Chapter 15

CONTI

The inward and convulsive trembling of the marquise was more apparent
than she wished it to be; a tragic drama developed at that moment in
the souls of all present.

"You did not expect me so soon, I fancy," said Conti, offering his arm
to Beatrix.

The marquise could not avoid dropping Calyste's arm and taking that of
Conti. This ignoble transit, imperiously demanded, so dishonoring to
the new love, overwhelmed Calyste who threw himself on the bench
beside Camille, after exchanging the coldest of salutations with his
rival. He was torn by conflicting emotions. Strong in the thought that
Beatrix loved him, he wanted at first to fling himself upon Conti and
tell him that Beatrix was his; but the violent trembling of the woman
betraying how she suffered--for she had really paid the penalty of her
faults in that one moment--affected him so deeply that he was dumb,
struck like her with a sense of some implacable necessity.

Madame de Rochefide and Conti passed in front of the seat where
Calyste had dropped beside Camille, and as she passed, the marquise
looked at Camille, giving her one of those terrible glances in which
women have the art of saying all things. She avoided the eyes of
Calyste and turned her attention to Conti, who appeared to be jesting
with her.

"What will they say to each other?" Calyste asked of Camille.

"Dear child, you don't know as yet the terrible rights which an
extinguished love still gives to a man over a woman. Beatrix could not
refuse to take his arm. He is, no doubt, joking her about her new
love; he must have guessed it from your attitudes and the manner in
which you approached us."

"Joking her!" cried the impetuous youth, starting up.

"Be calm," said Camille, "or you will lose the last chances that
remain to you. If he wounds her self-love, she will crush him like a
worm under her foot. But he is too astute for that; he will manage her
with greater cleverness. He will seem not even to suppose that the
proud Madame de Rochefide could betray him; /she/ could never be
guilty of such depravity as loving a man for the sake of his beauty.
He will represent you to her as a child ambitious to have a marquise
in love with him, and to make himself the arbiter of the fate of two
women. In short, he will fire a broadside of malicious insinuations.
Beatrix will then be forced to parry with false assertions and
denials, which he will simply make use of to become once more her
master."

"Ah!" cried Calyste, "he does not love her. I would leave her free.
True love means a choice made anew at every moment, confirmed from day
to day. The morrow justifies the