'Good-bye, my love!' repeated René, trying in vain to steel his heart. The simple, loving words, the sight of the room, the thought that Suzanne had come here without the hope of seeing him, and merely as a pilgrim to the shrine of their past love--all contributed to work him up to a pitch of frenzy, which he did his best to withstand. 'Her love!' he cried, with a sudden outburst of fury, 'and she went to another--for money! What a coward I am!' To escape the painful feelings he could not banish he left the room hurriedly and rang Madame Raulet's bell. The fair-spoken and accommodating landlady soon made her appearance, and led the way into her own little parlour, furnished with the remaining articles she could not get into the other. On his telling her that he was giving up the apartments her face showed signs of real annoyance.
'I am in no hurry,' replied René, and, fearing a fresh attack of despair if he returned to the room he had left, he added, 'I'll wait here, if you don't mind.'
Although he was in no observant mood, he could not help noticing that in the twenty minutes she kept him waiting Madame Raulet had found time to change her dress. Instead of the striped cotton wrapper in which she had received him, she now wore a becoming evening dress of black grenadine. The corsage consisted of bands of stuff alternating with lace insertions, through which might be seen the fair neck and shoulders of the coquettish widow. There was a brighter look in her eyes and a more vivid colour in her cheeks than usual, and, laying the bill on the table, she said:
'Excuse me for having kept you waiting. I didn't feel very well. I have such palpitations of the heart--feel!' Taking René's hand with a smile that would not have deceived the simplest soul living, she placed it on the spot where her heart should have been.
She had suspected the rupture between the pseudo-d'Albert and his mistress by the two solitary visits of Madame Moraines. The fact of René giving up the apartments proved her suspicions to be correct, and an idea of taking advantage of the rupture had suddenly entered her head, either because the poet with his manly beauty really pleased her or because she had an eye to pecuniary considerations she could not afford to despise. She was by no means old and thought herself very attractive. But on looking at her lodger as she carried his hand to her side she saw in his eyes a look of such cool contempt and disgust that she immediately loosed her hold of his fingers. She took up the bill, the writing in which showed that it had been prudently made out beforehand, and tried to cover her confusion by entering into profuse explanations of this or that item in a highly inflated account which the poet did not even stoop to verify. He handed her the sum he owed her, half in paper, half in gold. The humiliating defeat of her amorous attempt had not deprived her wits of their sharpness, for she examined the notes by holding each one up to the light, and looked closely at each of the gold pieces as she counted them. She even sounded one of the coins that seemed a little light in weight, and, after a moment's hesitation, said: 'I must ask you to let me have another for this.'