________________________________________________
_ It was after midnight when they went into the Restaurant Sylvain;
Gerald, having decided not to go to the hotel, had changed his
mind and called there, and having called there, had remained a
long time: this of course! Sophia was already accustoming herself
to the idea that, with Gerald, it was impossible to predict
accurately more than five minutes of the future.
As the chasseur held open the door for them to enter, and Sophia
passed modestly into the glowing yellow interior of the
restaurant, followed by Gerald in his character of man-of-the-
world, they drew the attention of Sylvain's numerous and
glittering guests. No face could have made a more provocative
contrast to the women's faces in those screened rooms than the
face of Sophia, so childlike between the baby's bonnet and the
huge bow of ribbon, so candid, so charmingly conscious of its own
pure beauty and of the fact that she was no longer a virgin, but
the equal in knowledge of any woman alive. She saw around her,
clustered about the white tables, multitudes of violently red
lips, powdered cheeks, cold, hard eyes, self-possessed arrogant
faces, and insolent bosoms. What had impressed her more than
anything else in Paris, more even than the three-horsed omnibuses,
was the extraordinary self-assurance of all the women, their
unashamed posing, their calm acceptance of the public gaze. They
seemed to say: "We are the renowned Parisiennes." They frightened
her: they appeared to her so corrupt and so proud in their
corruption. She had already seen a dozen women in various
situations of conspicuousness apply powder to their complexions
with no more ado than if they had been giving a pat to their hair.
She could not understand such boldness. As for them, they
marvelled at the phenomena presented in Sophia's person; they
admired; they admitted the style of the gown; but they envied
neither her innocence nor her beauty; they envied nothing but her
youth and the fresh tint of her cheeks.
"Encore des Anglais!" said some of them, as if that explained all.
Gerald had a very curt way with waiters; and the more obsequious
they were, the haughtier he became; and a head-waiter was no more
to him than a scullion. He gave loud-voiced orders in French of
which both he and Sophia were proud, and a table was laid for them
in a corner near one of the large windows. Sophia settled herself
on the bench of green velvet, and began to ply the ivory fan which
Gerald had given her. It was very hot; all the windows were wide
open, and the sounds of the street mingled clearly with the tinkle
of the supper-room. Outside, against a sky of deepest purple,
Sophia could discern the black skeleton of a gigantic building; it
was the new opera house.
"All sorts here!" said Gerald, contentedly, after he had ordered
iced soup and sparkling Moselle. Sophia did not know what Moselle
was, but she imagined that anything would be better than
champagne.
Sylvain's was then typical of the Second Empire, and particularly
famous as a supper-room. Expensive and gay, it provided, with its
discreet decorations, a sumptuous scene where lorettes, actresses,
respectable women, and an occasional grisette in luck, could
satisfy their curiosity as to each other. In its catholicity it
was highly correct as a resort; not many other restaurants in the
centre could have successfully fought against the rival
attractions of the Bois and the dim groves of the Champs Elysees
on a night in August. The complicated richness of the dresses, the
yards and yards of fine stitchery, the endless ruching, the hints,
more or less incautious, of nether treasures of embroidered linen;
and, leaping over all this to the eye, the vivid colourings of
silks and muslins, veils, plumes and flowers, piled as it were
pell-mell in heaps on the universal green cushions to the furthest
vista of the restaurant, and all multiplied in gilt mirrors--the
spectacle intoxicated Sophia. Her eyes gleamed. She drank the soup
with eagerness, and tasted the wine, though no desire on her part
to like wine could make her like it; and then, seeing pineapples
on a large table covered with fruits, she told Gerald that she
should like some pineapple, and Gerald ordered one.
