Chapter XI: The Girl Who Was Tired of Love

At the Opéra Ball, a boy had danced half the night with a partner whose youthful tones were so delicious, whose tenderness was so attractive, that he implored her a hundred times to unmask. "If I do, you'll get up and go away," she gasped at last, fondling his hand. He vowed that it was her temperament that fascinated him, and she took the mask off--and he saw the sunken face of an old, old woman.

Horrified, he left her.

In the same season, another man supplicated to a girl for her love--a girl with a face so beautiful that it made him forget the strangeness of her voice, which was flat and feeble. And the girl, who looked no more than nineteen, replied with exhaustion: "I outlived such emotions long ago. To tell you the truth, the subject sounds to me ridiculous. All I want to-day is peace and quiet."

Wearily she left him.

These two incidents, peculiar as they are, were the outcome of an occurrence queerer still--an occurrence at the tragic epoch of a woman's life when her glass says: "Stop fooling yourself. You've crumpled to _that_!"

Madame de Val Fleury had begun to combat the advance of age the day after she detected the first shadowy threat of crowsfeet, as she turned her perfect neck before the mirror. Her triumph was a fleeting one, and the later conquests were briefer yet. Scarcely had the enemy been driven from the glorious eyes when it crept about the chiselled nose and mouth; no sooner was its attack upon her face withheld than it showed greyly in her hair. But she never abandoned the contest, she fought with Time continuously. And although there were moods of depression, as measures more and more drastic were required, custom and vanity enabled her, year by year, decade by decade, to view her reflection with complacence. She beheld it through a haze of illusion, in applying the colour to her shrivelled cheeks. She did not note that the chestnut transformation that had looked so natural on a counter looked spurious on her head; did not see how piteously the perfect neck had sagged.

But one May morning the mirror said: "Stop tooling yourself. You've crumpled to _that!"_ and madame de Val Fleury sat and saw her face withered as it was--and madame de Val Fleury wailed for her lost loveliness as she had never wailed for her dead husband and son.

A dress that she was to wear for the first time, and that had cost five thousand francs, lay on the bed. She did not glance towards it. She leant her elbows on the toilet table and stared at the brutal glass. And beyond the glass she viewed the ghost of her empire, scenes where famous beauties had turned involuntarily at her entrance. It was the women's homage, the reluctant admiration of her own sex that she mourned for, as she brooded there. In her backward gaze she saw why, as the years sped, she had squandered more and more on her modistes--saw bitterly that she had struggled to prolong, by her clothes, the fast-waning jealousy of her face.

And at Longchamp that day she knew herself to be only an old, unattractive woman, magnificently attired.

Not more than a month after this, madame de Val Fleury had the annoyance to lose a pendant sapphire that she was wearing. A reward, not illiberal, was offered, and when she woke from her nap one afternoon she was relieved to learn that the stone had been picked up by a poor girl, who was waiting in the hall to see her.

"If she is clean, I will see her here," said madame de Val Fleury.

The young girl who entered, in a threadbare frock, had been dowered with beauty so extraordinary that all the lady's pleasure at recovering her jewel was swamped in envy. The eyes, the complexion, the exquisite modelling of the features held her mute for an instant.

Subduing a sigh, she said: "I hear you have found my sapphire?"

"Yes, madame."

"Let me look. Where did you find it?

"It was in the road, madame, just against the kerb, in the rue de Berri."

"Ah, yes. I am glad you saw it. It was a piece of luck for you, too, hein?" She rose and opened her desk.

"Yes, indeed, madame," said the girl, clasping her hands.

"What are you--I mean, what do you do for a living?"

"I work at madame Wilhelmine's, madame."

"The milliner's? Why don't you go as mannequin somewhere?--you are--er--pretty."

"They tell me my figure is not good enough, madame."

"That's true. Your figure is bad," said the lady, more amiably. "Well, you could sit to artists for the face. You could earn more money that way than Wilhelmine pays you, I should think."

"I know only one honest way to make as much money as I want, madame," said the girl, in a low voice. "I want a good deal."

"Tiens! The State lotteries, of course."

"No, madame; a likelier way than that."

"Oh! And what do you call a good deal?"

