Chapter IV: Part ONE: I (3)

Young, gay and attractive, each in her own way, it was not long before they were very much surrounded. Annette was blooming. In the open air and at sports she showed to her best advantage. Strong, strapping, fond of walking and all active games, she was a brilliant tennis partner, with a sure eye, supple wrist, quick hand, and lightning-like return. Usually restrained in her gestures, she displayed, when occasion demanded, admirable nerve and furious bursts of speed. Sylvie, marvelling, clapped her hands as she watched her leap about; she was proud of her sister. She admired her the more because she felt incapable of imitating her: this svelte Parisienne was inept at all sports, and she did not particularly understand their attraction. They called for too much action! She found it more agreeable--and above all, more prudent--to remain a spectator. But she did not waste her time. . . .

She formed a little court, over which she queened it as though she had done nothing else all her life. Sly one that she was, she knew how to copy from the fashionable young women she observed all those mannerisms that were well-bred, smart, and easily borrowed. Looking as though butter would not melt in her mouth, deliciously distrait, her eyes and ears were always open; she missed nothing. But Annette still remained her best model. With a sure instinct, she knew not only how to copy her in many a detail, but how to improve the copy by slight changes, and even in certain cases how to take the opposite tack,--oh! just enough to appear incorrect, by one refinement the more. She showed still more intelligence by never overstepping the limits within which she felt solid ground beneath her feet. In her own province she was perfect, in manners, bearing, and tone. Exquisite distinction raised to an extravagant point. Annette could not help laughing when she heard Sylvie, with charming aplomb, retailing to her court little tid-bits with which Annette had stuffed her the evening before. Sylvie would slip her a sly wink. It would not have done, certainly, to push her too far in conversation. For all her wit and excellent memory, she would have gotten her foot into it; but she didn't slip, she watched her step. And then, too, she knew how to choose her partners. The majority of them were young sportsmen from foreign lands: Anglo-Saxons, Roumanians, who were more sensitive to a mistake in play than to an error in language. The great favorite of the little feminine circle was an Italian. Bearing the sonorous name of an old Lombard family (extinct for centuries, but the name never dies), he was of a type that is very common among the youth of the Peninsula, and which is characteristic of a period rather than of a race. In it one finds curiously blended the American of Fifth Avenue, and the condottiere of the fourteenth century, which gives to the ensemble a rather grand air--(Operatic). A handsome fellow, tall and straight, well built, with a round head and clean shaven face, very brown skin, fiery eyes, a great conquering nose, bluish nostrils, and a heavy jaw, Tullio walked with supple loins and chest thrust out. His manners were a mixture of hauteur, obsequious courtesy, and brutality. An irresistible man. He had but to stoop to gather hearts. He did not stoop. He waited for them to be placed in his hand.

Perhaps it was precisely for the reason that Annette did not offer hers to him that he first fixed his choice on her. A tennis champion himself, he appreciated the physical qualities of the robust girl, and when he talked with her he discovered other sports for which they had a common liking: horseback riding and canoeing, which Annette had gone into with the passion that she brought to everything. With his big nose he sensed the over-abundant energy that coursed through her virgin body; and he desired it. Annette perceived this desire, and she was at once offended and captivated. Her intense physical life, which had been curbed by years of semi-claustration, was awakening under the flame of this superb summer, in the midst of these young people who thought only of pleasure, and in the excitement of these vigorous sports. The last weeks spent with Sylvie, their free conversations, and the excessive affection with which she was saturated, had considerably perturbed her nature,--that nature which she so little understood, unsuspecting its depths. The house was ill defended against an assault of the senses. For the first time, Annette experienced the sting of sexual passion. It caused her shame and anger, as though someone had slapped her face. But this did not make the desire wane. Instead of hiding herself, she faced the onslaught with a cold pride and a trembling heart. As for Tullio, who always cloaked a rapacious desire beneath a perfect deference, he was the more enamoured when he saw that she understood and was ready to oppose him. This was another match, differently passionate! Harsh challenges were exchanged, there were sharp passages at aims, without any sign of these things on the surface. As he bowed with masculine politeness to kiss her hand, while she was smiling at him with a haughty grace, she read in his eyes:

"I shall have you."

