University of Virginia Library


VI.

Page VI.

6. VI.

HE allowed several days to pass without going
back; it seemed delicate not to appear to regard
his friend's frankness during their last interview
as a general invitation. This cost him a great effort,
for hopeless passions are not the most deferential; and
he had, moreover, a constant fear, that if, as he believed,
the hour of supreme “explanations” had come,
the magic of her magnanimity might convert M. de
Mauves. Vicious men, it was abundantly recorded,
had been so converted as to be acceptable to God,
and the something divine in Euphemia's temper would
sanctify any means she should choose to employ. Her
means, he kept repeating, were no business of his, and
the essence of his admiration ought to be to respect her
freedom; but he felt as if he should turn away into a
world out of which most of the joy had departed, if
her freedom, after all, should spare him only a murmured
“Thank you.”

When he called again he found to his vexation that
he was to run the gantlet of Madame Clairin's officious
hospitality. It was one of the first mornings of perfect


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summer, and the drawing-room, through the open
windows, was flooded with a sweet confusion of odors
and bird-notes which filled him with the hope that
Madame de Mauves would come out and spend half
the day in the forest. But Madame Clairin, with her
hair not yet dressed, emerged like a brassy discord in a
maze of melody.

At the same moment the servant returned with Euphemia's
regrets; she was indisposed and unable to see
Mr. Longmore. The young man knew that he looked
disappointed, and that Madame Clairin was observing
him, and this consciousness impelled her to give him a
glance of almost aggressive frigidity. This was apparently
what she desired. She wished to throw him off
his balance, and, if he was not mistaken, she had the
means.

“Put down your hat, Mr. Longmore,” she said, “and
be polite for once. You were not at all polite the
other day when I asked you that friendly question
about the state of your heart.”

“I have no heart — to talk about,” said Longmore,
uncompromisingly.

“As well say you 've none at all. I advise you to
cultivate a little eloquence; you may have use for it.
That was not an idle question of mine; I don't ask
idle questions. For a couple of months now that
you 've been coming and going among us, it seems to


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me that you have had very few to answer of any
sort.”

“I have certainly been very well treated,” said
Longmore.

Madame Clairin was silent a moment, and then —
“Have you never felt disposed to ask any?” she
demanded.

Her look, her tone, were so charged with roundabout
meanings that it seemed to Longmore as if even to
understand her would savor of dishonest complicity.
“What is it you have to tell me?” he asked, frowning
and blushing.

Madame Clairin flushed. It is rather hard, when
you come bearing yourself very much as the sibyl
when she came to the Roman king, to be treated as
something worse than a vulgar gossip. “I might tell
you, Mr. Longmore,” she said, “that you have as bad
a ton as any young man I ever met. Where have you
lived, — what are your ideas? I wish to call your
attention to a fact which it takes some delicacy to
touch upon. You have noticed, I supposed, that my
sister-in-law is not the happiest woman in the world.”

Longmore assented with a gesture.

Madame Clairin looked slightly disappointed at his
want of enthusiasm. Nevertheless — “You have formed,
I suppose,” she continued, “your conjectures on the
causes of her — dissatisfaction.”


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“Conjecture has been superfluous. I have seen the
causes — or at least a specimen of them — with my
own eyes.”

“I know perfectly what you mean. My brother, in
a single word, is in love with another woman. I don't
judge him; I don't judge my sister-in-law. I permit
myself to say that in her position I would have
managed otherwise. I would have kept my husband's
affection, or I would have frankly done without it,
before this. But my sister is an odd compound; I
don't profess to understand her. Therefore it is, in a
measure, that I appeal to you, her fellow-countryman.
Of course you 'll be surprised at my way of looking at
the matter, and I admit that it 's a way in use only
among people whose family traditions compel them
to take a superior view of things.” Madame Clairin
paused, and Longmore wondered where her family traditions
were going to lead her.

