Part 3 — VII

IN the weeks that followed, Irene seemed to grow much more cheerful. She went out every morning early and only came back in time for lunch. Her mail became more imposing daily. She no longer complained of feeling ill or of putting on weight. There were frequent telephone calls for her: a foreign voice would say: "Can Madame come to the téléfon?" and a long conversation would follow. Lewis, jealous of his own liberty, tried to appear to respect that of Irene; he avoided questioning her. Was it family business, or merely trifles, or love affairs? He hated to think about it. He never stopped being "worried" about it (the word takes on such a tragic meaning in the mouths of habitually indifferent people).

One morning Lewis noticed her car waiting in the Rue Cambon. He looked for the name of some masseuse or dressmaker, thinking to find Irene there; but no. A gloomy house, a sort of perpendicular steppe, with church windows round a lift shaft wrapped in a winding staircase. What could she be doing in there? And for so long, too? At half-past twelve some electricians came in from their dinner hour. Lewis examined the courtyard. The mezzanine floor seemed improper. There were pink curtains on the fifth floor. He was ashamed of spying. He who scoffed at presentiments found them everywhere.

Restless and ill at ease, he went on waiting, seated on the stairs. At one o'clock Irene came out with a large envelope under her arm. She was on her way home to lunch, five minutes late, like a man, not one of those absurd latenesses of some women. When she saw him she stopped, speechless. She got into her car (which she drove herself) but did not start it. She turned towards him and there, in the middle of the street, in that closed box, without any preamble, she explained herself:—

"Forgive me, Lewis ... I didn't dare tell you ... even though I couldn't bear having secrets from you. I have only been coming here for a few days ... yes, only a fortnight. Our Bank is opening a branch in Paris. Two floors of this building. The name isn't even up yet. Electric light is just being put in ... I swear to you that circumstances forced me into it. I heard recently that a Greek combine was going to issue in France a drachma loan in which we are interested. Our agent here is an idiot. One day, finding himself in difficulties, he rang me up to ask my advice. I cleared things up for him. The next day I went back to the Bank, and since then I have been there every day."

"Not every day," said Lewis. "Sometimes you don't go out. The day before yesterday, that headache ..."

"I never had a headache (if you only knew how nice it is not to have to tell you any more fibs). I brought some accounts home and I shut myself up in order to check them, without your knowledge."

Lewis said nothing for a moment, then he began to laugh:

"And I used to believe in drug cures!"

That evening, after dinner (rain outside, the first day of fires), Lewis lit his pipe:

"I have been thinking over my adventure this morning.... It is more serious than you think, Irene. The least amusing thing in this discovery by a deceived husband is that you compel me, too, to go back to work. I don't want to in the least; but I really cannot play the Oriental who lounges in a café whilst his wife works in the fields, or, as they say in select Apache circles in the Rue d'Alésia: to let her go down to business."

"It is only for a fortnight more ..."

"It is for your whole life, Irene. You will never give up working; you'd die if you did. Don't you see that you're a different woman since you have gone back to that Bank?"

Irene came and sat on the floor beside him.

"It's true. I regret it less than you think. It will be good for you to work, too.... You see you must do something useful. There cannot be two Europes, one living cleanly and well, and the other sleeping amongst lice and eating bark."

"I seem to have married a copy of the 'Civil Progress.'"

"Be generous. Don't wait until events prove to us that people must love each other. That sort of lesson costs too much."

In the dusk she scanned Lewis' energetic features which had begun to fill out and to lose their character since he had given up working.

"I have been telling myself that you, too, probably wanted to get your firm back into your own hands, but didn't like to suggest it because of me."

Lewis hastened to be insincere.

"Not at all. I was quite determined never to touch business again. Is there anything you have not lulled to sleep in me?"

"I am anxious about you. What happens nowadays to those passions, those risks, all those forceful lines that once crossed your life? Are they all sleeping, to be stirred up one day against me?"

"Don't be frightened. I soon forget."

"Do you remember? You used to call the Bourse your playground."

"I've grown a lot since then. I no longer require to play."

"Tell me the truth. Have you never done a single piece of business since our marriage?"

Lewis turned the handle of the radiator tap—an act which corresponds to the old-fashioned poking of the fire.

" ... No," he answered.

Outside the wind was droning and tattling the slates on the roofs. Lewis leant over Irene.

"Well, let's see ... that is to say ... once, in Greece ... I don't think I ever told you ... I bought and sold the whole raisin crop of your island on margin."