And her shut lips answered him:

"Never!"

Sylvie was following the duel with the eyes of a lynx; and while she found it amusing, she felt that she would like to play a part in it. What part? Really, she had no idea on that point. . . . Well, to amuse herself, and to second Annette of course, that went without saying! The boy was good-looking; Annette was good-looking too. How beautifying a strong feeling always is! That burning pride, that little bull's forehead ready for combat, those waves of red and white that Sylvie imagined she could see passing over Annette's body, like shivers. . . . The man was priding himself on his play. . . .

". . . Nothing to be done, my lad; no, no, you won't get her if she doesn't want you to! But does she want it? Doesn't she want it? Make up your mind, Annette! He's caught. Finish him off! . . . The stupid! She doesn't know. . . . All right, we're going to help her. . . ."

Their acquaintance was founded on praises of Annette. They both admired her. The Italian was definitely conquered. Radiant, with her eyes shining, Sylvie was entirely of his opinion. She was very adroit in her praising of Annette; but she was no less so in arming herself with all her charms. And once she had brought them into play, there was no way of stopping them. In vain she would say to them:

"Now, be quiet. That's enough. You are going too far. . . ."

But her charms no longer listened, there was nothing to do but to let them have their way. . . . And it was so amusing! Naturally, that idiot had taken fire immediately. How silly men are! He thought that if anyone was nice to him, it must be for his beauty. . . . But he was handsome, just the same. . . . And now what would the fish do, between two hooks? Was he going to presume to gobble them both? What was he going to decide? . . . "Well, old chap, make a choice!"

She did not facilitate his choice for him by effacing herself in favor of Annette. And no more did Annette. From now on she instinctively redoubled her efforts in order to eclipse Sylvie. The two sisters were devoted to each other. Sylvie was as proud of the praise given Annette as Annette was of the impression produced by Sylvie. They took counsel together; each supervised the details of the others toilet. With an unerring sense, they knew how to serve as a foil to each other. At the evening parties in the hotel they attracted all eyes. But, in spite of themselves, they came to be looked upon as rivals. And when they danced, neither one could help evaluating the success of the other, no matter how severely both forbade themselves to do this. Especially success with the man who was, decidedly, preoccupying them much more than they would have wished. . . . And he preoccupied them the more now that he was uncertain which of them preoccupied him the more. Annette began to feel vaguely miserable when she saw Tullio in ardent attendance upon her sister. Both girls were good dancers, each in her own manner. Annette did all that she could to establish her superiority; and it was certain that she danced better in the eyes of the connoisseurs. But Sylvie, while less correct, had more abandon; and as soon as she realized Annette's intention she became irresistible. Nor did Tullio resist. To Annette came the sorrow of seeing herself forsaken. After a succession of dances with Sylvie, Tullio and she went out together, talking and laughing, into the fine summer night. Annette could no longer control herself. She too had to quit the room. Without daring to follow them into the garden, she tried to catch sight of them from the glassed-in gallery that led into the garden; and she did see them, on the path,--she saw them bending towards each other, exchanging kisses as they walked.

But the pain of this was nothing to what followed. When Annette, sitting in the dark after having gone up to her room, saw Sylvie come in, all animation, and when Sylvie exclaimed at finding her alone in the darkness, kissed her cheek, and showed a thousand and one signs of usual affection; when Annette, after giving the excuse of a sudden headache that had obliged her to retire, asked Sylvie how she had spent the rest of the evening and if she had gone walking with Tullio, Sylvie ingenuously replied that she had not gone walking and that she did not know what had become of Tullio; that besides Tullio was beginning to bore her, and then she didn't like men who were too handsome, and besides he was foppish, and he was a little too dark. . . . Upon which she went to bed, humming a waltz.

