Other People’s Money by Emile GaboriauA Great Robbery (page 9)

Leading such a life, it was difficult that public opinion should always spare Mme. and Mlle. de Thaller. There were sceptics who insinuated that this steadfast friendship between mother and daughter had very much the appearance of the association of two women bound together by the complicity of a common secret. A broker told how, one evening, or one night rather, for it was nearly two o’clock, happening to pass in front of the Moulin-Rouge, he had seen the Baroness and Mlle. Cesarine coming out, accompanied by a gentleman, to him unknown, but who, he was quite sure, was not the Baron de Thaller.

A certain journey which mother and daughter had undertaken in the heart of the winter, and which had lasted not less than two months, had been generally attributed to an imprudence, the consequences of which it had become impossible to conceal. They had been in Italy, they said when they returned; but no one had seen them there. Yet, as Mme. and Mlle. de Thaller’s mode of life was, after all, the same as that of a great many women who passed for being perfectly proper, as there was no positive or palpable fact brought against them, as no name was mentioned, many people shrugged their shoulders, and replied,

“Pure slanders.”

And why not, since the Baron de Thaller, the most interested party, held himself satisfied?

To the ill-advised friends who ventured some allusions to the public rumors, he replied, according to his humor,

“My daughter can play the mischief generally, if she sees fit. As I shall give a dowry of a million, she will always find a husband.”

Or else, “And what of it? Do not American young ladies enjoy unlimited freedom? Are they not constantly seen going out with young gentlemen, or walking or traveling alone? Are they, for all that, less virtuous than our girls, who are kept under such close watch? Do they make less faithful wives, or less excellent mothers? Hypocrisy is not virtue.”

To a certain extent, the Manager of the Mutual Credit was right.

Already Mlle. de Thaller had had to decide upon several quite suitable offers of marriage and she had squarely refused them all.

“A husband!” she had answered each time. “Thank you, none for me. I have good enough teeth to eat up my dowry myself. Later, we’ll see,–when I’ve cut my wisdom teeth, and I am tired of my bachelor life.”

She did not seem near getting tired of it, though she pretended that she had no more illusions, was thoroughly blasee, had exhausted every sensation, and that life henceforth had no surprise in reserve for her. Her reception of M. de Tregars was, therefore, one of Mlle. Cesarine’s least eccentricities, as was also that sudden fancy; to apply to the situation one of the most idiotic rondos of her repertoires:

“Cashier, you’ve got the bag;
Quick on your little nag”

Neither did she spare him a single verse: and, when she stopped,

“I see with pleasure,” said M. de Tregars, “that the embezzlement of which your father has just been the victim does not in any way offend your good humor.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Would you have me cry,” she said, “because the stockholders of the Baron Three Francs Sixty-eight have been swindled? Console yourself: they are accustomed to it.”

And, as M. de Tregars made no answer,

“And in all that,” she went on, “I see no one to pity except the wife and daughter of that old stick Favoral.”

“They are, indeed, much to be pitied.”

“They say that the mother is a good old thing.”

“She is an excellent person.”

“And the daughter? Costeclar was crazy about her once. He made eyes like a carp in love, as he told us, to mamma and myself, ‘She is an angel, mesdames, an angel! And when I have given her a little chic!’ Now tell me, is she really as good looking as all that?”

“She is quite good looking.”

“Better looking than me?”

“It is not the same style, mademoiselle.”

Mlle. de Thaller had stopped singing; but she had not left the piano. Half turned towards M. de Tregars, she ran her fingers listlessly over the keys, striking a note here and there, as if to punctuate her sentences.

“Ah, how nice!” she exclaimed, “and, above all, how gallant! Really, if you venture often on such declarations, mothers would be very wrong to trust you alone with their daughters.”

“You did not understand me right, mademoiselle.”

“Perfectly right, on the contrary. I asked you if I was better looking than Mlle. Favoral; and you replied to me, that it was not the same style.”

“It is because, mademoiselle, there is indeed no possible comparison between you, who are a wealthy heiress, and whose life is a perpetual enchantment, and a poor girl, very humble, and very modest, who rides in the omnibus, and who makes her dresses herself.”

A contemptuous smile contracted Mlle. Cesarine’s lips.

“Why not?” she interrupted. “Men have such funny tastes!”

And, turning around suddenly, she began another rondo, no less famous than the first, and borrowed, this time, from the third act of the Petites-Blanchisseuses:

“What matters the quality?
Beauty alone takes the prize
Women before man must rise,
And claim perfect equality.”

Very attentively M. de Tregars was observing her. He had not been the dupe of the great surprise she had manifested when she found him in the little parlor.

“She knew I was here,” he thought; “and it is her mother who has sent her to me. But why? and for what purpose?”

“With all that,” she resumed, “I see the sweet Mme. Favoral and her modest daughter in a terribly tight place. What a ‘bust,’ marquis!”

“They have a great deal of courage, mademoiselle.”

“Naturally. But, what is better, the daughter has a splendid voice: at least, so her professor told Costeclar. Why should she not go on the stage? Actresses make lots of money, you know. Papa’ll help her, if she wishes. He has a great deal of influence in the theatres, papa has.”

“Mme. and Mlle. Favoral have friends.”

“Ah, yes! Costeclar.”

“Others besides.”

“I beg your pardon; but it seems to me that this one will do to begin with. He is gallant, Costeclar, extremely gallant, and, moreover, generous as a lord. Why should he not offer to that youthful and timid damsel a nice little position in mahogany and rosewood? That way, we should have the pleasure of meeting her around the lake.”

And she began singing again, with a slight variation,

“Manon, who, before the war,
Carried clothes for a living, Now for her gains is trusting
To that insane Costeclar.”

“Ah, that big red-headed girl is terribly provoking!” thought M. de Tregars.

But, as he did not as yet understand very clearly what she wished to come to, he kept on his guard, and remained cold as marble.

Already she had again turned towards him.

“What a face you are making!” she said. “Are you jealous of the fiery Costeclar, by chance?”

“No, mademoiselle, no!”

“Then, why don’t you want him to succeed in his love? But he will, you’ll see! Five hundred francs on Costeclar! Do you take it? No? I am sorry. It’s twenty-five napoleons lost for me. I know very well that Mlle.–what’s her name?”

“Gilberte.”

“Hallo! a nice name for a cashier’s daughter! I am aware that she once sent that poor Costeclar and his offer to–Chaillot. But she had resources then; whilst now–It’s stupid as it can be; but people have to eat!”

“There are still women, mademoiselle, capable of starving to death.”

M. de Tregars now felt satisfied. It seemed evident to him that they had somehow got wind of his intentions; that Mlle. de Thaller had been sent to feel the ground; and that she only attacked Mlle. Gilberte in order to irritate him, and compel him, in a moment of anger, to declare himself.

“Bash!” she said, “Mlle. Favoral is like all the others. If she had to select between the amiable Costeclar and a charcoal furnace, it is not the furnace she would take.”

At all times, Marius de Tregars disliked Mlle. Cesarine to a supreme degree; but at this moment, without the pressing desire he had to see the Baron and Baroness de Thaller, he would have withdrawn.

“Believe me, mademoiselle,” he uttered coldly. “Spare a poor girl stricken by a most cruel misfortune. Worse might happen to you.”

“To me! And what the mischief do you suppose can happen me?”

“Who knows?”

She started to her feet so violently, that she upset the piano-stool.

“Whatever it may be,” she exclaimed, “I say in advance, I am glad!”

And as M. de Tregars turned his head in some surprise,

“Yes, I am glad!” she repeated, “because it would be a change; and I am sick of the life I lead. Yes, sick to be eternally and invariably happy of that same dreary happiness. And to think that there are idiots who believe that I amuse myself, and who envy my fate! To think, that, when I ride through the streets, I hear girls exclaim, whilst looking at me, ‘Isn’t she lucky?’ Little fools! I’d like to see them in my place. They live, they do. Their pleasures are not all alike. They have anxieties and hopes, ups and downs, hours of rain and hours of sunshine; whilst I–always dead calm! the barometer always at ‘Set fair.’ What a bore! Do you know what I did to-day? Exactly the same thing as yesterday; and to-morrow I’ll do the same thing as to-day.

“A good dinner is a good thing; but always the same dinner, without extras or additions–pouah! Too many truffles. I want some corned beef and cabbage. I know the bill of fare by heart, you see. In winter, theatres and balls; in summer, races and the seashore; summer and winter, shopping, rides to the bois, calls, trying dresses, perpetual adoration by mother’s friends, all of them brilliant and gallant fellows to whom the mere thought of my dowry gives the jaundice. Excuse me, if I yawn: I am thinking of their conversations.

