Chapter Three.

Chapter Three.The Household at Poissy.The letter which arrived at Poissy came with all the force of a shock to Mme. de Beaudrillart and her daughters. It was true that they were well aware that an evil menaced, but it appeared inconceivable that it should have arrived. Léon had assured them that something would turn up; he was confident that Paris must offer a means of evading the worst, and, indeed, in all that he had said had temporised, excused himself, and hinted at unforeseen misfortune. M. Georges, indeed, had spoken more plainly to Mlle. Claire, but his words had been indignantly scouted by Mme. de Beaudrillart. Even now, when Léon had taken refuge in a letter which might break the worst in his absence, and spare him the pain of seeing, not reproachful looks, but tears, they refused to face the crash as inevitable. That the De Beaudrillart home should pass from the De Beaudrillarts was absolutely out of the question. That Léon’s extravagance had brought about even threat of such disaster immediately required extenuating words, and a laying of blame on any shoulders except his. Of the three, Claire was the only one who permitted a tinge of bitterness to creep, now and then, into her words.“My poor boy!” cried Mme. de Beaudrillart, with tears in her eyes; “if this is hard for us, what must he not have suffered? Of course the affair will arrange itself somehow—Heaven forbid that I should be so faithless as to doubt it!—but the annoyance, the anxiety! Well, it is only another proof, if proof were wanted, of the incompetency of that Monsieur Georges. If Léon had not been so tender-hearted he would have sent him away long ago.”“I wonder if it would have really made any difference?” remarked Félicie, her eldest daughter, looking up from the altar-linen she was embroidering. She was near-sighted, and had to stoop very much to bring her work within range of her eyes, but she would not be persuaded to wear spectacles.“We should remember, however, that Monsieur Georges constantly implored Léon to pay a closer attention to his affairs. I must say, I think it is unjust to blame the poor man,” said Claire, sharply.“Then you must blame your brother, which would be far more unjust,” said her mother, with decision. “For what is an intendant engaged? Until this moment, I have always been under the impression it was that he might look after the estates, and avert the possibility of such a humiliating position as that in which our poor Léon now finds himself.”“It is certain that Léon must have been terribly extravagant,” persisted Mlle. Claire.“Oh, extravagant, extravagant!—I dare say. How can you, a woman, with every want provided for, and with absolutely no temptation to spend money—how can you possibly judge of the difficulties of a young man in Paris? A young man, too, such as Léon, impulsive, generous, attractive.” Claire agreed. “Yes, he is very attractive.”“And very generous,” added Félicie, looking up again, and holding her needle in the air. “When I spoke to him the other day about the pilgrimage, he told me we might count on him for fifty francs. Now Madame de Montbreuil assured me with tears that her husband would give no more than twenty.”“Ah, and it is that generosity of his of which people take advantage,” said his mother. “If we knew all the truth, which you may be sure he will never permit us to learn, I am certain we should find some kind-hearted action at the bottom of this trouble. He has come to the rescue of a friend, or helped a poor struggling creature, and been dragged in himself, poor fellow! As for the old count, I shall never forgive him. He must have guessed how disagreeable it was to Léon to be forced to apply to him for assistance; and after his indebtedness to your father, the least, the very least he could do, was to have helped him liberally, and to have rejoiced at the opportunity.”Mme. de Beaudrillart had a white face, an aquiline nose, and pinched lips—the features of a shrewd woman who would hold her own. She had little compassion for shortcomings, and never failed to point them out—perhaps to compensate for her blind adulation of her son. A large photograph of him stood on the table; she took it up, and carried it to the window, gazing at it fondly.“I suppose it is difficult for such a boy as Léon to avoid spending money in a place with so many temptations as Paris,” Claire remarked, in a low tone. She was like her mother, but her face was more sallow and sharper.“I don’t like you to speak as if this trouble were poor Léon’s fault,” said Félicie, in her thin, gentle voice.Claire began to laugh.“Whose, then? Yours or mine? I have not spent a penny for a month, so I cannot feel that I am responsible; and though you are disposed to be extravagant for the Church—”“That is only one’s duty.”“As you like, ma chère. I was going to add that you had no money to give, so that we can hardly lay our ruin at your door. Who is there but Léon?”“Our mother thinks he has met with some misfortune.”“Bah!” said Claire, under her breath. “It is no misfortune. I love Léon as well as you love him, but I can see his faults. He is no saint. This is his doing, and his only. He has squandered his money, and in bad ways.”“What bad ways?” asked her sister, with wide-open eyes. “If I were to tell you, you would be shocked.”“You can’t know!”“Do I not? Léon is horribly careless, and if you were to see some of the photographs and letters he leaves scattered about his room, you would acknowledge that I know what I am talking about.”Félicie thrust her fingers into her ears, and a flush rose in her thin cheek.“Hush, hush, Claire!” she cried. “It is a sin to speak of such things! It is a sin even to listen to you!”“Oh, I mean to be vielle fille, and privileged,” said Claire, with a laugh. “I could not go about the world with my eyes shut, as you do. Do you really believe it to be rose-coloured?”Mme. de Beaudrillart crossed the room from the window, where she had been standing.“What are you talking about, children?” she demanded.“Claire says such things,” murmured Félicie, resuming her work. “It is shocking!”“Félicie is a baby,” remarked the younger sister, contemptuously.“Hush, hush! I have often desired you, Claire, to be more careful in what you repeat before your sister. And I am surprised you can think of anything but this anxiety of poor Léon’s. I have been turning the matter over and over.”“Have you decided on anything?”“I will tell you. Of course, what he appears to dread cannot happen. It is impossible to conceive the idea of Poissy passing from the family.”“Impossible!” Claire repeated the word with emphasis.“But it is our duty to make all the sacrifices we can. We must economise more strictly.”“Oh, certainly, mamma,” said Félicie, cheerfully. “If you remember, in the last address which we had from the abbé, he counselled us to cast away superfluous luxuries. And here is our opportunity. It seems quite a coincidence.”Mme. de Beaudrillart nodded, waiting for her other daughter to speak. Claire lifted her head and glanced round the room.“I wish the coincidence had not arrived,” she said. “I am ready to do anything that is suggested; but I own I hardly see what we have which can be called superfluous.” Her mother folded her thin white hands in her lap.“We must do with fewer servants,” she said.“I suppose so,” Claire assented, doubtfully. “Which will you dismiss? François is the least necessary.”“To us, but not to Léon. No; I have been reflecting, and I believe we can dispense with Rose-Marie. You are both active, and I, I thank Heaven, not yet infirm, so that between us, with old Nanon and Jacques Charpentier to help, we shall very well be able to manage the house-work.”“Mamma,” gasped Félicie, with anguish in her voice, “I have just remembered the most terrible thing!”“What, then?”“I told you just now that Léon promised me fifty francs for our pilgrimage.”“Well, he cannot give it,” said Claire, hastily.“But consider! The money is already consecrated—”“How!”“Oh, in his own mind; and they have even told his Grandeur. If he withdraws the offer, will it not be sacrilege?”“Whatever it may be,” her sister declared, “I am certain you will not see your fifty francs.”“Oh, Claire, don’t say so! It is the most terrible position! A promise to the Church is as sacred as a vow—it must be kept, at whatever cost; and if Léon withdraws it, I shall never again have a moment’s peace! I am ready to make any sacrifices, but this is too unendurable!”It was quite true that she was shaken by the mere possibility—far more shaken than she had been by the news the post had brought. She began her lament again, almost in tears: “It would be a sin.”“If Léon has not the money, how can he give it?” demanded her sister, looking at her with pitying scorn. She accepted the fact that Félicie, being dévote, must be allowed to go certain lengths; but she thought her eagerness childish, and turned to her mother. “What else can we think of? It is so difficult to economise when already we have cut down our expenses to their very lowest.”“Not quite to their lowest. We must counter-order my winter cloak and your dresses. Write to Tours at once, Claire.”“Your cloak!” repeated her daughter, depreciatingly. “Is that necessary? You suffer so much from the cold, and the old one is so thin!”“It cannot be helped.” Mme. de Beaudrillart spoke with sharp impatience. “I am quite aware of what you say; but if Monsieur Georges and the other men have ruined Léon, we must take our share in his suffering.”“Poor Monsieur Georges! I really believe he did his utmost for the property.”“Do not talk of what you do not understand,” said her mother, coldly. “What do you know about business matters? You might judge from the results.”Claire, however, persisted.“I am certain he was not dishonest.”“If he was not dishonest, he was a fool, which is as dangerous.”“Shall you write to our poor Léon to-day, mamma?” asked Félicie, turning tear-laden eyes towards her.