"Antoine, I am not at home--for every one," she said. "Put some wood on the fire. You see, Calyste, that I treat you as a friend," she continued with dignity, when the old man had left the room; "therefore do not treat me as you would a mistress. I have two remarks to make to you. In the first place, I should not deny myself foolishly to any man I really loved; and secondly, I am determined to belong to no other man on earth, for I believed, Calyste, that I was loved by a species of Rizzio, whom no engagement trammelled, a man absolutely free, and you see to what that fatal confidence has led me. As for you, you are now under the yoke of the most sacred of duties; you have a young, amiable, delightful wife; moreover, you are a father. I should be, as you are, without excuse--we should be two fools--""My dear Beatrix, all these reasons vanish before a single word--Ihave never loved but you on earth, and I was married against my will.""Ah! a trick played upon us by Mademoiselle des Touches," she said, smiling.
Three hours passed, during which Madame de Rochefide held Calyste to the consideration of conjugal faith, pointing out to him the horrible alternative of an utter renunciation of Sabine. Nothing else could reassure her, she said, in the dreadful situation to which Calyste's love would reduce her. Then she affected to regard the sacrifice of Sabine as a small matter, she knew her so well!
"My dear child," she said, "that's a woman who fulfils all the promises of her girlhood. She is a Grandlieu, to be sure, but she's as brown as her mother the Portuguese, not to say yellow, and as dry and stiff as her father. To tell the truth, your wife will never go wrong;she's a big boy who can take care of herself. Poor Calyste! is that the sort of woman you needed? She has fine eyes, but such eyes are very common in Italy and in Spain and Portugal. Can any woman be tender with bones like hers. Eve was fair; brown women descend from Adam, blondes come from the hand of God, which left upon Eve his last thought after he had created her."About six o'clock Calyste, driven to desperation, took his hat to depart.
"Yes, go, my poor friend," she said; "don't give her the annoyance of dining without you."Calyste stayed. At his age it was so easy to snare him on his worst side.
"What! you dare to dine with me?" said Beatrix, playing a provocative amazement. "My poor food does not alarm you? Have you enough independence of soul to crown me with joy by this little proof of your affection?""Let me write a note to Sabine; otherwise she will wait dinner for me till nine o'clock.""Here," said Beatrix, "this is the table at which I write."She lighted the candles herself, and took one to the table to look over what he was writing.
"/My dear Sabine--/"
"'My dear'?--can you really say that your wife is still dear to you?"she asked, looking at him with a cold eye that froze the very marrow of his bones. "Go,--you had better go and dine with her.""/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."
