The dance of disillusion

April 1930 Frédéric Boutet
The dance of disillusion
April 1930 Frédéric Boutet

The dance of disillusion

FRÉDÉRIC BOUTET

A passionately current wife and an ex-husband combine to give first love a second chance

■ M. Dormance, looking for his wife, threaded his way carefully through the bright confusion of dancers that filled the room—a confusion of flashing jewels and ivory throats, satin and cool velvet against a sharp, masculine background of black and white. These were his guests; but M. Dormance, as he struggled through them, eyed them almost impatiently. He found his wife at the buffet.

"Valentine, are you out of your mind?" he whispered to her anxiously. "You've just introduced Daniel Larroy to Lucile Andelot!"

"But it was she who asked me to do it," protested Mme. Dormance in the same breathless undertone. "She said that she wanted to know him, and asked me to pronounce her name—slur it somehow—so that he wouldn't hear it when I presented him. I couldn't refuse."

"No.... I don't suppose you could. Any more than we could avoid having the two families here to-night. These things are apt to happen nowadays! But where is Andelot?"

"Oh, he had to go to some sort of meeting. He's going to work afterward, and isn't coming for Lucile until two or three o'clock in the morning. As for Mme. Larroy, you know quite well that since her baby was born, she hasn't gone out at all in the evenings—she is the Perfect Mother. So, since neither the other wife nor the other husband is here, there are really no complications!"

"Just the same, what an extraordinary thing for Lucile to do!"

Mme. Dormance shrugged her pretty shoulders ever so slightly.

"Why? Feminine curiosity—that's all! Look at them now—they're dancing."

In the opulent, gilded light from the great chandeliers, Daniel Larroy looked down with an emotion that was almost tenderness upon the small, blonde head of the woman who rested so lightly, so briefly in his arms in the formal embrace of the dance. From the sleek gold of her hair a dim, exciting fragrance as of a thousand unseen flowers drifted faintly.

"She is divine!" he thought. "But who is she? I didn't hear a syllable of the name Mme. Dormance mentioned when she introduced us."

"Really, you dance beautifully," said Lucile, smiling at him.

Daniel returned the compliment with enthusiasm. Then he spoke of the success of the Dormance party.

"Oh, yes, they entertain delightfully," said Lucile. "Have you known them long?"

"My wife and I met them last year at the seashore. I'd known Dormance before that at the club. So we spent a good deal of time together then, and we've seen something of one another since in town. I don't believe I've had the pleasure, though, of meeting you ..."

"You're married, then," Lucile said, interrupting. "Isn't your wife here?"

"No. She had a baby a few months ago, and she devotes herself almost altogether to him."

"And doesn't she mind your going out without her?"

"Oh, not a bit! She knows I have business to do with Dormance. And then—there are certain obligations to one's friends. But you— may I ask—? I didn't quite catch your name, just now. ..."

"I like that," said Lucile, simply, without answering her partner's question. "I think that mutual freedom is the best way to avoid mutual boredom in marriage . . . when one is lucky enough to find a companion who knows how to appreciate one and make one happy. I'm sure your wife must be charming. And I can't imagine why Mme. Dormance has never spoken to me about her... I've known Valentine since we were both children."

Lucile was speaking slowly, thoughtfully, as though she were trying to convey a thought a little beyond her actual words. Larroy, faintly surprised by her manner, wondered what she was driving at. He didn't know how to repeat his question gracefully, concluded that she was delightful but eccentric, and took her off to the buffet for supper. Pleasantly equipped with ices and champagne, they sat in a corner and talked amiably of art, literature and sport, and found that they had an agreeable similarity of tastes; but, under the skilful guidance of Lucile who seemed, in a tactful but ruthless fashion, determined to find out all about him, the conversation returned always to more intimate topics. And Daniel, piqued, wondered privately if she had chosen this curious way of letting him know that he had aroused in her a sudden and flattering interest in himself. He became a little eager, he became gallant...

■ Suddenly she interrupted him.

