Invitations

HENRI DUVERNOIS

Wherein the Exigencies of Modern Life Bring About the Postponement of an Intended Romance

ROBERT TAVERNON clasped Marceline Visnage to his heart. "Marceline," he said, "my happiness, my darling, you are going—no, I'm not laughing, the feathers on your hat are tickling me! You know what's decided? I'll repeat it. On Wednesday morning you'll go into your husband's study and say: 'August, your life is a public scandal. I'm ready, now, this moment, to make my life over. I'm going away. My lawyer will arrange the details of our separation with yours. Good-bye.' Do you understand, Marceline?"

"I think I do. . . . I'm always a little confused when you take me in your arms. . .

"Don't weaken, my treasure! Three minutes' effort and we shall be happy. Wednesday, at ten in the morning, you will let the—the other know that you've had enough of it. You won't wait for his answer, and you will come straight here."

"Wednesday?"

"Yes."

"The trouble is, darling, that on Wednesday noon M. and Mme. Prey and M. and Mme. Bourgene and my old uncle Alexis are coming to lunch at the house. I'd rather they heard about this in some other way, if possible."

"All right. Let it go until the next day."

"Thursday? Don't be cross, dearest. Do you know the Stibies? They're newlyweds, as poor as they can be, and so charming that you'll adore them. They live in a tiny apartment, and they never stop kissing one another. I've christened them the love birds. Well, the Stibies have asked me to dinner Thursday evening. It's an event for them—you must realize that. And a great expense, too. I can't break my word to them; they're so sensitive it would hurt them terribly!"

"Well, then—Friday?"

"That's my day at home—the last, Robert darling, the last! Next week people will be forewarned, but I can't bear the idea of having the butler send my friends away on some pretext or other. I'm sensitive, you know— don't upset me."

"You're a fraud!"

"Wait, wait. Isn't anticipation delightful? After all, it's a little like being engaged!"

"You'll see! Oh, you'll see! I'll have to be the one to talk to August!"

With this threat, in bad taste though it was, Robert escorted his mistress to the door, kissed her gloved hand and, shutting the door, went back to sit down on his sofa and smoke a cigar that seemed to him at that moment to be made of rope.

The household of Marceline, who, to him, was like a lily, and of August, whom he saw as a walking money bag, was abominable, but it was well organized. The husband maintained an apartment for a young woman in town more or less secretly, though he appeared with her openly in all the night-clubs. He was fickle, egotistical, a gambler and lazy, but he excelled in the difficult art of keeping his wife busy. He saw to it that he was never open to reproach. There were balls, dinners, suppers; she went from a dancing lesson to a month's visit at a château, from a formal ball to a picnic with a group of artists. Involved in this endless round of activity Marceline had the utmost difficulty in keeping twentyfive minutes free to devote each week to the most delightful of consolers.

"I will speak to him myself—to August!" the consoler finally decided, hurling his cigar away. "At least, I'll have the advantage, then, of knowing the man. In the two years I've loved Marceline and that she has loved me I've withdrawn from the world. No one ever asks me anywhere any more! When she isn't here I'm bored to extinction. I shall go and hunt up this loathesome Visnage and tell him that I'm going to run away with his wife!"

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(Continued, from page 37)

A week later, when Marceline once more took refuge in a full engagement book, Robert decided to carry out his plan. The next day he dressed himself formally, as one does for a duel, had himself announced to Visnage, and was received immediately. Marceline's perfume hung in the air, the furniture and the pictures were in frightful taste, the husband's gross face broke out in a smile, until he looked like an over-ripe pomegranate.

"Be seated, Monsieur. Why—just a second—Monsieur Tavernon? Aren't you Adolphe Larix's brother-in-law?"

"I am, Monsieur."

"But Larix is a friend of mine— a college chum! I haven't seen him since his marriage, but I remember that he married a Mademoiselle Tavernon."

With a curt gesture Robert rejected the offered chair, Visnage's outstretched hand, and any discussion of Larix. Just then there was a knock at the door. A maid peeped in and said:

"Madame would like Monsieur to come to her at once."

"When a lady gives her orders!" The big man excused himself. "One moment, Monsieur, if you don't mind."

Five minutes later August returned, with a turban, adorned with four rows of lighted candles, balanced on his head.

"Don't take me for a lunatic!" he said. "It's a turban for a masked ball the Garbottes are giving. We're trying on our costumes. I told the ladies you were here. Madame Garbotte—she's related to Larix through her cousin, the engineer who designs bridges and roads—asked me to fetch you. They want you to give us your opinion, as a painter—"

"Monsieur—" Robert interrupted. "One of the candles is setting the turban on fire—"

He put the candle out, thinking: "This creature knows I've come to tell him something disagreeable. He wants to put me off—but he shan't!"

The ladies came in. How was he to stick to his purpose before Marceline, so pretty in her costume of an April shower, with streamers of brilliants scattered in her hair, and her eyes full of love and pleading? Moreover, Mme. Garbotte began to chatter, and never stopped talking until Robert, beside himself, had gone, after accepting a glass of port!

So he had run away, and Marceline's husband hadn't even asked him the reason for his visit! Like all men who live disreputable lives Visnage asked as few questions as possible.

Two days later Marceline appeared at their weekly rendezvous, showing, by her languid air, that she was a little worried.

"What a wretched time you have!" she sighed. "How much you have to put up with, darling! That woman was badgering you so—I was jealous—"

"Don't be silly!"

"But it's settled, now. I've waited too long as it is. On Sunday I shall be yours!"

"Sunday?"

"Yes. You don't seem to be enthusiastic, Robert."

"Well, the only thing is, dearest— Sunday—that's the day of the ball. Mme. Garbotte has asked me, and I accepted, formally. There are family reasons—and then, it would be nice to be there together, with all the world around us. Monday, perhaps?"

"Monday—that's the day of the first night. They say it's to be dreadful. I don't want to miss that."

"I'll try to get a ticket for myself. I haven't been to the theatre for ages."

"I'll give you all the entr'actes, my dearest!"

"But, anyway—soon?"

"Oh, yes—yes—soon!"

And, the all important decision being thus put off to some very vague subsequent date—to a day so remote as to be unlikely ever to arrive —when neither he nor she should have anything more amusing to do, it seemed to them that they had never understood one another so well . . . !