Annette did not sleep. Sylvie slept soundly; she had no suspicion of the tempest she had unchained. . . . Annette was the prey of unleashed demons. What had happened was a catastrophe, a double catastrophe. Sylvie was her rival, and Sylvie was lying to her. Sylvie, her beloved! Sylvie, her joy and her faith! . . . Everything was crumbling. She could no longer love her. No longer love her? Could she, could she no longer love her? . . . Oh, how deep-rooted that love was, so much more so than she had thought! . . . But is it possible to love someone whom one distrusts? Oh! Sylvie's treachery wouldn't be anything. . . . There was something else. It was. . . . It was. . . . Go ahead, say what it was! . . . Yes, it was that man, whom Annette did not respect, whom she did not love, and whom she loved now. . . . Loved? No! . . . Whom she _wanted_. A fever of jealous pride demanded that she take him, that she tear him away from the _other_; and, above all, that the other should not tear him away from her. . . . ("_The other_" that was what Sylvie had become for Annette! . . .)

That night she did not rest a single hour. The sheets burned her skin. And from the neighboring bed there rose the light breathing of the sleep of innocence.

When they found themselves face to face the next morning, Sylvie saw at a glance that everything had changed; and she did not understand what had happened. Annette, with circles under her eyes, pale, hard and haughty, but strangely more beautiful (at once more beautiful and more homely, as though all her secret forces had arisen in answer to a summons)--Annette, helmeted in pride, cold, hostile, with a wall about her, looked at Sylvie and listened while she chattered as usual, then scarcely said good-morning, and left the room. . . . Sylvie's babble stopped in the middle of a word. She too went out, and with her eyes followed Annette who was descending the stairs. . . .

She understood. Annette had caught sight of Tullio, who was seated in the hall, and crossing the room she went straight to him. He too recognized that the situation had changed. She sat down beside him. They talked banalities. With her head up, disdainful, she stared straight ahead, avoiding looking at him. But he had no doubt: it was he she was staring at. Under her bluish eyelids, that glance, which she was hiding as though to avoid a too intense light, was saying:

"Do you want me?"

And he, relating an insipid story in a satisfied tone, while he contemplated his finger nails,--he, like a big cat, was peering sidelong at that body with its firm breasts, and asking:

"So you want it too?"

"I want you to want me," was the reply.

Sylvie did not hesitate. Making a turn of the hall, she came and took a chair between Annette and Tullio. Annette's irritation was betrayed in a glance, in only one: that was enough. Sylvie received its contempt full in the face. She blinked her eyelids and pretended not to see, but she bristled like a cat that has felt an electric current; she smiled, and held herself ready to bite. The three-handed, fair-spoken duel began. Annette, ignoring Sylvie's presence, taking no notice of what she said, talked over her head to Tullio, who was embarrassed; or, when she was compelled to listen--for the other had a glib tongue--she called attention with a smile or an ironic word to one of those minute grammatical errors that still adorned Sylvie's discourse (for, despite her skill, the little gossip had not succeeded in weeding them all from her garden). Sylvie, mortally wounded, no longer saw her sister, she saw only a rival, and she thought:

"You'll get yours."

And, showing her teeth:

"A tooth for a tooth, and an eye for an eye. . . . No, both eyes for one. . . ."

And she threw herself into the fray. Imprudent Annette! Sylvie was not hampered, as she was, by her pride: any weapon was good enough for her, so long as she won. Annette, armored in pride, would have thought herself degraded had she allowed Tullio to glimpse a shadow of her desires. Sylvie was embarrassed by no such scruples; she was going to play with the gentleman the game that flattered him most. . . .

"Which do you prefer? Do you like to inspire a fine disdain, or admiration? . . ."

She knew man: the vain animal. Tullio adored incense, and she gave him full measure. With a calm, ingenuous impudence the little rogue listed the perfections of the young Gattamelata of the Palace Hotel: body, mind, and clothing. Clothing principally, for she was right in thinking that this was his chief pride. All homage pleased him. To be sure. But that he was handsome was no credit to him; and as regarded his mind, his great name was a guarantee of that. But his dress was his individual work, and he was susceptible to the approbation of an expert Parisienne. With the eye of a connoisseur, secretly amused at certain glaring naïvetés of taste, Sylvie admired everything from top to bottom. Annette blushed from shame and anger; her small sister's ruse seemed so crude to her that she asked herself: "Can he possibly bear it?"

