BOOK III SOPHIA - CHAPTER III - AN AMBITION SATISFIED - PART I

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_ She went to sleep in misery. All the glory of her new life had
been eclipsed. But when she woke up, a few hours later, in the
large, velvety stateliness of the bedroom for which Gerald was
paying so fantastic a price per day, she was in a brighter mood,
and very willing to reconsider her verdicts. Her pride induced her
to put Gerald in the right and herself in the wrong, for she was
too proud to admit that she had married a charming and
irresponsible fool. And, indeed, ought she not to put herself in
the wrong? Gerald had told her to wait, and she had not waited. He
had said that he should return to the restaurant, and he had
returned. Why had she not waited? She had not waited because she
had behaved like a simpleton. She had been terrified about
nothing. Had she not been frequenting restaurants now for a month
past? Ought not a married woman to be capable of waiting an hour
in a restaurant for her lawful husband without looking a ninny?
And as for Gerald's behaviour, how could he have acted
differently? The other Englishman was obviously a brute and had
sought a quarrel. His contradiction of Gerald's statements was
extremely offensive. On being invited by the brute to go outside,
what could Gerald do but comply? Not to have complied might have
meant a fight in the restaurant, as the brute was certainly drunk.
Compared to the brute, Gerald was not at all drunk, merely a
little gay and talkative. Then Gerald's fib about his chin was
natural; he simply wished to minimize the fuss and to spare her
feelings. It was, in fact, just like Gerald to keep perfect
silence as to what had passed between himself and the brute.
However, she was convinced that Gerald, so lithe and quick, had
given that great brute with his supercilious ways as good as he
received, if not better.

And if she were a man and had asked her wife to wait in a
restaurant, and the wife had gone home under the escort of another
man, she would most assuredly be much more angry than Gerald had
been. She was very glad that she had controlled herself and
exercised a meek diplomacy. A quarrel had thus been avoided. Yes,
the finish of the evening could not be called a quarrel; after her
nursing of his chin, nothing but a slight coolness on his part had
persisted.

She arose silently and began to dress, full of a determination to
treat Gerald as a good wife ought to treat a husband. Gerald did
not stir; he was an excellent sleeper: one of those organisms that
never want to go to bed and never want to get up. When her toilet
was complete save for her bodice, there was a knock at the door.
She started.

"Gerald!" She approached the bed, and leaned her nude bosom over
her husband, and put her arms round his neck. This method of being
brought back to consciousness did not displease him.

The knock was repeated. He gave a grunt.

"Some one's knocking at the door," she whispered.

"Then why don't you open it?" he asked dreamily.

"I'm not dressed, darling."

He looked at her. "Stick something on your shoulders, girl!" said
he. "What does it matter?"

There she was, being a simpleton again, despite her resolution!

She obeyed, and cautiously opened the door, standing behind it.

A middle-aged whiskered servant, in a long white apron, announced
matters in French which passed her understanding. But Gerald had
heard from the bed, and he replied.

"Bien, monsieur!" The servant departed, with a bow, down the
obscure corridor.

"It's Chirac," Gerald explained when she had shut the door. "I was
forgetting I asked him to come and have lunch with us, early. He's
waiting in the drawing-room. Just put your bodice on, and go and
talk to him till I come."

He jumped out of bed, and then, standing in his night-garb,
stretched himself and terrifically yawned.

"Me?" Sophia questioned.

"Who else?" said Gerald, with that curious satiric dryness which
he would sometimes import into his tone.

"But I can't speak French!" she protested.

"I didn't suppose you could," said Gerald, with an increase of
dryness; "but you know as well as I do that he can speak English."

"Oh, very well, then!" she murmured with agreeable alacrity.

Evidently Gerald had not yet quite recovered from his legitimate
displeasure of the night. He minutely examined his mouth in the
glass of the Louis Philippe wardrobe. It showed scarcely a trace
of battle.

"I say!" he stopped her, as, nervous at the prospect before her,
she was leaving the room. "I was thinking of going to Auxerre to-
day."

"Auxerre?" she repeated, wondering under what circumstances she
had recently heard that name. Then she remembered: it was the
place of execution of the murderer Rivain.

"Yes," he said. "Chirac has to go. He's on a newspaper now. He was
an architect when I knew him. He's got to go and he thinks himself
jolly lucky. So I thought I'd go with him."

The truth was that he had definitely arranged to go.

"Not to see the execution?" she stammered.

"Why not? I've always wanted to see an execution, especially with
the guillotine. And executions are public in France. It's quite
the proper thing to go to them."

"But why do you want to see an execution?"

"It just happens that I do want to see an execution. It's a fancy
of mine, that's all. I don't know that any reason is necessary,"
he said, pouring out water into the diminutive ewer.

She was aghast. "And shall you leave me here alone?"

"Well," said he, "I don't see why my being married should prevent
me from doing something that I've always wanted to do. Do you?"

"Oh NO!" she eagerly concurred.

"That's all right," he said. "You can do exactly as you like.
Either stay here, or come with me. If you go to Auxerre there's no
need at all for you to see the execution. It's an interesting old
town--cathedral and so on. But of course if you can't bear to be
in the same town as a guillotine, I'll go alone. I shall come back
to-morrow."

It was plain where his wish lay. She stopped the phrases that came
to her lips, and did her best to dismiss the thoughts which
prompted them.

"Of course I'll go," she said quietly. She hesitated, and then
went up to the washstand and kissed a part of his cheek that was
not soapy. That kiss, which comforted and somehow reassured her,
was the expression of a surrender whose monstrousness she would
not admit to herself.

In the rich and dusty drawing-room, Chirac and Chirac's exquisite
formalities awaited her. Nobody else was there.

"My husband ..." she began, smiling and blushing. She liked
Chirac.

It was the first time she had had the opportunity of using that
word to other than a servant. It soothed her and gave her
confidence. She perceived after a few moments that Chirac did
genuinely admire her; more, that she inspired him with something
that resembled awe. Speaking very slowly and distinctly she said
that she should travel with her husband to Auxerre; as he saw no
objection to that course; implying that if he saw no objection she
was perfectly satisfied. Chirac was concurrence itself. In five
minutes it seemed to be the most natural and proper thing in the
world that, on her honeymoon, she should be going with her husband
to a particular town because a notorious murderer was about to be
decapitated there in public.

"My husband has always wanted to see an execution," she said,
later. "It would be a pity to ..."

"As psychological experience," replied Chirac, pronouncing the p
of the adjective, "it will be very interessant. ... To observe
one's self, in such circumstances ..." He smiled
enthusiastically.

She thought how strange even nice Frenchmen were. Imagine going to
an execution in order to observe yourself! _

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