was intense when the carriage stopped at the gate that barred the entrance to the street. The latter, thanks to the trees whose foliage overtopped the garden wall on the right, looked fresh and green in the soft sunlight of this bright May afternoon.

She had undoubtedly been less moved on the former occasion when asking the _concierge_ whether M. Vincy was at home. The man told her that he was in. She rang the bell, and, as before, the sound of it caused a thrill to run through her from head to foot. She heard a door open and light footsteps approaching. Remembering the heavy tread she had once heard in the same place, she concluded that the person now coming to the door was neither the maid nor René; the footfall of the latter she knew too well. She had a presentiment that she was about to face her lover's sister--the woman whose absence had favoured her former visit. She had no time to think of the drawbacks of this unexpected incident, for Madame Fresneau had already opened the door. Her face left Suzanne no doubt as to her identity, so great was the resemblance between the brother and sister. Neither had Emilie any hesitation in deciding who the visitor was. The sight of René's fresh sufferings during the past few days, added to the information she had gleaned from Claude, had intensified her hatred towards Madame Moraines, and as she replied to Suzanne's question she could not help giving her words a tone of bitter and unconcealed hostility.

'No, madame, my brother is not in.' Then, her sisterly affection suggesting a way to avoid all further questions as to the time of René's return, she added: 'He left town this morning.'

The reply given her by the _concierge_ told Suzanne that this was a lie, but she had no reason for believing the lie to be an invention of Emilie's. She was obliged to believe, and did believe, that Madame Fresneau was obeying the orders given her by her brother. She tried to learn nothing further, a graceful inclination of her head in the very best form being the only revenge she took for the almost rude manners of the _bourgeoise._ Her outward calm, however, hid a great deal of disappointment and real pain. She did not stop to ask herself whether Emilie's strange behaviour was due to René's indiscreet confidences or not. She merely said to herself, 'He does not wish to see me again,' and that idea hurt her deeply. On reaching the street she turned to cast a glance at the window of the room into which she had once made her way, and remembered how, on that occasion, she had also looked round on leaving, and had seen the poet standing behind the half-drawn blinds. Would he not take up the same position to see her go when his sister told him who had called? She stood waiting for five minutes, and the fact of the blinds remaining down was a source of fresh grief to her. As she got into her brougham she was as agitated as only a woman can be who loves sincerely and who is obliged to be incessantly changing her plans. After turning the matter over again and again, she, who never wrote, decided to send the following letter:

Saturday, 5 o'clock.

'Dear René,--I called at your house, and your sister told me you had left town. But I know that is not true. You were there, only a few yards away from me, in that room where every object must have reminded you of my former visit, and yet you would not see me. You can surely have no doubts of my sincerity on that occasion? Why should I have acted a lie? I entreat you to let me see you, if it be only for a minute. Come and read in my eyes what you swore never to doubt--that you are my all, my life, my heaven. Since last night I am as one dead. Your horrible words are continually in my ears. It cannot be you who spoke them. Where could you have got that bitterness, almost akin to hatred? How can you condemn me unheard on a suspicion for which you will blush when I have proved to you how false it is? I ought, it is true, to be indignant and angry with you, but my heart, dear René, contains only love for you, and a desire to efface from your soul all that the enemies of our happiness have engraved there. The step I took this morning, though contrary to all that a woman owes herself, I took so cheerfully that, had you seen me, you could have had no doubt respecting the sentiments that animate me. Send me no answer. I feel even as I write how powerless a letter is to describe the feelings of the heart. I shall expect you on Monday at eleven in _our sanctuary._ It should be my right to tell you I demand to see you there, for those accused have always the right to defend themselves. I will only say, Come, if you ever loved, even for a day, the woman who has never told you and never will tell you aught but the truth. I swear it, my only love.'

When Suzanne had finished her letter she read it over. A lingering instinct of prudence made her hesitate before signing it, but the sincerity of her passion caused her to blush for her momentary weakness, and, taking up her pen, she wrote her name at the bottom of this faithful description of the strange moral condition into which she had drifted. She lied once more in swearing that she spoke the truth, and yet nothing was truer, more spontaneous, and less artificial than the feelings which dictated the supreme deception that capped all the rest. She summoned her footman, and, again scorning all ideas of prudence, told him to give the letter--any single sentence in which would have ruined her--to a commissionaire for immediate delivery. During the thirty-six hours that separated her from the rendez-vous she had fixed she lived in a state of nervous excitement of which she would never have deemed herself capable.

This woman, who had such perfect control over herself, and who had entered upon this adventure with the same Machiavelian _sangfroid_ she had maintained in all her Society relations for years, now felt powerless to follow, or even to form, any kind of plan respecting the attitude to be assumed towards her lover. She was to dine out that night, but she went through the process of dressing in an absolutely listless way--an unusual thing for her--and without even looking in the glass. During the whole of the dinner she found not a word to say to her neighbour, the ubiquitous Crucé, and her brougham had been ordered for ten o'clock on the plea that she was still suffering from her indisposition of the preceding evening. On her way home she paid not the slightest attention to her husband's words; his very presence was intolerable to her, for it was on his account, remaining at home as he did on Sundays, that she had been obliged to put off her meeting with René until Monday. Would the poet consent to come? How anxiously, as the servant helped her off with her cloak, did she scan the tray on which were placed the letters that had come by the evening post! The poet's writing was not to be seen on any envelope. She spent the whole of Sunday in bed, under pretext of a bad headache, but in reality trying to think out some plan in case René refused to believe her story of a sick friend as an explanation of her visit to the Rue du Mont-Thabor.

But he would believe it. She could not admit to herself that he would not; the supposition was too painful. Her fever of longing and suspense, of hope and fear, reached its climax on Monday morning as she ascended the stairs of the house in the Rue des Dames. If René were waiting for her, hidden, as usual, behind the half-open door, it would prove that her letter had conquered him, and in that case she was saved. But no--the door was closed. Her hand trembled as she inserted the key in the lock. She entered the first room and found it empty and the blinds drawn. She sat down in the semi-darkness and gazed upon the objects that recalled a happiness so recent and yet already so far away. There was just the ordinary furniture of a modest drawing-room--a few arm-chairs and a sofa in blue velvet, with antimacassars carefully hung at the proper height. The handful of books René had brought were ranged in perfect order on a well-dusted shelf, and the worthy landlady had even taken care that the gilt clock, with its figure of Penelope, had been kept going.

Suzanne listened to the swing of the pendulum as it broke the silence in the apartment. Seconds passed, then minutes, then quarters, and still René did not come. He would not come now. As this fact dawned upon her Madame Moraines, accustomed from her earliest youth to having all her wishes gratified, was seized with a fit of real despair. She began to weep like a child, and her tears fell faster and faster, unaccompanied now by any thoughts of simulation. She felt a desire to write, but no sooner had she found some paper in the blotting-book left by her lover and dipped the pen in the ink than she pushed the things away, exclaiming, 'What is the good of it?' To show that she had been there in case René should come after she was gone she left behind her the scented handkerchief with which she had dried her bitter tears. She murmured to herself, 'He used to like this scent!' and by the side of the handkerchief she laid the gloves that he had always buttoned for her as she was going. Then, with a heavy heart, she left the room in which she had been so happy. Could it be possible that those happy hours had gone--and for ever?