He bore it very well: Tullio was lapping up milk. When she had descended, step by step, from the orange cravat to the lilac belt, to the shoes of green and gold, Sylvie suddenly stopped: she had an idea. While going into raptures over the delicacy of Tullio's feet (he was very proud of them), she exhibited her own, which were decidedly pretty. With a roguish coquetry she put them next to Tullio's, she compared them, showing her leg up to the knee. Then, turning to Annette, who was disdainfully leaning back in her rocking chair, she said with a delicious smile:

"Let's see yours too, dear!"

And with a rapid gesture she uncovered them, along with Annette's thick ankles and the rather heavy columns of her legs. For two seconds only. Annette clutched at the malicious little claw, and it withdrew, contented. Tullio had seen. . . .

Nor did she stop there. All morning long she brought about apparently unpremeditated comparisons from which Annette did not emerge to advantage. Under pretext of appealing to Tullio's superior taste regarding a collar, a blouse, or a scarf, she managed to draw attention to what was certainly not her worst feature, and not Annette's best. Annette, boiling within, pretending not to understand, had to hold herself back to keep from strangling her. Between two of her tricks, Sylvie, ever charming, would press her fingers to her mouth and throw Annette a kiss. But there were times when their flashing eyes clashed. . . .

(Annette)--"I loathe you!"

(Sylvie)--"Possibly. But it's me he loves."

"No, no!" Annette would cry.

"Yes, yes!" retorted Sylvie.

They exchanged challenging glances. But Annette was not strong enough to hide her animosity for long beneath a smile, like that little snake beneath the flowers. Had she remained, she would have screamed. Abruptly she left the field free to Sylvie. She went off with her head high, flinging a last look of defiance at her sister. And Sylvie's mocking eyes replied:

"Who laughs last, laughs best."

XI

The battle continued the next day, and the days following, beneath the eyes of an amused gallery; for the people in the hotel had seen how things stood; twenty pairs of idle eyes were watching, bets were made. The two rivals were too much preoccupied with their own game to give a thought to that of the others.

The truth was that, for them, it was a game no longer. Sylvie, as well as Annette, was seriously involved. A demon troubled them, goading their senses. Tullio, proud of his victory, had no trouble adding fuel to the flame. He was really handsome, he did not lack wit, he burned with the desires that he had fired: he was worth conquering. None knew it better than he.

Every evening the two hostile sisters met in their rooms. They hated each other; yet they pretended not to know it. Bed neighbors at night, their position would have become untenable had they admitted the fact to themselves; it would have come to a public rupture, a thing they wished to avoid. They so arranged it that they came and went at different times, talked no longer, pretended not to see each other; or, as that was practically impossible, they would coldly say, "Good-morning," and "Good-evening," as though nothing were the matter. The most straightforward, sensible thing would have been to come to an understanding. But they did not wish to. They could not. When passion is unleashed in a woman there is no longer any question of straightforwardness, still less of common sense.

In Annette passion had become a poison. A kiss that Tullio, profiting by his strength, had violently imprinted upon the mouth of the proud girl, one evening at a turn in the path, had unchained in her a sensual torrent. Humiliated and enraged, she fought against it. But she was the less capable of resistance because it was the first time the flood had invaded her. Misfortune of too well defended hearts! When passion enters, the chastest is the most abandoned. . . .

One night, in one of those fits of feverish insomnia that were consuming her, Annette slipped into sleep while thinking she was still awake. She saw herself lying on her bed, with open eyes; but she could not budge, her limbs were bound. She knew that Sylvie, at her side, was pretending to sleep, and that Tullio was going to come. She could already hear the floor creak in the corridor, and the shuffle of cautious steps advancing. She saw Sylvie raise herself from the pillow, swing her legs from under the sheets, get up, and slip towards the door that half opened. Annette wanted to get up too, but she could not. As though she had heard her, Sylvie turned around, came back to the bed, looked at her, leaned over to see her better. She was not at all, not at all, like Sylvie: she did not resemble her, and yet it was Sylvie; she laughed wickedly, uncovering her teeth; she had long black hair, straight and stiff, that fell over her face when she leaned down, and brushed Annette's mouth and eyes. Annette felt on her tongue the taste of a rough mane and its hot odor. The face of her rival came closer, closer. Sylvie opened the bed, and got into it. Annette felt a hard knee pressing against her hip. She was suffocating. Sylvie had a knife; the chill blade grazed Annette's throat, and she struggled, screamed. . . . She found herself in the quiet of her room, sitting up in bed, the sheets in confusion. Sylvie was sleeping peaceably. Annette, quelling the beating of her heart, listened to her sister's reassuring breathing; and still she trembled from hate and horror. . . .

