“I dine at a restaurant with some friends.”

“A lie.  Oh, fy! you are not worthy to be loved either by her or by me.  Men are all cowards in their treatment of women.  Go, monsieur, go and dine with your dear Sabine.”

Calyste flung himself back in his arm-chair and became as pale as death.  Bretons possess a courage of nature which makes them obstinate under difficulties.  Presently the young baron sat up, put his elbow on the table, his chin in his hand, and looked at the implacable Beatrix with a flashing eye.  He was so superb that a Northern or a Southern woman would have fallen at his feet saying, “Take me!” But Beatrix, born on the borders of Normandy and Brittany, belonged to the race of Casterans; desertion had developed in her the ferocity of the Frank, the spitefulness of the Norman; she wanted some terrible notoriety as a vengeance, and she yielded to no weakness.

“Dictate what I ought to write,” said the luckless man.  “But, in that case—­”

“Well, yes!” she said, “you shall love me then as you loved me at Guerande.  Write:  I dine out; do not expect me.”

“What next?” said Calyste, thinking something more would follow.

“Nothing; sign it.  Good,” she said, darting on the note with restrained joy.  “I will send it by a messenger.”

“And now,” cried Calyste, rising like a happy man.

“Ah!  I have kept, I believe, my freedom of action,” she said, turning away from him and going to the fireplace, where she rang the bell.  “Here, Antoine,” she said, when the old footman entered, “send this note to its address.  Monsieur dines here.”

XIX

THE FIRST LIE OF A PIOUS DUCHESS

Calyste returned to his own house about two in the morning.  After waiting for him till half-past twelve, Sabine had gone to bed overwhelmed with fatigue.  She slept, although she was keenly distressed by the laconic wording of her husband’s note.  Still, she explained it.  The true love of a woman invariably begins by explaining all things to the advantage of the man beloved.  Calyste was pressed for time, she said.

The next morning the child was better; the mother’s uneasiness subsided, and Sabine came with a smiling face, and little Calyste on her arm, to present him to his father before breakfast with the pretty fooleries and senseless words which gay young mothers do and say.  This little scene gave Calyste the chance to maintain a countenance.  He was charming to his wife, thinking in his heart that he was a monster, and he played like a child with Monsieur le chevalier; in fact he played too well,—­he overdid the part; but Sabine had not reached the stage at which a woman recognizes so delicate a distinction.

At breakfast, however, she asked him suddenly:—­

“What did you do yesterday?”

“Portenduere kept me to dinner,” he replied, “and after that we went to the club to play whist.”