Don't bow your head,don't feel humiliated;you have been the dupe of noble feelings;you have coquetted with poesy,not with a man.All women--all,do you hear me,Marie?--would have been seduced in your position.How absurd we should be,we men,we who have committed a thousand follies through a score of years,if we were not willing to grant you one imprudence in a lifetime!God keep me from triumphing over you or from offering you a pity you repelled so vehemently the other day.Perhaps that unfortunate man was sincere when he wrote to you,sincere in attempting to kill himself,sincere in returning that same night to Florine.Men are worth less than women.It is not for my own sake that I speak at this moment,but for yours.I am indulgent,but the world is not;it shuns a woman who makes a scandal.Is that just?I know not;but this I know,the world is cruel.Society refuses to calm the woes itself has caused;it gives its honors to those who best deceive it;it has no recompense for rash devotion.I see and know all that.I can't reform society,but this I can do,I can protect you,Marie,against yourself.This matter concerns a man who has brought you trouble only,and not one of those high and sacred loves which do,at times,command our abnegation,and even bear their own excuse.Perhaps I have been wrong in not varying your happiness,in not providing you with gayer pleasures,travel,amusements,distractions for the mind.Besides,I can explain to myself the impulse that has driven you to a celebrated man,by the jealous envy you have roused in certain women.Lady Dudley,Madame d'Espard,and my sister-in-law Emilie count for something in all this.Those women,against whom I ought to have put you more thoroughly on your guard,have cultivated your curiosity more to trouble me and cause me unhappiness,than to fling you into a whirlpool which,as I believe,you would never have entered."As she listened to these words,so full of kindness,the countess was torn by many conflicting feelings;but the storm within her breast was ruled by one of them,--a keen admiration for her husband.Proud and noble souls are prompt to recognize the delicacy with which they are treated.Tact is to sentiments what grace is to the body.Marie appreciated the grandeur of the man who bowed before a woman in fault,that he might not see her blush.She ran from the room like one beside herself,but instantly returned,fearing lest her hasty action might cause him uneasiness.
"Wait,"she said,and disappeared again.
Felix had ably prepared her excuse,and he was instantly rewarded for his generosity.His wife returned with Nathan's letters in her hand,and gave them to him.
"Judge me,"she said,kneeling down beside him.
"Are we able to judge where we love?"he answered,throwing the letters into the fire;for he felt that later his wife might not forgive him for having read them.Marie,with her head upon his knee,burst into tears.
"My child,"he said,raising her head,"where are your letters?"At this question the poor woman no longer felt the intolerable burning of her cheeks;she turned cold.
"That you may not suspect me of calumniating a man whom you think worthy of you,I will make Florine herself return you those letters.""Oh!Surely he would give them back to me himself.""Suppose that he refused to do so?"
The countess dropped her head.
"The world disgusts me,"she said."I don't want to enter it again.Iwant to live alone with you,if you forgive me.""But you might get bored again.Besides,what would the world say if you left it so abruptly?In the spring we will travel;we will go to Italy,and all over Europe;you shall see life.But to-morrow night we must go to the Opera-ball;there is no other way to get those letters without compromising you;besides,by giving them up,Florine will prove to you her power.""And must I see that?"said the countess,frightened.
"To-morrow night."
The next evening,about midnight,Nathan was walking about the foyer of the Opera with a mask on his arm,to whom he was attending in a sufficiently conjugal manner.Presently two masked women came up to him.
"You poor fool!Marie is here and is watching you,"said one of them,who was Vandenesse,disguised as a woman.
"If you choose to listen to me I will tell you secrets that Nathan is hiding from you,"said the other woman,who was the countess,to Florine.
Nathan had abruptly dropped Florine's arm to follow the count,who adroitly slipped into the crowd and was out of sight in a moment.
Florine followed the countess,who sat down on a seat close at hand,to which the count,doubling on Nathan,returned almost immediately to guard his wife.
"Explain yourself,my dear,"said Florine,"and don't think I shall stand this long.No one can tear Raoul from me,I'll tell you that;Ihold him by habit,and that's even stronger than love.""In the first place,are you Florine?"said the count,speaking in his natural voice.