Serge Panine Part 19

"Yes!" exclaimed Cayrol, warmly, "tell me how."

"Madame Desvarennes will be very lonely tomorrow when her daughter will be gone. She will need consoling--"

"Ah, ah," said Cayrol, thinking that he understood, "and you would like--"

"I would like to remain some time with her. You could come every day and see us. I would be very grateful to you, and would love you very much!"

"But--but--but--!" exclaimed Cayrol, much confounded, "you cannot mean what you say, Jeanne! What, my dear? You wish me to return alone to Paris to-night? What would my servants say? You would expose me to ridicule!"

Poor Cayrol made a piteous face. Jeanne looked at him as she had never looked before. It made his blood boil.

"Would you be so very ridiculous for having been delicate and tender?"

"I don't see what tenderness has to do with it," cried Cayrol; "on the contrary! But I love you. You don't seem to think it!"

"Prove it," replied Jeanne, more provokingly.

This time Cayrol lost all patience.

"Is it in leaving you that I shall prove it? Really, Jeanne, I am disposed to be kind and to humor your whims, but on condition that they are reasonable. You seem to be making fun of me! If I give way on such important points on the day of our marriage, whither will you lead me?

No; no! You are my wife. The wife must follow her husband; the law says so!"

"Is it by law only that you wish to keep me? Have you forgotten what I told you when you made me an offer of marriage? It is my hand only which I give you."

"And I answered you, that it would be my aim to gain your heart. Well, but give me the means. Come, dear," said the banker in a resolute tone, "you take me for a child. I am not so simple as that! I know what this resistance means; charming modesty so long as it is not everlasting."

Jeanne turned away without answering. Her face had changed its expression; it was hard and determined.

"Really," continued Cayrol, "you would make a saint lose patience. Come, answer me, what does this att.i.tude mean?"

The young wife remained silent. She felt she could not argue any longer, and seeing no way out of her trouble, felt quite discouraged. Still she would not yield. She shuddered at the very idea of belonging to this man; she had never thought of the issue of this brutal and vulgar adventure. Now that she realized it, she felt terribly disgusted.

Cayrol anxiously watched the increasing anguish depicted on his wife's face. He had a presentiment that she was hiding something from him, and the thought nearly choked him. And, with this suspicion, his ingenuity came to his aid. He approached Jeanne, and said, affectionately:

"Come, dear child, we are misleading one another; I in speaking too harshly, you in refusing to understand me. Forget that I am your husband; see in me only a friend and open your heart; your resistance hides a mystery. You have had some grief or have been deceived."

Jeanne, softened, said, in a low tone:

"Don't speak to me like that; leave me."

"No," resumed Cayrol, quietly, "we are beginning life; there must be no misunderstanding. Be frank, and you will find me indulgent. Come, young girls are often romantic. They picture an ideal; they fall in love with some one who does not return their love, which is sometimes even unknown to him who is their hero. Then, suddenly, they have to return to a reality. They find themselves face to face with a husband who is not the expected Romeo, but who is a good man, devoted, loving, and ready to heal the wounds he has not made. They are afraid of this husband; they mistrust him, and will not follow him. It is wrong, because it is near him, in honorable and right existence, that they find peace and forgetfulness."

Cayrol's heart was torn by anxiety, and with trembling voice he tried to read the effect of his words on Jeanne's features. She had turned away.

Cayrol bent toward her and said:

"You don't answer me."

And as she still remained silent, he took her hand and forced her to look at him. He saw that her face was covered with tears. He shuddered, and then flew into a terrible pa.s.sion.

"You are crying! It is true then? You have loved?"

Jeanne rose with a bound; she saw her imprudence. She understood the trap he had laid; her cheeks burned. Drying her tears, she turned toward Cayrol, and cried:

"Who has said so?"

"You cannot deceive me," replied the banker, violently. "I saw it in your looks. Now, I want to know the man's name!"

Jeanne looked him straight in the face.

"Never!" she said.

"Ah, that is an avowal!" exclaimed Cayrol.

"You have deceived me unworthily by your pretended kindness,"

interrupted Jeanne, proudly, "I will not say anything more."

Cayrol flew at her--the churl reappeared. He muttered a fearful oath, and seizing her by the arm, shouted:

"Take care! Don't play with me. Speak, I insist, or--" and he shook her brutally.

Jeanne, indignant, screamed and tore herself away from him.

"Leave me," she said, "you fill me with horror!"

The husband, beside himself, pale as death and trembling convulsively, could not utter a word, and was about to rush upon her when the door opened, and Madame Desvarennes appeared, holding in her hand the letters which she had written for Cayrol to take back to Paris. Jeanne uttered a cry of joy, and with a bound threw herself into the arms of her who had been a mother to her.

CHAPTER XI. CONFESSION

Madame Desvarennes understood the situation at a glance. She beheld Cayrol livid, tottering, and excited. She felt Jeanne trembling on her breast; she saw something serious had occurred. She calmed herself and put on a cold manner to enable her the better to suppress any resistance that they might offer.

"What is the matter?" she asked, looking severely at Cayrol.

"Something quite unexpected," replied the banker, laughing nervously.

"Madame refuses to follow me."

"And for what reason?" she asked.

"She dare not speak!" Cayrol resumed, whose excitement increased as he spoke. "It appears she has in her heart an unhappy love! And as I do not resemble the dreamed-of type, Madame has repugnances. But you understand the affair is not going to end there. It is not usual to come and say to a husband, twelve hours after marriage, 'Sir, I am very sorry, but I love somebody else!' It would be too convenient. I shall not lend myself to these whims."

"Cayrol, oblige me by speaking in a lower tone," said Madame Desvarennes, quietly. "There is some misunderstanding between you and this child."

The husband shrugged his broad shoulders.

"A misunderstanding? Faith! I think so! You have a delicacy of language which pleases me! A misunderstanding! Say rather a shameful deception!

But I want to know the gentleman's name. She will have to speak. I am not a scented, educated gentleman. I am a peasant, and if I have to--"