“And to think,” she went on, “that such will be my existence until I make up my mind to take a husband! For I’ll have to come to it too. The Baron Three Sixty-eight will present to me some sort of a swell, attracted by my money. I’ll answer, ‘I’d just as soon have him as any other,’ and he will be admitted to the honor of paying his attentions to me. Every morning he will send me a splendid bouquet: every evening, after bank-hours, he’ll come along with fresh kid gloves and a white vest. During the afternoon, he and papa will pull each other’s hair out on the subject of the dowry. At last the happy day will arrive. Can’t you see it from here? Mass with music, dinner, ball. The Baron Three Sixty-eight will not spare me a single ceremony. The marriage of the manager of the Mutual Credit must certainly be an advertisement. The papers will publish the names of the bridesmaids and of the guests.

“To be sure, papa will have a face a yard long; because he will have been compelled to pay the dowry the day before. Mamma will be all upset at the idea of becoming a grandmother. The bridegroom will be in a wretched humor, because his boots will be too tight; and I’ll look like a goose, because I’ll be dressed in white; and white is a stupid color, which is not at all becoming to me. Charming family gathering, isn’t it? Two weeks later, my husband will be sick of me, and I’ll be disgusted with him. After a month, we’ll be at daggers’ points. He’ll go back to his club and his mistresses; and I–I shall have conquered the right to go out alone; and I’ll begin again going to the bois, to balls, to races, wherever my mother goes. I’ll spend an enormous amount of money on my dress, and I’ll make debts which papa will pay.”

Though any thing might be expected of Mlle. Cesarine, still M. de Tregars seemed visibly astonished. And she, laughing at his surprise,

“That’s the invariable programme,” she went on; “and that’s why I say I’m glad at the idea of a change, whatever it may be. You find fault with me for not pitying Mlle. Gilberte. How could I, since I envy her? She is happy, because her future is not settled, laid out, fixed in advance. She is poor; but she is free. She is twenty; she is pretty; she has an admirable voice; she can go on the stage to-morrow, and be, before six months, one of the pet actresses of Paris. What a life then! Ah, that is the one I dream, the one I would have selected, had I been mistress of my destiny.”

But she was interrupted by the noise of the opening door.

The Baroness de Thaller appeared. As she was, immediately after dinner, to go to the opera, and afterwards to a party given by the Viscountess de Bois d’Ardon, she was in full dress. She wore a dress, cut audaciously low in the neck, of very light gray satin, trimmed with bands of cherry-colored silk edged with lace. In her hair, worn high over her head, she had a bunch of fuchsias, the flexible stems of which, fastened by a large diamond star, trailed down to her very shoulders, white and smooth as marble.

But, though she forced herself to smile, her countenance was not that of festive days; and the glance which she cast upon her daughter and Marius de Tregars was laden with threats. In a voice of which she tried in vain to control the emotion,

“How very kind of you, marquis,” she began, “to respond so soon to my invitation of this morning! I am really distressed to have kept you waiting; but I was dressing. After what has happened to M. de Thaller, it is absolutely indispensable that I should go out, show myself: otherwise our enemies will be going around to-morrow, saying everywhere that I am in Belgium, preparing lodgings for my husband.”

And, suddenly changing her tone,

“But what was that madcap Cesarine telling you?” she asked.

It was with a profound surprise that M. de Tregars discovered that the entente cordiale which he suspected between the mother and daughter did not exist, at least at this moment.

Veiling under a jesting tone the strange conjectures which the unexpected discovery aroused within him,

“Mlle. Cesarine,” he replied, “who is much to be pitied, was telling me all her troubles.”

She interrupted him.

“Do not take the trouble to tell a story, M. le Marquis,” she said. “Mamma knows it as well as yourself; for she was listening at the door.”

“Cesarine!” exclaimed Mme. de Thaller.

“And, if she came in so suddenly, it is because she thought it was fully time to cut short my confidences.”

The face of the baroness became crimson.

“The child is mad!” she said.

The child burst out laughing.

“That’s my way,” she went on. “You should not have sent me here by chance, and against my wish. You made me do it: don’t complain. You were sure that I had but to appear, and M. de Tregars would fall at my feet. I appeared, and–you saw the effect through the keyhole, didn’t you?”

Her features contracted, her eyes flashing, twisting her lace handkerchief between her fingers loaded with rings,

“It is unheard of,” said Mme. de Thaller. “She has certainly lost her head.”

Dropping her mother an ironical courtesy,

“Thanks for the compliment!” said the young lady. “Unfortunately, I never was more completely in possession of all the good sense I may boast of than I am now, dear mamma. What were you telling me a moment since? ‘Run, the Marquis de Tregars is coming to ask your hand: it’s all settled.’ And what did I answer? ‘No use to trouble myself: if, instead of one million, papa were to give me two, four millions, indeed all the millions paid by France to Prussia, M. de Tregars would not have me for a wife.'”

And, looking Marius straight in the face,

“Am I not right, M. le Marquis?” she asked. “And isn’t it a fact that you wouldn’t have me at any price? Come, now, your hand upon your heart, answer.”

M. de Tregars’ situation was somewhat embarrassing between these two women, whose anger was equal, though it manifested itself in a different way. Evidently it was a discussion begun before, which was now continued in his presence.

“I think, mademoiselle,” he began, “that you have been slandering yourself gratuitously.”

“Oh, no! I swear it to you,” she replied; “and, if mamma had not happened in, you would have heard much more. But that was not an answer.”

And, as M. de Tregars said nothing, she turned towards the baroness,

“Ah, ah! you see,” she said. “Who was crazy,–you, or I? Ah! you imagine here that money is everything, that every thing is for sale, and that every thing can be bought. Well, no! There are still men, who, for all the gold in the world, would not give their name to Cesarine de Thaller. It is strange; but it is so, dear mamma, and we must make up our mind to it.”

Then turning towards Marius, and bearing upon each syllable, as if afraid that the allusion might escape him,

“The men of whom I speak,” she added, “marry the girls who can starve to death.”

Knowing her daughter well enough to be aware that she could not impose silence upon her, the Baroness de Thaller had dropped upon a chair. She was trying hard to appear indifferent to what her daughter was saying; but at every moment a threatening gesture, or a hoarse exclamation, betrayed the storm that raged within her.

“Go on, poor foolish child!” she said,–“go on!”

And she did go on.

“Finally, were M. de Tregars willing to have me, I would refuse him myself, because, then–“

A fugitive blush colored her cheeks, her bold eyes vacillated, and, dropping her voice,

“Because, then,” she added, “he would no longer be what he is; because I feel that fatally I shall despise the husband whom papa will buy for me. And, if I came here to expose myself to an affront which I foresaw, it is because I wanted to make sure of a fact of which a word of Costeclar, a few days ago, had given me an idea, –of a fact which you do not, perhaps, suspect, dear mother, despite your astonishing perspicacity. I wanted to find out M. de Tregars’ secret; and I have found it out.”

M. de Tregars had come to the Thaller mansion with a plan well settled in advance. He had pondered long before deciding what he would do, and what he would say, and how he would begin the decisive struggle. What had taken place showed him the idleness of his conjectures, and, as a natural consequence, upset his plans. To abandon himself to the chances of the hour, and to make the best possible use of them, was now the wisest thing to do.

“Give me credit, mademoiselle,” he uttered, “for sufficient penetration to have perfectly well discerned your intentions. There was no need of artifice, because I have nothing to conceal. You had but to question me, I would have answered you frankly, ‘Yes, it is true I love Mlle. Gilberte; and before a month she will be Marquise de Tregars.'”

Mme. de Thaller, at those words, had started to her feet, pushing back her arm-chair so violently, that it rolled all the way to the wall.

“What!” she exclaimed, “you marry Gilberte Favoral,–you!”

“I–yes.”

“The daughter of a defaulting cashier, a dishonored man whom justice pursues and the galleys await!”

“Yes!” And in an accent that caused a shiver to run over the white shoulders of Mme. de Thaller,

“Whatever may have been,” he uttered, “Vincent Favoral’s crime; whether he has or has not stolen, the twelve millions which are wanting from the funds of the Mutual Credit; whether he is alone guilty, or has accomplices; whether he be a knave, or a fool, an impostor, or a dupe,–Mlle. Gilberte is not responsible.”

“You know the Favoral family, then?”

“Enough to make their cause henceforth my own.”

The agitation of the baroness was so great, that she did not even attempt to conceal it.

“A nobody’s daughter!” she said.

“I love her.”

“Without a sou!”

Mlle. Cesarine made a superb gesture.

“Why, that’s the very reason why a man may marry her!” she exclaimed, and, holding out her hand to M. de Tregars,

“What you do here is well,” she added, “very well.”

There was a wild look in the eyes of the baroness.

“Mad, unhappy child!” she exclaimed. “If your father should hear!”

“And who, then, would report our conversation to him? M. de Tregars? He would not do such a thing. You? You dare not.”

Drawing herself up to her fullest height, her breast swelling with anger, her head thrown back, her eyes flashing,

“Cesarine,” ordered Mme. de Thaller, her arm extended towards the door–“Cesarine, leave the room; I command you.”