“Certainly. He will expect it. Dear fellow, I shall tell him that we are ready to make every possible effort, every sacrifice, and implore him not to afflict himself, because there can be no doubt that something will be arranged.”“But you will not say anything against the pilgrimage?”“Félicie, you are too foolish with your pilgrimages!” Claire was beginning, impatiently, when Mme. de Beaudrillart stopped her.“Do not vex your sister. It is very certain that we want all the prayers and the help we can have, and perhaps—” Suddenly she flung up her hands and clasped her head. “Oh, Léon, my poor Léon! To lose Poissy!”This little action in one hitherto so confident gave her daughters a shock; they seemed for the first time to realise the full force of the disaster hanging over their family, and to comprehend that it was close at hand. Claire stood up right, her face hard and set; Félicie pushed away her embroidery-frame, and broke into sobs. But the next moment Mme. de Beaudrillart’s strong will reasserted itself, and she lifted her head rigidly.“This is weak,” she said. “Félicie, go on with your work. Claire, send Rose-Marie to my room, and see whether Pierre has called for the letters. Do not on any account allow him to leave without mine.”All that day the sisters talked together; if without much sympathy, yet with that certain amount which a close tie of relationship must bring in such a crisis. Their mother remained absolutely silent. She took up one thing after another, and laid each down with restless unquiet; more than once walked without apparent purpose to the window, and stood mutely looking out. Poissy had never been fuller of charm. Young spring was at work beautifying the old château; a sweet, clear sunlight fell upon the delicate turret, and flung light shadows along the open stone-work with which it was fretted. Over a doorway was carved the Beaudrillart escutcheon, and a slender tuft of grass waved audaciously from a crevice above. If, as she looked, there was agony in Mme. de Beaudrillart’s heart, she made no sign. Only Claire noticed how tightly her hands were locked together and her lips compressed; but even Claire, whose feelings most resembled hers, dared not touch again upon the subject near all their hearts, although there was more than one question which she longed to have answered. Visitors came, and she received them as usual—even talking undauntedly of certain improvements which her son contemplated making about the château.“Monsieur de Beaudrillart does not, however, spend much time here?” asked one lady, curiously. Like others in the neighbourhood, she had heard rumours, and her visit was in a great measure due to a desire to know how much was true. “Apparently he finds it dull?”“I hope we may see more of him in the future,” returned the mother, looking at her without shrinking.“I am glad of it; he is always so pleasant! What can we do to keep him? I said to my husband that his family should persuade him to marry, for nowadays there are always plenty of girls going about with really fine fortunes; and he need not be particular as to family,” she added, with a laugh. “He, if any one, could afford a roturier for his father-in-law.”“I agree with you,” said Mme. de Beaudrillart, calmly; “but I am afraid that a fortune has no attraction for Léon. He is unlike other young men, for he was born with romantic ideas, and I, for one, cannot wish it to be otherwise.”“She could hardly have been so cool if all we have heard is true,” said Mme. de la Ferraye to her husband, as they drove away. “She talked of his return, and even of improvements to the estate. I cannot believe the rumour. It is incredible!”“She is a strong woman; but it is true, for all that.”“Then whatcanhe do? He is not the man to be chosen for any public appointment.”“No. He is clever enough, but his education has taught him nothing beyond the classics, and he has no habits of industry.”Mme. de la Ferraye shrugged her pretty shoulders.“As I told his mother, he must marry—there is nothing else for it. Let us find him a wife, Gaspard, though, Heaven knows, I pity the poor girl who has that will of iron for a mother-in-law!”“Or Léon de Beaudrillart for a husband.”“No, no; now you are too hard, and you will never get me to agree with you. There is something so fascinating and charming about him, that I am convinced he would make his wife very happy.”“If she were content to keep her eyes shut.”“Well, she would be. Trust me, Gaspard, Léon’s wife, whoever she was, would believe nothing against him.”“In that case—”While the La Ferrayes were taking leave, Mme. de Beaudrillart stood rigidly unbending; but as soon as they were gone she hurriedly left the room.“Poor mamma!” cried Félicie, her eyes filling with ready tears.“That woman came from curiosity,” Claire said, pacing up and down indignantly; “she has heard something, and meant to worm it out of us. It is too horrible that Léon’s affairs should be the common gossip of the country!”“Claire,” faltered her sister.“Well?”“Do you—do you think it even possible that we might have to—to leave Poissy?”“Monsieur Georges feared it long ago. But I cannot believe it,” said Claire, clinching her hands. “Poissy without a Beaudrillart! No—it will not be permitted!”“Heaven will not interfere if Léon fails in his promises to the Church,” sobbed Félicie. With her the family will, not so openly apparent, took refuge in a gentle obstinacy, which was perhaps more irritating. “I believe these misfortunes are sent as a chastisement for my having listened to you, and not left the world when Père Roget spoke to me about it. I am certain that I had a vocation, and then what might I not have gained for Léon! I wonder where we shall live? In Tours? Imagine losing the Abbé Nisard as one’s director!”“Oh, be quiet, Félicie, or you will drive me mad! How can you think, how can you talk, of these horrible possibilities? Something must be done. If only I were a man!”“Why?” asked her sister, opening her eyes.“Because I would work, fight, starve!”She walked swiftly up and down the room like some caged creature.“Léon is a man, and it doesn’t seem that he can do anything.”“No, butIwould!” cried Claire, flinging back her head. “If I could only be out in the world, you would see that I should not allow myself to be beaten!”Félicie shuddered.“That terrible world. I give constant thanks that I am not forced into it. It is wicked of you, Claire, even to wish to be there; for what would become of you in all its temptations?”“I should get through them somehow, like other people, I suppose,” said the younger sister, recklessly. “You and I are different, Félicie. I do not profess to be devote. All your good little fripperies would weary me—oh, weary me to death! I could not ask permission from the abbé as to every book I read, almost as to every word I spoke, nor, though there is time enough on one’s hands, Heaven knows, spend it in collecting money from the peasants, or in working banners. I should hate a convent, unless—perhaps—I were Mother Superior.”“Yes, we are different,” Félicie placidly agreed. “I am happy to be directed.”Claire looked at her with a short laugh.“And yet, my dear, you like your own way, and generally get it.”Félicie took no notice of the criticism, merely remarking, with a sigh:“Without Rose-Marie we shall have a great deal to do, and I only hope my other duties will not suffer. I shall draw up a little paper and arrange my time. Poor Rose-Marie! What a grief for her!”“For her! A servant! Do you understand what lies before us—us Beaudrillarts?”Claire’s tone was tense and sharp. Félicie sighed again and cried a little, taking care not to drop a tear upon her work. She had charge of the ecclesiastical vestments of the parish, and was almost as proud of them as of the Beaudrillart blood.The next day all was joy at Poissy. Léon wrote briefly, merely saying that he had managed to raise the full sum of money by a loan. He would thus be able to consolidate his debts, and have one creditor in place of many.“It is true,”—this was what he wrote—“that the loan must be repaid, but for this purpose look forward, dear mother, to a change in all my habits. I am going to renounce wandering, and to spend my time at Poissy, cease to play the fool, farm, economise, reform—Heaven knows what admirable paths do not stretch themselves before me! You will make them so charming that I shall not regret Paris, and I shall be so changed that you will forget your troublesome son, and fall in love with a new, a whitewashed, Léon, at whom, if only the past is merciful, no one will dare fling a stone.”“Ah, my dear one!” cried Mme. de Beaudrillart, passionately kissing the letter.“Tell Félicie I mean to redeem my promise, and she shall have a hundred francs instead of fifty for her do—” If he had been going to write dolls, he scratched out the irreverent word and substituted “decorations. I return to-morrow, or so I hope; but, come what may, rejoice, dear mother, that Poissy is spared to us.”If there were one or two slightly enigmatical expressions in his letter, the mother did not notice them; nor even to her daughters did she show outward signs of exultation. She announced the change to them by saying, calmly:“It is as I expected: Léon has arranged matters; but we must still economise strictly.”Félicie went about with clasped hands and a radiant face, enchanted with her hundred francs. Claire’s features seemed to have grown a little sharper, and her voice more haughty, that was all; and so the cloud rolled off.Léon came home. He looked ill; but, then, as Mme. de Beaudrillart said, he had been sadly harassed. She was a little disappointed that he did not communicate more particulars of the interview with M. de Cadanet, for on this point, although he generally talked very freely, he was reticent.After all, as she told herself, what did it matter?

