The Woman Destroyed Read Online Free PDF Page B

he finds it to make the first step. Give him a chance.”
    “Certainly not.” I folded the letter, put it into an envelope, and wrote Philippe’s address. “Please post that for me.”
    I had always given in too easily to his charming smiles and his pretty ways. I should not give in this time.
    Two days later, early in the afternoon, Irène rang the bell. “I’d like to talk to you for five minutes.”
    A very simple little dress, bare arms, hair down her back: she looked like a girl, very young, dewy and shy. I had never yet seen her in that particular role. I let her in. She had come to plead for Philippe, of course. The sending back of his letter had grieved him dreadfully. He was sorry for what he had said to me on the telephone; he did not mean a word of it; but I knew his nature—he lost his temper very quickly and then he would say anything at all, but it was really only so much hot air. He absolutely had to have it out with me.
    “Why didn’t he come himself?”
    “He was afraid you would slam the door on him.”
    “And that’s just what I should have done. I don’t want to see him again. Full stop. The end.”
    She persisted. He could not bear my being cross with him: he had never imagined I should take things so much to heart.
    “In that case he must have turned into a half-wit: he can go to hell.”
    “But you don’t realize. Papa has worked a miracle for him: a post like this, at his age, is something absolutely extraordinary. You can’t ask him to sacrifice his future for you.”
    “He had a future—a clean one, true to his own ideas.”
    “I beg your pardon—true to your ideas. He has developed.”
    “He will go on developing; it’s a tune we all know. He will make his opinions chime with his interests. For the moment he is up to his middle in bad faith—his only ideais to succeed. He is betraying himself and he knows it; that is what is so tenth-rate,” I said passionately.
    Irène gave me a dirty look. “I imagine your own life has always been perfect, and so that allows you to judge everybody else from a great height.”
    I stiffened. “I have always tried to be honest. I wanted Philippe to be the same. I am sorry that you should have turned him from that course.”
    She burst out laughing. “Anyone would think he had become a burglar, or a counterfeiter.”
    “For a man of his convictions, I do not consider his an honorable choice.”
    Irène stood up. “But after all it is strange, this high moral stand of yours,” she said slowly. “His father is more committed, politically, than you; and he has not broken with Philippe. Whereas you—”
    I interrupted her. “He has not broken.… You mean they’ve seen one another?”
    “I don’t know,” she replied quickly. “I know he never spoke of breaking when Philippe told him about his decision.”
    “That was before the phone call. What about since?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “You don’t know who Philippe sees and who he doesn’t?”
    Looking stubborn, she said, “No.”
    “All right. It doesn’t matter,” I said.
    I saw her as far as the door. I turned our last exchanges over in my mind. Had she cut herself short on purpose—a cunning stroke—or was it a blunder? At all events my mind was made up. Almost made up. Not quite enoughfor it to find an outlet in rage. Just enough for me to be choked with distress and anxiety.
    As soon as André came in I went for him. “Why didn’t you tell me you had seen Philippe again?”
    “Who told you that?”
    “Irène. She came to ask me why I didn’t see him, since you did.”
    “I warned you I should see him again.”
    “I warned you that I should resent it most bitterly. It was you who persuaded him to write to me.”
    “No: not really.”
    “It certainly was. Oh, you had fun with me, all right: ‘You know how hard it is for him to make the first step.’ And it was you who had made it! Secretly.”
    “With regard to you, he did make the first step.”
    “Urged on