But motionless in her place the girl cast upon her mother a look of defiance.

“Come, calm yourself,” she said in a tone of crushing irony, “or you’ll spoil your complexion for the rest of the evening. Do I complain? do I get excited? And yet whose fault is it, if honor makes it a duty for me to cry ‘Beware!’ to an honest man who wishes to marry me? That Gilberte should get married: that she should be very happy, have many children, darn her husband’s stockings, and skim her _pot-au-feu_,–that is her part in life. Ours, dear mother,–that which you have taught me–is to laugh and have fun, all the time, night and day, till death.”

A footman who came in interrupted her. Handing a card to Mme. de Thaller,

“The gentleman who gave it to me,” he said, “is in the large parlor.”

The baroness had become very pale.

“Oh!” she said turning the card between her fingers,–“oh!”

Then suddenly she ran out exclaiming,

“I’ll be back directly.”

An embarrassing, painful silence followed, as it was inevitable that it would, the Baroness de Thaller’s precipitate departure.

Mlle. Cesarine had approached the mantel-piece. She was leaning her elbow upon it, her forehead on her hand, all palpitating and excited. Intimidated for, perhaps, the first time in her life, she turned away her great blue eyes, as if afraid that they should betray a reflex of her thoughts.

As to M. de Tregars, he remained at his place, not having one whit too much of that power of self-control, which is acquired by a long experience of the world, to conceal his impressions. If he had a fault, it was certainly not self-conceit; but Mlle. de Thaller had been too explicit and too clear to leave him a doubt. All she had said could be comprised in one sentence,

“My parents were in hopes that I would become your wife: I had judged you well enough to understand their error. Precisely because I love you I acknowledge myself unworthy of you and I wish you to know that if you had asked my hand,–the hand of a girl who has a dowry of a million–I would have ceased to esteem you.”

That such a feeling should have budded and blossomed in Mlle. Cesarine’s soul, withered as it was by vanity, and blunted by pleasure was almost a miracle. It was, at any rate, an astonishing proof of love which she gave; and Marius de Tregars would not have been a man, if he had not been deeply moved by it. Suddenly,

“What a miserable wretch I am!” she uttered.

“You mean unhappy,” said M. de Tregars gently.

“What can you think of my sincerity? You must, doubtless, find it strange, impudent, grotesque.”

He lifted his hand in protest; for she gave him no time to put in a word.

“And yet,” she went on, “this is not the first time that I am assailed by sinister ideas, and that I feel ashamed of myself. I was convinced once that this mad existence of mine is the only enviable one, the only one that can give happiness. And now I discover that it is not the right path which I have taken, or, rather, which I have been made to take. And there is no possibility of retracing my steps.”

She turned pale, and, in an accent of gloomy despair,

“Every thing fails me,” she said. “It seems as though I were rolling into a bottomless abyss, without a branch or a tuft of grass to cling to. Around me, emptiness, night, chaos. I am not yet twenty and it seems to me that I have lived thousands of years, and exhausted every sensation. I have seen every thing, learned every thing, experienced every thing; and I am tired of every thing, and satiated and nauseated. You see me looking like a brainless hoyden, I sing, I jest, I talk slang. My gayety surprises everybody. In reality, I am literally tired to death. What I feel I could not express, there are no words to render absolute disgust. Sometimes I say to myself, ‘It is stupid to be so sad. What do you need? Are you not young, handsome, rich?’ But I must need something, or else I would not be thus agitated, nervous, anxious, unable to stay in one place, tormented by confused aspirations, and by desires which I cannot formulate. What can I do? Seek oblivion in pleasure and dissipation? I try, and I succeed for an hour or so; but the reaction comes, and the effect vanishes, like froth from champagne. The lassitude returns; and, whilst outwardly I continue to laugh, I shed within tears of blood which scald my heart. What is to become of me, without a memory in the past, or a hope in the future, upon which to rest my thought?”

And bursting into tears,

“Oh, I am wretchedly unhappy!” she exclaimed; “and I wish I was dead.”

M. de Tregars rose, feeling more deeply moved than he would, perhaps, have liked to acknowledge.

“I was laughing at you only a moment since,” he said in his grave and vibrating voice. “Pardon me, mademoiselle. It is with the utmost sincerity, and from the innermost depths of my soul, that I pity you.”

She was looking at him with an air of timid doubt, big tears trembling between her long eyelashes.

“Honest?” she asked.

“Upon my honor.”

“And you will not go with too poor an opinion of me?”

“I shall retain the firm belief that when you were yet but a child, you were spoiled by insane theories.”

Gently and sadly she was passing her hand over her forehead.

“Yes, that’s it,” she murmured. “How could I resist examples coming from certain persons? How could I help becoming intoxicated when I saw myself, as it were, in a cloud of incense when I heard nothing but praises and applause? And then there is the money, which depraves when it comes in a certain way.”

She ceased to speak; but the silence was soon again broken by a slight noise, which came from the adjoining room.

Mechanically, M. de Tregars looked around him. The little parlor in which he found himself was divided from the main drawing-room of the house by a tall and broad door, closed only by heavy curtains, which had remained partially drawn. Now, such was the disposition of the mirrors in the two rooms, that M. de Tregars could see almost the whole of the large one reflected in the mirror over the mantelpiece of the little parlor. A man of suspicious appearance, and wearing wretched clothes, was standing in it.

And, the more M. de Tregars examined him, the more it seemed to him that he had already seen somewhere that uneasy countenance, that anxious glance, that wicked smile flitting upon flat and thin lips.

But suddenly the man bowed very low. It was probable that Mme. de Thaller, who had gone around through the hall to reach the grand parlor, must be coming in; and in fact she almost immediately appeared within the range of the glass. She seemed much agitated; and, with a finger upon her lips, she was recommending to the man to be prudent, and to speak low. It was therefore in a whisper, and such a low whisper that not even a vague murmur reached the little parlor, that the man uttered a few words. They were such that the baroness started back as if she had seen a precipice yawning at her feet; and by this action it was easy to understand that she must have said,

“Is it possible?”

With the voice which still could not be heard, but with a gesture which could be seen, the man evidently replied,

“It is so, I assure you!”

And leaning towards Mme. de Thaller, who seemed in no wise shocked to feel this repulsive personage’s lips almost touching her ear, he began speaking to her.

The surprise which this species of vision caused to M. de Tregars was great, but did not keep him from reflecting what could be the meaning of this scene. How came this suspicious-looking man to have obtained access, without difficulty, into the grand parlor? Why had the baroness, on receiving his card, turned whiter than the laces on her dress? What news had he brought, which had made such a deep impression? What was he saying that seemed at once to terrify and to delight Mme. de Thaller?

But soon she interrupted the man, beckoned to him to wait, disappeared for a minute; and, when she came in again, she held in her hand a package of bank-notes, which she began counting upon the parlor-table.

She counted twenty-five, which, so far as M. de Tregars could judge, must have been hundred-franc notes. The man took them, counted them over, slipped them into his pocket with a grin of satisfaction, and then seemed disposed to retire.

The baroness detained him, however; and it was she now, who, leaning towards him, commenced to explain to him, or rather, as far as her attitude showed, to ask him something. It must have been a serious matter; for he shook his head, and moved his arms, as if he meant to say, “The deuse, the deuse!”

The strangest suspicions flashed across M. de Tregars’ mind. What was that bargain to which the mirror made him thus an accidental witness? For it was a bargain: there could be no mistake about it. The man, having received a mission, had fulfilled it, and had come to receive the price of it. And now a new commission was offered to him.

But M. de Tregars’ attention was now called off by Mlle. Cesarine. Shaking off the torpor which for a moment had overpowered her,

“But why fret and worry?” she said, answering, rather, the objections of her own mind than addressing herself to M. de Tregars. “Things are just as they are, and I cannot undo them.

“Ah! if the mistakes of life were like soiled clothes, which are allowed to accumulate in a wardrobe, and which are all sent out at once to the wash. But nothing washes the past, not even repentance, whatever they may say. There are some ideas which should be set aside. A prisoner should not allow himself to think of freedom.

“And yet,” she added, shrugging her shoulders, “a prisoner has always the hope of escaping; whereas I–” Then, making a visible effort to resume her usual manner,

“Bash!” she said, “that’s enough sentiment for one day; and instead of staying here, boring you to death, I ought to go and dress; for I am going to the opera with my sweet mamma, and afterwards to the ball. You ought to come. I am going to wear a stunning dress. The ball is at Mme. de Bois d’Ardon’s,–one of our friends, a progressive woman. She has a smoking-room for ladies. What do you think of that? Come, will you go? We’ll drink champagne, and we’ll laugh. No? Zut then, and my compliments to your family.”

But, at the moment of leaving the room, her heart failed her.