"Madame understands that I am very poor. A trifle to madame would be a good deal to _me._ Say, a hundred thousand francs."

"A hundred thousand francs! Such a sum is not a trifle to anybody. You know a way to make it?"

"Thanks to this reward, I have a chance to make it," assented the girl, folding the bank notes that had been given to her.

"And _not_ the lotteries?"

"No, madame; a journey for which I lacked the fare. But I bore madame?"

"No, no; go on."

"Eh bien, I am sick of poverty; I would far rather part with my face and gain wealth than remain beautiful and a beggar."

"You would far rather----What do you say?"

"I am going to the Face Exchange, madame," said the girl resolutely.

The old woman looked at her stupefied. "The what?" she asked in a whisper.

"Madame has not heard of it? It is held once a year. Of course one may fail; one may not be able to strike a bargain--and even if one does, the miracle may not occur. But something tells me I shall be fortunate."

Madame de Val Fleury shrank back on the couch, frightened--she could not doubt that the girl was insane. After a moment, nerving herself to approach the bell, she stammered, "Yes, yes, I remember now. I daresay it is the best thing you can do. Good afternoon to you. I wish you every success." And as she sniffed at the smelling salts brought by her maid, she murmured, trembling, "Mad. How terrible! Quite, quite mad."

The incident did not fade from her mind. She thought of it in the night, and on the morrow, and when she took the sapphire and the snapped chain to her jeweller's. If the nonsense the poor creature talked had only been true! What ecstasy! And her tone had been perfectly sane. ... Oh, of course she was demented. Still--still, miracles did happen. Look at Lourdes! Every day madame de Val Fleury recalled the matter with a curiosity more intense, and regretted the alarm that had prevented her obtaining details.

Before a week had gone by, the curiosity drove her to make a purchase at the milliner's the girl had mentioned.

"You have a young person employed here who found a jewel that I lost," she remarked. "I don't see her in the shop."

"Yes, madame. No, madame--she is in the workroom. How fortunate that madame's sapphire was restored to her!"

"Ah, the workroom. Have you had her long? Is she satisfactory?"

"Ah yes, madame. About two years. I have no fault to find with her."

"I fancied she was a little odd in her manner. You have not noticed anything of the kind?"

"Mais non, madame. No doubt she was shy in madame's presence. No, she is quick to take a hint, that girl; she has all her wits about her."

"You might tell her I should like to have a word with her," faltered madame de Val Fleury. And when the girl appeared, still more beautiful without a hat, she said, "Come to my flat again this evening about nine o'clock if you can. I will make it worth your while. I want to talk to you."

As she passed out she felt breathless and dizzy.

"Then, if she is not mad--" panted madame de Val Fleury, "then, if she is not mad----My God, can there be something in it?"

She had been going to a neighbour's for a game of écarté after dinner, and écarté was a passion with her, but she knew no regrets in cancelling the engagement. A book by her favourite novelist, just published, lay to hand, and reading was another of her pet pleasures, but she did not open it, as she sat waiting for the hour to strike. Punctually at nine o'clock the bell rang. The girl was shown in.

"Good evening," said madame de Val Fleury. "Sit down. No, no, not so far off. Come closer. Tell me. I have been wondering.... What you were speaking about the other afternoon. Is it really a fact?"

"Madame means my intention?"

"I mean the place itself. It actually exists?"

"Ah, certainly it exists, madame!"

"Where is it?"

"In Brittany, madame. Near Pont Chouay."

"But--it sounds incredible! I am sure you are sincere, but--how long have you known of it?"

"I have known of it ever since the first miracle that happened there, madame, four years ago. I lived in the village then. The face of a little girl, the miller's child, was burnt--ah, it was frightful to see!--and her mother knelt and prayed, the whole night through, that she herself might bear the scars instead. And at dawn it _was_ so, and the child's face was as fair as ever."

"It takes one's breath away! What is the village called?"

"St. Pierre des Champs, madame. If madame goes there and inquires, everyone will confirm what I tell her."

"And such miracles have happened again?"

"At dawn on each seventh of September, madame. I assure madame I speak the truth."