The letter which arrived at Poissy came with all the force of a shock to Mme. de Beaudrillart and her daughters. It was true that they were well aware that an evil menaced, but it appeared inconceivable that it should have arrived. Léon had assured them that something would turn up; he was confident that Paris must offer a means of evading the worst, and, indeed, in all that he had said had temporised, excused himself, and hinted at unforeseen misfortune. M. Georges, indeed, had spoken more plainly to Mlle. Claire, but his words had been indignantly scouted by Mme. de Beaudrillart. Even now, when Léon had taken refuge in a letter which might break the worst in his absence, and spare him the pain of seeing, not reproachful looks, but tears, they refused to face the crash as inevitable. That the De Beaudrillart home should pass from the De Beaudrillarts was absolutely out of the question. That Léon’s extravagance had brought about even threat of such disaster immediately required extenuating words, and a laying of blame on any shoulders except his. Of the three, Claire was the only one who permitted a tinge of bitterness to creep, now and then, into her words.

“My poor boy!” cried Mme. de Beaudrillart, with tears in her eyes; “if this is hard for us, what must he not have suffered? Of course the affair will arrange itself somehow—Heaven forbid that I should be so faithless as to doubt it!—but the annoyance, the anxiety! Well, it is only another proof, if proof were wanted, of the incompetency of that Monsieur Georges. If Léon had not been so tender-hearted he would have sent him away long ago.”

“I wonder if it would have really made any difference?” remarked Félicie, her eldest daughter, looking up from the altar-linen she was embroidering. She was near-sighted, and had to stoop very much to bring her work within range of her eyes, but she would not be persuaded to wear spectacles.

“We should remember, however, that Monsieur Georges constantly implored Léon to pay a closer attention to his affairs. I must say, I think it is unjust to blame the poor man,” said Claire, sharply.

“Then you must blame your brother, which would be far more unjust,” said her mother, with decision. “For what is an intendant engaged? Until this moment, I have always been under the impression it was that he might look after the estates, and avert the possibility of such a humiliating position as that in which our poor Léon now finds himself.”

“It is certain that Léon must have been terribly extravagant,” persisted Mlle. Claire.

“Oh, extravagant, extravagant!—I dare say. How can you, a woman, with every want provided for, and with absolutely no temptation to spend money—how can you possibly judge of the difficulties of a young man in Paris? A young man, too, such as Léon, impulsive, generous, attractive.” Claire agreed. “Yes, he is very attractive.”

“And very generous,” added Félicie, looking up again, and holding her needle in the air. “When I spoke to him the other day about the pilgrimage, he told me we might count on him for fifty francs. Now Madame de Montbreuil assured me with tears that her husband would give no more than twenty.”

“Ah, and it is that generosity of his of which people take advantage,” said his mother. “If we knew all the truth, which you may be sure he will never permit us to learn, I am certain we should find some kind-hearted action at the bottom of this trouble. He has come to the rescue of a friend, or helped a poor struggling creature, and been dragged in himself, poor fellow! As for the old count, I shall never forgive him. He must have guessed how disagreeable it was to Léon to be forced to apply to him for assistance; and after his indebtedness to your father, the least, the very least he could do, was to have helped him liberally, and to have rejoiced at the opportunity.”

Mme. de Beaudrillart had a white face, an aquiline nose, and pinched lips—the features of a shrewd woman who would hold her own. She had little compassion for shortcomings, and never failed to point them out—perhaps to compensate for her blind adulation of her son. A large photograph of him stood on the table; she took it up, and carried it to the window, gazing at it fondly.