She gathered her self-esteem and her wits together, and began to
give Gerald her views on the costumes. She could do so with
impunity, because her own was indubitably beyond criticism. Some
she wholly condemned, and there was not one which earned her
unreserved approval. All the absurd fastidiousness of her
schoolgirlish provinciality emerged in that eager, affected
torrent of remarks. However, she was clever enough to read, after
a time, in Gerald's tone and features, that she was making a
tedious fool of herself. And she adroitly shifted her criticism
from the taste to the WORK--she put a strong accent on the word--
and pronounced that to be miraculous beyond description. She
reckoned that she knew what dressmaking and millinery were, and
her little fund of expert knowledge caused her to picture a whole
necessary cityful of girls stitching, stitching, and stitching day
and night. She had wondered, during the few odd days that they had
spent in Paris, between visits to Chantilly and other places, at
the massed luxury of the shops; she had wondered, starting with
St. Luke's Square as a standard, how they could all thrive. But
now in her first real glimpse of the banal and licentious
profusion of one among a hundred restaurants, she wondered that
the shops were so few. She thought how splendid was all this
expensiveness for trade. Indeed, the notions chasing each other
within that lovely and foolish head were a surprising medley.
"Well, what do you think of Sylvain's?" Gerald asked, impatient to
be assured that his Sylvain's had duly overwhelmed her.
"Oh, Gerald!" she murmured, indicating that speech was inadequate.
And she just furtively touched his hand with hers.
The ennui due to her critical disquisition on the shortcomings of
Parisian costume cleared away from Gerald's face.
"What do you suppose those people there are talking about?" he
said with a jerk of the head towards a chattering group of three
gorgeous lorettes and two middle-aged men at the next table but
one.
"What are they talking about?"
"They're talking about the execution of the murderer Rivain that
takes place at Auxerre the day after to-morrow. They're arranging
to make up a party and go and see it."
"Oh, what a horrid idea!" said Sophia.
"Guillotine, you know!" said Gerald.
"But can people see it?"
"Yes, of course."
"Well, I think it's horrible."
"Yes, that's why people like to go and see it. Besides, the man
isn't an ordinary sort of criminal at all. He's very young and
good-looking, and well connected. And he killed the celebrated
Claudine. ..."
"Claudine?"
"Claudine Jacquinot. Of course you wouldn't know. She was a
tremendous--er--wrong 'un here in the forties. Made a lot of
money, and retired to her native town."
Sophia, in spite of her efforts to maintain the role of a woman
who has nothing to learn, blushed.
"Then she was older than he is."
"Thirty-five years older, if a day."
"What did he kill her for?"
"She wouldn't give him enough money. She was his mistress--or
rather one of 'em. He wanted money for a young lady friend, you
see. He killed her and took all the jewels she was wearing.
Whenever he went to see her she always wore all her best jewels--
and you may bet a woman like that had a few. It seems she had been
afraid for a long time that he meant to do for her."
"Then why did she see him? And why did she wear her jewels?"
"Because she liked being afraid, goose! Some women only enjoy
themselves when they're terrified. Queer, isn't it?"
Gerald insisted on meeting his wife's gaze as he finished these
revelations. He pretended that such stories were the commonest
things on earth, and that to be scandalized by them was infantile.
Sophia, thrust suddenly into a strange civilization perfectly
frank in its sensuality and its sensuousness, under the guidance
of a young man to whom her half-formed intelligence was a most
diverting toy--Sophia felt mysteriously uncomfortable, disturbed
by sinister, flitting phantoms of ideas which she only dimly
apprehended. Her eyes fell. Gerald laughed self-consciously. She
would not eat any more pineapple.