“This is doubtless the last time I shall ever see you, M. de Tregars,” she said. “Farewell! You know now why I, who have a dowry of a million, I envy Gilberte Favoral. Once more farewell. And, whatever happiness may fall to your lot in life, remember that Cesarine has wished it all to you.”

And she went out at the very moment when the Baroness de Thaller returned.

VII

“Cesarine!” Mme. de Thaller called, in a voice which sounded at once like a prayer and a threat.

“I am going to dress myself, mamma,” she answered.

“Come back!”

“So that you can scold me if I am not ready when you want to go? Thank you, no.”

“I command you to come back, Cesarine.”

No answer. She was far already.

Mme. de Thaller closed the door of the little parlor, and returning to take a seat by M. de Tregars,

“What a singular girl!” she said.

Meantime he was watching in the glass what was going on in the other room. The suspicious-looking man was there still, and alone. A servant had brought him pen, ink and paper; and he was writing rapidly.

“How is it that they leave him there alone?” wondered Marius.

And he endeavored to find upon the features of the baroness an answer to the confused presentiments which agitated his brain. But there was no longer any trace of the emotion which she had manifested when taken unawares. Having had time for reflection, she had composed for herself an impenetrable countenance. Somewhat surprised at M. de Tregars’ silence,

“I was saying,” she repeated, “that Cesarine is a strange girl.”

Still absorbed by the scene in the grand parlor,

“Strange, indeed!” he answered.

“And such is,” said the baroness with a sigh, “the result of M. de Thaller’s weakness, and above all of my own.

“We have no child but Cesarine; and it was natural that we should spoil her. Her fancy has been, and is still, our only law. She has never had time to express a wish: she is obeyed before she has spoken.”

She sighed again, and deeper than the first time. “You have just seen,” she went on, “the results of that insane education. And yet it would not do to trust appearances. Cesarine, believe me, is not as extravagant as she seems. She possesses solid qualities,–of those which a man expects of the woman who is to be his wife.”

Without taking his eyes off the glass,

“I believe you madame,” said M. de Tregars.

“With her father, with me especially, she is capricious, wilful, and violent; but, in the hands of the husband of her choice, she would be like wax in the hands of the modeler.”

The man in the parlor had finished his letter, and, with an equivocal smile, was reading it over.

“Believe me, madame,” replied M. de Tregars, “I have perfectly understood how much naive boasting there was in all that Mlle. Cesarine told me.”

“Then, really, you do not judge her too severely?”

“Your heart has not more indulgence for her than my own.”

“And yet it is from you that her first real sorrow comes.”

“From me?”

The baroness shook her head in a melancholy way, to convey an idea of her maternal affection and anxiety.

“Yes, from you, my dear marquis,” she replied, “from you alone. On the very day you entered this house, Cesarine’s whole nature changed.”

Having read his letter over, the man in the grand parlor had folded it, and slipped it into his pocket, and, having left his seat, seemed to be waiting for something. M. de Tregars was following, in the glass, his every motion, with the most eager curiosity. And nevertheless, as he felt the absolute necessity of saying something, were it only to avoid attracting the attention of the baroness,

“What!” he said, “Mlle. Cesarine’s nature did change, then?”

“In one night. Had she not met the hero of whom every girl dreams? –a man of thirty, bearing one of the oldest names in France.”

She stopped, expecting an answer, a word, an exclamation. But, as M. de Tregars said nothing,

“Did you never notice any thing then?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“And suppose I were to tell you myself, that my poor Cesarine, alas! –loves you?”

M. de Tregars started. Had he been less occupied with the personage in the grand parlor, he would certainly not have allowed the conversation to drift in this channel. He understood his mistake; and, in an icy tone,

“Permit me, madame,” he said, “to believe that you are jesting.”

“And suppose it were the truth.”

“It would make me unhappy in the extreme.”

“Sir!”

“For the reason which I have already told you, that I love Mlle. Gilberte Favoral with the deepest and the purest love, and that for the past three years she has been, before God, my affianced bride.”

Something like a flash of anger passed over Mme. de Thaller’s eyes.

“And I,” she exclaimed,–“I tell you that this marriage is senseless.”

“I wish it were still more so, that I might the better show to Gilberte how dear she is to me.”

Calm in appearance, the baroness was scratching with her nails the satin of the chair on which she was sitting.

“Then,” she went on, “your resolution is settled.”

“Irrevocably.”

“Still, now, come, between us who are no longer children, suppose M. de Thaller were to double Cesarine’s dowry, to treble it?”

An expression of intense disgust contracted the manly features of Marius de Tregars.

“Ah! not another word, madame,” he interrupted.

There was no hope left. Mme. de Thaller fully realized it by the tone in which he spoke. She remained pensive for over a minute, and suddenly, like a person who has finally made up her mind, she rang.

A footman appeared.

“Do what I told you!” she ordered.

And as soon as the footman had gone, turning to M. de Tregars,

“Alas!” she said, “who would have thought that I would curse the day when you first entered our house?”

But, whilst, she spoke, M. de Tregars noticed in the glass the result of the order she had just given.

The footman walked into the grand parlor, spoke a few words; and at once the man with the alarming countenance put on his hat and went out.

“This is very strange!” thought M. de Tregars. Meantime, the baroness was going on,

“If your intentions are to that point irrevocable, how is it that you are here? You have too much experience of the world not to have understood, this morning, the object of my visit and of my allusions.”

Fortunately, M. de Tregars’ attention was no longer drawn by the proceedings in the next room. The decisive moment had come: the success of the game he was playing would, perhaps, depend upon his coolness and self-command.

“It is because I did understand, madame, and even better than you suppose, that I am here.”

“Indeed!”

“I came, expecting to deal with M. de Thaller alone. I have been compelled, by what has happened, to alter my intentions. It is to you that I must speak first.”

Mme. de Thaller continued to manifest the same tranquil assurance; but she stood up. Feeling the approach of the storm, she wished to be up, and ready to meet it.

“You honor me,” she said with an ironical smile.

There was, henceforth, no human power capable of turning Marius de Tregars from the object he had in view.

“It is to you I shall speak,” he repeated, “because, after you have heard me, you may perhaps judge that it is your interest to join me in endeavoring to obtain from your husband what I ask, what I demand, what I must have.”

With an air of surprise marvelously well simulated, if it was not real, the baroness was looking at him.

“My father,” he proceeded to say, “the Marquis de Tregars, was once rich: he had several millions. And yet when I had the misfortune of losing him, three years ago, he was so thoroughly ruined, that to relieve the scruples of his honor, and to make his death easier, I gave up to his creditors all I had in the world. What had become of my father’s fortune? What filter had been administered to him to induce him to launch into hazardous speculations,–he an old Breton gentleman, full, even to absurdity, of the most obstinate prejudices of the nobility? That’s what I wished to ascertain.

“And now, madame, I–have ascertained.”

She was a strong-minded woman, the Baroness de Thaller. She had had so many adventures in her life, she had walked on the very edge of so many precipices, concealed so many anxieties, that danger was, as it were, her element, and that, at the decisive moment of an almost desperate game, she could remain smiling like those old gamblers whose face never betrays their terrible emotion at the moment when they risk their last stake. Not a muscle of her face moved; and it was with the most imperturbable calm that she said,

“Go on, I am listening: it must be quite interesting.”

That was not the way to propitiate M. de Tregars. He resumed, in a brief and harsh tone,

“When my father died, I was young. I did not know then what I have learned since,–that to contribute to insure the impunity of knaves is almost to make one’s self their accomplice. And the victim who says nothing and submits, does contribute to it. The honest man, on the contrary, should speak, and point out to others the trap into which he has fallen, that they may avoid it.”

The baroness was listening with the air of a person who is compelled by politeness to hear a tiresome story.

“That is a rather gloomy preamble,” she said. M. de Tregars took no notice of the interruption.

“At all times,” he went on, “my father seemed careless of his affairs: that affectation, he thought, was due to the name he bore. But his negligence was only apparent. I might mention things of him that would do honor to the most methodical tradesman. He had, for instance, the habit of preserving all the letters of any importance which he received. He left twelve or fifteen boxes full of such. They were carefully classified; and many bore upon their margin a few notes indicating what answer had been made to them.”

Half suppressing a yawn,

“That is order,” said the baroness, “if I know any thing about it.”

“At the first moment, determined not to stir up the past, I attached no importance to those letters; and they would certainly have been burnt, but for an old friend of the family, the Count de Villegre, who had them carried to his own house. But later, acting under the influence of circumstances which it would be too long to explain to you, I regretted my apathy; and I thought that I should, perhaps, find in that correspondence something to either dissipate or justify certain suspicions which had occurred to me.”

“So that, like a respectful son, you read it?” M. de Tregars bowed ceremoniously.

