In the hope of soon seeing you, I pray you to accept the assurance of my most devoted sentiments.
LILIAN ARVEL.
I found the note strange, cold, and mysterious. I suppose I wrote that any day would suit me, but I received no reply. So on the thirteenth, I sent the following ambiguous missive, supposed to be from the female friend, Marie.
JACKY TO LILIAN.
Paris. December 13, 1897.
My dear Lilian,
You know I do not like to trouble you, and I have always told you that although I feel great friendship for you, and you, I believe, have a little for me, I never intend to worry you. I know your time is occupied and that you are not always at liberty.
What does all this mean, you will say? Simply to tell you not to forget me the next time you come to Paris, and try to pay me a visit for a minute or two as you did before, that is to say if you have the desire to see me. That would give me the greatest pleasure.
At your last visit you let me hope that I should hear from you shortly.
Dare I add that I am a little grieved and wounded at your silence?
Come soon if you can, and later on if you cannot manage otherwise.
Anyhow, a word from you would rejoice the heart of your sincere friend,
MARIE.
This note crossed the following invitation:
LILIAN TO JACKY.
Sonis-sur-Marne. December 13, 1897.
My dear Mr. S.,
You must think we are all dead. Such is happily not the case. If we have not written sooner to fix the day when we should have the pleasure of your company at lunch, it is because we have been very much troubled. Our three puppies have been grievously ill. We do not know if we can save the little bitch. The other two are better. My Blackamoor is luckily almost out of danger. Can you come next Thursday, the sixteenth? We count upon you to pass the day with us. Do not bring any of your dogs, not even your big treasure Smike. We find that the distemper is contagious and it would be a pity to make your pets ill. We hope you are in good health and that your new venture is successful.
Awaiting the pleasure of seeing you, we pray you to accept the assurance of our sincere friendship and believe me,
Your entirely devoted,
LILIAN ARVEL.
The above was typewritten, as Miss Arvel was very quick with her Papa's Remington, but there was a little piece of paper in the letter, bearing the following words, in her own handwriting:
The little girl will frankly tell her Papa the reason why she has not written to him, although she had the utmost desire to do so.
December 16, 1897.
In spite of my most earnest efforts of memory, I can find nothing to remember of great importance during this visit to Sonis. I had lunch and did not stop to dinner. The girl kept out of my way. In the afternoon, Papa, Lilian, and I went for a walk together, and I can see myself now, strolling sadly along, my ungloved hands clasped behind me. Lilian, unseen by her father, placed her fingers in my palm for a moment.
I dropped back, and as her stepfather went on in front, I whispered to her: “Is it all over between us already?”
“Yes!” she answered, laughingly.
I quickly walked away from her. She trotted after me, saying:
“No, no!”
At this moment, Papa joined us, and I was no more alone with her. When leaving for the station with my host, she came to bid me good bye, and called out with deep meaning:
“A bientôt!”
I thought her conduct passing strange. And I began to reflect about many things I had noticed. She seemed frightened of Mr. Arvel and yet very fond of him. He frequently told me the same stories two or three times over, and she would make fun of him behind his back. Yet when he laid down the law at table, I could see her eyes fixed upon him with enraptured attention. He was always talking about her and her future. She was lazy and quarrelsome and unable to earn her own living. Her bonnet-building scheme was a farce. And still he romped with her. I noticed, too, that the best bedrooms were on the first floor, where there was a long wooden balcony. The largest room in the front had two windows, and was Mr. and Mrs. Arvel's, with one big bed. This opened into a smaller bedroom at the back, where Lilian slept. The door of communication had been taken down and there were only two flimsy, looped-up curtains in the opening, not even a portière. I thought this was a peculiar arrangement for the bedroom of a young person of twenty-one.
In fact, I began to fancy that there was something between Lilian and her mother's lover. It seemed to me that he looked upon her with the eyes of a satyr. He was always playing with her and pinching her. And she was so careful to tell me to befriend him in every way.
“I alone get on with him beautifully,” she would say, “as his temper is awful at times, and Mamma will contradict him, but I flatter all his manias.”
I sent him some enormous parcels of books, novels, and light literature, and listened patiently to all his talk.
I felt very unhappy about Lilian, and things in general were going very badly with me; the new law of 1893 on Stock Exchange operations had dealt a deathblow to my business. I scarcely ever went to the Bourse now, so that I no longer met Mr. Arvel, and I was busily engaged in putting on the market a new chemical product I had invented.
To add to my worries, my own devoted Lilian at home was very ill indeed, and I was her nurse. And I must digress and tell a rather sad story, which, however, has some slight bearing on this tale of vice.
As far back as 1880, I made the acquaintance of a young girl, aged sixteen and a half, who was taking lessons at the Conservatoire with a view to adopting the stage as a profession. She was divinely handsome; fair, with light blue eyes; as upright as a dart, and she had a figure that sculptors begged her all her life to let them copy. I fell in love with her, my first Lilian, and as she innocently reciprocated my affection, I am ashamed to say I profited by the influence I felt I had over her, and brutally ravished her.
As I rose from the couch, where my love lay swooning, in great pain, unable to realize as yet the wrong I had done her, I mechanically went up to a looking-glass, and stared at my own reflection in the mirror. I did not know myself. My face was livid, my lips were white and cold, and my teeth chattered. I trembled all over and two big tears rolled down my cheeks, now that my animal desire was assuaged.
In truth, I felt like a murderer, and I registered a solemn vow that never more, if I lived a hundred years, would I take advantage of a virgin's yielding tenderness.
Now you know the principal reason why I respected my friend's daughter. This secret I have never divulged. I never told Miss Arvel. She does not know it now, nor will not, unless she reads this book.
My Lilian forgave me because she loved me, and our mutual affection grew, until it became perfectly plain that she could not live without me. There were no spoken protestations of affection on either side. Naturally we sought each other continually; and simply joined our hearts, souls, and bodies in God's union of the sexes. There was no question of money between us, to speak plainly. In fact, at that moment I had none. I was a gambler. When in luck I spent my gold, and when reverses came I cut down my expenses, and waited until the blind lady came my way again. This is one of my motives for having remained a bachelor. I often fancied myself allied to a young damsel of the commercial world accustomed to the steady tradesmen of her family. I could see myself, after a winning settlement, buying her, for instance, a pair of diamond earrings, and perhaps the very next month pawning them out of dire necessity.
So when I seduced Lilian, I was down on my luck considerably. Her family was an illustrious one, but her father was a spendthrift, and he dilapidated the fortune, driving his wife into an early grave. This lady was a sainted victim and freely forgave her erring daughter, never depriving her of her maternal affection and advice. But she died a few years later.