"It is this, that ever since I have seen you, I know not why, you have taken a place in my life; that, if I drive the thought of you out of my mind, it always comes back; that when I met you to-day, after not having seen you for two years, you made a deeper impression on my heart and mind than ever; that, now that you have let me come to see you, now that I know you, now that Iknow all that is strange in you, you have become a necessity of my life, and you will drive me mad, not only if you will not love me, but if you will not let me love you.""But, foolish creature that you are, I shall say to you, like Mme. D., 'You must be very rich, then!' Why, you don't know that I spend six or seven thousand francs a month, and that I could not live without it; you don't know, my poor friend, that Ishould ruin you in no time, and that your family would cast you off if you were to live with a woman like me. Let us be friends, good friends, but no more. Come and see me, we will laugh and talk, but don't exaggerate what I am worth, for I am worth very little. You have a good heart, you want some one to love you, you are too young and too sensitive to live in a world like mine.
Take a married woman. You see, I speak to you frankly, like a friend.""But what the devil are you doing there?" cried Prudence, who had come in without our bearing her, and who now stood just inside the door, with her hair half coming down and her dress undone. Irecognised the hand of Gaston.
"We are talking sense," said Marguerite; "leave us alone; we will be back soon.""Good, good! Talk, my children," said Prudence, going out and closing the door behind her, as if to further empbasize the tone in which she had said these words.
"Well, it is agreed," continued Marguerite, when we were alone, "you won't fall in love with me?""I will go away."
"So much as that?"
I had gone too far to draw back; and I was really carried away.
This mingling of gaiety, sadness, candour, prostitution, her very malady, which no doubt developed in her a sensitiveness to impressions, as well as an irritability of nerves, all this made it clear to me that if from the very beginning I did not completely dominate her light and forgetful nature, she was lost to me.
"Come, now, do you seriously mean what you say?" she said.
"Seriously."
"But why didn't you say it to me sooner?""When could I have said it?"
"The day after you had been introduced to me at the Opera Comique.""I thought you would have received me very badly if I had come to see you.""Why?"
"Because I had behaved so stupidly."
"That's true. And yet you were already in love with me.""Yes."
"And that didn't hinder you from going to bed and sleeping quite comfortably. One knows what that sort of love means.""There you are mistaken. Do you know what I did that evening, after the Opera Comique?""No."
"I waited for you at the door of the Cafe Anglais. I followed the carriage in which you and your three friends were, and when I saw you were the only one to get down, and that you went in alone, Iwas very happy."
Marguerite began to laugh.
"What are you laughing at?"
"Nothing."
"Tell me, I beg of you, or I shall think you are still laughing at me.""You won't be cross?"
"What right have I to be cross?"
"Well, there was a sufficient reason why I went in alone.""What?"
"Some one was waiting for me here."
If she had thrust a knife into me she would not have hurt me more. I rose, and holding out my hand, "Goodbye," said I.
"I knew you would be cross," she said; "men are frantic to know what is certain to give them pain.""But I assure you," I added coldly, as if wishing to prove how completely I was cured of my passion, "I assure you that I am not cross. It was quite natural that some one should be waiting for you, just as it is quite natural that I should go from here at three in the morning.""Have you, too, some one waiting for you?""No, but I must go."
"Good-bye, then."
"You send me away?"
"Not the least in the world."
"Why are you so unkind to me?"
"How have I been unkind to you?"
