Part 8 (1/2)
”We must go and get some sweets. She asked me for some.”
We went into a confectioner's in the pa.s.sage de l'Opera. I would have bought the whole shop, and I was looking about to see what sweets to choose, when my friend asked for a pound of raisins glaces.
”Do you know if she likes them?”
”She eats no other kind of sweets; everybody knows it.
”Ah,” he went on when we had left the shop, ”do you know what kind of woman it is that I am going to introduce you to? Don't imagine it is a d.u.c.h.ess. It is simply a kept woman, very much kept, my dear fellow; don't be shy, say anything that comes into your head.”
”Yes, yes,” I stammered, and I followed him, saying to myself that I should soon cure myself of my pa.s.sion.
When I entered the box Marguerite was in fits of laughter. I would rather that she had been sad. My friend introduced me; Marguerite gave me a little nod, and said, ”And my sweets?”
”Here they are.”
She looked at me as she took them. I dropped my eyes and blushed.
She leaned across to her neighbour and said something in her ear, at which both laughed. Evidently I was the cause of their mirth, and my embarra.s.sment increased. At that time I had as mistress a very affectionate and sentimental little person, whose sentiment and whose melancholy letters amused me greatly. I realized the pain I must have given her by what I now experienced, and for five minutes I loved her as no woman was ever loved.
Marguerite ate her raisins glaces without taking any more notice of me.
The friend who had introduced me did not wish to let me remain in so ridiculous a position.
”Marguerite,” he said, ”you must not be surprised if M. Duval says nothing: you overwhelm him to such a degree that he can not find a word to say.”
”I should say, on the contrary, that he has only come with you because it would have bored you to come here by yourself.”
”If that were true,” I said, ”I should not have begged Ernest to ask your permission to introduce me.”
”Perhaps that was only in order to put off the fatal moment.”
However little one may have known women like Marguerite, one can not but know the delight they take in pretending to be witty and in teasing the people whom they meet for the first time. It is no doubt a return for the humiliations which they often have to submit to on the part of those whom they see every day.
To answer them properly, one requires a certain knack, and I had not had the opportunity of acquiring it; besides, the idea that I had formed of Marguerite accentuated the effects of her mockery. Nothing that dame from her was indifferent to me. I rose to my feet, saying in an altered voice, which I could not entirely control:
”If that is what you think of me, madame, I have only to ask your pardon for my indiscretion, and to take leave of you with the a.s.surance that it shall not occur again.”
Thereupon I bowed and quitted the box. I had scarcely closed the door when I heard a third peal of laughter. It would not have been well for anybody who had elbowed me at that moment.
I returned to my seat. The signal for raising the curtain was given.
Ernest came back to his place beside me.
”What a way you behaved!” he said, as he sat down. ”They will think you are mad.”
”What did Marguerite say after I had gone?”
”She laughed, and said she had never seen any one so funny. But don't look upon it as a lost chance; only do not do these women the honour of taking them seriously. They do not know what politeness and ceremony are. It is as if you were to offer perfumes to dogs--they would think it smelled bad, and go and roll in the gutter.”
”After all, what does it matter to me?” I said, affecting to speak in a nonchalant way. ”I shall never see this woman again, and if I liked her before meeting her, it is quite different now that I know her.”