"Admire my confidence in you!" said Madame Dambreuse one day to him, opening a sheet of paper, in which she was informed that M. Moreau and a certain Rose Bron were living together as husband and wife.
"Can it be that this is the lady of the races?"
"What an absurdity!" he returned. "Let me have a look at it!"
The letter, written in Roman characters, had no signature. Madame Dambreuse, in the beginning, had tolerated this mistress, who furnished a cloak for their adultery. But, as her passion became stronger, she had insisted on a rupture--a thing which had been effected long since, according to Frederick's account; and when he had ceased to protest, she replied, half closing her eyes, in which shone a look like the point of a stiletto under a muslin robe:
He shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. She did not press the matter.
But, a month later, while they were talking about honour and loyalty, and he was boasting about his own (in a casual sort of way, for the sake of precaution), she said to him:
"It is true--you are acting uprightly--you don't go back there any more?"
Frederick, who was at the moment thinking of the Maréchale, stammered:
He implored her to tell him from whom she got the information. It was through her second dressmaker, Madame Regimbart.
So, she knew all about his life, and he knew nothing about hers!
In the meantime, he had found in her dressing-room the miniature of a gentleman with long moustaches--was this the same person about whose suicide a vague story had been told him at one time? But there was no way of learning any more about it! However, what was the use of it? The hearts of women are like little pieces of furniture wherein things are secreted, full of drawers fitted into each other; one hurts himself, breaks his nails in opening them, and then finds within only some withered flower, a few grains of dust--or emptiness! And then perhaps he felt afraid of learning too much about the matter.
She made him refuse invitations where she was unable to accompany him, stuck to his side, was afraid of losing him; and, in spite of this union which was every day becoming stronger, all of a sudden, abysses disclosed themselves between the pair about the most trifling questions--an estimate of an individual or a work of art.