“I suppose it is difficult for such a boy as Léon to avoid spending money in a place with so many temptations as Paris,” Claire remarked, in a low tone. She was like her mother, but her face was more sallow and sharper.

“I don’t like you to speak as if this trouble were poor Léon’s fault,” said Félicie, in her thin, gentle voice.

Claire began to laugh.

“Whose, then? Yours or mine? I have not spent a penny for a month, so I cannot feel that I am responsible; and though you are disposed to be extravagant for the Church—”

“That is only one’s duty.”

“As you like, ma chère. I was going to add that you had no money to give, so that we can hardly lay our ruin at your door. Who is there but Léon?”

“Our mother thinks he has met with some misfortune.”

“Bah!” said Claire, under her breath. “It is no misfortune. I love Léon as well as you love him, but I can see his faults. He is no saint. This is his doing, and his only. He has squandered his money, and in bad ways.”

“What bad ways?” asked her sister, with wide-open eyes. “If I were to tell you, you would be shocked.”

“You can’t know!”

“Do I not? Léon is horribly careless, and if you were to see some of the photographs and letters he leaves scattered about his room, you would acknowledge that I know what I am talking about.”

Félicie thrust her fingers into her ears, and a flush rose in her thin cheek.

“Hush, hush, Claire!” she cried. “It is a sin to speak of such things! It is a sin even to listen to you!”

“Oh, I mean to be vielle fille, and privileged,” said Claire, with a laugh. “I could not go about the world with my eyes shut, as you do. Do you really believe it to be rose-coloured?”

Mme. de Beaudrillart crossed the room from the window, where she had been standing.

“What are you talking about, children?” she demanded.

“Claire says such things,” murmured Félicie, resuming her work. “It is shocking!”

“Félicie is a baby,” remarked the younger sister, contemptuously.

“Hush, hush! I have often desired you, Claire, to be more careful in what you repeat before your sister. And I am surprised you can think of anything but this anxiety of poor Léon’s. I have been turning the matter over and over.”

“Have you decided on anything?”

“I will tell you. Of course, what he appears to dread cannot happen. It is impossible to conceive the idea of Poissy passing from the family.”

“Impossible!” Claire repeated the word with emphasis.

“But it is our duty to make all the sacrifices we can. We must economise more strictly.”

“Oh, certainly, mamma,” said Félicie, cheerfully. “If you remember, in the last address which we had from the abbé, he counselled us to cast away superfluous luxuries. And here is our opportunity. It seems quite a coincidence.”

Mme. de Beaudrillart nodded, waiting for her other daughter to speak. Claire lifted her head and glanced round the room.

“I wish the coincidence had not arrived,” she said. “I am ready to do anything that is suggested; but I own I hardly see what we have which can be called superfluous.” Her mother folded her thin white hands in her lap.

“We must do with fewer servants,” she said.

“I suppose so,” Claire assented, doubtfully. “Which will you dismiss? François is the least necessary.”

“To us, but not to Léon. No; I have been reflecting, and I believe we can dispense with Rose-Marie. You are both active, and I, I thank Heaven, not yet infirm, so that between us, with old Nanon and Jacques Charpentier to help, we shall very well be able to manage the house-work.”

“Mamma,” gasped Félicie, with anguish in her voice, “I have just remembered the most terrible thing!”

“What, then?”

“I told you just now that Léon promised me fifty francs for our pilgrimage.”

“Well, he cannot give it,” said Claire, hastily.

“But consider! The money is already consecrated—”

“How!”

“Oh, in his own mind; and they have even told his Grandeur. If he withdraws the offer, will it not be sacrilege?”

“Whatever it may be,” her sister declared, “I am certain you will not see your fifty francs.”

“Oh, Claire, don’t say so! It is the most terrible position! A promise to the Church is as sacred as a vow—it must be kept, at whatever cost; and if Léon withdraws it, I shall never again have a moment’s peace! I am ready to make any sacrifices, but this is too unendurable!”

It was quite true that she was shaken by the mere possibility—far more shaken than she had been by the news the post had brought. She began her lament again, almost in tears: “It would be a sin.”

“If Léon has not the money, how can he give it?” demanded her sister, looking at her with pitying scorn. She accepted the fact that Félicie, being dévote, must be allowed to go certain lengths; but she thought her eagerness childish, and turned to her mother. “What else can we think of? It is so difficult to economise when already we have cut down our expenses to their very lowest.”

“Not quite to their lowest. We must counter-order my winter cloak and your dresses. Write to Tours at once, Claire.”

“Your cloak!” repeated her daughter, depreciatingly. “Is that necessary? You suffer so much from the cold, and the old one is so thin!”

“It cannot be helped.” Mme. de Beaudrillart spoke with sharp impatience. “I am quite aware of what you say; but if Monsieur Georges and the other men have ruined Léon, we must take our share in his suffering.”

“Poor Monsieur Georges! I really believe he did his utmost for the property.”

“Do not talk of what you do not understand,” said her mother, coldly. “What do you know about business matters? You might judge from the results.”

Claire, however, persisted.

“I am certain he was not dishonest.”

“If he was not dishonest, he was a fool, which is as dangerous.”

“Shall you write to our poor Léon to-day, mamma?” asked Félicie, turning tear-laden eyes towards her.

“Certainly. He will expect it. Dear fellow, I shall tell him that we are ready to make every possible effort, every sacrifice, and implore him not to afflict himself, because there can be no doubt that something will be arranged.”

“But you will not say anything against the pilgrimage?”

“Félicie, you are too foolish with your pilgrimages!” Claire was beginning, impatiently, when Mme. de Beaudrillart stopped her.

“Do not vex your sister. It is very certain that we want all the prayers and the help we can have, and perhaps—” Suddenly she flung up her hands and clasped her head. “Oh, Léon, my poor Léon! To lose Poissy!”

This little action in one hitherto so confident gave her daughters a shock; they seemed for the first time to realise the full force of the disaster hanging over their family, and to comprehend that it was close at hand. Claire stood up right, her face hard and set; Félicie pushed away her embroidery-frame, and broke into sobs. But the next moment Mme. de Beaudrillart’s strong will reasserted itself, and she lifted her head rigidly.

“This is weak,” she said. “Félicie, go on with your work. Claire, send Rose-Marie to my room, and see whether Pierre has called for the letters. Do not on any account allow him to leave without mine.”

All that day the sisters talked together; if without much sympathy, yet with that certain amount which a close tie of relationship must bring in such a crisis. Their mother remained absolutely silent. She took up one thing after another, and laid each down with restless unquiet; more than once walked without apparent purpose to the window, and stood mutely looking out. Poissy had never been fuller of charm. Young spring was at work beautifying the old château; a sweet, clear sunlight fell upon the delicate turret, and flung light shadows along the open stone-work with which it was fretted. Over a doorway was carved the Beaudrillart escutcheon, and a slender tuft of grass waved audaciously from a crevice above. If, as she looked, there was agony in Mme. de Beaudrillart’s heart, she made no sign. Only Claire noticed how tightly her hands were locked together and her lips compressed; but even Claire, whose feelings most resembled hers, dared not touch again upon the subject near all their hearts, although there was more than one question which she longed to have answered. Visitors came, and she received them as usual—even talking undauntedly of certain improvements which her son contemplated making about the château.

