And Prudence held out her hand to me, adding: "Come and see her; it will make her very happy."
"I have no desire to meet M. de N."
"M. de N. is never there. She can not endure him."
"If Marguerite wishes to see me, she knows where I live; let her come to
see me, but, for my part, I will never put foot in the Rue d'Antin."
"Will you receive her well?"
"Certainly."
"Well, I am sure that she will come."
"Let her come."
"Shall you be out to-day?"
"I shall be at home all the evening."
"I will tell her."
And Prudence left me.
I did not even write to tell Olympe not to expect me. I never troubled
much about her, scarcely going to see her one night a week. She consoled
herself, I believe, with an actor from some theatre or other.
I went out for dinner and came back almost immediately. I had a fire lit
in my room and I told Joseph he could go out.
I can give you no idea of the different impressions which agitated me
during the hour in which I waited; but when, toward nine o'clock, I
heard a ring, they thronged together into one such emotion, that, as I
opened the door, I was obliged to lean against the wall to keep myself
from falling.
Fortunately the anteroom was in half darkness, and the change in my
countenance was less visible. Marguerite entered.
She was dressed in black and veiled. I could scarcely recognise her face
through the veil. She went into the drawing-room and raised her veil.
She was pale as marble.
"I am here, Armand," she said; "you wished to see me and I have come."
And letting her head fall on her hands, she burst into tears.
I went up to her.
"What is the matter?" I said to her in a low voice.
She pressed my hand without a word, for tears still veiled her voice.
But after a few minutes, recovering herself a little, she said to me: "You have been very unkind to me, Armand, and I have done nothing to
you."
"Nothing?" I answered, with a bitter smile.
"Nothing but what circumstances forced me to do."
I do not know if you have ever in your life experienced, or if you will
ever experience, what I felt at the sight of Marguerite.
The last time she had come to see me she had sat in the same place where
she was now sitting; only, since then, she had been the mistress of
another man, other kisses than mine had touched her lips, toward which,
in spite of myself, my own reached out, and yet I felt that I loved this
woman as much, more perhaps, than I had ever loved her.