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CHAPTER XXII.

A WEEK'S absence from Paris, a week's cooler consideration of his own conduct, and then Armand de Valtour began to acknowledge that his wife was more than justified in the course she had taken.

"But, after all, what can one do?" he thought, with his ever ready excuses and self-justification. "She has such impossible ideas, and she is too superior to be loved as one loves women. I hope she will get tired of solitude; a few months' absence will not harm either of us. But, I should not like our separation to be eternal."

He came back to Paris, and resumed his usual visits to Madame Lissac. It had never once entered his mind to suspect her of being the author of that letter that had led to the rupture of his domestic relations. He had never set eyes upon Zoé Laurent since that night. She had treated him to a scene after she had discovered his wife's presence, and declared he had ruined her for ever. It was the first time he had ever been admitted to her house, and then Madame Lissac had been there to act as chaperon, and now she declared all Paris would be ringing with the scandal.

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But she was wrong. Paris heard nothing of it, and the little actress's reputation suffered in no way that it had not suffered before. Madame Aurélie shrugged her shoulders, and laughed in secret at the success of her scheme, laughed all the more when Armand de Valtour came to pour out his sorrows and complaints--complaints in which Adrienne's absurdity, and Zoé's coldness, and his own restlessness and discontent made up a large sum.

"Mon pauvre ami! you should never have married," she answered him. "Or, at least, if you had made up your mind to that piece of folly, you should have married a Frenchwoman."

"I wish I had chosen you," he muttered discontentedly.

She laughed a little scornfully. She could hardly tell him that she had wished the same. Besides, she almost hated him at times.

"Oh, you would have been no happier with me," she said lightly. "How do you know I might not have been jealous, too?"

"Adrienne was not jealous," he said, with momentary compunction; "only she was too proud a woman to bear a slight, and then--she loved me."

"I would not be too sure of that," answered his counsellor, with a faint sneer. "If she loved you she gave you up very easily, it seems to me."

"You do not understand her," said Armand, some what coldly. "She was far too good a woman to put up with things that the world thinks lightly | | 239 of. It is not in her to tolerate a sin, be it cloaked under ever such fashionable disguise."

"But you have not sinned, you say."

"Not as she thinks; but I cannot expect to make her believe that. I wonder what devil ever wrote that letter. If only I could find out!"

"Some spy in your household, doubtless," said Mme. Aurélie coolly. "You never were very careful about your actions, mon ami. It is little wonder they were known."

"I sometimes think it was Lamboi," said Armand musingly, as he poured himself out some absinthe. "He is so odd, so changed, so different of late; and he was always praising Adrienne up to the skies. By heaven! if I thought it really was--"

"You would not challenge him, surely?" laughed Madame Aurélie. "Duelling is out of fashion now, unless in very extreme cases. We are copying our insular neighbours more and more."

"It is hard to be able to trust no one," complained Armand petulantly.

"You had your wife; why did you not trust her?" scoffed his friend. "I suppose now you have lost her you will begin to regret? That is so like a man. What they possess is of little value; it is always there, always accessible. Take it away, hedge it round with obstacles, unattainment--straightway they invest it with every charm, and pursue it with all their ardour."

"I believe you are right," said Armand de Valtour, | | 240 laughing. "How well you read us, Aurélie! How well women might rule us, if they only knew the secret!"

"Nay, but to be always inaccessible would be also wearisome," answered Madame Aurélie. "The hunter cannot always pursue, you know. He needs rest or success."

"I ought to have married you," said Armand, looking at her admiringly. "You are the only woman of whom I have never tired."

Apparently he had forgotten Trouville, and his confidences to Victor Lamboi.

Madame Aurélie could not blush, but she felt a faint thrill of excitement in her veins as she heard his words. But she only set her teeth hard, and looked at him with unmoved composure.

"And then gone to another woman with your confidences," she said ironically. "Don't you think you are rather like your compatriot who said, 'I would marry you to-morrow, madame, but with whom am I to spend my evenings?'"

"Perhaps so," laughed Armand heartily. "I should miss you as a friend. A wife--well, that is different. There is no excitement in safety."

"But, seriously, Armand, what do you intend to do about your wife? How long is this farce of separation to be kept up? People will be sure to wonder what is wrong. You cannot blind their eyes always. Do you think she will forgive you, and come back?"

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"Quel bonheur!" laughed Armand de Valtour. "How very probable it seems. No, Aurélie, she is too proud to do that. She will expect me to ask her forgiveness."

"And you will do so?"

"Do you know me so little?" he said, and a dark frown gathered on his brow. "No, she may live and die at Valtours, if she pleases. I shall not ask her to return."

A flash of triumph lit up Madame Aurélie's dark eyes. She turned aside to hide it.