"Listen," said madame de Val Fleury. "I shall go and hear what they say. If I am satisfied, are you willing to--to exchange your face for mine? I will not haggle with you, I will pay what you want. It is a large amount, but you shall have it--a hundred thousand francs."

"One would have to think over the price, madame," said the girl hesitatingly.

"What? It is the figure you named."

"Yes--for an exchange. But it is possible I might change with someone of my own years. Naturally I should prefer that."

"You do not suppose a young girl would pay a hundred thousand francs?" cried madame de Val Fleury, wincing. "If she has youth already, what for?"

"For beauty. There are many young girls who would be content to do so."

"There will not be many living in a little village."

"Ah, madame, people who know arrive from all parts. Besides, it might be better for me to take even fifty thousand francs with a young face than a hundred thousand with--with one more mature. Madame understands that I am human--I am not indifferent to the other sex. If I sacrifice all my prospects of admiration, sweethearts, husband, it is worth a great sum."

"I shall go and hear what they say," repeated madame de Val Fleury, deeply mortified. "What is your name?"

"Berthe Cheron, madame."

"Put it down for me, and your private address. If what I hear convinces me perhaps we may come to terms."

All night the old woman dreamt she was again of surpassing loveliness, the envy of all the women of her world.

She went to Brittany the same week, and returned palpitating with the tales that had been told her. She agreed with mademoiselle Cheron to pay 120,000 francs if the metamorphosis occurred, and it was arranged that, when the time came, they should travel to St. Pierre des Champs together.

In the meanwhile her rapturous reflections were not free from anxiety. If the dawning of the longed-for date should indeed yield her Berthe Cheron's face, she would be no longer recognised as madame de Val Fleury. Her social circle would not know her; monsieur Septfous, her banker--she banked at a private bank, and monsieur Septfous was practically her man of business--would not know her; her servants themselves would not know her when she came back to Paris. To explain would be to meet with perpetual embarrassments. On the whole, the best plan would be to change her name as well. It would mean relinquishing a few friendships that she valued, but----Again, she foresaw herself dazzlingly fair, and caught her breath. Her loveliness would compensate a million-fold.

Her income was derived chiefly from Municipal Bonds and Métro shares. At the bank she had also a substantial sum on deposit. She told monsieur Septfous that she had decided to spend the rest of her life in the country, and she took a draft, payable to bearer, for the full amount of cash, and removed her box of securities.

She determined to call herself madame de Beaulieu.

Late on the evening of the 6th of September the old woman and the girl arrived at St. Pierre des Champs.

They had expected to arrive earlier, but the train crept into Pont Chouay at 7.30 instead of 5.15, and thence they were dependent on the local fiacres, which were hard to find and slow to move. Madame de Val Fleury reached the village, impatient and fatigued.

In the little moonlit market-place, with its vacant stalls, when they entered it at last, many figures circulated, scrutinising one another's features eagerly. Most of the men and women bore lanterns, and one of the stalls had evidently been sub-let for the evening; under the sign "Christophe: Cheese, Eggs, and Butter," a humpback had electric torches for sale. As the pair made their way, across the cobbles, to the shrine that had been erected beside the water-mill, no face of much beauty met their view. The sellers appeared to be chiefly buxom peasant girls, wholesome looking, but no more. Those who had come to buy were of types more various. Here, an old roue, fraudulently dyed and painted, peered avidly at the features of a youth, who raised his lantern and rebuffed him with a jeer. There, an individual with crafty lips and predatory eyes, obviously a sharper, was to be seen bargaining for the physiognomy of a simpleton. A man with a round humorous face darted each moment from one melancholy countenance to another, and a passer-by said, loud enough to be overheard: "Look at Jibily, the low comedian--he is crazy to play tragic parts!" Irritating and incessant was the shrill outcry of a female broker, hobbling with a file of maids-of-all-work at her heels. "Fine faces cheap!" clamoured the crone. "Fine faces cheap!"

It became very cold beside the water-mill. As the laggard night wore by, madame de Val Fleury shivered distressfully. Alternately she prayed and despaired. More than once she glanced, tense with hope, at her companion, striving to detect some promise of the sought-for change, but the girl's face remained unaltered. In the serene radiance of the moon its fairness was exquisite beyond words, and the woman wrung her hands with the intensity of her desire.

