At this sneer, cutting his face like a whip, the wretch
answered panting:
“That will do! Do not sneer at me so.
It is too horrible now. Does it not touch you,
then, to be loved as I love you in sacrificing everything
to you—fortune, honour, respect? See,
look at me. I have snatched my mask off for you,
I have snatched if off before all. And now, see,
here is the hypocrite.”
He heard the muffled noise of two knees falling on
the floor. And stammering, distracted with love,
weak before her, he begged her to consent to this
marriage, to give him the right to follow her everywhere,
to defend her. Then the words failed him, stifled
in a passionate sob, so deep, so lacerating that it
should have touched any heart, above all among this
splendid impassible scenery in this perfumed heat.
But Felicia was not touched. “Let us have
done, Jenkins,” said she brusquely. “What
you ask is impossible. We have nothing to hide
from each other, and after your confidences just now,
I wish to make one to you, which humbles my pride,
but your degradation makes you worthy. I was
Mora’s mistress.”
Paul knew this. And yet it was so sad to hear
this beautiful, pure voice laden with such a confession,
in the midst of the intoxicating air, that he felt
his heart contract.
“I knew it,” answered Jenkins in a low
voice, “I have the letters you wrote to him.”
“My letters?”
“Oh, I will give them to you—here.
I know them by heart. I have read and reread
them. It is that which hurts one, when one loves.
But I have suffered other tortures. When I think
that it was I—” He stopped himself.
He choked. “I who had to furnish fuel for
your flames, warm this frozen lover, send him to you
ardent and young—Ah! he has devoured my
pearls—I might refuse over and over again,
he was always taking them. At last I was mad.
You wish to burn, wretched woman. Well, burn,
then!”
Paul rose to his feet in terror. Was he going
to hear the confession of a crime? But the shame
of hearing more was not inflicted on him. A violent
knocking, this time on his own door, warned him that
his calesino was ready.
“Is the French gentleman ready?”
In the next room there was silence, then a whisper.—There
had been some one near who had heard them.—Paul
de Gery hurried downstairs. He must get out of
this room to escape the weight of so much infamy.
As the post-chaise swayed, he saw among the common
white curtains, which float at all the windows in
the south, a pale figure with the hair of a goddess,
and great burning eyes fixed on him. But a glance
at Aline’s portrait quickly dispelled this disturbing
vision, and forever cured of his old love, he travelled
until evening through the magic landscape with the
lovely bride of the dejeuner, who carried in
the folds of her modest robe and mantle all the violets
of Bordighera.