"How well I judged him!" she thought. "After all, I believe he is right. I am the only woman who has known how to keep him. Of all others, he has wearied so soon! But--if he only knew!"

Armand de Valtour went to dine at Bignon's on leaving Madame Lissac's house. Somehow, though he would not acknowledge it, even to himself, his hotel seemed strangely cold and dreary without his wife. The vast reception rooms looked bare and cold. Her own apartments were locked up. There seemed neither life nor interest in the place now.

After dinner he went to the theatre, but he found the piece dull and stupid, and left after the second act. Then he bethought himself of Zoé Laurent. She was not acting just now. She might be at home. He would call round, at all events, and see. He felt in a reckless mood to-night. The farce of keeping up her reputation was played out. It was to her he | | 242 owed the shipwreck of his domestic peace: the least she could do was to comfort him for that loss.

He called a cab and drove there, dismissed the man, and knocked at the door. It was at once opened. He entered, and was about to ask the woman if her mistress was at home, when a voice broke on his ear and startled him. It came from the staircase above. He looked up. Standing there at the head of the stairs was Zoé Laurent. Beside her was Victor Lamboi.

The lights fell on their faces--on the shower of rippling gold that fell from Zoé's head to her waist--on Lamboi's flushed face and portly figure, as, with his arms thrown carelessly round the little actress, he leaned over the balustrade.

"Come up, Aurélie, come up!" cried Zoé's voice. "Mais, que vous êtes tard!"

Armand stood there dumb and furious with indignation. Lamboi here, on apparently the most friendly terms with the girl who had kept him at arm's length by her pretended scruples! It was incredible. He made a bound up the stairs, and then stood and confronted them.

Zoé screamed as she saw him. Lamboi, on the contrary, surveyed him coolly and audaciously.

"I fear I am intruding," said Armand de Valtour haughtily. "I have but just returned to Paris. I came to pay my respects to Mdlle. Laurent. I had no idea I should find her engaged so particularly."

"Mdlle. Laurent is under my protection," said | | 243 Lamboi coolly. "For the future, monsieur, you will kindly await our invitation before paying such unceremonious visits."

For once in his life Armand de Valtour felt taken aback. He felt small and insignificant in his own eyes, and furious at the thought of how he had been duped and tricked. Why, he had actually believed this girl--till now.

He looked at them both--at Lamboi's insolent face, at Zoé's laughing one--and he knew in his heart that in this moment Adrienne had her revenge.

"Your pardon, monsieur," he said, without a tremor of passion or emotion in his voice. "I was not aware of your position here. Do not fear I shall forget it again!"

Then he turned on his heel and left them.

The cool night air blew on his face, but the blood in his veins was at fever heat. To think he had been tricked, duped--fooled so long! He who thought he knew every move of woman on the chessboard of life!

A man can forgive a woman anything except when she makes him look ridiculous in the eyes of other men. Armand de Valtour felt he could have strangled his little enchantress at that moment when her mocking eyes had met his gaze behind Victor Lamboi's majestic shoulders. A perfect tumult of passion was let loose in his soul. On every side he saw but a network of deceit, now that those whom he imagined were his tools were in | | 244 reality blinding him for their own purposes--using him as a cloak to their own schemes.

"Aurélie must have known it; is she, too, cheating me?" he thought furiously, and with the thought arose a desire to confront her, to learn from her lips how far she was cognisant of this treachery.

He called another cab and bade the man drive with all speed to her residence.

The brougham was at the door. The servants told him she was on the point of going out. He paid no heed. He ran swiftly upstairs into her own boudoir. She was standing there ready dressed. As she looked at his face she saw something had happened. Her lips grew pale--a sort of fear came into her eyes.

"Armand, what is it--what has happened?" she cried faintly.

Her voice in some way served to recall him to himself. He drew nearer, and looked searchingly down at her face, holding both her hands in his as he spoke.

"Will you be honest for once?" he said to her. "To-night I have been duped and tricked. In neither man nor woman can I put faith. Aurélie, who sent that letter to my wife?"

The colour came back to her face and lips. A look of triumph, fierce and unholy, flashed into her eyes. Her revenge was completed now. What need for deception any longer?

"I did," she said, and laughed aloud.

With a muttered curse he threw her hands away. | | 245 That mocking laugh roused all the worst passions of his nature; his face startled her by its ghastly hue.

"And it was for this I threw aside the purest, holiest love that ever blessed a man's life!" he cried, in an agony of remorse that was the first genuine emotion of his life. "God! what a blind fool I have been!"

The taunting words on her lips seemed suddenly to die away. Her very hatred of him was appalled as she saw the agony he suffered; as, like himself, she pictured the long, blank days of the future, filled now only with the shame of treachery--the horrors of remorse.

Then he rushed from her presence as suddenly as he had entered it.

She knew that he had passed from her life for ever. Her vengeance was, after all, not complete.