Slowly, slowly the moonlight faded. The pallor of dawn streaked the sky; and a hundred faces were upturned beseechingly, a hundred suppliants trembled. Wan and white grew the scene. A tremor and a rustling stirred the huddled figures. Suddenly, somewhere a woman wailed, "No use!" and burst into sobs. Berthe Cheron, fearful now the moment had come, of beholding herself gaunt-cheeked and wrinkled, bowed her head, shuddering, in her hands. Madame de Val Fleury, half dazed with exhaustion and suspense, bent to the shining surface of the pool. The pool receded. It became suddenly unreal. Next, her pounding heart was squeezed with terror--she didn't know if the reflection she beheld was her own, or Berthe Cheron's, from behind her. She nodded wildly at her reflection; she grimaced and gesticulated at it, like a madwoman.... It had happened! She thought she gave an ear-piercing shriek of joy, but she fainted, without a sound.

* * * * *

After the money was paid she neither saw nor heard anything of Berthe Cheron. Aided by a lady whose birth gave her the passport to society, and whose income made her amenable to a financial offer, madame de Val Fleury, or, as she now called herself, Victorine de Beaulieu, was the sensation of Paris that autumn. The consummate toilettes permitted by her wealth lent to her face a beauty even more transcendent than Berthe Cheron's had been. When she drove, people pressed forward on the sidewalks to regard her. When she entered her box at the Opéra, everybody in the house to whom the box was visible looked at her as much as at the stage. In salons, faces the most admired before her advent paled in her presence, like candle flames in sunshine. She was paramount and she revelled in the knowledge. Yet the transformation had its lack. She missed her game of écarté with her erstwhile neighbour. She missed the garrulity of familiar friends whom she no longer met. There were hours when, despite the transports afforded by the mirror now, she found time hang heavy on her hands. And the hands, of course, had not recovered girlishness and beauty. Nor her body, nor her mind.

That was the drawback. Only her face was young. Physically and mentally she was old. Her corsetiere could not provide her with a figure to match the face. Her physician could not give back to her the energies that had gone. Her mirror itself was impotent to revive the enthusiasm and illusions of her youth.

Men made love to the bewildering "young widow." After the first thrill of amazed exultance she was bored. Their fervour kindled no responsive spark. Her aged heart beat no faster. The sentiment, the rhapsodies poured into her ear seemed drearily stupid to the old woman, as she posed on balconies, wishing she were in her bedroom with a cup of tisane and her slippers. During the third passionate proposal addressed to her, it was with extreme difficulty that she restrained her jaws from yawning.

"Why are you so cold--why won't you hear me?" men cried to her. And she answered dully: "I am not impressionable. It doesn't interest me to be made love to. I am tired of all that."

And she was spoken of in Paris as the "girl who was tired of love."

Many evenings during the winter there were when the knowledge that she would be wearied by some man's appeal, if she went out, determined her to remain at home. The opportunity to out-shine other women failed to lure her from the fireside, and she sat in her dressing-gown, playing écarté with her new maid. "It is marvellous what a head for the game madame has, seeing she is so young!" exclaimed the maid, awestruck. "I cannot say as much for _you_," snapped her mistress, mourning that quondam neighbour.

When the summer came and she went to the coast, with a score of wonderful dresses, she sighed for companionship more drearily yet. Hitherto, at such places, she had sat among her compeers, amiably chatting. Now she appeared too young to be congruous to the circle of the old--was too old to participate in the pastimes of the young. Scant of breath and stiff in the joints, she viewed morosely the laughing women trooping to the tennis courts. Shrunken beneath her youthful frocks, she dared not don a bathing costume and reveal her wasted form among the sirens lolling by the tents. Queer as the fact seemed, her years irked her more this summer than they had done while she looked her age.

The anniversary of the miracle found her in low spirits, and suffering from lumbago.

