Rafael Sabatini - The Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini

“That being so,” said she, “will you tell me why they find such an overwhelming attraction in the immodest of our sex?”

Madame stood still and raised shocked hands. Then she looked down her handsome, high-bridged nose.

“Sometimes — often, in fact, my dear Aline — you pass all understanding. I shall write to Quintin that the sooner you are married the better it will be for all.”

“Uncle Quintin has left that matter to my own deciding,” Aline reminded her.

“That,” said madame with complete conviction, “is the last and most outrageous of his errors. Who ever heard of a girl being left to decide the matter of her own marriage? It is . . . indelicate almost to expose her to thoughts of such things.” Mme. de Sautron shuddered. “Quintin is a boor. His conduct is unheard of. That M. de La Tour d’Azyr should parade himself before you so that you may make up your mind whether he is the proper man for you!” Again she shuddered. “It is of a grossness, of . . . of a prurience almost . . . Mon Dieu! When I married your uncle, all this was arranged between our parents. I first saw him when he came to sign the contract. I should have died of shame had it been otherwise. And that is how these affairs should be conducted.”

“You are no doubt right, madame. But since that is not how my own case is being conducted, you will forgive me if I deal with it apart from others. M. de La Tour d’Azyr desires to marry me. He has been permitted to pay his court. I should be glad to have him informed that he may cease to do so.”

Mme. de Sautron stood still, petrified by amazement. Her long face turned white; she seemed to breathe with difficulty.

“But . . . but . . . what are you saying?” she gasped.

Quietly Aline repeated her statement.

“But this is outrageous! You cannot be permitted to play fast-and-loose with a gentleman of M. le Marquis’ quality! Why, it is little more than a week since you permitted him to be informed that you would become his wife!”

“I did so in a moment of . . . rashness. Since then M. le Marquis’ own conduct has convinced me of my error.”

“But — mon Dieu!” cried the Countess. “Are you blind to the great honour that is being paid you? M. le Marquis will make you the first lady in Brittany. Yet, little fool that you are, and greater fool that Quintin is, you trifle with this extraordinary good fortune! Let me warn you.” She raised an admonitory forefinger. “If you continue in this stupid humour M. de La Tour d’Azyr may definitely withdraw his offer and depart in justified mortification.”

“That, madame, as I am endeavouring to convey to you, is what I most desire.”

“Oh, you are mad.”

“It may be, madame, that I am sane in preferring to be guided by my instincts. It may be even that I am justified in resenting that the man who aspires to become my husband should at the same time be paying such assiduous homage to a wretched theatre girl at the Feydau.”

“Aline!”

“Is it not true? Or perhaps you do not find it strange that M. de La Tour d’Azyr should so conduct himself at such a time?”

“Aline, you are so extraordinary a mixture. At moments you shock me by the indecency of your expressions; at others you amaze me by the excess of your prudery. You have been brought up like a little bourgeoise, I think. Yes, that is it — a little bourgeoise. Quintin was always something of a shopkeeper at heart.”

“I was asking your opinion on the conduct of M. de La Tour d’Azyr, madame. Not on my own.”

“But it is an indelicacy in you to observe such things. You should be ignorant of them, and I can’t think who is so . . . so unfeeling as to inform you. But since you are informed, at least you should be modestly blind to things that take place outside the . . . orbit of a properly conducted demoiselle.”

“Will they still be outside my orbit when I am married?”

“If you are wise. You should remain without knowledge of them. It . . . it deflowers your innocence. I would not for the world that M. de La Tour d’Azyr should know you so extraordinarily instructed. Had you been properly reared in a convent this would never have happened to you.”

“But you do not answer me, madame!” cried Aline in despair. “It is not my chastity that is in question; but that of M. de La Tour d’Azyr.”

“Chastity!” Madame’s lips trembled with horror. Horror overspread her face. “Wherever did you learn that dreadful, that so improper word?”

And then Mme. de Sautron did violence to her feelings. She realized that here great calm and prudence were required. “My child, since you know so much that you ought not to know, there can be no harm in my adding that a gentleman must have these little distractions.”

“But why, madame? Why is it so?”

“Ah, mon Dieu, you are asking me riddles of nature. It is so because it is so. Because men are like that.”

“Because men are beasts, you mean — which is what I began by asking you.”

“You are incorrigibly stupid, Aline.”

“You mean that I do not see things as you do, madame. I am not over-expectant as you appear to think; yet surely I have the right to expect that whilst M. de La Tour d’Azyr is wooing me, he shall not be wooing at the same time a drab of the theatre. I feel that in this there is a subtle association of myself with that unspeakable creature which soils and insults me. The Marquis is a dullard whose wooing takes the form at best of stilted compliments, stupid and unoriginal. They gain nothing when they fall from lips still warm from the contamination of that woman’s kisses.”

So utterly scandalized was madame that for a moment she remained speechless. Then —

“Mon Dieu!” she exclaimed. “I should never have suspected you of so indelicate an imagination.”

“I cannot help it, madame. Each time his lips touch my fingers I find myself thinking of the last object that they touched. I at once retire to wash my hands. Next time, madame, unless you are good enough to convey my message to him, I shall call for water and wash them in his presence.”

“But what am I to tell him? How . . . in what words can I convey such a message?” Madame was aghast.

“Be frank with him, madame. It is easiest in the end. Tell him that however impure may have been his life in the past, however impure he intend that it shall be in the future, he must at least study purity whilst approaching with a view to marriage a virgin who is herself pure and without stain.”

Madame recoiled, and put her hands to her ears, horror stamped on her handsome face. Her massive bosom heaved.

“Oh, how can you?” she panted. “How can you make use of such terrible expressions? Wherever have you learnt them?”

“In church,” said Aline.

“Ah, but in church many things are said that . . . that one would not dream of saying in the world. My dear child, how could I possibly say such a thing to M. le Marquis? How could I possibly?”

“Shall I say it?”

“Aline!”

“Well, there it is,” said Aline. “Something must be done to shelter me from insult. I am utterly disgusted with M. le Marquis — a disgusting man. And however fine a thing it may be to become Marquise de La Tour d’Azyr, why, frankly, I’d sooner marry a cobbler who practised decency.”

Such was her vehemence and obvious determination that Mme. de Sautron fetched herself out of her despair to attempt persuasion. Aline was her niece, and such a marriage in the family would be to the credit of the whole of it. At all costs nothing must frustrate it.

“Listen, my dear,” she said. “Let us reason. M. le Marquis is away and will not be back until to-morrow.”

“True. And I know where he has gone — or at least whom he has gone with. Mon Dieu, and the drab has a father and a lout of a fellow who intends to make her his wife, and neither of them chooses to do anything. I suppose they agree with you, madame, that a great gentleman must have his little distractions.” Her contempt was as scorching as a thing of fire. “However, madame, you were about to say?”