“Yes, yes; it is a capital idea.”
“How you say that! Do you see any objections?”
She was trying to find some objection, but could not.
“I have a little fear of Laurence’s future,” said she at last.
“Bah! Why?”
“I only say what I’ve heard you say. You told me that Monsieur Tremorel has been a libertine, a gambler, a prodigal—”
“All the more reason for trusting him. His past follies guarantee his future prudence. He has received a lesson which he will not forget. Besides, he will love his wife.”
“How do you know?”
“Parbleu, he loves her already.”
“Who told you so?”
“Himself.”
And Sauvresy began to laugh about Hector’s passion, which he said was becoming quite pastoral.
“Would you believe,” said he, laughing, “that he thinks our worthy Courtois a man of wit? Ah, what spectacles these lovers look through! He spends two or three hours every day with the mayor. What do you suppose he does there?”
Bertha, by great effort, succeeded in dissembling her grief; she reappeared with a smiling face. She went and came, apparently calm, though suffering the bitterest anguish a woman can endure. And she could not run to Hector, and ask him if it were true!
For Sauvresy must be deceiving her. Why? She knew not. No matter. She felt her hatred of him increasing to disgust; for she excused and pardoned her lover, and she blamed her husband alone. Whose idea was this marriage? His. Who had awakened Hector’s hopes, and encouraged them? He, always he. While he had been harmless, she had been able to pardon him for having married her; she had compelled herself to bear him, to feign a love quite foreign to her heart. But now he became hateful; should she submit to his interference in a matter which was life or death to her?
She did not close her eyes all night; she had one of those horrible nights in which crimes are conceived. She did not find herself alone with Hector until after breakfast the next day, in the billiard-hall.
“Is it true?” she asked.
The expression of her face was so menacing that he quailed before it. He stammered:
“True—what?”
“Your marriage.”
He was silent at first, asking himself whether he should tell the truth or equivocate. At last, irritated by Bertha’s imperious tone, he replied:
“Yes.”
She was thunderstruck at this response. Till then, she had a glimmer of hope. She thought that he would at least try to reassure her, to deceive her. There are times when a falsehood is the highest homage. But no—he avowed it. She was speechless; words failed her.
Tremorel began to tell her the motives which prompted his conduct. He could not live forever at Valfeuillu. What could he, with his habits and tastes, do with a few thousand crowns a year? He was thirty; he must, now or never, think of the future. M. Courtois would give his daughter a million, and at his death there would be a great deal more. Should he let this chance slip? He cared little for Laurence, it was the dowry he wanted. He took no pains to conceal his meanness; he rather gloried in it, speaking of the marriage as simply a bargain, in which he gave his name and title in exchange for riches. Bertha stopped him with a look full of contempt.
“Spare yourself,” said she. “You love Laurence.”
He would have protested; he really disliked her.
“Enough,” resumed Bertha. “Another woman would have reproached you; I simply tell you that this marriage shall not be; I do not wish it. Believe me, give it up frankly, don’t force me to act.”
She retired, shutting the door violently; Hector was furious.
“How she treats me!” said he to himself. “Just as a queen would speak to a serf. Ah, she don’t want me to marry Laurence!” His coolness returned, and with it serious reflections. If he insisted on marrying, would not Bertha carry out her threats? Evidently; for he knew well that she was one of those women who shrink from nothing, whom no consideration could arrest. He guessed what she would do, from what she had said in a quarrel with him about Jenny. She had told him, “I will confess everything to Sauvresy, and we will be the more bound together by shame than by all the ceremonies of the church.”
This was surely the mode she would adopt to break a marriage which was so hateful to her; and Tremorel trembled at the idea of Sauvresy knowing all.
“What would he do,” thought he, “if Bertha told him? He would kill me off-hand—that’s what I would do in his place. Suppose he didn’t; I should have to fight a duel with him, and if I killed him, quit the country. Whatever would happen, my marriage is irrevocably broken, and Bertha seems to be on my hands for all time.”
He saw no possible way out of the horrible situation in which he had put himself.
“I must wait,” thought he.
And he waited, going secretly to the mayor’s, for he really loved Laurence. He waited, devoured by anxiety, struggling between Sauvresy’s urgency and Bertha’s threats. How he detested this woman who held him, whose will weighed so heavily on him! Nothing could curb her ferocious obstinacy. She had one fixed idea. He had thought to conciliate her by dismissing Jenny. It was a mistake. When he said to her:
“Bertha, I shall never see Jenny again.”
She answered, ironically:
“Mademoiselle Courtois will be very grateful to you!”
That evening, while Sauvresy was crossing the court-yard, he saw a beggar at the gate, making signs to him.
“What do you want, my good man?”
The beggar looked around to see that no one was listening.
“I have brought you a note,” said he, rapidly, and in a low tone. “I was told to give it, only to you, and to ask you to read it when you are alone.”
He mysteriously slipped a note, carefully sealed, into Sauvresy’s hand.
“It comes from pretty girl,” added he, winking.
Sauvresy, turning his back to the house, opened it and read:
“Sir—You will do a great favor to a poor and unhappy girl, if
you will come to-morrow to the Belle Image, at Corbeil, where
you will be awaited all day.
“Your humble servant,
“Jenny F——.”
There was also a postscript.
“Please, sir, don’t say a word of this to the Count de Tremorel.”
