It was the first time Lydia had ever seen Madame Berger betray emotion.
It was the first time she had ever known her show an uncalculated, disinterested affection.
Hard, painful sobs rent her breast and she clung desperately to Lydia.
Lydia was deeply moved.
It was horrible to see that self-controlled woman, with her pride and her iron will, break down.
“I ought never to have let him marry you,” she wailed.
“It was a crime.
It was unfair to you.
It seemed his only chance.
Never, never, never should I have allowed it.”
“But I loved him.”
“I know.
But will you ever forgive him?
Will you ever forgive me?
I’m his mother, it doesn’t matter to me, but you’re different; how can your love survive this?”
Lydia snatched herself away and seized Madame Berger by the shoulders.
She almost shook her.
“Listen to me.
I don’t love for a month or a year.
I love for always.
He’s the only man I’ve loved.
He’s the only man I shall ever love.
Whatever he’s done, whatever the future has in store, I love him.
Nothing can make me love him less.
I adore him.”
Next day the evening papers announced that Robert Berger had been arrested for the murder of Teddie Jordan.
A few weeks later Lydia knew that she was with child and she realized with horror that she had received the fertilizing seed on the very night of the brutal murder.
Silence fell between Lydia and Charley.
They had long since finished their dinner and the other diners had gone.
Charley, listening without a word, absorbed as he had never been in his life, to Lydia’s story, had, all the same, been conscious that the restaurant was empty and that the waitresses were anxious for them to go, and once or twice he had been on the point of suggesting to Lydia that they should move.
But it was difficult, for she spoke as if in a trance, and though often her eyes met his he had an uncanny sensation that she did not see him.
But then a party of Americans came in, six of them, three men and three girls, and asked if it was too late to have dinner.
The patronne, foreseeing a lucrative order, since they were all very lively, assured them that her husband was the cook and if they didn’t mind waiting, would cook them whatever they wished.
They ordered champagne cocktails.
They were out to enjoy themselves and their gaiety filled the little restaurant with laughter.
But Lydia’s tragic story seemed to encompass the table at which she and Charley sat with a mysterious and sinister atmosphere which the high spirits of that happy crowd could not penetrate; and they sat in their corner, alone, as though they were surrounded by an invisible wall.
“And do you love him still?” asked Charley at last.
“With all my heart.”
She spoke with such a passionate sincerity that it was impossible not to believe her.
It was strange, and Charley could not prevent the slight shiver of dismay that passed through him.
She did not seem to belong to quite the same human species as he did.
That violence of feeling was rather terrifying, and it made him a little uncomfortable to be with her.
He might have felt like that if he had been talking quite casually to someone for an hour or two and then suddenly discovered it was a ghost.
But there was one thing that troubled him.
It had been on his mind for the last twenty-four hours, but not wishing her to think him censorious, he had not spoken of it.
“In that case I can’t help wondering how you can bear to be in a place like the Serail.
Couldn’t you have found some other means of earning your living?”
“I tried to.
I’m a good needle-woman, I was apprenticed to a dress-maker.
You’d have thought I could have got work in that business; when they found out who I was no one would have me. It meant that or starvation.”