There was a lad, attractive, promising, on the threshold of a career--such a lad as, thirty-eight years earlier, she had pictured her baby growing up to be. She had made his acquaintance at a "feeve o'clock," where, being so young, he felt shy, and where to find himself speaking to this enchantress confused him more still. But her tone had promptly relieved him of his dread that he ought to play the courtier. When she invited him to call on her, she asked him as she might have asked a schoolboy. Her interest in Guy Verne's ambitions yielded to her gradually a healthier outlook. Stranger still, as the months passed, a real and deep affection stole into the old egoist's nature. She was less purposeless, less futile for it. Almost, as she entered into his boyish forecasts, and made fight of his little setbacks, it seemed to her as if her son had lived.

One day the boy flung his arms round her and begged her to be his wife.

It was horrible. She repulsed him, shuddering.

"Don't, Guy, don't!"

Entreaties poured from him.

"If you understood!" she moaned. "I shall have gone to my grave while you're a young man."

He thought she meant that she was very ill.

"I'll nurse you back to health. Victorine, I love you with all my soul."

"You don't love me a bit," she said. "There is nothing in me for you to love--I am as utterly different from you as if there were fifty years between us; you only imagine you love me because you admire my face. Good heavens, have I ever said a single word to lead you to think I cared for you in such a way?"

An English boy might have suffered as much, but would have taken it more quietly. This boy was French, and he did not hide what he felt. He answered vehemently that she had led him to think so every time they talked of his future. "If you didn't care for me, why should it interest you?" He raved of his broken heart. He loaded her with reproaches. "You've shammed to me, mocked me, just to amuse yourself!"

"No." She was crying. "I _am_ fond of you--fonder of you than of anybody in the world. But not like that. I shall never care like that again for anyone."

"I wish I had never seen you. I wish I were dead."

"You mustn't come here any more," she found the strength to tell him--and not till then had she realised how very dear he had become to her.

"I'm so sorry, Guy--so dreadfully sorry."

He fell at her feet, imploring her anew. He broke down, and besought one kiss before he left her. Her misery was deeper than his as she bent to him, but the boy didn't know it.

"My God," he sobbed, "I adore you--and you kiss me as if you were my mother!"

The mirror provided no comfort in her loss. She stared, lonely, at the alien face reflected--stared at it, by slow degrees, with aversion. It was not she. The unlovely form and jaded mind were she--the spent passion, and the infirmities. What benefit was the face of youth without youth's pulses? The mirror mocked her weary thoughts each day.

Upon her grief a woman, white-lipped and shaken, intruded to upbraid her.

"You have ruined my son's career," she said. "He neglects his work, he thinks of nothing but you. I hope and pray you may be punished as you deserve!"

"At Guy's age a career is not ruined by a foolish attachment," pleaded madame de Val Fleury piteously.

"And at yours such an answer is abominable," cried the other. "You do not lessen your guilt by cynicism. If ever a girl encouraged a young man, you encouraged my son. Foolish as his devotion to you may be, he _is_ devoted to you. By what right did you tempt him to come here constantly if you had no tenderness for him? Your treatment of him has been infamous."

"As a mother, do you know only one kind of tenderness, madame? My affection for your son was true and great. My interest in his future was no less deep than yours. I swear to you that what has happened distresses me so much that I have been able to think of nothing else."

Madame Verne advanced upon her with clenched hands.

"Your hypocrisy is even more revolting than your cynicism. If I know more than one kind of tenderness? Yes. But not in a girl for a young man! You swear to me you are distressed. _I_ swear to _you_ something else. My boy is all I have--and I am frightened for him; I do not know what he may do in his despair. If I lose him he shall be revenged. Take care, madame de Beaulieu. If you hear of his death, take care! The very next day, if possible, or the next month, or the next year--whenever I can reach you--as Heaven is my witness, I will mark that face of yours with vitriol."

She rang the bell, and went--and the maid that entered found her mistress in a swoon upon the floor.

For a week her shattered nerves kept madame de Val Fleury abed. And for several weeks terror prevented her from setting foot outside the flat. She had a grille constructed in the door, and a hundred times she repeated to the servants that it was not to be opened for the merest instant to madame Verne, or any stranger. Such precautions could not yield composure, however. The day was rendered ghastly with false alarms; and when she glanced at the mirror, dread flared upon her now a face seared and repulsive, a mutilated, sightless thing of horror. The night brought dreams so fearful that she was, more than once, wakened by a scream that had burst from her. Thrice the awfulness of the tension impelled her to falter, through the telephone, sympathetic and ingratiating inquiries to madame Verne; and when the mother rang off without vouchsafing a reply, the poor old creature tottered with panic.

