“Still just as much,” she said with irritation.
When the servant had gone out, a moment of silence
fell between them, a glacial coldness. Paul had
risen. She continued her sketch, with her head
still bowed.
He took a few paces in the studio; then, having come
back to the table, he asked quietly, astonished to
feel himself so calm:
“It was the Duc de Mora who was to have dined
here?”
“Yes. I was bored—a day of spleen.
Days of that kind are bad for me.”
“Was the duchess to have come?”
“The duchess? No. I don’t know
her.”
“Well, in your place I would never receive in
my house, at my table, a married man whose wife I
did not meet. You complain of being deserted;
why desert yourself? When one is without reproach,
one should avoid the very suspicion of it. Do
I vex you?”
“No, no, scold me, Minerva. I have no objection
to your ethics. They are honest and frank, yours;
they do not blink uncertain, like those of Jenkins.
I told you, I need some one to guide me.”
And tossing over to him the sketch which she had just
finished:
“See, that is the friend of whom I was speaking
to you. A profound and sure affection, which
I was foolish enough to allow to be lost to me, like
the bungler I am. She it was to whom I appealed
in moments of difficulty, when a decision required
to be taken, some sacrifice made. I used to say
to myself, ‘What will she think of this?’
just as we artists may stop in the midst of a piece
of work to refer it mentally to some great man, one
of our masters. I must have you take her place
for me. Will you?”
Paul did not answer. He was looking at the portrait
of Aline. It was she, herself to the letter;
her pure profile, her mocking and kindly mouth, and
the long curl like a caress on the delicate neck.
Felicia had ceased to exist for him.
Poor Felicia, endowed with superior talents, she was
indeed like those magicians who knot and unknot the
destinies of men, without possessing any power over
their own happiness.
“Will you give me this sketch?” he said
in a low, quivering voice.
“Most willingly. She is nice—isn’t
she? Ah! her indeed, if you should meet, love
her, marry her. She is worth more than all the
rest of womankind together. And yet, failing
her—failing her——”
And the beautiful sphinx, tamed, raised to him, moist
and laughing, her great eyes, in which an enigma had
ceased to be indecipherable.
“SUPERB!”
“A tremendous success! Barye has never
done anything so good before.”
“And the bust of the Nabob! What a marvel.
How happy Constance Crenmitz is! Look at her
trotting about!”
“What! That little old lady in the ermine
cape is the Crenmitz? I thought she had been
dead twenty years ago.”