“Monsieur de Beaudrillart does not, however, spend much time here?” asked one lady, curiously. Like others in the neighbourhood, she had heard rumours, and her visit was in a great measure due to a desire to know how much was true. “Apparently he finds it dull?”

“I hope we may see more of him in the future,” returned the mother, looking at her without shrinking.

“I am glad of it; he is always so pleasant! What can we do to keep him? I said to my husband that his family should persuade him to marry, for nowadays there are always plenty of girls going about with really fine fortunes; and he need not be particular as to family,” she added, with a laugh. “He, if any one, could afford a roturier for his father-in-law.”

“I agree with you,” said Mme. de Beaudrillart, calmly; “but I am afraid that a fortune has no attraction for Léon. He is unlike other young men, for he was born with romantic ideas, and I, for one, cannot wish it to be otherwise.”

“She could hardly have been so cool if all we have heard is true,” said Mme. de la Ferraye to her husband, as they drove away. “She talked of his return, and even of improvements to the estate. I cannot believe the rumour. It is incredible!”

“She is a strong woman; but it is true, for all that.”

“Then whatcanhe do? He is not the man to be chosen for any public appointment.”

“No. He is clever enough, but his education has taught him nothing beyond the classics, and he has no habits of industry.”

Mme. de la Ferraye shrugged her pretty shoulders.

“As I told his mother, he must marry—there is nothing else for it. Let us find him a wife, Gaspard, though, Heaven knows, I pity the poor girl who has that will of iron for a mother-in-law!”

“Or Léon de Beaudrillart for a husband.”

“No, no; now you are too hard, and you will never get me to agree with you. There is something so fascinating and charming about him, that I am convinced he would make his wife very happy.”

“If she were content to keep her eyes shut.”

“Well, she would be. Trust me, Gaspard, Léon’s wife, whoever she was, would believe nothing against him.”

“In that case—”

While the La Ferrayes were taking leave, Mme. de Beaudrillart stood rigidly unbending; but as soon as they were gone she hurriedly left the room.

“Poor mamma!” cried Félicie, her eyes filling with ready tears.

“That woman came from curiosity,” Claire said, pacing up and down indignantly; “she has heard something, and meant to worm it out of us. It is too horrible that Léon’s affairs should be the common gossip of the country!”

“Claire,” faltered her sister.

“Well?”

“Do you—do you think it even possible that we might have to—to leave Poissy?”

“Monsieur Georges feared it long ago. But I cannot believe it,” said Claire, clinching her hands. “Poissy without a Beaudrillart! No—it will not be permitted!”

“Heaven will not interfere if Léon fails in his promises to the Church,” sobbed Félicie. With her the family will, not so openly apparent, took refuge in a gentle obstinacy, which was perhaps more irritating. “I believe these misfortunes are sent as a chastisement for my having listened to you, and not left the world when Père Roget spoke to me about it. I am certain that I had a vocation, and then what might I not have gained for Léon! I wonder where we shall live? In Tours? Imagine losing the Abbé Nisard as one’s director!”

“Oh, be quiet, Félicie, or you will drive me mad! How can you think, how can you talk, of these horrible possibilities? Something must be done. If only I were a man!”

“Why?” asked her sister, opening her eyes.

“Because I would work, fight, starve!”

She walked swiftly up and down the room like some caged creature.

“Léon is a man, and it doesn’t seem that he can do anything.”

“No, butIwould!” cried Claire, flinging back her head. “If I could only be out in the world, you would see that I should not allow myself to be beaten!”

Félicie shuddered.

“That terrible world. I give constant thanks that I am not forced into it. It is wicked of you, Claire, even to wish to be there; for what would become of you in all its temptations?”

“I should get through them somehow, like other people, I suppose,” said the younger sister, recklessly. “You and I are different, Félicie. I do not profess to be devote. All your good little fripperies would weary me—oh, weary me to death! I could not ask permission from the abbé as to every book I read, almost as to every word I spoke, nor, though there is time enough on one’s hands, Heaven knows, spend it in collecting money from the peasants, or in working banners. I should hate a convent, unless—perhaps—I were Mother Superior.”

“Yes, we are different,” Félicie placidly agreed. “I am happy to be directed.”

Claire looked at her with a short laugh.

“And yet, my dear, you like your own way, and generally get it.”

Félicie took no notice of the criticism, merely remarking, with a sigh:

“Without Rose-Marie we shall have a great deal to do, and I only hope my other duties will not suffer. I shall draw up a little paper and arrange my time. Poor Rose-Marie! What a grief for her!”

“For her! A servant! Do you understand what lies before us—us Beaudrillarts?”

Claire’s tone was tense and sharp. Félicie sighed again and cried a little, taking care not to drop a tear upon her work. She had charge of the ecclesiastical vestments of the parish, and was almost as proud of them as of the Beaudrillart blood.

The next day all was joy at Poissy. Léon wrote briefly, merely saying that he had managed to raise the full sum of money by a loan. He would thus be able to consolidate his debts, and have one creditor in place of many.

“It is true,”—this was what he wrote—“that the loan must be repaid, but for this purpose look forward, dear mother, to a change in all my habits. I am going to renounce wandering, and to spend my time at Poissy, cease to play the fool, farm, economise, reform—Heaven knows what admirable paths do not stretch themselves before me! You will make them so charming that I shall not regret Paris, and I shall be so changed that you will forget your troublesome son, and fall in love with a new, a whitewashed, Léon, at whom, if only the past is merciful, no one will dare fling a stone.”

“Ah, my dear one!” cried Mme. de Beaudrillart, passionately kissing the letter.

“Tell Félicie I mean to redeem my promise, and she shall have a hundred francs instead of fifty for her do—” If he had been going to write dolls, he scratched out the irreverent word and substituted “decorations. I return to-morrow, or so I hope; but, come what may, rejoice, dear mother, that Poissy is spared to us.”

If there were one or two slightly enigmatical expressions in his letter, the mother did not notice them; nor even to her daughters did she show outward signs of exultation. She announced the change to them by saying, calmly:

“It is as I expected: Léon has arranged matters; but we must still economise strictly.”

Félicie went about with clasped hands and a radiant face, enchanted with her hundred francs. Claire’s features seemed to have grown a little sharper, and her voice more haughty, that was all; and so the cloud rolled off.

Léon came home. He looked ill; but, then, as Mme. de Beaudrillart said, he had been sadly harassed. She was a little disappointed that he did not communicate more particulars of the interview with M. de Cadanet, for on this point, although he generally talked very freely, he was reticent.

After all, as she told herself, what did it matter?

