“Why can't she be frank and good to you quite simply, or else let you go in peace and never see you again?”
This was a plain, Anglo-Saxon way of putting things which a woman like Lilian was totally incapable of understanding, and had she been as he wished, this story would never have been written. I asked him if he cared to see her, adding that I knew she would be glad to join us in a little orgy, but he declined, and in a few cautiously worded sentences, led me to understand that he did not approve of her conduct in general, and having no faith or confidence in her, preferred to have nothing to do with her. He was, I think, vexed at her having broken her promise to Clara and him concerning the proposed visit to his place in London, being very sensitive on all such simple points of honor, if I may be permitted to use such a term here. What pleased me most about my good old friend was, that although inwardly disgusted with Lilian's stupid game of hide and seek, he studiously avoided saying anything that I might have construed as being against her. But I read his kindly thoughts:
“She is fooling thee, but that is your own lookout; if you like her calculating, capricious ways, who shall gainsay thee, surely not I, thy friend? But I will have nothing to do with her. She is too dishonest for me, and I fear her, and all such scheming maidens after her kind.”
All the above he did not say, but I knew him well enough, after a friendship of twenty years, to be able to know exactly his great horror of deliberately wicked women.
On leaving him late in the afternoon, I stopped mechanically in front of a jeweler's shop, and my eye fell upon a row of silver purses. I remembered how Lilian had told me that she had lost hers from off her châtelaine, and I resolved to buy her one, and send it to her as a present, which would signify: “Good bye, sweetheart, good bye!”
I chose a pretty purse, with a separation in the middle to divide the gold from the silver, and going into the nearest post-office, I sent her a letter-card, couched, as well as I can recollect, in the following terms:
JACKY TO LILIAN.
Thursday, January 26, 1899.
Little jade,
I have just had lunch with Fontarcy, who desires to be remembered to you. I have bought you a silver purse, with a separation.
“Purse-separation.” How do those words strike you?
I will send it to you shortly, and also your quinine wine, which will be ready in ten days.
I hate you!
“PIGNOUF.”
This short and rude note brought the following answer:
LILIAN TO JACKY.
(No date or place.) Received January 28, 1899.
For supreme elegance and refinement, commend me to the signature with which you have embellished the note received last night. Nevertheless, I prefer the name which I often catch myself murmuring under my breath; the name which for me possesses infinite sweetness-Jacky-and I assure you I will never answer any letter signed otherwise.
“Pignouf,” signifies a mean cad. You are one perhaps, but I would pray you to forbear carrying your love of truth so far as to use that highly decorative word as a nom de plume.
I am in bed just now. There is no danger, but I suffer greatly. I will tell you all about it when I see you.
Amuse yourself well with your friend; but do not renew the little orgy of last year with anybody else but me. I shall know it; and I assure you that all would be finished forever between us. On that subject, I do not possess your lofty and liberal ideas.
Give Lord Fontarcy a nice long kiss from little Lilian. Tell him I should love to see him and that I hope to very soon. Is he quite well and happy? I really believe I am in love with him. Are you jealous, my poor, darling Papa? I am afraid your daughter is very naughty. She feels so anyhow.
Thank you for the quinine and also for the purse; how kind you are to have thought of that!
Your little puppy, Pip, grows more and more handsome every day.
He is the pick of the litter. He has got a funny little twisted tail; quite wonderful, but not as beautiful in my idea as that of Jacky. I speak to him of his future master, and he is very satisfied with his fate. But will he always remain with you, or share the life of all your others? This last idea does not please me at all.
As for me, I do not hate you-I adore you!
LILIAN.
JACKY TO LILIAN.
Paris. January 30, 1899.
My little Lilian,
I need not explain to you the sweet joy that your last letter, received Saturday morning, has given me, since you wrote it with the firm intention to please me. That I perceive and feel completely. What has often vexed me was to see that you knew well how to make me love you when you chose, but you did not always choose.
If you would only use the tenth part of your malicious and natural cunning to bestow upon me a little of the inexhaustible kindness which is to be found, it is said, at the bottom of every woman's heart, how happy you would make me, by bringing a trifle of happiness into my life, which, already so sad, was about to become more desolate without you. For when I sent you that letter-card last Thursday, I was firmly resolved to break with you. Perhaps, as you are very intelligent, you read between the lines of silly and low joking, and, understanding my thoughts, you have had a leap of love towards me, and you wrote to me to console me and stop me in time. Is that right? No matter; the essential is that you wrote me the most beautiful letter I have received from you up to the present, I think, although you have sent me some very nice ones-especially those of Lamalou.
After leaving Lord F., I saw some silver purses, and the idea struck me to buy one for you and make you a “good bye” present. I love you too much to endure any longer your treatment of the last few months. Hideous nightmare! If you had been indifferent to me, I should not have noticed it. But the role of the suffering sweetheart, groaning, whimpering, swearing, supplicating, afflicted with the epistolary dysentery of unhappy lovers, juggling with the words: “sadness-wounded pride-broken heart,” and other commonplace phrases, is not in my repertory. I saw myself continually the toy of a little shrew, with a heart of stone, wicked, teasing, and bad-tempered, to say the least. It was too much. It was sickening, and I did not want to return to my vomit.
I wished never to see you more, and I had the intention to put off all invitations by pretexting a voyage. Two such refusals and I should never have been invited again. I should have passed for a boor, and should have felt great grief, but not much more than this winter; and time, I hope, would have closed my wound.
Am I right or wrong, my little daughter? Heaven only knows! But such was my firm intention. Ask Fontarcy.
Is he your new sweetheart? And Gaston, what will he say? How sweet you are! Oh, you are a real woman! What makes me split my sides, is that you take upon yourself the right to make me a cuckold before my eyes, or behind my back, and I must say nothing, and never stray from the path of virtue? Where is the little slave of bygone days? She has broken her chains.
But I will be avenged, and this is how: you say you want to renew the little saturnalia of last autumn? I am willing, but I condemn you to execute such horrors with your new lover, that you will be disgusted with him forever. That will be your punishment.
I begin to see now what you like, and perhaps I may be able to satisfy you in a terribly exquisite and perverse way. But it is a very delicate matter. I must talk to you quietly about it. I am accomplishing a work of seduction just now for your future enjoyment.
And you, love, work for me. Think of everything that might please me in your house at Sonis, and out of doors when you can venture to escape.