Immediately afterwards there came into the restaurant an
apparition which momentarily stopped every conversation in the
room. It was a tall and mature woman who wore over a dress of
purplish-black silk a vast flowing sortie de bal of vermilion
velvet, looped and tasselled with gold. No other costume could
live by the side of that garment, Arab in shape, Russian in
colour, and Parisian in style. It blazed. The woman's heavy
coiffure was bound with fillets of gold braid and crimson
rosettes. She was followed by a young Englishman in evening dress
and whiskers of the most exact correctness. The woman sailed, a
little breathlessly, to a table next to Gerald's, and took
possession of it with an air of use, almost of tedium. She sat
down, threw the cloak from her majestic bosom, and expanded her
chest. Seeming to ignore the Englishman, who superciliously
assumed the seat opposite to her, she let her large scornful eyes
travel round the restaurant, slowly and imperiously meeting the
curiosity which she had evoked. Her beauty had undoubtedly been
dazzling, it was still effulgent; but the blossom was about to
fall. She was admirably rouged and powdered; her arms were
glorious; her lashes were long. There was little fault, save the
excessive ripeness of a blonde who fights in vain against obesity.
And her clothes combined audacity with the propriety of fashion.
She carelessly deposed costly trinkets on the table, and then,
having intimidated the whole company, she accepted the menu from
the head-waiter and began to study it.
"That's one of 'em!" Gerald whispered to Sophia.
"One of what?" Sophia whispered.
Gerald raised his eyebrows warningly, and winked. The Englishman
had overheard; and a look of frigid displeasure passed across his
proud face. Evidently he belonged to a rank much higher than
Gerald's; and Gerald, though he could always comfort himself by
the thought that he had been to a university with the best, felt
his own inferiority and could not hide that he felt it. Gerald was
wealthy; he came of a wealthy family; but he had not the habit of
wealth. When he spent money furiously, he did it with bravado, too
conscious of grandeur and too conscious of the difficulties of
acquiring that which he threw away. For Gerald had earned money.
This whiskered Englishman had never earned money, never known the
value of it, never imagined himself without as much of it as he
might happen to want. He had the face of one accustomed to give
orders and to look down upon inferiors. He was absolutely sure of
himself. That his companion chiefly ignored him did not appear to
incommode him in the least. She spoke to him in French. He replied
in English, very briefly; and then, in English, he commanded the
supper. As soon as the champagne was served he began to drink; in
the intervals of drinking he gently stroked his whiskers. The
woman spoke no more.
Gerald talked more loudly. With that aristocratic Englishman
observing him, he could not remain at ease. And not only did he
talk more loudly; he brought into his conversation references to
money, travels, and worldly experiences. While seeking to impress
the Englishman, he was merely becoming ridiculous to the
Englishman; and obscurely he was aware of this. Sophia noticed and
regretted it. Still, feeling very unimportant herself, she was
reconciled to the superiority of the whiskered Englishman as to a
natural fact. Gerald's behaviour slightly lowered him in her
esteem. Then she looked at him--at his well-shaped neatness, his
vivacious face, his excellent clothes, and decided that he was
much to be preferred to any heavy-jawed, long-nosed aristocrat
alive.
The woman whose vermilion cloak lay around her like a
fortification spoke to her escort. He did not understand. He tried
to express himself in French, and failed. Then the woman
recommenced, talking at length. When she had done he shook his
head. His acquaintance with French was limited to the vocabulary
of food.
"Guillotine!" he murmured, the sole word of her discourse that he
had understood.
"Oui, oui! Guillotine. Enfin ...!" cried the woman excitedly.
Encouraged by her success in conveying even one word of her
remarks, she began a third time.
"Excuse me," said Gerald. "Madame is talking about the execution
at Auxerre the day after to-morrow. N'est-ce-pas, madame, que vous
parliez de Rivain?"
The Englishman glared angrily at Gerald's officious interruption.
But the woman smiled benevolently on Gerald, and insisted on
talking to her friend through him. And the Englishman had to make
the best of the situation.
"There isn't a restaurant in Paris to-night where they aren't
talking about that execution," said Gerald on his own account.
"Indeed!" observed the Englishman.
Wine affected them in different ways.