She hated. . . . But whom? . . . And who was it that she loved? She appraised Tullio, she did not respect him, she mistrusted him, she had no confidence in him whatsoever. And yet for this man whom she had known only two weeks, who was nothing to her, she was ready to hate her sister, the person she had loved best of all, whom she still loved. . . . (No! . . . Yes! . . . whom she still loved. . . .) To this man she had sacrificed, offhand, all the rest of her life. . . . But how . . . how could that be possible! . . .

She was aghast; but she could only admit the omnipotence of her madness. At certain moments a flash of good sense, an ironical start, a returning wave of her old affection for Sylvie would lift her head above the stream. But a jealous glance, the sight of Tullio whispering with Sylvie, was enough to plunge her back again. . . .

It was obvious that she was losing ground. It was precisely for that reason that her passion was maddened. She was clumsy. Annette did not know how to hide her wounded dignity. Tullio, kindly prince, had consented not to choose between them; he deigned to toss his handkerchief to both. Sylvie picked it up in a trice; she did not stand on ceremony; later she would make Tullio dance to her liking. She was not bothered when she saw this Don Juan snatching a few kisses from Annette in the arbor. And even if it had displeased her, she saw no reason why she had to show it. One could dissimulate. . . . But Annette was incapable of it. She would countenance no division of favors, and she allowed herself to show only too plainly the repulsion which Tullio's equivocal play aroused in her.

Tullio was beginning to cool towards her. This serious passion embarrassed him, bored him. A little seriousness in love is all right. But not too much; that makes it a burden, and not a pleasure. He thought of passion as a prima donna who, after singing her great cavatina, returns with extended arms to salute the public. But Annette's passion did not seem to know that the public existed. She played only for herself. She played badly. . . .

She was too sincere, too truly in love to remove the traces of her suffering, of her torments, and those ordinary blemishes that a more attentive woman effaces or mitigates more than once a day. She did not appear at all to advantage. She became even homely, in the measure that she felt herself beaten.

The triumphant Sylvie, sure of her victory, watched the disabled Annette with ironical satisfaction, spiced with a grain of malice, and, at bottom, a little pity. . . .

"Well, have you had enough? Is that what you wanted? You're certainly a sight! . . . A poor beaten dog. . . ."

And she wanted to run and hug her. But when she approached, Annette displayed so much animosity that Sylvie turned her back in vexation, grumbling:

"You don't want me to, my girl? . . . Have it your own way! Look after yourself! I'm all right! . . . Everyone for himself, and that for the others! After all, if the fool is suffering, it's her own fault! Why is she always so ridiculously serious?"

(That was what they were all thinking.)

Annette ended by withdrawing from the combat. Sylvie and Tullio were getting up a program of tableaux, in which Sylvie could show off all her charms, and a few more besides. . . . (She was a little Parisian magician who, with a shred of material, could transform herself into a series of "doubles," all much prettier than the original, but which, by completing that original, made it appear more charming than them all, since it gave birth to them all.) . . . To try to fight her on this ground would have been disastrous for Annette. She knew it only too well: she was beaten in advance; what would she have been afterwards? She asked to be left out of the entertainment, giving her health as an excuse: her ill appearance was excuse enough. And Tullio did not insist. Scarcely had she refused when she suffered the more at having retired fully armed from the battle. Even when hope is dead, a struggle engenders fresh hope. Now she had to leave Tullio and Sylvie alone together for a part of the day. In order to embarrass them she obliged herself to attend all the rehearsals. She didn't embarrass them much. On the contrary she stimulated them, especially that brazen girl, who insisted on rehearsing ten times a scene that showed the abduction of a fainting odalisque by a Byronian corsair with eyes of sombre fire, gnashing teeth,--fatal, feline, ready to leap like a jaguar. Tullio played the rôle as though he were going to put the whole Palace Hotel to fire and sword. As for Sylvie, she might have given points to the twenty thousand houris who hold the Prophet's beard in Paradise.

