“A secret? Tell me,” sitting in the chair next to his.
“This has been the pleasantest week I have known in thirteen years.”
“Then you forgive me!” Madame was not only mistress of music but of tones.
And then, out of the fullness of his lonely heart, he told her all about his life, its emptiness, its deserts, its longings. Each sentence was a knife placed in her hands; and as she contemplated his honest face which could conceal nothing, his earnest eyes which could hide nothing, Madame was conscious of a vague distrust of herself. If only he had offered to fight, she thought. But he had not; instead, he was giving to her all his weapons of defense.
“Ah, Monsieur, you do wrong to forgive me!” impulsively.
“Why should you be friendly to me when I represent all that is antagonistic to you?”
“To me you represent only a beautiful woman.”
“Ah; you have been taking lessons of your friend.”
“He is a good teacher. He is one of those men whom I admire. Women have never mastered him. He knows so much about them.”
“Beneath all his banter there is a brave heart. He is a rare man who, having brain and heart to guide, follows the heart.” He picked up the pipe and began to play a tattoo on the sill. “As for me, I know nothing of women, save what I have read in books, and save that I have been too long without them.”
“And you have gone all these years without knowing what it is to love?” To a man less guileless, this question would not have been in good taste.
Fitzgerald was silent; he dared not venture another lie.
“What! you are silent? Is there, after all, a woman somewhere in your life?”
“Yes.” He continued to tap the pipe. His gaze wandered to the candles, strayed back to the window, then met hers steadfastly, so steadfastly, that she could not resist. She was annoyed.
“My vocabulary is too limited. You would laugh at me.”
“I? No; love is sacred.” She had boasted to Maurice that she was without conscience; she had only smothered it. “Come; is she beautiful?”
“Certainly she must be worthy or you would not love her. She is rich?”
“That does not matter; I am.” He was wishing that Maurice would hurry back; the desire to fly was returning.
“And she rejected you and sent you to the army?”
“She has not rejected me, though I dare say she would, had I the presumption to ask her.”