life is nothing more than a continual yawn,” answered the young woman; “is it my fault? Do you think it very amusing to be your mistress? Look at yourself. Does there exist another being as sad, as dull as you, more uneasy, more suspicious, devoured by a greater jealousy!”
“Your reception of me, my dear Juliette,” ventured Noel “is enough to extinguish gaiety and freeze all effusion. Then one always fears when one loves!”
“Really! Then one should seek a woman to suit oneself, or have her made to order; shut her up in the cellar, and have her brought upstairs once a day, at the end of dinner, during dessert, or with the champagne just by way of amusement.”
“I should have done better not to have come,” murmured the advocate.
“Of course. I am to remain alone here, without anything to occupy me except a cigarette and a stupid book, that I go to sleep over? Do you call this an existence, never to budge out of the house even?”
“It is the life of all the respectable women that I know,” replied the advocate drily.
“Then I cannot compliment them on their enjoyment. Happily, though, I am not a respectable woman, and I can tell you I am tired of living more closely shut up than the wife of a Turk, with your face for sole amusement.”
“You live shut up, you?”
“Certainly!” continued Juliette, with increased bitterness. “Come, have you ever brought one of your friends here? No, you hide me. When have you offered me your arm for a walk? Never, your dignity would be sullied, if you were seen in my company. I have a carriage. Have you entered it half a dozen times? Perhaps; but then you let down the blinds! I go out alone. I walk about alone!”
“Always the same refrain,” interrupted Noel, anger getting the better of him, “always these uncalled for complaints. As though you had still to learn the reason why this state of things exists.”
“I know well enough,” pursued the young woman, “that you are ashamed of me. Yet I know many bigger swells then you, who do not mind being seen with their mistresses. My lord trembles for his fine name of Gerdy that I might sully, while the sons of the most noble families are not afraid of showing themselves in public places in the company of the stupidest of kept women.”
At last Noel could stand it no longer, to the great delight of Madame Chaffour.
“Enough of these recriminations!” cried he, rising. “If I hide our relations, it is because I am constrained to do so. Of what do you complain? You have unrestrained liberty; and you use it, too, and so largely that your actions altogether escape me. You accuse me of creating a vacuum around you. Who is to blame? Did I grow tired of a happy and quiet existence? My friends would have come to see us in a home in accordance with a modest competence. Can I bring them here? On seeing all this luxury, this insolent display of my folly, they would ask each other where I obtained all the money I have spent on you. I may have a mistress, but I have not the right to squander a fortune that does not belong to me. If my acquaintances learnt tomorrow that it is I who keep you, my future prospects would be destroyed. What client would confide his interests to the imbecile who ruined himself for the woman who has been the talk of all Paris? I am not a great lord, I have neither an historical name to tarnish, nor an immense fortune to lose. I am plain Noel Gerdy, a advocate. My reputation is all that I possess. It is a false one, I admit. Such as it is, however, I must keep it, and I will keep it.”
Juliette who knew her Noel thoroughly, saw that she had gone far enough. She determined, therefore, to put him in a good humor again. “My friend,” said she, tenderly, “I did not wish to cause you pain. You must be indulgent, I am so horribly nervous this evening.”
This sudden change delighted the advocate, and almost sufficed to calm his anger. “You will drive me mad with your injustice,” said he. “While I exhaust my imagination to find what can be agreeable to you, you are perpetually attacking my gravity; yet it is not forty-eight hours since we were plunged in all the gaiety of the carnival. I kept the fete of Shrove Tuesday like a student. We went to a theatre; I then put on a domino, and accompanied you to the ball at the opera, and even invited two of my friends to sup with us.”
“It was very gay indeed!” answered the young woman, making a wry face.
“So I think.”
“Do you! Then you are not hard to please. We went to the Vaudeville, it is true, but separately, as we always do, I alone above, you below. At the ball you looked as though you were burying the devil. At the supper table your friends were as melancholy as a pair of owls. I obeyed your orders by affecting hardly to know you. You imbibed like a sponge, without my being able to tell whether you were drunk or not.”
“That proves,” interrupted Noel, “that we ought not to force our tastes. Let us talk of something else.”
He took a few steps in the room, then looking at his watch said: “Almost one o’clock; my love, I must leave you.”
“What! you are not going to remain?”
“No, to my great regret; my mother is dangerously ill.”
He unfolded and counted out on the table the bank notes he had received from old Tabaret.
“My little Juliette,” said he, “here are not eight thousand francs, but ten thousand. You will not see me again for a few days.”
“Are you leaving Paris, then?”
“No; but my entire time will be absorbed by an affair of immense importance to myself. If I succeed in my undertaking, my dear, our future happiness is assured, and you will then see whether I love you!”
“Oh, my dear Noel, tell me what it is.”
“I cannot now.”
“Tell me I beseech you,” pleaded the young woman, hanging round his neck, raising herself upon the tips of her toes to press her lips to his. The advocate embraced her; and his resolution seemed to waver.
“No,” said he at length, “seriously I cannot. Of what use to awaken in you hopes which can never be realized? Now, my darling, listen to me. Whatever may happen, understand, you must under no pretext whatever again come to my house, as you once had the imprudence to do. Do not even write to me. By disobeying, you may do me an irreparable injury. If any accident occurs, send that old rascal Clergot to me. I shall have a visit from him the day after tomorrow, for he holds some bills of mine.”
Juliette recoiled, menacing Noel with a mutinous gesture. “You will not tell me anything?” insisted she.
“Not this evening, but very soon,” replied the advocate, embarrassed by the piercing glance of his mistress.
“Always some mystery!” cried Juliette, piqued at the want of success attending her blandishments.
“This will be the last, I swear to you!”
“Noel, my good man,” said the young woman in a serious tone, “you are hiding something from me. I understand you, as you know; for several days past there has been something or other the matter with you, you have completely changed.”
“I swear to you, Juliette —”
“No, swear nothing; I should not believe you. Only remember, no attempt at deceiving
