"You--sinning!" exclaimed Delarey.
"Maurice, dear, you think too well of me."
Delarey flushed like a boy, and glanced quickly at Artois, who did not
return his gaze.
"But if that's true, Emile," Hermione continued, "Madame Lagrande and
Robert Meunier will be friends again."
"Some day I know she will hold out the olive-branch, but what if he
refuses it?"
"You literary people are dreadfully difficile."
"True. Our jealousies are ferocious, but so are the jealousies of
thousands who can neither read nor write."
"Jealousy," she said, forgetting to eat in her keen interest in the
subject. "I told you I didn't believe myself capable of it, but I don't
know. The jealousy that is born of passion I might understand and suffer,
perhaps, but jealousy of a talent greater than my own, or of one that I
didn't possess--that seems to me inexplicable. I could never be jealous
of a talent."
"You mean that you could never hate a person for a talent in them?"
"Yes."
"Suppose that some one, by means of a talent which you had not, won from
you a love which you had? Talent is a weapon, you know."
"You think it is a weapon to conquer the affections! Ah, Emile, after all
you don't know us!"
"You go too fast. I did not say a weapon to conquer the affection of a
woman."
"You're speaking of men?"
"I know," Delarey said, suddenly, forgetting to be modest for once, "you
mean that a man might be won away from one woman by a talent in another.
Isn't that it?"
"Ah," said Hermione, "a man--I see."
She sat for a moment considering deeply, with her luminous eyes fixed on
the food in her plate, food which she did not see.
"What horrible ideas you sometimes have, Emile," she said, at last.
"You mean what horrible truths exist," he answered, quietly.
"Could a man be won so? Yes, I suppose he might be if there were a
combination."
"Exactly," said Artois.
"I see now. Suppose a man had two strains in him, say: the adoration of
beauty, of the physical; and the adoration of talent, of the mental. He
might fall in love with a merely beautiful woman and transfer his
affections if he came across an equally beautiful woman who had some
great talent."
"Or he might fall in love with a plain, talented woman, and be taken from
her by one in whom talent was allied with beauty. But in either case are
you sure that the woman deserted could never be jealous, bitterly
jealous, of the talent possessed by the other woman? I think talent often
creates jealousy in your sex."