“Why! Is that you? I should never
have known you again!”
He was very nearly starting off again immediately.
He even telegraphed orders to Havre to get the steam-yacht
ready for sea again directly, when he heard that Marie-Anne
had married again.
He saw her in the distance, at the Theatre Francais
one Tuesday, and when he noticed how pretty, how fair,
how desirable she was, and looking so melancholy,
with all the appearance of an unhappy soul that regrets
something, his determination grew weaker, and he delayed
his departure from week to week, and waited, without
knowing why, until, at last, worn out with the struggle,
watching her wherever she went, more in love with
her than he had ever been before, he wrote her long,
mad, ardent letters in which his passion overflowed
like a stream of lava.
He altered his handwriting, as he remembered her restless
brain and her many whims. He sent her the flowers
which he knew she liked best, and told her that she
was his life, that he was dying of waiting for her,
of longing for her, for her, his idol.
At last, very much puzzled and surprised, guessing—who
knows?—from the instinctive beating of
her heart, and her general emotion, that it must be
he this time, he whose soul she had tortured with such
cold cruelty, and knowing that she could make amends
for the past and bring back their former love, she
replied to him, and granted him the meeting that he
asked for. She fell into his arms, and they both
sobbed with joy and ecstasy. Their kisses were
those which lips only give when they have lost each
other and found each other again at last, when they
meet and exhaust themselves in each other’s
looks, thirsting for tenderness, love and enjoyment.
* * * *
*
Last week Count de Baudemont carried off Marie-Anne
quietly and coolly, just like one resumes possession
of one’s house on returning from a journey,
and drives out the intruders. And when Maitre
Garrulier was told of this unheard-of scandal, he
rubbed his hands—his long, delicate hands
of a sensual prelate—and exclaimed:
“That is absolutely logical, and I should like
to be in their place.”
His wife, even when talking to him, always called
him Monsieur Bistaud, but in all the country round,
within a radius of ten leagues in France and Belgium,
he was known as cet homme aux chiens[5].
It was not a very valuable reputation, however, and
“That man with the dogs” became a sort
of pariah.
[Footnote 5: That man with the dogs.]
