Artois made a wry face.
"Eventually you paid a lot of money to prevent it from being published
any more. You withdrew it from circulation. I sometimes feel that we ugly
ones ought to be withdrawn from circulation. It's silly, perhaps, and I
hope I never show it, but there the feeling is. So when the handsomest
man I had ever seen loved me, I was simply amazed. It seemed to me
ridiculous and impossible. And then, when I was convinced it was
possible, very wonderful, and, I confess it to you, very splendid. It
seemed to help to reconcile me with myself in a way in which I had never
been reconciled before."
"And that was the beginning?"
"I dare say. There were other things, too. Maurice Delarey isn't at all
stupid, but he's not nearly so intelligent as I am."
"That doesn't surprise me."
"The fact of this physical perfection being humble with me, looking up to
me, seemed to mean a great deal. I think Maurice feels about intellect
rather as I do about beauty. He made me understand that he must. And that
seemed to open my heart to him in an extraordinary way. Can you
understand?"
"Yes. Give me some more tea, please."
He held out his cup. She filled it, talking while she did so. She had
become absorbed in what she was saying, and spoke without any
self-consciousness.
"I knew my gift, such as it is, the gift of brains, could do something
for him, though his gift of beauty could do nothing for me--in the way of
development. And that, too, seemed to lead me a step towards him.
Finally--well, one day I knew I wanted to marry him. And so, Emile, I'm
going to marry him. Here!"
She held out to him his cup full of tea.
"There's no sugar," he said.
"Oh--the first time I've forgotten."
"Yes."
The tone of his voice made her look up at him quickly and exclaim: "No, it won't make any difference!"
"But it has. You've forgotten for the first time. Cursed be the egotism
of man."
He sat down in an arm-chair on the other side of the tea-table.
"It ought to make a difference. Maurice Delarey, if he is a man--and if
you are going to marry him he must be--will not allow you to be the
Egeria of a fellow who has shocked even Paris by telling it the naked
truth."
"Yes, he will. I shall drop no friendship for him, and he knows it.
There is not one that is not honest and innocent. Thank God I can say
that. If you care for it, Emile, we can both add to the size of the
letter bundles."