Now a fragile, short young Frenchman, with an extremely pale face
ending in a thin black imperial, appeared at the entrance. He
looked about, and, recognizing the woman of the scarlet cloak,
very discreetly saluted her. Then he saw Gerald, and his worn,
fatigued features showed a sudden, startled smile. He came rapidly
forward, hat in hand, seized Gerald's palm and greeted him
effusively.
"My wife," said Gerald, with the solemn care of a man who is
determined to prove that he is entirely sober.
The young man became grave and excessively ceremonious. He bowed
low over Sophia's hand and kissed it. Her impulse was to laugh,
but the gravity of the young man's deference stopped her. She
glanced at Gerald, blushing, as if to say: "This comedy is not my
fault." Gerald said something, the young man turned to him and his
face resumed its welcoming smile.
"This is Monsieur Chirac," Gerald at length completed the
introduction, "a friend of mine when I lived in Paris."
He was proud to have met by accident an acquaintance in a
restaurant. It demonstrated that he was a Parisian, and improved
his standing with the whiskered Englishman and the vermilion
cloak.
"It is the first time you come Paris, madame?" Chirac addressed
himself to Sophia, in limping, timorous English.
"Yes," she giggled. He bowed again.
Chirac, with his best compliments, felicitated Gerald upon his
marriage.
"Don't mention it!" said the humorous Gerald in English, amused at
his own wit; and then: "What about this execution?"
"Ah!" replied Chirac, breathing out a long breath, and smiling at
Sophia. "Rivain! Rivain!" He made a large, important gesture with
his hand.
It was at once to be seen that Gerald had touched the topic which
secretly ravaged the supper-world as a subterranean fire ravages a
mine.
"I go!" said Chirac, with pride, glancing at Sophia, who smiled
self-consciously.
Chirac entered upon a conversation with Gerald in French. Sophia
comprehended that Gerald was surprised and impressed by what
Chirac told him and that Chirac in turn was surprised. Then Gerald
laboriously found his pocket-book, and after some fumbling with it
handed it to Chirac so that the latter might write in it.
"Madame!" murmured Chirac, resuming his ceremonious stiffness in
order to take leave. "Alors, c'est entendu, mon cher ami!" he said
to Gerald, who nodded phlegmatically. And Chirac went away to the
next table but one, where were the three lorettes and the two
middle-aged men. He was received there with enthusiasm.
Sophia began to be teased by a little fear that Gerald was not
quite his usual self. She did not think of him as tipsy. The idea
of his being tipsy would have shocked her. She did not think
clearly at all. She was lost and dazed in the labyrinth of new and
vivid impressions into which Gerald had led her. But her prudence
was awake.
"I think I'm tired," she said in a low voice.
"You don't want to go, do you?" he asked, hurt.
"Well--"
"Oh, wait a bit!"
The owner of the vermilion cloak spoke again to Gerald, who showed
that he was flattered. While talking to her he ordered a brandy-
and-soda. And then he could not refrain from displaying to her his
familiarity with Parisian life, and he related how he had met
Hortense Schneider behind a pair of white horses. The vermilion
cloak grew even more sociable at the mention of this resounding
name, and chattered with the most agreeable vivacity. Her friend
stared inimically.
"Do you hear that?" Gerald explained to Sophia, who was sitting
silent. "About Hortense Schneider--you know, we met her to-night.
It seems she made a bet of a louis with some fellow, and when he
lost he sent her the louis set in diamonds worth a hundred
thousand francs. That's how they go on here."
"Oh!" cried Sophia, further than ever in the labyrinth.
"'Scuse me," the Englishman put in heavily. He had heard the words
'Hortense Schneider,' 'Hortense Schneider,' repeating themselves
in the conversation, and at last it had occurred to him that the
conversation was about Hortense Schneider. "'Scuse me," he began
again. "Are you--do you mean Hortense Schneider?"
"Yes," said Gerald. "We met her to-night."
"She's in Trouville," said the Englishman, flatly.
Gerald shook his head positively.