The evening of the performance arrived. Annette, hidden away in the last row of the hall, happily forgotten in the midst of the enthusiasm, could not stay until the end. She left in torture. Her head was afire; her mouth was bitter; she was chewing the cud of her suffering. Love scorned was gnawing at her vitals.

She went into the fields that surrounded the hotel; but she could not go far away, she kept circling around that lighted hall. The sun had set, darkness was falling. With an animal instinct she smelled out the door by which the two would certainly make their exit; a little side door that enabled the actors, without coming through the hall, to regain the dressing rooms in another wing of the building. They actually did come out, and before they had gone far they lingered in the shadow of the field to talk. Hidden behind a clump of trees, Annette could hear Sylvie laughing, laughing . . .

"No, no, not to-night!"

And Tullio was insisting: "Why not?"

"First of all, I want to sleep."

"There's plenty of time to sleep!"

"No, no, never enough! . . ."

"Well then, to-morrow night."

"It's the same for the other nights. And then I'm not alone at night; I'm spied on."

"Then it will never be?"

And that little rascal of a Sylvie replied, twisting with laughter:

"But I'm not afraid of the daylight! Are you afraid of it? . . ."

Annette could listen no longer. A storm of disgust, fury, and unhappiness swept her away, running, into the night, into the fields. Perhaps they heard the noise of her mad flight and the crackling of branches, like that which follows on the heels of a fleeing animal. But she no longer cared whether she was heard or not. Nothing mattered any more. She was fleeing, fleeing. . . . Whither? She did not know. She never knew. . . . She ran through the night, moaning. She did not see ahead of her. She ran on for five minutes, twenty minutes, an hour? She never knew how long. . . . Until her foot struck a root, and she fell full length, her head against a tree trunk. . . . And then she screamed, she howled, with her mouth against the ground, like a wounded beast.

Around her, the night. A sky without moon or stars, black. A mute earth, untroubled by a breath or by the cries of insects. Only the sound of a trickle of water over the pebbles, dripping at the foot of the slim fir against which Annette had struck her forehead. And from the depths of the gorge that cut the high, abrupt plateau, there rose the fierce rumbling of a mountain stream. Its plaint mingled with the plaint of the wounded woman. They seemed the eternal _lamento_ of the earth. . . .

So long as she cried, she did not think. Her body, shaken by convulsive sobs, was ridding itself of the burden of evil that had crushed it down for days. The mind was silent. Then the body, exhausted, ceased to moan. Mental misery rose to the surface. And Annette again became conscious of her forsakenness. She was alone and betrayed. The circle of her thoughts could stretch no further. She had not the strength to reassemble their dispersed company. She had not even the strength to get up. Stretched out, she abandoned herself to the earth. . . . Oh! if only the earth wished to take her! . . . The rumbling of the mountain stream was speaking, thinking for her.

It was bathing her wound. After a period (long, no doubt) of prostrate suffering, Annette slowly raised her stricken body. The bruise on her forehead pained her sharply enough, and preoccupation with this hurt eased her mind. She dipped her scratched hands in the rivulet, she pressed them against her wounded, burning forehead. And so she remained seated, her eyes and forehead sunk in her wet palms, feeling the penetration of that icy purity. . . . And her grief became a distant thing. . . . She observed its moaning as might a stranger; and she no longer understood the meaning of those transports. She was thinking:

"Why? . . . What's the good? . . . Is it worth the pain? . . ."

And in the night the torrent answered:

"Folly, folly, folly . . . all is vain . . . all is nothing . . ."

And Annette smiled a bitter smile of pity.

"What was it that I wanted? . . . I don't even know, any more. . . . Where is it, that great happiness? Take it who will. . . . I shall not dispute it. . . ."