Chapter Four.Nathalie.Young M. de Beaudrillart was as good as his word. In her wildest dreams even his mother—whose hopes had undergone many deaths and many resurrections—had not ventured to picture him so content to remain in the quiet of the provinces as he proved himself. Whatever distaste he felt, very few outward signs betrayed it. An easy temper came to his help, and carried him lightly over rough places. He applied himself to looking into his affairs, a work which the unlucky M. Georges had long and vainly urged, and he showed a somewhat unexpected aptitude for business matters. He made no protests—beyond an occasionally wry face—against the strict economies of the household, and, to Félicie’s unbounded delight, not only refrained from mocking her pious works, but more than once gave her unexpected assistance. To the women it appeared as if golden days had begun, only Claire felt that here was the fruit of M. Georges’ prudent counsels, and thought it hard that M. Georges himself should remain under undeserved obloquy. Perhaps these few months were the happiest Mme. de Beaudrillart had ever known. Her belief in her son was justified—more than justified—and she looked the world proudly in the face.Then Léon made another step in the path of surprises, and fell in love. As has been already remarked, a rich marriage had seemed the easiest way out of his difficulties, and again and again had been suggested to him, not only by his mother, but by his boon companions. Fortunes were dangled temptingly before his eyes, and he would none of them. Some strange scruple—strange, at least, in the man—some mastering sentiment, had rooted itself so deeply in his heart that it was not to be disposed of. It was the noblest thing there, and it was sighed over and laughed at, as first one, then another, tried their hand at eradication. Léon would not give it up. He declined to marry for anything short of love, and he had persuaded himself that he should never know what that meant, when he accidentally caught sight of a tall, fair, innocent-faced girl, with red-brown hair, and, once seen, would not rest until he had contrived to hear her speak and to learn her name. Then he went home and implored his mother to make the necessary advances.Mme. de Beaudrillart yielded with scarcely a word, and yet the pang to her was great. She had been prepared for, had even urged upon her son, a sacrifice to mammon in the shape of a wife of inferior birth and large wealth. If such a one had been chosen in Paris she would hardly have sighed; but it was a different matter to be asked to accept a roturière at their very doors. The wrong to the De Beaudrillarts became infinitely more insulting, and though, as has been said, strong common-sense led her immediately to grasp the advantage and to yield, it was tolerably certain that she would never forgive the offender.She spoke of it, however, to her daughters calmly one morning as they were walking home from mass.—Félicie anxiously inquired for her brother, who occasionally, though rarely, accompanied them, and was told that he had driven that morning into Tours.“To Tours? And so early!”“He finds himself very often in Tours of late,” remarked Claire, significantly.“He will have been at mass at the cathedral.”“There is some one, then, whom he wishes to see?” Claire continued. “Does he think of marrying?”Félicie cried out: “Claire, how you talk!”“Your brother has different notions from other young men,” said Mme. de Beaudrillart, speaking, as her younger daughter detected, with an effort. “You are correct in supposing that he has an idea of marriage, and I am sure he is right. Good-morning, Martine. I did not see your eldest son at mass.”“No, madame,” said the old woman, sadly; “he has come back from his soldiering saying things which would have made his father’s hair stand on end; and though I tell him that, even if matters are as his clever friends tell him, there’s always a chance that he will find Monsieur Abbé right after all, and then he will wish he had taken the precaution of going to mass, he won’t listen.”“That is very bad,” said Mme. de Beaudrillart, gravely. “You should not have him at home with the others, Martine.”“Ah, madame, he is my son, and the good God gave him to me!”“That is true; but I am afraid you are weak with him. Well, I will speak to Monsieur Nisard, and he will talk to Jacques.”She moved on, and Claire cried, eagerly: “Mamma, I am dying of impatience! Of whom is Léon thinking?”“The young lady is Mademoiselle Bourget.”“Mademoiselle Bourget!” exclaimed Claire, stupefied. “But—you do not mean the daughter of Monsieur Bourget, at Tours?”“Precisely.”“Léon! A Beaudrillart marry a Tours bourgeoise!”“Is the idea so new to you?” demanded her mother, coldly. “For myself, I am satisfied. Poor Léon’s misfortunes have brought him many trials. With this marriage he will be able to pay off debts which otherwise would have hung round his neck for years, and be relieved from some of the privations which he has borne so nobly. Reflect whether it is not so.” Mlle. Claire marched towards the bridge, upright and frowning. It was Félicie who broke into gasping protestations.“But you do not mean that terrible radical of a man who opposes all that is good and holy in the neighbourhood! Mamma, impossible! Say that it is impossible!”“I believe that he is a radical.”“An enemy of the Church.”“That is not inconceivable. Hush, Félicie, and submit yourself to the inevitable. If Léon has resolved to marry the girl, he will do it.”“Oh,” moaned her daughter, “why was any one so cruel as to mention her to him?”Mme. de Beaudrillart was silent. To have told Félicie that Nathalie was Léon’s own choice would have shocked her further; and while detesting the proposed marriage more than either of her daughters, the task of reconciling them to it caused her sharp impatience. Nor were her prejudices without excuse.M. Bourget was a retired builder, who, by dint of extreme sagacity and small economies, had contrived to amass a large fortune. It should be said at once that no suspicion of dishonesty had touched his name. It was popularly believed that he had never been known to forego an advantage or to condone a debt; but this reputation did him no harm in the eyes of those who had not felt his grasp, and the town was inclined to be proud of its shrewd citizen, the more so as he was never so happy as when he was in the thick of battle, where it is but doing him bare justice to allow that he seldom permitted himself to be beaten. He fought municipal authorities, he fought the arrondissement, he fought deputies and bishops, with equal delight and success, until his name had become in certain quarters a thing of terror. Radical and republican, it was considered extremely probable that he would put himself forward as a candidate for the Conseil-Général, and if he did, it was owned with a shudder that he would certainly carry his election. Perhaps, had Léon known from the first that the girl he one day noticed on her way from the cathedral was the daughter of old Bourget, he would have shut his heart to her image; but by the time he made the discovery it was installed.The incident of their meeting was of the slightest. A little child had fallen down, and Nathalie, walking swiftly and firmly across the open space in front of the great church, an old woman for her companion, ran to pick him up. Struck by something frank and noble in her bearing, Léon pleased himself by stopping to assist her. At first Nathalie, whose thoughts were concentrated upon the child, scarcely glanced at him, but when the small victim was found to be practically unhurt, she looked full in his face with a smile and a frank directness which delighted him. He was not a bad judge of expression, and in hers he read certain qualities which he might not have been expected to appreciate, but which attracted him as much as if he had been a better man. He did not rest until he had found out all about her, and contriving more than once to get sight of her, commissioned a friend to make the necessary advances.His suit was not so certain to be successful as he and Mme. de Beaudrillart supposed. But for one point in the old builder’s character, it