第76章 CONTI(2)

"It is dreadful to let Conti ride over me roughshod; and yet I can't defend myself," said Beatrix, in a low voice. "The galley-slave is always a slave to his chain-companion. I am lost; I must needs return to my galleys! And it is you, Camille, who have cast me there! Ah! you brought him back a day too soon, or a day too late. I recognize your infernal talent as author. Well, your revenge is complete, the finale perfect!""I may have told you that I would write to Conti, but to do it was another matter," cried Camille. "I am incapable of such baseness. But you are unhappy, and I will forgive the suspicion.""What will become of Calyste?" said the marquise, with naive self-conceit.

"Then Conti carries you off, does he?" asked Camille.

"Ah! you think you triumph!" cried Beatrix.

Anger distorted her handsome face as she said those bitter words to Camille, who was trying to hide her satisfaction under a false expression of sympathy. Unfortunately, the sparkle in her eyes belied the sadness of her face, and Beatrix was learned in such deceptions.

When, a few moments later, the two women were seated under a strong light on that divan where the first three weeks so many comedies had been played, and where the secret tragedy of many thwarted passions had begun, they examined each other for the last time, and felt they were forever parted by an undying hatred.

"Calyste remains to you," said Beatrix, looking into Camille's eyes;"but I am fixed in his heart, and no woman can ever drive me out of it."Camille replied, with an inimitable tone of irony that struck the marquise to the heart, in the famous words of Mazarin's niece to Louis XIV.,--"You reign, you love, and you depart!"

Neither Camille nor Beatrix was conscious during this sharp and bitter scene of the absence of Conti and Calyste. The composer had remained at table with his rival, begging him to keep him company in finishing a bottle of champagne.

"We have something to say to each other," added Conti, to prevent all refusal on the part of Calyste.

Placed as they both were, it was impossible for the young Breton to refuse this challenge.

"My dear friend," said the composer, in his most caressing voice, as soon as the poor lad had drunk a couple of glasses of champagne, "we are both good fellows, and we can speak to each other frankly. I have not come here suspiciously. Beatrix loves me,"--this with a gesture of the utmost self-conceit--"but the truth is, I have ceased to love her.

I am not here to carry her away with me, but to break off our relations, and to leave her the honors of the rupture. You are young;you don't yet know how useful it is to appear to be the victim when you are really the executioner. Young men spit fire and flame; they leave a woman with noise and fury; they often despise her, and they make her hate them. But wise men do as I am doing; they get themselves dismissed, assuming a mortified air, which leaves regret in the woman's heart and also a sense of her superiority. You don't yet know, luckily for you, how hampered men often are in their careers by the rash promises which women are silly enough to accept when gallantry obliges us to make nooses to catch our happiness. We swear eternal faithfulness, and declare that we desire to pass our lives with them, and seem to await a husband's death impatiently. Let him die, and there are some provincial women obtuse or silly or malicious enough to say: 'Here am I, free at last.' The spent ball suddenly comes to life again, and falls plumb in the midst of our finest triumphs or our most carefully planned happiness. I have seen that you love Beatrix. Ileave her therefore in a position where she loses nothing of her precious majesty; she will certainly coquet with you, if only to tease and annoy that angel of a Camille Maupin. Well, my dear fellow, take her, love her, you'll do me a great service; I want her to turn against me. I have been afraid of her pride and her virtue. Perhaps, in spite of my approval of the matter, it may take some time to effect this /chassez-croissez/. On such occasions the wisest plan is to take no step at all. I did, just now, as we walked about the lawn, attempt to let her see that I knew all, and was ready to congratulate her on her new happiness. Well, she was furious! At this moment I am desperately in love with the youngest and handsomest of our prima-donnas, Mademoiselle Falcon of the Grand Opera. I think of marrying her; yes, I have got as far as that. When you come to Paris you will see that I have changed a marquise for a queen."Calyste, whose candid face revealed his satisfaction, admitted his love for Beatrix, which was all that Conti wanted to discover. There is no man in the world, however /blase/ or depraved he may be, whose love will not flame up again the moment he sees it threatened by a rival. He may wish to leave a woman, but he will never willingly let her leave him. When a pair of lovers get to this extremity, both the man and the woman strive for priority of action, so deep is the wound to their vanity. Questioned by the composer, Calyste related all that had happened during the last three weeks at Les Touches, delighted to find that Conti, who concealed his fury under an appearance of charming good-humor, took it all in good part.