"I gave a supper to her in Trouville last night," said the
Englishman. "And she plays at the Casino Theatre to-night."
Gerald was repulsed but not defeated. "What is she playing in to-
night? Tell me that!" he sneered.
"I don't see why I sh'd tell you."
"Hm!" Gerald retorted. "If what you say is true, it's a very
strange thing I should have seen her in the Champs Elysees to-
night, isn't it?"
The Englishman drank more wine. "If you want to insult me, sir--"
he began coldly.
"Gerald!" Sophia urged in a whisper.
"Be quiet!" Gerald snapped.
A fiddler in fancy costume plunged into the restaurant at that
moment and began to play wildly. The shock of his strange advent
momentarily silenced the quarrel; but soon it leaped up again,
under the shelter of the noisy music,--the common, tedious,
tippler's quarrel. It rose higher and higher. The fiddler looked
askance at it over his fiddle. Chirac cautiously observed it.
Instead of attending to the music, the festal company attended to
the quarrel. Three waiters in a group watched it with an impartial
sporting interest. The English voices grew more menacing.
Then suddenly the whiskered Englishman, jerking his head towards
the door, said more quietly:
"Hadn't we better settle thish outside?"
"At your service!" said Gerald, rising.
The owner of the vermilion cloak lifted her eyebrows to Chirac in
fatigued disgust, but she said nothing. Nor did Sophia say
anything. Sophia was overcome by terror.
The swain of the cloak, dragging his coat after him across the
floor, left the restaurant without offering any apology or
explanation to his lady.
"Wait here for me," said Gerald defiantly to Sophia. "I shall be
back in a minute."
"But, Gerald!" She put her hand on his sleeve.
He snatched his arm away. "Wait here for me, I tell you," he
repeated.
The doorkeeper obsequiously opened the door to the two unsteady
carousers, for whom the fiddler drew back, still playing.
Thus Sophia was left side by side with the vermilion cloak. She
was quite helpless. All the pride of a married woman had abandoned
her. She stood transfixed by intense shame, staring painfully at a
pillar, to avoid the universal assault of eyes. She felt like an
indiscreet little girl, and she looked like one. No youthful
radiant beauty of features, no grace and style of a Parisian
dress, no certificate of a ring, no premature initiation into the
mysteries, could save her from the appearance of a raw fool whose
foolishness had been her undoing. Her face changed to its reddest,
and remained at that, and all the fundamental innocence of her
nature, which had been overlaid by the violent experiences of her
brief companionship with Gerald, rose again to the surface with
that blush. Her situation drew pity from a few hearts and a
careless contempt from the rest. But since once more it was a
question of ces Anglais, nobody could be astonished.
Without moving her head, she twisted her eyes to the clock: half-
past two. The fiddler ceased his dance and made a collection in
his tasselled cap. The vermilion cloak threw a coin into the cap.
Sophia stared at it moveless, until the fiddler, tired of waiting,
passed to the next table and relieved her agony. She had no money
at all. She set herself to watch the clock; but its fingers would
not stir.
With an exclamation the lady of the cloak got up and peered out of
the window, chatted with waiters, and then removed herself and her
cloak to the next table, where she was received with amiable
sympathy by the three lorettes, Chirac, and the other two men. The
party surreptitiously examined Sophia from time to time. Then
Chirac went outside with the head-waiter, returned, consulted with
his friends, and finally approached Sophia. It was twenty minutes
past three.
He renewed his magnificent bow. "Madame," he said carefully, "will
you allow me to bring you to your hotel?"
He made no reference to Gerald, partly, doubtless, because his
English was treacherous on difficult ground.
Sophia had not sufficient presence of mind to thank her saviour.
"But the bill?" she stammered. "The bill isn't paid."
He did not instantly understand her. But one of the waiters had
caught the sound of a familiar word, and sprang forward with a
slip of paper on a plate.
"I have no money," said Sophia, with a feeble smile.
