Short Stories, vol 6 | Page 7

from their grasp and fell to the floor, groaning and
giving vent to such heartrending cries that they carried her back to her
seat with infinite care and precaution.
They pronounced a guarded opinion--agreeing, however, that work was
an impossibility to her.
And when Hector brought this news to his wife she sank on a chair,
murmuring:
"It would be better to bring her here; it would cost us less."
He started in amazement.
"Here? In our own house? How can you think of such a thing?"
But she, resigned now to anything, replied with tears in her eyes:
"But what can we do, my love? It's not my fault!"

USELESS BEAUTY
I
About half-past five one afternoon at the end of June when the sun was
shining warm and bright into the large courtyard, a very elegant
victoria with two beautiful black horses drew up in front of the
mansion.
The Comtesse de Mascaret came down the steps just as her husband,

who was coming home, appeared in the carriage entrance. He stopped
for a few moments to look at his wife and turned rather pale. The
countess was very beautiful, graceful and distinguished looking, with
her long oval face, her complexion like yellow ivory, her large gray
eyes and her black hair; and she got into her carriage without looking at
him, without even seeming to have noticed him, with such a
particularly high-bred air, that the furious jealousy by which he had
been devoured for so long again gnawed at his heart. He went up to her
and said: "You are going for a drive?"
She merely replied disdainfully: "You see I am!"
"In the Bois de Boulogne?"
"Most probably."
"May I come with you?"
"The carriage belongs to you."
Without being surprised at the tone in which she answered him, he got
in and sat down by his wife's side and said: "Bois de Boulogne." The
footman jumped up beside the coachman, and the horses as usual
pranced and tossed their heads until they were in the street. Husband
and wife sat side by side without speaking. He was thinking how to
begin a conversation, but she maintained such an obstinately hard look
that he did not venture to make the attempt. At last, however, he
cunningly, accidentally as it were, touched the countess' gloved hand
with his own, but she drew her arm away with a movement which was
so expressive of disgust that he remained thoughtful, in spite of his
usual authoritative and despotic character, and he said: "Gabrielle!"
"What do you want?"
"I think you are looking adorable."
She did not reply, but remained lying back in the carriage, looking like
an irritated queen. By that time they were driving up the Champs
Elysees, toward the Arc de Triomphe. That immense monument, at the
end of the long avenue, raised its colossal arch against the red sky and
the sun seemed to be descending on it, showering fiery dust on it from
the sky.
The stream of carriages, with dashes of sunlight reflected in the silver
trappings of the harness and the glass of the lamps, flowed on in a
double current toward the town and toward the Bois, and the Comte de
Mascaret continued: "My dear Gabrielle!"

Unable to control herself any longer, she replied in an exasperated
voice: "Oh! do leave me in peace, pray! I am not even allowed to have
my carriage to myself now." He pretended not to hear her and
continued: "You never have looked so pretty as you do to-day."
Her patience had come to an end, and she replied with irrepressible
anger: "You are wrong to notice it, for I swear to you that I will never
have anything to do with you in that way again."
The count was decidedly stupefied and upset, and, his violent nature
gaining the upper hand, he exclaimed: "What do you mean by that?" in
a tone that betrayed rather the brutal master than the lover. She replied
in a low voice, so that the servants might not hear amid the deafening
noise of the wheels: "Ah! What do I mean by that? What do I mean by
that? Now I recognize you again! Do you want me to tell everything?"
"Yes."
"Everything that has weighed on my heart since I have been the victim
of your terrible selfishness?"
He had grown red with surprise and anger and he growled between his
closed teeth: "Yes, tell me everything."
He was a tall, broad-shouldered man, with a big red beard, a handsome
man, a nobleman, a man of the world, who passed as a perfect husband
and an excellent father, and now, for the first time since they had
started, she turned toward him and looked him full in the face: