The Frontier

"How do you mean? What upon?"

"Yes, it depends upon my humour. When I'm good and sensible, she's Minerva. When I look at her with a yearning heart, she becomes Venus. And she is also, according to the mood of the moment, the goddess of madness … and the goddess of tears … and the goddess of death."

She spoke with a playfulness that saddened Philippe. He asked:

"And what is she the goddess of to-day?"

"The goddess of farewell."

"Of farewell?"

"Yes, farewell to Suzanne Jorancé, to the girl who has come here every day, for the last five years, and who will never come here again."

She leant against the statue:

"My dear goddess, what dreams we two have had, you and I! We used to wait together. For whom? For the Blue Bird … for Prince Charming. The prince was to arrive on horseback, one day, jump the garden-wall and carry me off, slung across his saddle. He was to slip through the trees, one evening, and go up the steps on his knees, sobbing. And all the vows I made to my dear goddess! Just think, Philippe: I promised her never to bring a man into her presence unless I loved him! And I kept my promise. You are the first, Philippe."

He flushed red in the dark; and she continued, in a voice the gaiety of which rang false:

"If you only knew how silly a girl is, dreaming and vowing things! Why, I even promised her that that man and I should exchange our first kiss before her. Isn't it ridiculous? Poor goddess! She will never see that kiss of love; for, after all, I don't suppose you intend to kiss me?"

"Suzanne!"

"Well, did you? There's no reason why you should; and the whole thing's absurd. So you will admit that this dear goddess has no sense and that she deserves to be punished."

With a quick movement of the arm, she gave a push to the statue, which fell to the ground and broke into halves.

"What are you doing?" he cried.

"Leave me alone … leave me alone," said Suzanne, in an angry voice.

It was as though her action had loosed in her a long-contained fury and wicked instincts which she was no longer able to control. She rushed forwards and madly kicked and raged at the broken pieces of the statue.

He tried to interfere and took her by the arm. She turned upon him:

"I won't have you touch me!.. It's your fault… Let me go … I hate you!.. Yes, it's all your fault!.."

And, releasing herself from his grasp, she fled towards the house.

The scene had not lasted twenty seconds.

"Hang it!" snarled Philippe, though he was not in the habit of swearing.

His irritation was so great that, if the poor plaster goddess had not already been reduced to fragments, he would certainly have flung her from her pedestal. But, above all things, he was swayed by one idea: to go away, not to see Suzanne again and to have done with this nonsense, of which he felt all the hatefulness and absurdity.

He also quickly made his way back to the house. Unfortunately, knowing no other outlet by which to escape, he went through the passage. The dining-room door was open. He saw the girl sitting huddled in a chair, with her head between her hands, sobbing.

He did not know how artificial a woman's tears can be. Nor did he know the danger in those tears for him who is moved by the sight of their flowing. But, had he known it, he would just the same have stayed; for man's pity is infinite.

CHAPTER VII

EVE TRIUMPHANT

"There!" she said, after a few minutes. "The storm is over."

She raised her beautiful face, now lit with a smile:

"No black on my eye-lashes, you see," she added, gaily. "No rouge on my lips… Take note, please… Nothing that comes off!"

This versatility of mood, the despair, which he had felt to be real, followed by a light-heartedness which he felt to be equally sincere; all this bewildered Philippe.

She began to laugh:

"Philippe! Philippe! You look as though you did not understand much about women … and even less about girls!"

She rose and went to the next room, which was her bedroom, as he saw by the white curtains and the arrangement of the furniture; and she returned with an album, in which she showed him, on the first page, the photograph of a child, crying:

"Look, Philippe. I haven't changed. At two years old, just as now, I used to have great big sorrows and eyes that flowed like taps."

He turned the pages of the album. There were portraits of Suzanne at all ages: Suzanne as a child, Suzanne as a little girl, Suzanne as a young girl; and each was more bewitching than the last.

At the bottom of one page, he read:

"Suzanne, twenty."

"Lord, how pretty you were!" he muttered, dazed by that image of beauty and gladness.

And he looked at Suzanne, in spite of himself.

"I have grown older," she said. "Three long years…"

He shrugged his shoulders without replying, for, on the contrary, he thought her lovelier still; and he turned the pages. Two loose photographs slipped to the floor. She put out her hand to take them, but did not complete the movement.

"May I?" asked Philippe.

"Yes, certainly."

He was much astonished when he examined one of the portraits:

"This," he said, "makes you look older than you are… How funny! And why that old-fashioned dress?.. That quaint way of doing your hair… It's you … and yet it's not you… Who is it?"

"Mamma," she said.

He was surprised, knowing Jorancé's persistent rancour, that he should have given his daughter the portrait of a mother whom she had been taught to believe long dead. And he remembered the riotous adventures of the divorced wife, now the beautiful Mme. de Glaris, who was celebrated in the chronicles of fast society for her dresses and her jewellery and whose photographs were displayed in the shop-windows of the Rue de Rivoli for the admiration of the passers-by.

"Yes," he said, awkwardly and not quite knowing what he was saying, "yes, you are like her… And is this also …?"

He suppressed a movement of astonishment. This time, he clearly recognized Suzanne's mother, or rather the Mme. de Glaris of the Rue de Rivoli, bare-shouldered, decked in her pearls and diamonds, shameless and magnificent.