might even have been violently rejected. The point was one which he shared with a large number of mercantile Frenchmen, republican or not, and it consisted in an inordinate craving to see his family become noble. He would not follow the example of many of his neighbours: adopt thede, and trust to time and custom riveting the distinction; but he desired it for his child with an intensity which became all the stronger because he was ashamed to admit it openly. When overtures reached him from Léon de Beaudrillart, he hesitated, knowing that rumour had been unpleasantly busy with his name. But—a De Beaudrillart! The temptation was irresistible. His affection for his daughter had woven itself into the strongest resolution of his life—a determination that she should be received into an aristocracy which he ran down in word and worshipped in heart. It was the strongest and the most difficult; the more reason for his stubborn will to carry it.For many years it had been a bitter disappointment to him that he had no son, but by the time his wife died all his affections and all his ambitions had become centred in Nathalie, and he felt that if he could but see her married as he desired, the struggles and privations of his life would be amply repaid. For this end, as for his other ends, he worked shrewdly. From the first, and while still pinching himself in many ways, he had given her an excellent education at a convent. Nothing so much irritated him as extravagance, but he was almost displeased with Nathalie when she showed a shrinking from expenditure. He himself marched about Tours in the rustiest of coats, yet the girl’s dress must be as dainty as the best milliner could produce. His neighbours were amazed at such inconsistencies; they did not understand that they were part of a carefully-thought-out, well-organised intention. In his treatment of his daughter he was influenced not so much, perhaps not at all, by the impulse to indulge her with which they credited him—for her tastes were, in truth, provokingly simple—as by a clearly-formed design to fit her for another class than that in which she was born.Perhaps, however, his ambitions and his methods would have been equally in vain had it not been for the fact that Nathalie was charmingly pretty. She was tall, slender, with hazel eyes, and as unlike as possible to M. Bourget himself. Moreover, she had the grace of simplicity, and appeared to be indifferent to her own beauty. This simplicity it was which, joined to a certain sweet dignity, first attracted Léon.And then began M. Bourget’s struggle. He required no enlightenment. M. de Beaudrillart’s extravagances, M. de Beaudrillart’s follies, were well known in Tours and its neighbourhood. Over against them in the scale had to be placed Poissy and M. Bourget’s ambition. He knew very well that he would have to give, not only his daughter, but a great deal of money, and, to do him justice, he thought more of his daughter than of his money. But Poissy, Poissy! Poissy for years had been the safety-valve of his imagination, a quality the stronger for being unsuspected. It appeared to him that nothing which could befall Nathalie could quench the glory of becoming merged in that ancient family. When, therefore, the question arose of her being mistress, it will be perceived what a strong advocate was presented for Léon.Moreover, sops for his better judgment were not wanting. If Léon’s conduct had exposed him to criticism, there always remained the strange change in his life, in his disposition, apparently in his fortunes. At a time when rumour had been most busy, and when misfortune appeared to hang most threateningly over the heads of the De Beaudrillarts, rumour had been checkmated. Money had been forthcoming, debts had been paid, and Léon, wrenching himself from life in Paris, had come back to work in a way which M. Bourget could appreciate and respect, and had saved Poissy. It is true that, during the time when talk had declared its fate to be imminent, M. Bourget had a hundred times turned over the possibility of stepping in himself and buying up the mortgages, but it is doubtful whether he would ever have been able to make up his mind to such an act; for while to his little world he delighted in breathing out all manner of ferociously republican sentiments, in heart he was an abject adorer of the ancien régime—at all events, so far as Poissy was concerned. It would have given him no real pleasure to become its owner; it is doubtful whether he would not have been the first to consider himself a sacrilegious dispossessor of the old family. It was not the bare possession which he coveted; for the De Beaudrillarts to go out and the Bourgets to come in was as unsuitable, as horrible in his eyes, as it could have been in their own. But for his family to become merged in theirs, his child to be actually one of them, that—that was indeed to satisfy the deeper subtleties of his ambition.As he marched with short, determined steps through the streets of Tours, M. Bourget flung back his head, advanced an aggressive chest, swelled, and assumed what he felt to be the grand air. Passing in front of a photographer’s shop, it seemed like a response to behold Poissy in all its delicate beauty looking serenely at him from out of a collection of Touraine châteaux.“Aha, see there!” he cried, rubbing his hands in delighted apostrophe. “And to think that the day is come when Nathalie may, if I but say the word, step into its walls, and hold up her head with the proudest of them. She shall be painted, too, and by the best painter in France, so as to hang with the others in the picture-gallery—Nathalie de Beaudrillart, née Bourget,mychild.”The man’s whole figure was transformed, his round red face, garnished with thick iron-grey eyebrows, gleamed with pride and exultation, and at this moment, although it pleased him to profess that the overture he had received was still under consideration, worse sins than any which he had heard laid to the charge of Léon de Beaudrillart would assuredly have been condoned.The matter, therefore, went on apace. To the elder people the preliminaries were the most important part, and Mme. de Beaudrillart, although she found it a bitter draught to swallow, had long desired that her son’s romantic notions should give way to what she called reason. Here was reason, plain, bourgeois, moneyed reason, and there was no excuse for falling foul of it. Such a dowry as Nathalie would bring was sufficient to wipe off the debt to M. de Cadanet, and to replace the owner of Poissy in his old position. And, after all, when a man marries a woman, Mme. de Beaudrillart argued, it is she who is raised, not he who is dragged down. King Cophetua’s beggar-girl became a queen, and the Bourget would be merged in the De Beaudrillarts.She said this to her son, and he smiled.“With all my heart, though you may find it difficult to efface my future father-in-law.”Mme. de Beaudrillart shuddered.“I imagine that he can be made to understand the situation.”“He would tell you that he understood it perfectly. If you could look into his ledger, I am convinced that you would find on one page an entry of value received, title, position, what you like, and on the opposite the purchase-money, so many hundred thousand francs. But he will see that he gets what he pays for.”“You mean he will expect to come here!”“Is that unreasonable?”Mme. de Beaudrillart flung back her head.“I think so. If he regards the matter in the light of a bargain, I do not see where he comes in.”“I imagine his daughter will think otherwise,” said Léon, caressing a kitten which had sprung on his knee.Mme. de Beaudrillart replied, with perhaps unintentional bitterness:“She, at any rate, may be satisfied with what she has got.”“As to that,” returned her son, a little less lazily than he had hitherto spoken, “she has not yet consented.”His mother folded her hands on the table before her, and looked steadily at him.“Do me the favour, Léon, to explain.”“It is perfectly simple. I do not think that I am repugnant to her; but she says that she must know me better, and judge for herself before deciding.”Mme. de Beaudrillart shut her thin lips and remained silent. When she spoke at last, it was to say, in a hushed voice:“Do not repeat this to your sisters, Léon, unless you wish to degrade your future wife in their eyes. It is all unspeakably bourgeoise.”