And then suddenly there returned to her in waves pictures of that happiness that she had desired, hot gusts of those desires by which her body was, and for a long time would be, possessed, even while her reason denied them. In the path traced by their bitter goad, they trailed after them a musty smell of jealous rages. . . . She suffered their attack in silence, bent over as beneath the wing of a passing wind. Then, raising her head, she said aloud:

"I have been wrong. . . . It is Sylvie he loves. . . . That is as it should be. She is better made for love. She is much prettier. I know it, and I love her. I love her because she is so. So I should be happy in her happiness. I am an egotist. . . . Only why, why has she lied to me? All the rest, but not that! Why has she deceived me? Why didn't she tell me frankly that she loved him? Why has she treated me like an enemy? Oh! And then all those things about her that I would rather not see, that are not very nice, not very good, not very beautiful! . . . But she is not to blame. How could she know? What a life she must have led from childhood! And have I the right to reproach her? . . . Were the feelings that I had any nicer? . . . That I had? That I have! . . . I know perfectly well that they are still there. . . ."

She sighed, worn out. Then she said:

"Come, this must end! I am the elder. And the greater folly is mine! . . . Let Sylvie be happy!"

But after having said, "Come," she still remained for a while without stirring. She hearkened to the silence and dreamed, sucking the knuckles of her bruised fingers. And then she sighed, stood up without a word, and began to walk.

XII

She was returning, through the night. The moon had not yet appeared; it was still far off, but one could feel it rising behind the horizon, from an abyss of shadows. A feeble light edged the summits that encircled the plateau like the edges of a cup; and, minute by minute, their black profiles grew clearer against an aureoled background. Annette walked unhurriedly; and her breast, breathing regularly once more, was drinking in the scent of new-mown meadows.

Far off in the darkness, she heard precipitate steps upon the road. Her heart pounded. She halted. She recognized them, and then walked forward again, at a quicker pace, to meet them. Someone had heard on the other side, too. An anxious voice called:

"Annette!"

Annette did not reply, she could not; she was seized with the joy that coursed through her: all of her suffering, all was effaced. She did not answer, but she walked faster, still faster. And the other was running now. She repeated, "Annette!" in an agonized voice.

In the vague phosphorescence of the moon, that was climbing up behind the great dark wall, an indistinct figure emerged from the whitening shadow. Annette cried, "Darling!" and flung herself forward with outstretched arms, like a blind person. . . .

In their haste to be united, their bodies collided. Their arms went around each other. Their lips sought, and found . . .

"My own Annette!"

"My own Sylvie!"

"My sister! my love!"

"My little darling!"

In the darkness they were running their hands caressingly over cheeks and hair, over neck and shoulders, once more taking possession of happiness, of the friend who had been lost.

"Darling!" exclaimed Sylvie, feeling Annette's bare shoulders, "you haven't your cloak! You have nothing around you! . . ."

Annette realized that as a matter of fact she was clad only in her evening dress; and, seized by a chill, she shivered.

"You are mad! you are mad!" cried Sylvie, enveloping her, clasping her in her cape. And her hands, continuing their inspection, took note of damages.

"Your dress is torn. . . . What in the world have you been doing? What has happened? . . . And your hair is down over your face. And here, here, what's the matter with your forehead? . . . Annette, did you fall? . . ."

Annette did not respond. With her mouth on Sylvie's shoulder, she abandoned herself and wept. Sylvie made her sit down beside her on a bank by the road. The moon, clearing the barrier of the mountains, lighted up Annette's injured forehead, and Sylvie covered it with kisses.

"Tell me what you have been doing. . . . Tell me what's happened. . . . My treasure, my little lamb, I was so upset when I went to your room and didn't find you there! I called you everywhere. . . . I've been hunting for you for an hour. . . . Oh! I was so miserable. . . . I was afraid, I was afraid. . . . I can't say what I was afraid of. . . . Why did you go off? Why did you run away? . . ."

Annette did not wish to reply.

"I don't know," she said. "I felt ill, and I wanted to walk . . . to breathe. . . ."

"No, you aren't telling the truth, Annette; tell me everything!"

Then she bent over her and said more softly:

"Dear heart, it wasn't because of that? . . ."

Annette interrupted her:

"No! No!"

But Sylvie insisted.

