Maxime at last escaped from his father, he went quickly round the gardens. What he had just heard surprised him so greatly that he experienced an irresistible desire to see Renée. He wanted to beg forgiveness for his brutality, to know why she had told him that lie about M. de Saffré, to learn the story of her husband’s affection. But all this confusedly, with the one clear wish to smoke a cigar in her rooms and to resume their friendly relations. If she was in the right humour, he would even announce his marriage to her, to make her see that their love-affair must remain dead and buried. When he had opened the little gate, of which he had fortunately kept the key, he ended by convincing himself that his visit, after his father’s revelations, was necessary and absolutely proper.
In the conservatory he whistled as he had done the preceding evening; but he was not kept waiting. Renée came and unfastened the glass door of the small drawingroom, and led the way upstairs without a word. She had that instant come back from a ball at the Hotel de Ville. She still wore her dress of white puffed tulle, covered with satin bows; the skirts of the satin bodice were edged with a broad border of white bugles, which the light of the candles tinged with blue and pink. Upstairs, when Maxime looked at her, he was touched by her pallor and the deep emotion that stifled her utterance. She had evidently not expected him, she still quivered all over at seeing him arrive as usual, with his quiet, wheedling air. Céleste returned from the wardrobe-room, where she had been to fetch a nightdress, and the lovers remained silent, waiting for the girl to go. As a rule they did not mind what they said before her; but they felt ashamed of the things that were on their lips. Renée told Céleste to undress her in the bedroom, where there was a big fire. The lady’s-maid removed the pins, took off each article of finery separately, without hurrying herself. And Maxime, bored, mechanically took up the nightdress, which was lying on a chair beside him, and warmed it before the fire, leaning forward with arms outstretched. He had been used in happier times to do this little service for Renée. She felt moved when she saw him daintily holding, the nightgown to the fire. Then, as Céleste had not yet finished:
“Did you enjoy yourself at the ball?” he asked.
“Oh no, it’s always the same thing, you know,” she replied. “Far too many people, a regular crush.”
He turned the nightgown, which was hot on one side.
“What did Adeline wear?”
“Mauve, a badly thought-out dress…. She is short, and yet she dotes on flounces.”
They talked of the other women. Maxime was now burning his fingers with the chemise.
“But you’ll scorch it,” said Renée, whose voice sounded maternally caressing.
Céleste took the chemise from the young man’s hands. He rose and went over to the great pink-and-gray bed, fixing his eyes on one of the embroidered bouquets on the curtains, so as to turn away his head and not see Renée’s naked breasts. He did this by intuition. He no longer considered himself her lover, he had no longer the right to look. Then he took a cigar from his pocket and lighted it. Renée had given him permission to smoke in her room. At last Céleste withdrew, leaving the young woman by the fireside, all white in her nightdress.
Maxime walked about a few seconds longer, without speaking, glancing at Renée, who seemed to be seized with a fresh shudder. And stationing himself before the fire, with his cigar between his teeth, he asked abruptly:
“Why didn’t you tell me that it was my father who was with you last night?”
She raised her head, her eyes wide open, with a look of supreme anguish; then a rush of blood crimsoned her features, and, overwhelmed with shame, she hid her face in her hands, stammering:
“You know that? you know that?…”
She recovered herself, she tried to lie.
“It’s not true…. Who told you?”
Maxime shrugged his shoulders.
“Why, my father himself, who thinks you jolly well made and talked to me about your hips.”
He had allowed a little vexation to show itself. But he began walking about again, and continued in a scolding but friendly voice between two puffs at his cigar:
“Really, I can’t understand you. You’re a strange woman. It was your own fault if I behaved like a brute yesterday. You ought to have told me it was my father, and I should have gone away quietly, don’t you see? What right have I?… But you go and tell me it’s M. de Saffré!”
She sobbed, her hands over her face. He came up to her, knelt down before her, and forced her hands apart.
“Come, tell me why you said it was M. de Saffré!”
Then, still averting her head, she replied through her tears, in a low voice:
“I thought you would leave me if you knew that your father…”
He rose to his feet, took up his cigar, which he had laid on a corner of the mantelshelf, and contented himself with muttering:
“You’re a very funny woman, on my word!”
She no longer cried. The flames in the grate and the fire in her cheeks had dried her tears. The surprise of seeing Maxime so self-possessed in presence of a revelation which she thought would crush him made her forget her shame. She watched him walking up and down, she listened to his voice as though she were dreaming. Without abandoning his cigar he repeated to her that she was absurd, that it was quite natural that she should have connection with her husband, that he really could not think of resenting it. But to go and confess that she had a lover when it wasn’t true! And he kept on returning to this, to this point which he could not understand and which he looked upon as positively monstrous, talked of women’s “foolish fancies.”
“You’re not quite right in your mind, dear; you must be careful.”
He wound up by asking inquisitively:
“But why M. de Saffré more than another?”
“He makes love to me,” said Renée.
Maxime checked an impertinence; he was on the point of saying that she was doubtless only anticipating by a month when she owned to M. de Saffré as her lover. He only smiled wickedly at his spiteful idea, and throwing his cigar into the fire, sat down at the opposite side of the mantelpiece. There, he talked commonsense, he gave Renée to understand that they must remain good friends. Her fixed look embarrassed him, however, he had not the courage to tell her of his approaching marriage. She gazed at him, her eyes still swollen with tears. She thought him a poor creature, narrowminded and contemptible, and yet she loved him, as she might love her lace. He looked handsome in the light of the candelabra standing at the corner of the mantel by his side. As he threw back his head, the light of the candles tinged his hair with gold and glided over the soft down on his cheeks with a charmingly blonde effect.
“I must really be off,” he said several times.
He had quite decided not to stay. Besides, Renée would not have let him. They both thought so, said so: they were now merely friends. And when Maxime at last pressed Renée’s hand and was on the point of leaving the room, she detained him for a moment longer and spoke to him of his father. She sang his praises loudly.
“You see, I felt too great a remorse. I prefer that this should have happened….