“I believe,” he said, “that to avenge a father of the imposture of which he was the victim during his life, is to render homage to his memory. Yes, madame, I read the whole of that correspondence, and with an interest which you will readily understand. I had already, and without result, examined the contents of several boxes, when in the package marked 1852, a year which my father spent in Paris, certain letters attracted my attention. They were written upon coarse paper, in a very primitive handwriting and wretchedly spelt. They were signed sometimes Phrasie, sometimes Marquise de Javelle. Some gave the address, ‘Rue des Bergers, No. 3, Paris-Grenelle.’

“Those letters left me no doubt upon what had taken place. My father had met a young working-girl of rare beauty: he had taken a fancy to her; and, as he was tormented by the fear of being loved for his money alone, he had passed himself off for a poor clerk in one of the departments.”

“Quite a touching little love-romance,” remarked the baroness.

But there was no impertinence that could affect Marius de Tregars’ coolness.

“A romance, perhaps,” he said, “but in that case a money-romance, not a love-romance. This Phrasie or Marquise de Javelle, announces in one of her letters, that in February, 1853, she has given birth to a daughter, whom she has confided to some relatives of hers in the south, near Toulouse. It was doubtless that event which induced my father to acknowledge who he was. He confesses that he is not a poor clerk, but the Marquis de Tregars, having an income of over a hundred thousand francs. At once the tone of the correspondence changes. The Marquise de Javelle has a stupid time where she lives; the neighbors reproach her with her fault; work spoils her pretty hands. Result: less than two weeks after the birth of her daughter, my father hires for his pretty mistress a lovely apartment, which she occupies under the name of Mme. Devil; she is allowed fifteen hundred francs a month, servants, horses, carriage.”

Mme. de Thaller was giving signs of the utmost impatience. Without paying any attention to them, M. de Tregars proceeded,

“Henceforth free to see each other daily, my father and his mistress cease to write. But Mme. Devil does not waste her time. During a space of less than eight months, from February to September, she induces my father to dispose–not in her favor, she is too disinterested for that, but in favor of her daughter–of a sum exceeding five hundred thousand francs. In September, the correspondence is resumed. Mme. Devil discovers that she is not happy, and acknowledges it in a letter, which shows, by its improved writing and more correct spelling, that she has been taking lessons.

“She complains of her precarious situation: the future frightens her: she longs for respectability. Such is, for three months, the constant burden of her correspondence. She regrets the time when she was a working girl: why has she been so weak? Then, at last, in a note which betrays long debates and stormy discussions, she announces that she has an unexpected offer of marriage; a fine fellow, who, if she only had two hundred thousand francs, would give his name to herself and to her darling little daughter. For a long time my father hesitates; but she presses her point with such rare skill, she demonstrates so conclusively that this marriage will insure the happiness of their child, that my father yields at last, and resigns himself to the sacrifice. And in a memorandum on the margin of a last letter, he states that he has just given two hundred thousand francs to Mme. Devil; that he will never see her again; and that he returns to live in Brittany, where he wishes, by the most rigid economy, to repair the breach he has just made in his fortune.”

“Thus end all these love-stories,” said Mme. de Thaller in a jesting tone.

“I beg your pardon: this one is not ended yet. For many years, my father kept his word, and never left our homestead of Tregars. But at last he grew tired of his solitude, and returned to Paris. Did he seek to see his former mistress again? I think not. I suppose that chance brought them together; or else, that, being aware of his return, she managed to put herself in his way. He found her more fascinating than ever, and, according to what she wrote him, rich and respected; for her husband had become a personage. She would have been perfectly happy, she added, had it been possible for her to forget the man whom she had once loved so much, and to whom she owed her position.

“I have that letter. The elegant hand, the style, and the correct orthography, express better than any thing else the transformations of the Marquise de Javelle. Only it is not signed. The little working-girl has become prudent: she has much to lose, and fears to compromise herself.

“A week later, in a laconic note, apparently dictated by an irresistible passion, she begs my father to come to see her at her own house. He does so, and finds there a little girl, whom he believes to be his own child, and whom he at once begins to idolize.

“And that’s all. Again he falls under the charm. He ceases to belong to himself: his former mistress can dispose, at her pleasure, of his fortune and of his fate.

“But see now what bad luck! The husband takes a notion to become jealous of my father’s visits. In a letter which is a masterpiece of diplomacy, the lady explains her anxiety.

“‘He has suspicions,’ she writes; ‘and to what extremities might he not resort, were he to discover the truth!’ And with infinite art she insinuates that the best way to justify his constant presence is to associate himself with that jealous husband.

“It is with childish haste that my father jumps at the suggestion. But money is needed. He sells his lands, and everywhere announces that he has great financial ideas, and that he is going to increase his fortune tenfold.

“There he is now, partner of his former mistress’s husband, engaged in speculations, director of a company. He thinks that he is doing an excellent business: he is convinced that he is making lots of money. Poor honest man! They prove to him, one morning, that he is ruined, and, what is more, compromised. And this is made to look so much like the truth, that I interfere myself, and pay the creditors. We were ruined; but honor was safe. A few weeks later, my father died broken-hearted.”

Mme. de Thaller half rose from her seat with a gesture which indicated the joy of escaping at last a merciless bore. A glance from M. de Tregars riveted her to her seat, freezing upon her lips the jest she was about to utter.

“I have not done yet,” he said rudely.

And, without suffering any interruption,

“From this correspondence,” he resumed, “resulted the flagrant, irrefutable proof of a shameful intrigue, long since suspected by my old friend, General Count de Villegre. It became evident to me that my poor father had been most shamefully imposed upon by that mistress, so handsome and so dearly loved, and, later, despoiled by the husband of that mistress. But all this availed me nothing. Being ignorant of my father’s life and connections, the letters giving neither a name nor a precise detail, I knew not whom to accuse. Besides, in order to accuse, it is necessary to have, at least, some material proof.”

The baroness had resumed her seat; and every thing about her–her attitude, her gestures, the motion of her lips–seemed to say,

“You are my guest. Civility has its demands; but really you abuse your privileges.”

M. de Tregars went on,

“At this moment I was still a sort of savage, wholly absorbed in my experiments, and scarcely ever setting foot outside my laboratory. I was indignant; I ardently wished to find and to punish the villains who had robbed us: but I knew not how to go about it, nor in what direction to seek information. The wretches would, perhaps, have gone unpunished, but for a good and worthy man, now a commissary of police, to whom I once rendered a slight service, one night, in a riot, when he was close pressed by some half-dozen rascals. I explained the situation to him: he took much interest in it, promised his assistance, and marked out my line of conduct.”

Mme. de Thaller seemed restless upon her seat.

“I must confess,” she began, “that I am not wholly mistress of my time. I am dressed, as you see: I have to go out.”

If she had preserved any hope of adjourning the explanation which she felt coming, she must have lost it when she heard the tone in which M. de Tregars interrupted her.

“You can go out to-morrow.”

And, without hurrying,

“Advised, as I have just told you,” he continued, “and assisted by the experience of a professional man, I went first to No. 3, Rue des Bergers, in Grenelle. I found there some old people, the foreman of a neighboring factory and his wife, who had been living in the house for nearly twenty-five years. At my first question, they exchanged a glance, and commenced laughing. They remembered perfectly the Marquise de Javelle, which was but a nickname for a young and pretty laundress, whose real name was Euphrasie Taponnet. She had lived for eighteen months on the same landing as themselves: she had a lover, who passed himself off for a clerk, but who was, in fact, she had told them, a very wealthy nobleman. They added that she had given birth to a little girl, and that, two weeks later she had disappeared, and they had never heard a word from her. When I left them, they said to me, ‘If you see Phrasie, ask her if she ever knew old Chandour and his wife. I am sure she’ll remember us.'”

For the first time Mme. de Thaller shuddered slightly; but it was almost imperceptible.

“From Grenelle,” continued M. de Tregars, “I went to the house where my father’s mistress had lived under the name of Mme. Devil. I was in luck. I found there the same concierge as in 1853. As soon as I mentioned Mme. Devil, she answered me that she had not in the least forgotten her, but, on the contrary, would know her among a thousand. She was, she said, one of the prettiest little women she had ever seen, and the most generous tenant. I understood the hint, handed her a couple of napoleons, and heard from her every thing she knew on the subject. It seemed that this pretty Mme. Devil had, not one lover, but two,–the acknowledged one, who was the master, and footed the bills; and the other an anonymous one, who went out through the back-stairs, and who did not pay, on the contrary. The first was called the Marquis de Tregars: of the second, she had never known but the first name, Frederic. I tried to ascertain what had become of Mme. Devil; but the worthy concierge swore to me that she did not know.

“One morning, like a person who is going abroad, or who wishes to cover up her tracks, Mme. Devil had sent for a furniture-dealer, and a dealer in second-hand clothes, and had sold them every thing she had, going away with nothing but a little leather satchel, in which were her jewels and her money.”

