第25章

"Monsieur, you frighten me !...No, pardon me.Thank you,"she added, coldly; "thank you, Armand.You have given me timely warning of imprudence; committed quite unconsciously, believe it, my friend.You know how to endure, you say.I also know how to endure.We will not see each other for a time; and then, when both of us have contrived to recover calmness to some extent, we will think about arrangements for a happiness sanctioned by the world.I am young, Armand; a man with no delicacy might tempt a woman of four-and-twenty to do many foolish, wild things for his sake.But YOU! You will be my friend, promise me that you will?""The woman of four-and-twenty," returned he, "knows what she is about."He sat down on the sofa in the boudoir, and leant his head on his hands.

"Do you love me, madame?" he asked at length, raising his head, and turning a face full of resolution upon her."Say it straight out; Yes or No!"His direct question dismayed the Duchess more than a threat of suicide could have done; indeed, the woman of the nineteenth century is not to be frightened by that stale stratagem, the sword has ceased to be part of the masculine costume.But in the effect of eyelids and lashes, in the contraction of the gaze, in the twitching of the lips, is there not some influence that communicates the terror which they express with such vivid magnetic power?

"Ah, if I were free, if----"

"Oh! is it only your husband that stands in the way?" the General exclaimed joyfully, as he strode to and fro in the boudoir."Dear Antoinette, I wield a more absolute power than the Autocrat of all the Russias.I have a compact with Fate; Ican advance or retard destiny, so far as men are concerned, at my fancy, as you alter the hands of a watch.If you can direct the course of fate in our political machinery, it simply means (does it not?) that you understand the ins and outs of it.You shall be free before very long, and then you must remember your promise.""Armand!" she cried."What do you mean? Great heavens! Can you imagine that I am to be the prize of a crime? Do you want to kill me? Why! you cannot have any religion in you! For my own part, I fear God.M.de Langeais may have given me reason to hate him, but I wish him no manner of harm."M.de Montriveau beat a tattoo on the marble chimneypiece, and only looked composedly at the lady.

"Dear," continued she, "respect him.He does not love me, he is not kind to me, but I have duties to fulfil with regard to him.What would I not do to avert the calamities with which you threaten him?--Listen," she continued after a pause, "I will not say another word about separation; you shall come here as in the past, and I will still give you my forehead to kiss.If Irefused once or twice, it was pure coquetry, indeed it was.But let us understand each other," she added as he came closer.

"You will permit me to add to the number of my satellites; to receive even more visitors in the morning than heretofore; I mean to be twice as frivolous; I mean to use you to all appearance very badly; to feign a rupture; you must come not quite so often, and then, afterwards----"While she spoke, she had allowed him to put an arm about her waist, Montriveau was holding her tightly to him, and she seemed to feel the exceeding pleasure that women usually feel in that close contact, an earnest of the bliss of a closer union.And then, doubtless she meant to elicit some confidence, for she raised herself on tiptoe, and laid her forehead against Armand's burning lips.

"And then," Montriveau finished her sentence for her, "you shall not speak to me of your husband.You ought not to think of him again."Mme de Langeais was silent awhile.

"At least," she said, after a significant pause, "at least you will do all that I wish without grumbling, you will not be naughty; tell me so, my friend? You wanted to frighten me, did you not? Come, now, confess it ?...You are too good ever to think of crimes.But is it possible that you can have secrets that I do not know? How can you control Fate?""Now, when you confirm the gift of the heart that you have already given me, I am far too happy to know exactly how to answer you.I can trust you, Antoinette; I shall have no suspicion, no unfounded jealousy of you.But if accident should set you free, we shall be one----""Accident, Armand?" (With that little dainty turn of the head that seems to say so many things, a gesture that such women as the Duchess can use on light occasions, as a great singer can act with her voice.) "Pure accident," she repeated."Mind that.

If anything should happen to M.de Langeais by your fault, Ishould never be yours."

And so they parted, mutually content.The Duchess had made a pact that left her free to prove to the world by words and deeds that M.de Montriveau was no lover of hers.And as for him, the wily Duchess vowed to tire him out.He should have nothing of her beyond the little concessions snatched in the course of contests that she could stop at her pleasure.She had so pretty an art of revoking the grant of yesterday, she was so much in earnest in her purpose to remain technically virtuous, that she felt that there was not the slightest danger for her in preliminaries fraught with peril for a woman less sure of her self-command.After all, the Duchess was practically separated from her husband; a marriage long since annulled was no great sacrifice to make to her love.