“Listen,” she went on. “There has never been a
De Mauves who has not given his wife the right to
be jealous. We know our history for ages back, and
the fact is established. It 's a shame if you like, but
it 's something to have a shame with such a pedigree.
The De Mauves are real Frenchmen, and their wives
— I may say it — have been worthy of them. You
may see all their portraits in our Château de Mauves;
every one of them an `injured' beauty, but not one


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of them hanging her head. Not one of them had the
bad taste to be jealous, and yet not one in a dozen
was guilty of an escapade, — not one of them was
talked about. There 's good sense for you! How they
managed — go and look at the dusky, faded canvases
and pastels, and ask. They were femmes d'esprit
When they had a headache, they put on a little rouge
and came to supper as usual; and when they had a
heart-ache, they put a little rouge on their hearts.
These are fine traditions, and it does n't seem to me
fair that a little American bourgeoise should come in
and interrupt them, and should hang her photograph,
with her obstinate little air penché, in the gallery of
our shrewd fine ladies. A De Mauves must be a De
Mauves. When she married my brother, I don't suppose
she took him for a member of a societé de bonnes
œuvres.
I don't say we 're right; who is right? But
we 're as history has made us, and if any one is to
change, it had better be Madame de Mauves herself.”
Again Madame Clairin paused and opened and closed
her fan. “Let her conform!” she said, with amazing
audacity.

Longmore's reply was ambiguous; he simply said,
“Ah!”

Madame Clairin's pious retrospect had apparently
imparted an honest zeal to her indignation. “For a
long time,” she continued, “my sister has been taking


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the attitude of an injured woman, affecting a disgust
with the world, and shutting herself up to read the
`Imitation.' I've never remarked on her conduct, but
I 've quite lost patience with it. When a woman with
her prettiness lets her husband wander, she deserves
her fate. I don't wish you to agree with me — on the
contrary; but I call such a woman a goose. She must
have bored him to death. What has passed between
them for many months need n't concern us; what provocation
my sister has had — monstrous, if you wish —
what ennui my brother has suffered. It 's enough that
a week ago, just after you had ostensibly gone to
Brussels, something happened to produce an explosion.
She found a letter in his pocket — a photograph — a
trinket — que sais-je? At any rate, the scene was
terrible. I did n't listen at the keyhole, and I don't
know what was said; but I have reason to believe
that my brother was called to account as I fancy none
of his ancestors have ever been, — even by injured
sweethearts.”

Longmore had leaned forward in silent attention
with his elbows on his knees, and instinctively he
dropped his face into his hands. “Ah, poor woman!”
he groaned.

“Voilà!” said Madame Clairin. “You pity her.”

“Pity her?” cried Longmore, looking up with
ardent eyes and forgetting the spirit of Madame


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Clairin's narrative in the miserable facts. “Don't
you?”

“A little. But I 'm not acting sentimentally; I 'm
acting politically. I wish to arrange things, — to see
my brother free to do at he chooses, — to see Euphemia
contented. Do you understand me?”

“Very well, I think. You 're the most immoral
person I 've lately had the privilege of conversing
with.”

Madame Clairin shrugged her shoulders. “Possibly.
When was there a great politician who was not immoral?”

“Nay,” said Longmore in the same tone. “You 're
too superficial to be a great politician. You don't
begin to know anything about Madame de Mauves.”

Madame Clairin inclined her head to one side, eyed
Longmore sharply, mused a moment, and then smiled
with an excellent imitation of intelligent compassion.
“It 's not in my interest to contradict you.”

“It would be in your interest to learn, Madame
Clairin,” the young man went on with unceremonious
candor, “what honest men most admire in a woman, —
and to recognize it when you see it.”

Longmore certainly did injustice to her talents for
diplomacy, for she covered her natural annoyance at
this sally with a pretty piece of irony. “So you are
in love!” she quietly exclaimed.


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Longmore was silent awhile. “I wonder if you
would understand me,” he said at last, “if I were to
tell you that I have for Madame de Mauves the most
devoted friendship?”

“You underrate my intelligence. But in that case
you ought to exert your influence to put an end to
these painful domestic scenes.”

“Do you suppose,” cried Longmore, “that she talks
to me about her domestic scenes?”