The Baroness de Thaller still kept a good countenance. After examining her for a moment, with a sort of eager curiosity, Marius de Tregars went on,

“When I communicated this information to my friend, the commissary of police, he shook his head. ‘Two years ago,’ he told me, ‘I would have said, that’s more than we want to find those people; for the public records would have given us at once the key of this enigma. But we have had the war and the Commune; and the books of record have been burnt up. Still we must not give up. A last hope remains; and I know the man who is capable of realizing it.’

“Two days after, he brought me an excellent fellow, named Victor Chupin, in whom I could have entire confidence; for he was recommended to me by one of the men whom I like and esteem the most, the Duke de Champdoce. Giving up all idea of applying at the various mayors’ offices, Victor Chupin, with the patience and the tenacity of an Indian following a scent, began beating about the districts of Grenelle, Vargirard, and the Invalids. And not in vain; for, after a week of investigations he brought me a nurse, residing Rue de l’Universite, who remembered perfectly having once attended, on the occasion of her confinement, a remarkably pretty young woman, living in the Rue des Bergers, and nicknamed the Marquise de Javelle. And as she was a very orderly woman, who at all times had kept a very exact account of her receipts, she brought me a little book in which I read this entry: ‘For attending Euphrasie Taponnet, alias the Marquise de Javelle (a girl), one hundred francs.’ And this is not all. This woman informed me, moreover, that she had been requested to present the child at the mayor’s office, and that she had been duly registered there under the names of Euphrasie Cesarine Taponnet, born of Euphrasie Taponnet, laundress, and an unknown father. Finally she placed at my disposal her account-book and her testimony.”

Taxed beyond measure, the energy of the baroness was beginning to fail her; she was turning livid under her rice-powder. Still in the same icy tone,

“You can understand, madame,” said Marius de Tregars, “that this woman’s testimony, together with the letters which are in my possession, enables me to establish before the courts the exact date of the birth of a daughter whom my father had of his mistress. But that’s nothing yet. With renewed zeal, Victor Chupin had resumed his investigations. He had undertaken the examination of the marriage-registers in all the parishes of Paris, and, as early as the following week, he discovered at Notre Dame des Lorettes the entry of the marriage of Euphrasie Taponnet with Frederic de Thaller.”

Though she must have expected that name, the baroness started up violently and livid, and with a haggard look.

“It’s false!” she began in a choking voice.

A smile of ironical pity passed over Marius’ lips.

“Five minutes’ reflection will prove to you that it is useless to deny,” he interrupted. “But wait. In the books of that same church, Victor Chupin has found registered the baptism of a daughter of M. and Mme de Thaller, bearing the same names as the first one, –Euphrasie Cesarine.”

With a convulsive motion the baroness shrugged her shoulder.

“What does all that prove?” she said.

“That proves, madame, the well-settled intention of substituting one child for another; that proves that my father was imprudently deceived when he was made to believe that the second Cesarine was his daughter, the daughter in whose favor he had formerly disposed of over five hundred thousand francs; that proves that there is somewhere in the world a poor girl who has been basely forsaken by her mother, the Marquise de Javelle, now become the Baroness de Thaller.”

Beside herself with terror and anger,

“That is an infamous lie!” exclaimed the baroness. M. de Tregars bowed.

“The evidence of the truth of my statements,” he said, “I shall find at Louveciennes, and at the Hotel des Folies, Boulevard du Temple, Paris.”

Night had come. A footman came in carrying lamps, which he placed upon the mantelpiece. He was not all together one minute in the little parlor; but that one minute was enough to enable the Marquise de Thaller to recover her coolness, and to collect her ideas. When the footman retired, she had made up her mind, with the resolute promptness of a person accustomed to perilous situations. She gave up the discussion, and, drawing near to M. de Tregars,

“Enough allusions,” she said: “let us speak frankly, and face to face now. What do you want?”

But the change was too sudden not to arouse Marius’s suspicions.

“I want a great many things,” he replied.

“Still you must specify.”

“Well, I claim first the five hundred thousand francs which my father had settled upon his daughter,–the daughter whom you cast off.”

“And what next?”

“I want besides, my own and my father’s fortune, of which we have been robbed by M. de Thaller, with your assistance, madame.”

“Is that all, at least?”

M. de Tregars shook his head.

“That’s nothing yet,” he replied.

“Oh!”

“We have now to say something of Vincent Favoral’s affairs.”

An attorney who is defending the interests of a client is neither calmer nor cooler than Mme. de Thaller at this moment.

“Do the affairs of my husband’s cashier concern me, then?” she said with a shade of irony.

“Yes, madame, very much.”

“I am glad to hear it.”

“I know it from excellent sources, because, on my return from Louveciennes, I called in the Rue du Cirque, where I saw one Zelie Cadelle.”

He thought that the baroness would at least start on hearing that name. Not at all. With a look of profound astonishment,

“Rue du Cirque,” she repeated, like a person who is making a prodigious effort of memory,–“Rue du Cirque! Zelie Cadelle! Really, I do not understand.”

But, from the glance which M. de Tregars cast upon her, she must have understood that she would not easily draw from him the particulars which he had resolved not to tell.

“I believe, on the contrary,” he uttered, “that you understand perfectly.”

“Be it so, if you insist upon it. What do you ask for Favoral?”

“I demand, not for Favoral, but for the stockholders who have been impudently defrauded, the twelve millions which are missing from the funds of the Mutual Credit.”

Mme. de Thaller burst out laughing.

“Only that?” she said.

“Yes, only that!”

“Well, then, it seems to me that you should present your reclamations to M. Favoral himself. You have the right to run after him.”

“It is useless, for the reason that it is not he, the poor fool! who has carried off the twelve millions.”

“Who is it, then?”

“M. le Baron de Thaller, no doubt.”

With that accent of pity which one takes to reply to an absurd proposition,–“You are mad, my poor marquis,” said Mme. de Thaller.

“You do not think so.”

“But suppose I should refuse to do any thing more?”

He fixed upon her a glance in which she could read an irrevocable determination; and slowly,

“I have a perfect horror of scandal,” he replied, “and, as you perceive, I am trying to arrange every thing quietly between us. But, if I do not succeed thus, I must appeal to the courts.”

“Where are your proofs?”

“Don’t be afraid: I have proofs to sustain all my allegations.”

The baroness had stretched herself comfortably in her arm-chair.

“May we know them?” she inquired.

Marius was getting somewhat uneasy in presence of Mme. de Thaller’s imperturbable assurance. What hope had she? Could she see some means of escape from a situation apparently so desperate? Determined to prove to her that all was lost, and that she had nothing to do but to surrender,

“Oh! I know, madame,” he replied, “that you have taken your precautions. But, when Providence interferes, you see, human foresight does not amount to much. See, rather, what happens in regard to your first daughter,–the one you had when you were still only Marquise de Javelle.”

And briefly he called to her mind the principal incidents of Mlle. Lucienne’s life from the time that she had left her with the poor gardeners at Louveciennes, without giving either her name or her address,–the injury she had received by being run over by Mme. de Thaller’s carriage; the long letter she had written from the hospital, begging for assistance; her visit to the house, and her meeting with the Baron de Thaller; the effort to induce her to emigrate to America; her arrest by means of false information, and her escape, thanks to the kind peace-officer; the attempt upon her as she was going home late one night; and, finally, her imprisonment after the Commune, among the _petroleuses_, and her release through the interference of the same honest friend.

And, charging her with the responsibility of all these infamous acts, he paused for an answer or a protest.

And, as Mme. de Thaller said nothing,

“You are looking at me, madame, and wondering how I have discovered all that. A single word will explain it all. The peace-officer who saved your daughter is precisely the same to whom it was once my good fortune to render a service. By comparing notes, we have gradually reached the truth,–reached you, madame. Will you acknowledge now that I have more proofs than are necessary to apply to the courts?”

Whether she acknowledged it or not, she did not condescend to discuss.

“What then?” she said coldly.

But M. de Tregars was too much on his guard to expose himself, by continuing to speak thus, to reveal the secret of his designs.

Besides, whilst he was thoroughly satisfied as to the manoeuvres used to defraud his father he had, as yet, but presumptions on what concerned Vincent Favoral.

“Permit me not to say another word, madame,” he replied. “I have told you enough to enable you to judge of the value of my weapons.”

She must have felt that she could not make him change his mind, for she rose to go.

“That is sufficient,” she uttered. “I shall reflect; and to-morrow I shall give you an answer.”

She started to go; but M. de Tregars threw himself quickly between her and the door.

“Excuse me,” he said; “but it is not to-morrow that I want an answer: it is to-night, this instant!”

Ah, if she could have annihilated him with a look.

“Why, this is violence,” she said in a voice which betrayed the incredible effort she was making to control herself.

“It is imposed upon me by circumstances, madame.”

“You would be less exacting, if my husband were here.”