"Don't lie! Tell me the truth. Tell me! Tell your little one! It was because of him?"

Annette, wiping her eyes and trying to smile, replied:

"No, I assure you. . . . I was a little hurt, it's true. . . . It's foolish. . . . But it's all over now. I'm glad he loves you."

Sylvie jumped up and struck her hands angrily together.

"So it was he! Oh! But I don't love him, I don't love him any more, that creature! . . ."

"Yes, you do love him. . . ."

"No! No! No!"

Sylvie stamped on the road.

"It amused me to love him, I did it as a game; but it meant nothing to me, nothing in comparison with you. . . . Why! All a man's kisses couldn't make up for one of your tears. . . ."

Annette was overwhelmed with happiness.

"You mean it? You mean it?"

Sylvie sprang into her arms.

When they had grown somewhat calmer, Sylvie said to Annette:

"Now confess! You loved him, too!"

"Too! Now you see! You admit that you loved him. . . ."

"No, I tell you. I forbid you to say so. . . . I won't hear any more about it. It's ended, ended."

"It's ended," Annette repeated.

They went back along the road bathed in the light of the moon, overjoyed at having recovered each other. Suddenly Sylvie halted, and, shaking her fist at the moon, she cried:

"Oh! the beast! . . . He'll pay me for it!"

And, as youth never loses its rights, she burst out laughing at her malediction.

"But do you know what we are going to do?" Sylvie continued spitefully. "We are going to pack as soon as we get back, and to-morrow, to-morrow morning, we'll be off by the first post. When he comes to the table at luncheon time, he'll find no one. . . . The birds will have flown! . . . Oh! . . . and then . . ." (she burst out laughing) "I made a date with him for about ten o'clock, in the woods up there. . . . He'll be running after me all morning. . . ."

She laughed more heartily than ever; and so did Annette. The spectacle of Tullio, disappointed and furious, seemed so amusing to them. The two madcaps! Already their sufferings were far away.

"Just the same," observed Annette, "it's not very nice, dear, to compromise yourself like that."

"Piffle! What's that to me?" replied Sylvie. "I don't matter. . . . Yes," she went on, taking a passing nip at Annette's hand that was patting her ear, "I should be more careful now that I'm your sister. . . . I will be, I promise you. . . . But you, my dear, you know that you weren't so much more careful."

"No, that's true," answered Annette contritely. "And I was afraid at times that I might be still less so. . . . Oh!" she exclaimed, pressing closer to her sister, "how strange the heart is! One never, never knows when it's going to rise up inside you and carry you away . . . whither?"

"Yes," said Sylvie, hugging her, "that's why I love you! That heart of yours is a powerful affair!"

They were ready to go in again. The roofs of the hotel were gleaming under the moonlight. Sylvie slipped her arm around Annette's neck and whispered in her ear with an intensity and a seriousness she herself did not realize:

"My darling! I shall never forget what you have suffered to-night . . . what you have suffered because of me. . . . Yes, yes, don't say no! I had time to think of it while I was running in search of you, trembling that some misfortune . . . If it had happened! . . . Oh! what would I have done! . . . I should have never come back."

"Darling," exclaimed Annette, deeply moved, "it was not your fault, you couldn't know how you were hurting me."

"I knew perfectly well. I knew that I was making you suffer, and it--listen, Annette!--it even gave me pleasure!"

Annette's heart contracted; and a short while ago she too had thought that she would like to make Sylvie suffer until the blood ran. She said so. They clasped each other in their arms.

"But what's the matter with us? What are we?" they asked each other, shamefaced and stricken, yet relieved to know that the other's feelings had been the same. . . .

"It was love," said Sylvie.

"Love," Annette repeated mechanically. Then she went on, frightened:

"That is love?"

"And you know," said Sylvie, "it was only the beginning."

Annette protested vigorously that she never wanted to love again.

Sylvie made fun of her. But Annette repeated in perfect seriousness:

"I don't want to any more. I'm not made for it."

"Oh, well," said Sylvie, laughing, "there's not a chance, my poor Annette! You, why you'll stop loving when you stop living!"

_ANNETTE AND SYLVIE_