Stylish and painted like a priceless doll, with no loftier ambition than to be a model, interpreting with personal elegance the latest confections of the modistes, she was at last experiencing the same preoccupations and joys as other women, creating for herself an inner life. The nucleus of this new life, hidden under her former frivolity, was Desnoyers. Just as she was imagining that she had reorganized her existence--adjusting the satisfactions of worldly elegance to the delights of love in intimate secrecy--a fulminating catastrophe (the intervention of her husband whose possible appearance she seemed to have overlooked) had disturbed her thoughtless happiness. She who was accustomed to think herself the centre of the universe, imagining that events ought to revolve around her desires and tastes, had suffered this cruel surprise with more astonishment than grief.
"And you, how do you think I look?" Marguerite queried.
"I must tell you that the fashion has changed. The sheath skirt has passed away. Now it is worn short and with more fullness."
Desnoyers had to interest himself in her apparel with the same devotion, mixing his appreciation of the latest freak of the fashion-monger with his eulogies of Marguerite's beauty.
"Have you thought much about me?" she continued. "You have not been unfaithful to me a single time? Not even once? . . . Tell me the truth; you know I can always tell when you are lying."
"I have always thought of you," he said putting his hand on his heart, as if he were swearing before a judge.
And he said it roundly, with an accent of truth, since in his infidelities--now completely forgotten--the memory of Marguerite had always been present.
"But let us talk about you!" added Julio. "What have you been doing all the time?"
He had brought his chair nearer to hers, and their knees touched.
He took one of her hands, patting it and putting his finger in the glove opening. Oh, that accursed garden which would not permit greater intimacy and obliged them to speak in a low tone, after three months' absence! . . . In spite of his discretion, the man who was reading his paper raised his head and looked irritably at them over his spectacles as though a fly were distracting him with its buzzing. . . . The very idea of talking love-nonsense in a public garden when all Europe was threatened with calamity!
Repelling the audacious hand, Marguerite spoke tranquilly of her existence during the last months.
"I have passed my life the best I could, but I have been greatly bored. You know that I am now living with mama, and mama is a lady of the old regime who does not understand our tastes. I have been to the theatres with my brother. I have made many calls on the lawyer in order to learn the progress of my divorce and hurry it along . . . and nothing else."
"And your husband?"
"Don't let's talk about him. Do you want to? I pity the poor man!
So good . . . so correct. The lawyer assures me that he agrees to everything and will not impose any obstacles. They tell me that he does not come to Paris, that he lives in his factory. Our old home is closed. There are times when I feel remorseful over the way I have treated him."
"And I?" queried Julio, withdrawing his hand.
"You are right," she returned smiling. "You are Life. It is cruel but it is human. We have to live our lives without taking others into consideration. It is necessary to be selfish in order to be happy."
The two remained silent. The remembrance of the husband had swept across them like a glacial blast. Julio was the first to brighten up.
"And you have not danced in all this time?"
"No, how could I? The very idea, a woman in divorce proceedings! . . .
I have not been to a single chic party since you went away. I wanted to preserve a certain decorous mourning fiesta. How horrible it was! . . . It needed you, the Master!"
They had again clasped hands and were smiling. Memories of the previous months were passing before their eyes, visions of their life from five to seven in the afternoon, dancing in the hotels of the Champs Elysees where the tango had been inexorably associated with a cup of tea.
She appeared to tear herself away from these recollections, impelled by a tenacious obsession which had slipped from her mind in the first moments of their meeting.
"Do you know much about what's happening? Tell me all. People talk so much. . . . Do you really believe that there will be war? Don't you think that it will all end in some kind of settlement?"
Desnoyers comforted her with his optimism. He did not believe in the possibility of a war. That was ridiculous.
"I say so, too! Ours is not the epoch of savages. I have known some Germans, chic and well-educated persons who surely must think exactly as we do. An old professor who comes to the house was explaining yesterday to mama that wars are no longer possible in these progressive times. In two months' time, there would scarcely be any men left, in three, the world would find itself without money to continue the struggle. I do not recall exactly how it was, but he explained it all very clearly, in a manner most delightful to hear."
She reflected in silence, trying to co-ordinate her confused recollections, but dismayed by the effort required, added on her own account.
"Just imagine what war would mean--how horrible! Society life paralyzed. No more parties, nor clothes, nor theatres! Why, it is even possible that they might not design any more fashions! All the women in mourning. Can you imagine it? . . . And Paris deserted. . . .
How beautiful it seemed as I came to meet you this afternoon! . . .
No, no, it cannot be! Next month, you know, we go to Vichy.