He must have been within hearing; for suddenly the door opened, and he appeared upon the threshold. There are people for whom the unforeseen does not exist, and whom no event can disconcert. Having ventured every thing, they expect every thing. Such was the Baron de Thaller. With a sagacious glance he examined his wife and M. de Tregars; and in a cordial tone,

“We are quarreling here?” he said.

“I am glad you have come!” exclaimed the baroness.

“What is the matter?”

“The matter is, that M. de Tregars is endeavoring to take an odious advantage of some incidents of our past life.”

“There’s woman’s exaggeration for you!” he said laughing.

And, holding out his hand to Marius,

“Let me make your peace–for you, my dear marquis,” he said: “that’s within the province of the husband.” But, instead of taking his extended hand, M. de Tregars stepped back.

“There is no more peace possible, sir, I am an enemy.”

“An enemy!” he repeated in a tone of surprise which was wonderfully well assumed, if it was not real.

“Yes,” interrupted the baroness; “and I must speak to you at once, Frederic. Come: M. de Tregars will wait for you.”

And she led her husband into the adjoining room, not without first casting upon Marius a look of burning and triumphant hatred.

Left alone, M. de Tregars sat down. Far from annoying him, this sudden intervention of the manager of the Mutual Credit seemed to him a stroke of fortune. It spared him an explanation more painful still than the first, and the unpleasant necessity of having to confound a villain by proving his infamy to him.

“And besides,” he thought, “when the husband and the wife have consulted with each other, they will acknowledge that they cannot resist, and that it is best to surrender.” The deliberation was brief. In less than ten minutes, M. de Thaller returned alone. He was pale; and his face expressed well the grief of an honest man who discovers too late that he has misplaced his confidence.

“My wife has told me all, sir,” he began.

M. de Tregars had risen. “Well?” he asked.

“You see me distressed. Ah, M. le Marquis! how could I ever expect such a thing from you?–you, whom I thought I had the right to look upon as a friend. And it is you, who, when a great misfortune befalls me, attempts to give me the finishing stroke. It is you who would crush me under the weight of slanders gathered in the gutter.”

M. de Tregars stopped him with a gesture.

“Mme. de Thaller cannot have correctly repeated my words to you, else you would not utter that word ‘slander.'”

“She has repeated them to me without the least change.”

“Then she cannot have told you the importance of the proofs I have in my hands.”

But the Baron persisted, as Mlle. Cesarine would have said, to “do it up in the tender style.”

“There is scarcely a family,” he resumed, “in which there is not some one of those painful secrets which they try to withhold from the wickedness of the world. There is one in mine. Yes, it is true, that before our marriage, my wife had had a child, whom poverty had compelled her to abandon. We have since done everything that was humanly possible to find that child, but without success. It is a great misfortune, which has weighed upon our life; but it is not a crime. If, however, you deem it your interest to divulge our secret, and to disgrace a woman, you are free to do so: I cannot prevent you. But I declare it to you, that fact is the only thing real in your accusations. You say that your father has been duped and defrauded. From whom did you get such an idea?

“From Marcolet, doubtless, a man without character, who has become my mortal enemy since the day when he tried a sharp game on me, and came out second best. Or from Costeclar, perhaps, who does not forgive me for having refused him my daughter’s hand, and who hates me because I know that he committed forgery once, and that he would be in prison but for your father’s extreme indulgence. Well, Costeclar and Marcolet have deceived you. If the Marquis de Tregars ruined himself, it is because he undertook a business that he knew nothing about, and speculated right and left. It does not take long to sink a fortune, even without the assistance of thieves.

“As to pretend that I have benefitted by the embezzlements of my cashier that is simply stupid; and there can be no one to suggest such a thing, except Jottras and Saint Pavin, two scoundrels whom I have had ten times the opportunity to send to prison and who were the accomplices of Favoral. Besides, the matter is in the hands of justice; and I shall prove in the broad daylight of the court-room, as I have already done in the office of the examining judge, that, to save the Mutual Credit, I have sacrificed more than half my private fortune.”

Tired of this speech, the evident object of which was to lead him to discuss, and to betray himself,

“Conclude, sir,” M. de Tregars interrupted harshly. Still in the same placid tone,

“To conclude is easy enough,” replied the baron. “My wife has told me that you were about to marry the daughter of my old cashier,–a very handsome girl, but without a sou. She ought to have a dowry.”

“Sir!”

“Let us show our hands. I am in a critical position: you know it, and you are trying to take advantage of it. Very well: we can still come to an understanding. What would you say, if I were to give to Mlle. Gilberte the dowry I intended for my daughter?”

All M. de Tregars’ blood rushed to his face.

“Ah, not another word!” he exclaimed with a gesture of unprecedented violence. But, controlling himself almost at once,

“I demand,” he added, “my father’s fortune. I demand that you should restore to the Mutual Credit Company the twelve millions which have been abstracted.”

“And if not?”

“Then I shall apply to the courts.”

They remained for a moment face to face, looking into each other’s eyes. Then,

“What have you decided?” asked M. de Tregars.

Without perhaps, suspecting that his offer was a new insult,

“I will go as far as fifteen hundred thousand francs,” replied M. de Thaller, “and I pay cash.”

“Is that your last word?”

“It is.”

“If I enter a complaint, with the proofs in my hands, you are lost.”

“We’ll see about that.”

To insist further would have been puerile.

“Very well, we’ll see, then,” said M. de Tregars. But as he walked out and got into his cab, which had been waiting for him at the door, he could not help wondering what gave the Baron de Thaller so much assurance, and whether he was not mistaken in his conjectures.

It was nearly eight o’clock, and Maxence, Mme. Favoral and Mlle. Gilberte must have been waiting for him with a feverish impatience; but he had eaten nothing since morning, and he stopped in front of one of the restaurants of the Boulevard.

He had just ordered his dinner, when a gentleman of a certain age, but active and vigorous still, of military bearing, wearing a mustache, and a tan-colored ribbon at his buttonhole, came to take a seat at the adjoining table.

In less than fifteen minutes M. de Tregars had despatched a bowl of soup and a slice of beef, and was hastening out, when his foot struck his neighbor’s foot, without his being able to understand how it had happened.

Though fully convinced that it was not his fault, he hastened to excuse himself. But the other began to talk angrily, and so loud, that everybody turned around.

Vexed as he was, Marius renewed his apologies.

But the other, like those cowards who think they have found a greater coward than themselves, was pouring forth a torrent of the grossest insults.

M. de Tregars was lifting his hand to administer a well-deserved correction, when suddenly the scene in the grand parlor of the Thaller mansion came back vividly to his mind. He saw again, as in the glass, the ill-looking man listening, with an anxious look, to Mme. de Thaller’s propositions, and afterwards sitting down to write.

“That’s it!” he exclaimed, a multitude of circumstances occurring to his mind, which had escaped him at the moment.

And, without further reflection, seizing his adversary by the throat, he threw him over on the table, holding him down with his knee.

“I am sure he must have the letter about him,” he said to the people who surrounded him.

And in fact he did take from the side-pocket of the villain a letter, which he unfolded, and commenced reading aloud,

“I am waiting for you, my dear major, come quick, for the thing is pressing,–a troublesome gentleman who is to be made to keep quiet. It will be for you the matter of a sword-thrust, and for us the occasion to divide a round amount.”

“And, that’s why he picked a quarrel with me,” added M. de Tregars.

Two waiters had taken hold of the villain, who was struggling furiously, and wanted to surrender him to the police.

“What’s the use?” said Marius. “I have his letter: that’s enough. The police will find him when they want him.”

And, getting back into his cab,

“Rue St. Gilles,” he ordered, “and lively, if possible.”

VIII

In the Rue St. Gilles the hours were dragging, slow and gloomy. After Maxence had left to go and meet M. de Tregars, Mme. Favoral and her daughter had remained alone with M. Chapelain, and had been compelled to bear the brunt of his wrath, and to hear his interminable complaints.

He was certainly an excellent man, that old lawyer, and too just to hold Mlle. Gilberte or her mother responsible for Vincent Favoral’s acts. He spoke the truth when he assured them that he had for them a sincere affection, and that they might rely upon his devotion. But he was losing a hundred and sixty thousand francs; and a man who loses such a large sum is naturally in bad humor, and not much disposed to optimism.

The cruellest enemies of the poor women would not have tortured them so mercilessly as this devoted friend.

He spared them not one sad detail of that meeting at the Mutual Credit office, from which he had just come. He exaggerated the proud assurance of the manager, and the confiding simplicity of the stockholders. “That Baron de Thaller,” he said to them, “is certainly the most impudent scoundrel and the cleverest rascal I have ever seen. You’ll see that he’ll get out of it with clean hands and full pockets. Whether or not he has accomplices, Vincent will be the scapegoat. We must make up our mind to that.”

His positive intention was to console Mme. Favoral and Gilberte. Had he sworn to drive them to distraction, he could not have succeeded better.