At last, towards the close of February, she had the unspeakable relief of learning that madame Verne and her son had gone to Monaco, and once again she was able to step into her car with a sense of safety. Nevertheless, the thought of the unhappiness that she had brought upon the boy was black in her mind. She tried to thrust the thought aside by reading, but fiction had lost its power to charm her. Gradually, as her health improved, she turned, for respite from her sad reflections, to the theatre. When there remained no more fashionable programmes for her to see, she would adventure the second-rate. One night, as she was coming out of a little theatre in the Montmartre quarter, she started and stopped short, trembling in every limb at a sight that met her gaze. She could not withdraw her gaze--she was magnetised by the sight; it thrilled her as if the dead had risen to her view. She was looking at the face that had been hers--she was looking at Berthe Cheron.

Berthe Cheron, handsomely dressed, had also jerked to a standstill, and for a few seconds the two fronted each other dumbly--the young girl's puckered eyes, her furrowed cheeks rancorous with regret. It was she who was the first to speak.

"Blast you!" she said.

"What do you mean--I treated you fairly, didn't I?" stammered madame de Val Fleury.

"I wish--I wish----" Resentment choked her.

"I paid all you wanted."

"Paid? It wouldn't have been good enough if you'd paid a million. _You_ knew--_you_ knew who was getting the best of it. Paid? What's the use of the money without any fun? Do you think fine clothes make up for that? I want to be danced with, I want to be kissed. To hell with your money--I want love!"

"Don't talk so loudly, don't! That man's looking at us."

"He's not looking at _me_. No man ever looks at me. Paid? If we were both as we were, you could pay some other fool--it wouldn't be me you'd get!"

"If we were both as we were, I'd pay no one," groaned madame de Val Fleury.

"What?"

"It's true. Quite, quite true."

For a moment they were silent again, studying each other. Then madame de Val Fleury said breathlessly:

"I want to ask you something. Come home with me--get into my car. Don't abuse me any more, don't rail at me--I'm an old woman and I can't bear it."

As the car bore them away, she explained herself, weeping.

"I know it seems strange to you, my not being satisfied--I know I've got the things you want so much. But _you_ retain the capacity to enjoy those things, and _I don't_. If I could have had your youth as well, it would have been different. The old are happiest in their old ways, with their old friends. We both made an error. If--do you think, if we were to go there again----?" Berthe Cheron turned to her wildly. "If we were to go there again?" she gasped.

"If we were to go there again--in humbleness of spirit this time, in contrition, beseeching pardon for our error--do you think it might be undone?"

"Oh, let us try, let us try!" cried the girl, seizing her hand. And she, too, wept. "But I could not refund more than about half the money," she faltered, dismayed.

"I would not ask you to refund a son of it," said madame de Val Fleury. "You should keep it as a marriage portion."

In the flat they talked till late, mingling their tears and comforting each other.

Nearly four months had to pass before the coming of the date they craved, but on the evening of the 6th of September the two victims of their own folly reached St. Pierre des Champs once more. And in the eerie market-place, the lanterns swayed amid the flitting figures, and again they heard the shrill clamour of the crone, shuffling among the naked stalls. "Fine faces cheap!" And the long, long night grew cold, and the penitents' teeth chattered; and as the elder knelt and prayed, as never had she prayed before, the pebbles bit into her knees.

* * * * *

A few days afterwards, monsieur Septfous, in the private office of the bank, saw the door open to admit a caller that surprised him.

"My dear madame de Val Fleury," he exclaimed, "how delighted I am to greet you! Dare I hope you have returned to Paris for good?"

"For good, my friend--the country got on my nerves. At my time of life not every change is desirable," replied the old lady, beaming.

And subsequently one man said to another:

"Funny thing; at Bullier last night I saw a girl just like madame de Beaulieu, who vanished to New York or somewhere--excepting that she had her arms round a chap's neck and looked so happy."

"Lucky chap, by Jove! Know him?"

"A fellow called Guy Verne."