"Je vous arrangerai ca," he said. "What name of the hotel?
Meurice, is it not?"
"Hotel Meurice," said Sophia. "Yes."
He spoke to the head-waiter about the bill, which was carried away
like something obscene; and on his arm, which he punctiliously
offered and she could not refuse, Sophia left the scene of her
ignominy. She was so distraught that she could not manage her
crinoline in the doorway. No sign anywhere outside of Gerald or
his foe!
He put her into an open carriage, and in five minutes they had
clattered down the brilliant silence of the Rue de la Paix,
through the Place Vendome into the Rue de Rivoli; and the night-
porter of the hotel was at the carriage-step.
"I tell them at the restaurant where you gone," said Chirac, bare-
headed under the long colonnade of the street. "If your husband is
there, I tell him. Till to-morrow ...!"
His manners were more wonderful than any that Sophia had ever
imagined. He might have been in the dark Tuileries on the opposite
side of the street, saluting an empress, instead of taking leave
of a raw little girl, who was still too disturbed even to thank
him.
She fled candle in hand up the wide, many-cornered stairs; Gerald
might be already in the bedroom, ... drunk! There was a chance.
But the gilt-fringed bedroom was empty. She sat down at the
velvet-covered table amid the shadows cast by the candle that
wavered in the draught from the open window. And she set her teeth
and a cold fury possessed her in the hot and languorous night.
Gerald was an imbecile. That he should have allowed himself to get
tipsy was bad enough, but that he should have exposed her to the
horrible situation from which Chirac had extricated her, was
unspeakably disgraceful. He was an imbecile. He had no common
sense. With all his captivating charm, he could not be relied upon
not to make himself and her ridiculous, tragically ridiculous.
Compare him with Mr. Chirac! She leaned despairingly on the table.
She would not undress. She would not move. She had to realize her
position; she had to see it.
Folly! Folly! Fancy a commercial traveller throwing a compromising
piece of paper to the daughter of his customer in the shop itself:
that was the incredible folly with which their relations had
begun! And his mad gesture at the pit-shaft! And his scheme for
bringing her to Paris unmarried! And then to-night! Monstrous
folly! Alone in the bedroom she was a wise and a disillusioned
woman, wiser than any of those dolls in the restaurant.
And had she not gone to Gerald, as it were, over the dead body of
her father, through lies and lies and again lies? That was how she
phrased it to herself. ... Over the dead body of her father! How
could such a venture succeed? How could she ever have hoped that
it would succeed? In that moment she saw her acts with the
terrible vision of a Hebrew prophet.
She thought of the Square and of her life there with her mother
and Sophia. Never would her pride allow her to return to that
life, not even if the worst happened to her that could happen. She
was one of those who are prepared to pay without grumbling for
what they have had.
There was a sound outside. She noticed that the dawn had begun.
The door opened and disclosed Gerald.
They exchanged a searching glance, and Gerald shut the door.
Gerald infected the air, but she perceived at once that he was
sobered. His lip was bleeding.
"Mr. Chirac brought me home," she said.
"So it seems," said Gerald, curtly. "I asked you to wait for me.
Didn't I say I should come back?"
He was adopting the injured magisterial tone of the man who is
ridiculously trying to conceal from himself and others that he has
recently behaved like an ass.
She resented the injustice. "I don't think you need talk like
that," she said.
"Like what?" he bullied her, determined that she should be in the
wrong.
And what a hard look on his pretty face!
Her prudence bade her accept the injustice. She was his. Rapt away
from her own world, she was utterly dependent on his good nature.
"I knocked my chin against the damned balustrade, coming
upstairs," said Gerald, gloomily.
She knew that was a lie. "Did you?" she replied kindly. "Let me
bathe it." _
Read next: BOOK III SOPHIA: CHAPTER III - AN AMBITION SATISFIED: PART I
Read previous: BOOK III SOPHIA: CHAPTER II - SUPPER: PART I
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