"I'm being absurd," she told him. "Quite absurd. I've been trying to do something which can't be done—I see that now. I thought I was clever; and I owe you an explanation, if not an apology. You see, I asked Valentine Dormance, who is one of my best friends, to introduce you to me; and I asked her to slur my name so that you wouldn't understand it. I knew your wife wasn't coming here to-night. ... I knew my husband wasn't coming until very late. I'm Lucile Andelot. I married your wife's divorced husband."

"What's that?" said Daniel, in amazement.

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Exactly! It's simple enough. The Andelots were divorced. You married the wife—I the husband. You don't know my husband—I don't know your wife. But for three years, ever since I've been married, I've had a curiosity that kept growing keener all the time, that has now become irresistible, to know what sort of woman my husband's former wife was. I know she is pretty. I've seen her, at a distance, but I want to know what she is really like . . . whether she is intelligent, tender, gay. This evening I hoped to lead you to talk about her without telling you why I wanted you to do so. I was a fool, I should have known it was impossible. I have been stupid—now I must tell you the truth."

Recovering from his first astonishment, Daniel Larroy smiled faintly and looked for a long moment into her eyes.

"Are you jealous?" he asked her.

She blushed.

"I don't know," she said. "No. I don't think so. Or, at least, not of the present. I know very well that my husband loves me. But—oh, you understand me very well! Haven't you felt something of the sort yourself?"

■ He hesitated, reluctant to confess what he had never admitted even to himself. But he couldn't lie.

"Yes," he said, in a low tone. "I know only too well what you mean. I know I have no reason to be jealous. I know that for Jacqueline—my wife—the past doesn't count, that it never counted. She may have thought she was in love with her first husband. She wasn't. M. Andelot hurt her. He was jealous, tyrannical...."

Lucile started. After all, he was talking about her husband.

"But it was she who was dictatorial, defiant —obstinate! She made scenes on all occasions, she forbade him to go out without her, she was tyrannical...."

Daniel laughed, dryly.

"Jacqueline tyrannical! Oh, really! But she is sweetness itself. She has never contradicted me, never made any comment on anything I say or do. I'm here this evening—she thinks that is perfectly all right. Ah, no, she isn't jealous, but her first husband was jealous of her...."

"So she has told you," said Lucile, scornfully.

"Just as he has told you the opposite," retorted Daniel.

They were silent, abruptly hostile. What was the truth? Had there been jealousy between M. Andelot and his first wife? Had it been a reciprocal jealousy, or if it were onesided, which of them had been guilty? Why, now that they had married again, was neither jealous—he of Lucile, she of Daniel? Was it due to the growth of tolerance, to the experience learned in the course of a first, unhappy marriage? Or was it ... the thought haunted them both ... that Andelot and Jacqueline cared less the second time?

"Jacqueline wasn't in love with him," said Daniel, at length defiantly.

"How do you know?

"I'm sure. She loves me too much to have loved anyone else." "I told myself that too, when my parents advised me not to marry M. Andelot because he had been divorced. Now—I'm not so sure!" she said, tapping the floor with her foot.

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"Be careful—some one might see you," he urged, in a low tone.

"Oh, I know—" Lucile remembered that she was at a party. "I was silly to do what I've done this evening. My curiosity was ridiculous. I was happy. Now—I don't know."

"Neither do I," he said, with a sigh. "Shall we dance this one?" he asked her, to create a diversion as much for himself as for her.

Lucile laughed, mirthlessly.

"Yes. Let's dance—by all means!"

He put his arm about her, and they swung into the rhythm of the music. No longer did they feel any hostility toward each other. On the contrary, a kind of sympathy, the sympathy of mutual confidence united them. They shared the sad but thrilling secret of a mutual sorrow, of the obscure resentment that they both felt toward the man and the woman in whose hearts they had secured only second place—to whom they were, perhaps, only a consolation. Dancing, they brooded upon it, and a vague desire for revenge was born in each of them. Daniel held her a little more closely in his arms . . . and Lucile abandoned herself a little more to his embrace.