‘Come now! After two years, you still don’t know how to lace up a woman! You’re too much a Pole, by far! It’s ten o’clock already, my Wences … las!’ said Valérie, laughing.
At this moment, a malicious maid adroitly lifted with a knife-blade the latch of the double door which constituted the whole security of Adam and Eve.
She opened the door smartly, for the tenants of these Edens all have only a short time to themselves, and revealed one of those charming genre pictures, after Gavarni,* so often exhibited at the Salon.
‘This way, Madame,’ said the girl.
And Cydalise entered, followed by Baron Montès.
‘But there’s someone here! Excuse me, Madame,’ said the Norman girl, taken aback.
‘What’s this? Why, it’s Valérie!’ cried Montes, slamming the door shut.
Madame Marneffe, prey to an emotion too violent to be concealed, collapsed into a low chair by the fireplace.
Two tears came to her eyes but dried again immediately. She looked at Montès, saw the Norman girl, and burst into a peal of forced laughter. The dignity of a woman outraged effaced the impropriety of her half-clothed state. She went up to the Brazilian and looked at him so proudly that her eyes gleamed like daggers.
‘So this’, she said, standing in front of the Brazilian and pointing to Cydalise, ‘lies behind your fidelity. You, who made me promises that would have convinced a woman with no faith in love! You, for whom I have done so much and even committed crimes! You’re right, Monsieur. I’m nothing compared to a girl of that age and beauty. I know what you’re going to say,’ she continued, pointing to Wenceslas, whose disordered dress was too obvious a proof to be denied. That’s my business. If I could love you after such infamous treachery—for you’ve spied on me; you’ve bought every step of that staircase, and the mistress of the house, and the servant, and perhaps Reine too. Oh, that’s a fine thing to do!—if I had a spark of affection left for such a coward, I’d give him reasons that would make him love me more than ever. But I leave you, Monsieur, with all your doubts that will turn into remorse…. Wenceslas, my dress.’
She took her dress, put it on, studied herself in the mirror, and calmly finished dressing without looking at the Brazilian, absolutely as if she were alone.
‘Wenceslas, are you ready? You go first.’
Out of the corner of her eye and in the mirror, she had been watching the expression on Montès’s face; she thought that in his pallor she saw signs of the weakness which makes such strong men captive to the fascination of women. She took him by the hand, going so close to him that he could smell those powerful, beloved perfumes that intoxicate men in love. And feeling his heart beat faster, she looked at him reproachfully.
‘I give you my permission to go and give an account of your expedition to Monsieur Crevel. He’ll never believe you, so I’ve a right to marry him. He’ll be my husband the day after tomorrow and I’ll make him very happy. Goodbye! Try to forget me …’
‘Oh Valérie!’ cried Henri Montès, clasping her in his arms. ‘It’s impossible. Come to Brazil!’
Valérie looked at the Baron and saw he was her slave again.
‘Oh, if you still loved me, Henri! In two years I’d be your wife. But at the moment, your face looks to me a little dubious.’
‘I swear to you they made me drunk; false friends planted this woman on me and the whole thing is the result of chance,’ said Montès.
‘So I could still forgive you?’ she asked, smiling.
‘And would you still get married?’ asked the Baron, prey to a harrowing anxiety.
‘Eighty thousand francs a year!’ she said with half-comic enthusiasm. ‘And Crevel loves me so much that he’ll die of it!’
‘Oh, I understand you,’ said the Brazilian.
‘Well, in a few days we’ll come to an agreement,’ she said.
And she went downstairs in triumph.
‘I’ve no more scruples,’ thought the Baron, rooted to the spot for a moment. ‘What, she’s planning to use that fool’s love to get rid of him, just as she counted on Marneffe’s death! I’ll be the instrument of divine anger!’