Chapter 13 - Page 2

triumph about Beatrix disturbed her. No woman gains an
advantage over another without allowing it to be felt, however much
she may deny having taken it. Nothing was ever more strange in its
course than the dumb, moral struggle which was going on between these
two women, each hiding from the other a secret,--each believing
herself generous through hidden sacrifices.

Calyste arrived, holding the letter between his hand and his glove,
ready to slip it at some convenient moment into the hand of Beatrix.
Camille, whom the subtle change in the manner of her friend had not
escaped, seemed not to watch her, but did watch her in a mirror at the
moment when Calyste was just entering the room. That is always a
crucial moment for women. The cleverest as well as the silliest of
them, the frankest as the shrewdest, are seldom able to keep their
secret; it bursts from them, at any rate, to the eyes of another
woman. Too much reserve or too little; a free and luminous look; the
mysterious lowering of eyelids,--all betray, at that sudden moment,
the sentiment which is the most difficult of all to hide; for real
indifference has something so radically cold about it that it can
never be simulated. Women have a genius for shades,--shades of detail,
shades of character; they know them all. There are times when their
eyes take in a rival from head to foot; they can guess the slightest
movement of a foot beneath a gown, the almost imperceptible motion of
the waist; they know the significance of things which, to a man, seem
insignificant. Two women observing each other play one of the choicest
scenes of comedy that the world can show.

"Calyste has committed some folly," thought Camille, perceiving in
each of her guests an indefinable air of persons who have a mutual
understanding.

There was no longer either stiffness or pretended indifference on the
part of Beatrix; she now regarded Calyste as her own property. Calyste
was even more transparent; he colored, as guilty people, or happy
people color. He announced that he had come to make arrangements for
the excursion on the following day.

"Then you really intend to go, my dear?" said Camille,
interrogatively.

"Yes," said Beatrix.

"How did you know it, Calyste?" asked Mademoiselle des Touches.

"I came here to find out," replied Calyste, on a look flashed at him
by Madame de Rochefide, who did not wish Camille to gain the slightest
inkling of their correspondence.

"They have an agreement together," thought Camille, who caught the
look in the powerful sweep of her eye.

Under the pressure of that thought a horrible discomposure overspread
her face and frightened