Madame Clairin stared. “Then your friendship is n't
returned?” And as Longmore turned away, shaking
his head, — “Now, at least,” she added, “she will have
something to tell you. I happen to know the upshot
of my brother's last interview with his wife.” Longmore
rose to his feet as a sort of protest against the
indelicacy of the position into which he was being
forced; but all that made him tender made him curious,
and she caught in his averted eyes an expression
which prompted her to strike her blow. “My brother
is monstrously in love with a certain person in
Paris; of course he ought not to be; but he would n't
be a De Mauves if he were not. It was this unsanctified
passion that spoke. `Listen, madam,' he cried
at last: `let us live like people who understand life!
It 's unpleasant to be forced to say such things outright,
but you have a way of bringing one down to the
rudiments. I 'm faithless, I 'm heartless, I 'm brutal,


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I 'm everything horrible, — it 's understood. Take your
revenge, console yourself; you 're too pretty a woman
to have anything to complain of. Here 's a handsome
young man sighing himself into a consumption for you.
Listen to the poor fellow, and you 'll find that virtue is
none the less becoming for being good-natured. You 'll
see that it 's not after all such a doleful world, and that
there is even an advantage in having the most impudent
of husbands.”' Madame Clairin paused; Longmore
had turned very pale. “You may believe it,” she
said; “the speech took place in my presence; things
were done in order. And now, Mr. Longmore,” — this
with a smile which he was too troubled at the moment
to appreciate, but which he remembered later with a
kind of awe, — “we count upon you!”

“He said this to her, face to face, as you say it to
me now?” Longmore asked slowly, after a silence.

“Word for word, and with the greatest politeness.”

“And Madame de Mauves — what did she say?”

Madame Clairin smiled again. “To such a speech
as that a woman says — nothing. She had been sitting
with a piece of needlework, and I think she had
not seen her husband since their quarrel the day
before. He came in with the gravity of an ambassador,
and I 'm sure that when he made his demande
en mariage
his manner was not more respectful.
He only wanted white gloves!” said Madame


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Clairin. “Euphemia sat silent a few moments drawing
her stitches, and then without a word, without
a glance, she walked out of the room. It was just
what she should have done!”

“Yes,” Longmore repeated, “it was just what she
should have done.”

“And I, left alone with my brother, do you know
what I said?”

Longmore shook his head. “Mauvais sujet!” he
suggested.

“`You 've done me the honor,' I said, `to take
this step in my presence. I don't pretend to qualify
it. You know what you 're about, and it 's your own
affair. But you may confide in my discretion.' Do
you think he has had reason to complain of it?”
She received no answer; Longmore was slowly turning
away and passing his gloves mechanically round
the band of his hat. “I hope,” she cried, “you 're
not going to start for Brussels!”

Plainly, Longmore was deeply disturbed, and Madame
Clairin might flatter herself on the success of
her plea for old-fashioned manners. And yet there
was something that left her more puzzled than satisfied
in the reflective tone with which he answered,
“No, I shall remain here for the present.” The processes
of his mind seemed provokingly subterranean,
and she would have fancied for a moment that he


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was linked with her sister in some monstrous conspiracy
of asceticism.

“Come this evening,” she boldly resumed. “The
rest will take care of itself. Meanwhile I shall take
the liberty of telling my sister-in-law that I have
repeated — in short, that I have put you au fait.

Longmore started and colored, and she hardly knew
whether he was going to assent or demur. “Tell her
what you please. Nothing you can tell her will
affect her conduct.”

“Voyons! Do you mean to tell me that a woman,
young, pretty, sentimental, neglected — insulted, if you
will —? I see you don't believe it. Believe simply
in your own opportunity! But for heaven's
sake, if it 's to lead anywhere, don't come back with
that visage de croquemort. You look as if you were
going to bury your heart, — not to offer it to a pretty
woman. You 're much better when you smile. Come,
do yourself justice.”

“Yes,” he said, “I must do myself justice.” And
abruptly, with a bow, he took his departure.