Part 20 (1/2)

The finest poems of hope are sung in secret, but grief appears without a veil.

”Calyste, you are not nice,” said Charlotte, after vainly attempting on him those little provincial witcheries which degenerate usually into teasing.

”I am tired,” he said, rising, and bidding the company good-night.

”Calyste is much changed,” remarked Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel.

”We haven't beautiful dresses trimmed with lace; we don't shake our sleeves like this, or twist our bodies like that; we don't know how to give sidelong glances, and turn our eyes,” said Charlotte, mimicking the air, and att.i.tude, and glances of the marquise. ”_We_ haven't that head voice, nor the interesting little cough, _heu! heu!_ which sounds like the sigh of a spook; _we_ have the misfortune of being healthy and robust, and of loving our friends without coquetry; and when we look at them, we don't pretend to stick a dart into them, or to watch them slyly; _we_ can't bend our heads like a weeping willow, just to look the more interesting when we raise them--this way.”

Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel could not help laughing at her niece's gesture; but neither the chevalier nor the baron paid any heed to this truly provincial satire against Paris.

”But the Marquise de Rochefide is a very handsome woman,” said the old maid.

”My dear,” said the baroness to her husband, ”I happen to know that she is going over to Croisic to-morrow. Let us walk on the jetty; I should like to see her.”

While Calyste was racking his brains to imagine what could have closed the doors of Les Touches to him, a scene was pa.s.sing between Camille and Beatrix which was to have its influence on the events of the morrow.

Calyste's last letter had stirred in Madame de Rochefide's heart emotions. .h.i.therto unknown to it. Women are not often the subject of a love so young, guileless, sincere, and unconditional as that of this youth, this child. Beatrix had loved more than she had been loved. After being all her life a slave, she suddenly felt an inexplicable desire to be a tyrant. But, in the midst of her pleasure, as she read and re-read the letter, she was pierced through and through with a cruel idea.

What were Calyste and Camille doing together ever since Claude Vignon's departure? If, as Calyste said, he did not love Camille, and if Camille knew it, how did they employ their mornings, and why were they alone together? Memory suddenly flashed into her mind, in answer to these questions, certain speeches of Camille; a grinning devil seemed to show her, as in a magic mirror, the portrait of that heroic woman, with certain gestures, certain aspects, which suddenly enlightened her. What!

instead of being her equal, was she crushed by Felicite? instead of over-reaching her, was she being over-reached herself? was she only a toy, a pleasure, which Camille was giving to her child, whom she loved with an extraordinary pa.s.sion that was free from all vulgarity?

To a woman like Beatrix this thought came like a thunder-clap. She went over in her mind minutely the history of the past week. In a moment the part which Camille was playing, and her own, unrolled themselves to their fullest extent before her eyes; she felt horribly belittled.

In her fury of jealous anger, she fancied she could see in Camille's conduct an intention of vengeance against Conti. Was the hidden wrath of the past two years really acting upon the present moment?

Once on the path of these doubts and superst.i.tions, Beatrix did not pause. She walked up and down her room, driven to rapid motion by the impetuous movements of her soul, sitting down now and then, and trying to decide upon a course, but unable to do so. And thus she remained, a prey to indecision until the dinner hour, when she rose hastily, and went downstairs without dressing. No sooner did Camille see her, than she felt that a crisis had come. Beatrix, in her morning gown, with a chilling air and a taciturn manner, indicated to an observer as keen as Maupin the coming hostilities of an embittered heart.

Camille instantly left the room and gave the order which so astonished Calyste; she feared that he might arrive in the midst of the quarrel, and she determined to be alone, without witnesses, in fighting this duel of deception on both sides. Beatrix, without an auxiliary, would infallibly succ.u.mb. Camille well knew the barrenness of that soul, the pettiness of that pride, to which she had justly applied the epithet of obstinate.

The dinner was gloomy. Camille was gentle and kind; she felt herself the superior being. Beatrix was hard and cutting; she felt she was being managed like a child. During dinner the battle began with glances, gestures, half-spoken sentences,--not enough to enlighten the servants, but enough to prepare an observer for the coming storm. When the time to go upstairs came, Camille offered her arm maliciously to Beatrix, who pretended not to see it, and sprang up the stairway alone. When coffee had been served Mademoiselle des Touches said to the footman, ”You may go,”--a brief sentence, which served as a signal for the combat.

”The novels you make, my dear, are more dangerous than those you write,”

said the marquise.

”They have one advantage, however,” replied Camille, lighting a cigarette.

”What is that?” asked Beatrix.

”They are unpublished, my angel.”

”Is the one in which you are putting me to be turned into a book?”

”I've no fancy for the role of OEdipus; I know you have the wit and beauty of a sphinx, but don't propound conundrums. Speak out, plainly, my dear Beatrix.”

”When, in order to make a man happy, amuse him, please him, and save him from ennui, we allow the devil to help us--”

”That man would reproach us later for our efforts on his behalf, and would think them prompted by the genius of depravity,” said Camille, taking the cigarette from her lips to interrupt her friend.

”He forgets the love which carried us away, and is our sole justification--but that's the way of men, they are all unjust and ungrateful,” continued Beatrix. ”Women among themselves know each other; they know how proud and n.o.ble their own minds are, and, let us frankly say so, how virtuous! But, Camille, I have just recognized the truth of certain criticisms upon your nature, of which you have sometimes complained. My dear, you have something of the man about you; you behave like a man; nothing restrains you; if you haven't all a man's advantages, you have a man's spirit in all your ways; and you share his contempt for women. I have no reason, my dear, to be satisfied with you, and I am too frank to hide my dissatisfaction. No one has ever given or ever will give, perhaps, so cruel a wound to my heart as that from which I am now suffering. If you are not a woman in love, you are one in vengeance. It takes a _woman_ of genius to discover the most sensitive spot of all in another woman's delicacy. I am talking now of Calyste, and the trickery, my dear,--that is the word,--_trickery_,--you have employed against me. To what depths have you descended, Camille Maupin!