“Poor woman!” he said, “what is to become of you? Maxence is a good and honest fellow, I am sure, but so weak, so thoughtless, so fond of pleasure! He finds it difficult enough to get along by himself. Of what assistance will he be to you?”

Then came advice.

Mme. Favoral, he declared, should not hesitate to ask for a separation, which the tribunal would certainly grant. For want of this precaution, she would remain all her life under the burden of her husband’s debts, and constantly exposed to the annoyances of the creditors.

And always he wound up by saying,

“Who could ever have expected such a thing from Vincent,–a friend of twenty years’ standing! A hundred and sixty thousand francs! Who in the world can be trusted hereafter?”

Big tears were rolling slowly down Mme. Favoral’s withered cheeks. But Mlle. Gilberte was of those for whom the pity of others is the worst misfortune and the most acute suffering.

Twenty times she was on the point of exclaiming,

“Keep your compassion, sir: we are neither so much to be pitied nor so much forsaken as you think. Our misfortune has revealed to us a true friend,–one who does not speak, but acts.”

At last, as twelve o’clock struck, M. Chapelain withdrew, announcing that he would return the next day to get the news, and to bring further consolation.

“Thank Heaven, we are alone at last!” said Mlle. Gilberte.

But they had not much peace, for all that.

Great as had been the noise of Vincent Favoral’s disaster, it had not reached at once all those who had intrusted their savings to him. All day long, the belated creditors kept coming in; and the scenes of the morning were renewed on a smaller scale. Then legal summonses began to pour in, three or four at a time. Mme. Favoral was losing all courage.

“What disgrace!” she groaned. “Will it always be so hereafter?”

And she exhausted herself in useless conjectures upon the causes of the catastrophe; and such was the disorder of her mind, that she knew not what to hope and what to fear, and that from one minute to another she wished for the most contradictory things.

She would have been glad to hear that her husband was safe out of the country, and yet she would have deemed herself less miserable, had she known that he was hid somewhere in Paris.

And obstinately the same questions returned to her lips,

“Where is he now? What is he doing? What is he thinking about? How can he leave us without news? Is it possible that it is a woman who has driven him into the precipice? And, if so, who is that woman?”

Very different were Mlle. Gilberte’s thoughts.

The great calamity that befell her family had brought about the sudden realization of her hopes. Her father’s disaster had given her an opportunity to test the man she loved; and she had found him even superior to all that she could have dared to dream. The name of Favoral was forever disgraced; but she was going to be the wife of Marius, Marquise de Tregars.

And, in the candor of her loyal soul, she accused herself of not taking enough interest in her mother’s grief, and reproached herself for the quivers of joy which she felt within her.

“Where is Maxence?” asked Mme. Favoral.

“Where is M. de Tregars? Why have they told us nothing of their projects?”

“They will, no doubt, come home to dinner,” replied Mlle. Gilberte.

So well was she convinced of this, that she had given orders to the servant to have a somewhat better dinner than usual; and her heart was beating at the thought of being seated near Marius, between her mother and her brother.

At about six o’clock, the bell rang violently.

“There he is!” said the young girl, rising to her feet.

But no: it was only the porter, bringing up a summons ordering Mme. Favoral, under penalty of the law, to appear the next day, at one o’clock precisely, before the examining judge, Barban d’Avranchel, at his office in the Palace of Justice.

The poor woman came near fainting.

“What can this judge want with me? It ought to be forbidden to call a wife to testify against her husband,” she said.

“M. de Tregars will tell you what to answer, mamma,” said Mlle. Gilberte.

Meantime, seven o’clock came, then eight, and still neither Maxence nor M. de Tregars had come.

Both mother and daughter were becoming anxious, when at last, a little before nine, they heard steps in the hall.

Marius de Tregars appeared almost immediately.

He was pale; and his face bore the trace of the crushing fatigues of the day, of the cares which oppressed him, of the reflections which had been suggested to his mind by the quarrel of which he had nearly been the victim a few moments since.

“Maxence is not here?” he asked at once.

“We have not seen him,” answered Mlle. Gilberte.

He seemed so much surprised, that Mme. Favoral was frightened.

“What is the matter again, good God!” she exclaimed.

“Nothing, madame,” said M. de Tregars,–“nothing that should alarm you. Compelled, about two hours ago, to part from Maxence, I was to have met him here. Since he has not come, he must have been detained. I know where; and I will ask your permission to run and join him.”

He went out; but Mlle. Gilberte followed him in the hall, and, taking his hand,

“How kind of you!” she began, “and how can we ever sufficiently thank you?”

He interrupted her.

“You owe me no thanks, my beloved; for, in what I am doing, there is more selfishness than you think. It is my own cause, more than yours, that I am defending. Any way, every thing is going on well.”

And, without giving any more explanations, he started again. He had no doubt that Maxence, after leaving him, had run to the Hotel des Folies to give to Mlle. Lucienne an account of the day’s work. And, though somewhat annoyed that he had tarried so long, on second thought, he was not surprised.

It was, therefore, to the Hotel des Folies that he was going. Now that he had unmasked his batteries and begun the struggle, he was not sorry to meet Mlle. Lucienne.

In less than five minutes he had reached the Boulevard du Temple. In front of the Fortins’ narrow corridor a dozen idlers were standing, talking.

M. de Tregars was listening as he went along.

“It is a frightful accident,” said one,–“such a pretty girl, and so young too!”

“As to me,” said another, “it is the driver that I pity the most; for after all, if that pretty miss was in that carriage, it was for her own pleasure; whereas, the poor coachman was only attending to his business.”

A confused presentiment oppressed M. de Tregars’ heart. Addressing himself to one of those worthy citizens,

“Have you heard any particulars?”

Flattered by the confidence,

“Certainly I have,” he replied. “I didn’t see the thing with my own proper eyes; but my wife did. It was terrible. The carriage, a magnificent private carriage too, came from the direction of the Madeleine. The horses had run away; and already there had been an accident in the Place du Chateau d’Eau, where an old woman had been knocked down. Suddenly, here, over there, opposite the toy-shop, which is mine, by the way, the wheel of the carriage catches into the wheel of an enormous truck; and at once, palata! the coachman is thrown down, and so is the lady, who was inside,–a very pretty girl, who lives in this hotel.”

Leaving there the obliging narrator, M. de Tregars rushed through the narrow corridor of the Hotel des Folies. At the moment when he reached the yard, he found himself in presence of Maxence.

Pale, his head bare, his eyes wild, shaking with a nervous chill, the poor fellow looked like a madman. Noticing M. de Tregars,

“Ah, my friend!” he exclaimed, “what misfortune!”

“Lucienne?”

“Dead, perhaps. The doctor will not answer for her recovery. I am going to the druggist’s to get a prescription.”

He was interrupted by the commissary of police, whose kind protection had hitherto preserved Mlle. Lucienne. He was coming out of the little room on the ground-floor, which the Fortins used for an office, bedroom, and dining-room.

He had recognized Marius de Tregars, and, coming up to him, he pressed his hand, saying, “Well, you know?”

“Yes.”

“It is my fault, M. le Marquis; for we were fully notified. I knew so well that Mlle. Lucienne’s existence was threatened, I was so fully expecting a new attempt upon her life, that, whenever she went out riding, it was one of my men, wearing a footman’s livery, who took his seat by the side of the coachman. To-day my man was so busy, that I said to myself, ‘Bash, for once!’ And behold the consequences!”

It was with inexpressible astonishment that Maxence was listening. It was with a profound stupor that he discovered between Marius and the commissary that serious intimacy which is the result of long intercourse, real esteem, and common hopes.

“It is not an accident, then,” remarked M. de Tregars.

“The coachman has spoken, doubtless?”

“No: the wretch was killed on the spot.”

And, without waiting for another question,

“But don’t let us stay here,” said the commissary.

“Whilst Maxence runs to the drug-store, let us go into the Fortins’ office.”

The husband was alone there, the wife being at that moment with Mlle. Lucienne.

“Do me the favor to go and take a walk for about fifteen minutes,” said the commissary to him. “We have to talk, this gentleman and myself.”

Humbly, without a word, and like a man who does himself justice, M. Fortin slipped off.

And at once,–“It is clear, M. le Marquis, it is manifest, that a crime has been committed. Listen, and judge for yourself. I was just rising from dinner, when I was notified of what was called our poor Lucienne’s accident. Without even changing my clothes, I ran. The carriage was lying in the street, broken to pieces. Two policemen were holding the horses, which had been stopped. I inquire. I learn that Lucienne, picked up by Maxence, has been able to drag herself as far as the Hotel des Folies, and that the driver has been taken to the nearest drug-store. Furious at my own negligence, and tormented by vague suspicions, it is to the druggist’s that I go first, and in all haste. The driver was in a backroom, stretched on a mattress.

“His head having struck the angle of the curbstone, his skull was broken; and he had just breathed his last. It was, apparently, the annihilation of the hope which I had, of enlightening myself by