“It is charming, whatever it is,” he replied, good-humouredly. “The world goes on, mother, even at Poissy. My great-great-grandfather stormed a castle and killed half a dozen gentlemen to gain a bride; I, his descendant, am—”“Bidden to a builder’s back parlour to see whether you are approved of! The first was infinitely the more respectable. The world goes fast, as you say, because it is easy enough to go downhill. Even the crimes of the present day are petty and sordid. In old times men smote and slew; now they cheat and steal.”With a sudden movement Léon turned on his chair and dislodged the kitten, which sprang to the ground and mewed protestingly. The change which every now and then altered his face, and robbed it of its youth, was there now, and it startled his mother.“My Léon, what is it? You are ill!” she exclaimed, anxiously.“It is past,” he said, with an effort.“But what was it!”“A spasm.”“My poor boy! I know how it is. You work too hard, and fret yourself over that debt. As if Monsieur de Cadanet would not be happy enough to wait your convenience! Well, there is this to be said for Mademoiselle Bourget: although I know you are indifferent to her dowry, it will free you from worry on that score.” While she spoke she went to a small cupboard, unlocked it, took out a glass and bottle, each of rare design and workmanship, and came back. “There,” she said, pouring a few drops into a glass, and putting it to his lips, “drink. It is an old cordial, which agrees with the Beaudrillart blood. You are better!”“Well,” said Léon, smiling again. “I know that stuff of old. It is magical.”“For your family, yes.”“You think it would not cure Monsieur Bourget!”“It will not have the chance,” said Mme. de Beaudrillart, quietly. She was replacing the glass and bottle in the cupboard when a thought struck her. “By-the-way, Léon—”“Yes.”“You have never given me Monsieur de Cadanet’s acknowledgment of the five hundred francs you forwarded; and as I keep all the receipts together, I should be glad to have it.” There was a short silence. Then Léon stretched himself, got up, and went to the window, the kitten in his arms.“Ah,” he said, “he has not sent any.”“Not sent any! But why?”“Who can tell? Monsieur de Cadanet appeared to me to be an eccentric. Perhaps he thinks the sum too trifling. Perhaps he is conveniently forgetful—perhaps—oh, we need not worry. He has received it, without doubt.”“I do not like it,” said Mme. de Beaudrillart, frowning.“No, it is unbusinesslike, is it not? Console yourself, mother. When you pay anything to Monsieur Bourget, you will have your acknowledgment executed with every formality and the most scrupulous exactitude.”If he hoped by this counter-irritation to turn her thoughts, he apparently succeeded. The idea of M. Bourget’s tradesmanlike qualities produced its desired effect as a foil to M. de Cadanet’s carelessness. But that she was not absolutely satisfied was evident from her calling after Léon, as he left the room:“All the same, would it not be well for me to write and ascertain whether the money has reached him safely? The post is not absolutely safe, and it would be extremely annoying to find there had been any failure in delivery.”Léon came back hurriedly.“Mother, I must entreat you, leave the matter with me. Do not on any account, now or at a future time, interfere between me and Monsieur de Cadanet. You might do me incalculable harm.”He spoke with sharp excitement, altogether unlike himself, and Mme. de Beaudrillart stared amazedly. If either of her other children had addressed her in such a tone, the offence would have been grievous; as it was, it was Léon, and Léon, as she immediately reflected, not quite himself, so that she contented herself with saying, stiffly:“Calm yourself, Léon; you should be well aware that I am not likely to act in a manner to endanger either your interests or your honour with Monsieur de Cadanet or any other person.”He turned from her, came back, and kissed her impulsively. But what he said had apparently nothing to do with what had passed.“Poor mother! You are glad that we kept Poissy?”“If we had lost it, I think it would have killed me.”She had never admitted so much.“Come, courage, then!” he exclaimed; “it appears now as if it would be tolerably safe; and with you and Nathalie—if I can win her—by my side, one may defy even—”“Who!” demanded his mother, anxiously.“Oh, Monsieur Bourget, to be sure!” he cried, with a laugh, as he shut the door.It was true, although Mme. de Beaudrillart would not believe it, and although M. de Bourget growled at the girl’s whims, that Nathalie hesitated whether or not she should accept M. de Beaudrillart. For her neither Poissy nor alliance with an ancient family offered attractions; on the contrary, she thought of both with dread and shrinking, foreseeing trials which might prove almost unendurable. If the course of wooing had been such as Mme. de Beaudrillart’s etiquette exacted, and all the advances had been made by deputy, it is very certain that Nathalie would have rejected her honours, in spite of her terrible father’s displeasure. But a nameless something had attracted her to Léon on the day when they first met before the cathedral, and each of the two interviews which followed deepened the attraction. There was an open, easy charm about the young man difficult to resist. She knew that he had been extravagant, and the knowledge caused her some disquiet, but would not have shaken her determination; indeed, disgraceful as it would have seemed to Mme. de Beaudrillart, when they had seen each other but three times, she was hopelessly and irretrievably in love.Then, one day, in an old carriage, as old as the hills, drawn by two borrowed horses, and driven by Jean Charpentier’s brother, Mme. de Beaudrillart rolled into Tours, and solemnly demanded the hand of Mlle. Nathalie Bourget for her son, M. Léon de Beaudrillart.To her son, even, his mother never related the details of that interview. M. Bourget, not so reticent, repeated over and over again with glee the speeches he had made, the answers he had received. While he took care to preserve to himself the honours of the encounter, he delighted in accentuating Mme. de Beaudrillart’s pride, that those who listened to him might not fail to understand what sort of family this was into which Nathalie was about to marry. It was true that some of her fine sarcasms, her scarcely-veiled contempt, were as little felt by him as the sting of a gnat upon the hide of a rhinoceros; but he was acute enough to understand that she wished to humiliate him as a revenge for the humiliation she was enduring herself, and appreciated the desire as fitting on the part of the owners of Poissy. She had said to him:“I cannot attempt to conceal from you, Monsieur Bourget, that my son’s choice has caused me profound astonishment. With his person and his position, he might have married into any of the great families of France, and I am certain you are too sensible a man to take offence when I say that such a marriage would have appeared to me far more appropriate.”“Perhaps Monsieur de Beaudrillart reflects that when one marries one must live,” remarked M. Bourget, dryly.But so far was he from taking offence that he repeated the speech with real enjoyment to a small lawyer of his acquaintance, a red republican like himself.“And you endured such insolence!” cried M. Leroux, bounding on his chair.“Endured? I can tell you that I admired it. I did not let her see it, it is true, for one must keep such people in their places; but, after all, she is right, for a De Beaudrillart may marry where he pleases.” And M. Bourget, radiant with delight, brought his hand heavily down on the table, and leaned forward to give his words more effect: “He marries my daughter.”It was the crowning point of his life. No other moment in his career—and he had had his triumphs—had caused him such unmitigated satisfaction. Tours rang with the news, the very walls seemed to whisper it in his ears as he walked along the narrow streets, and he never failed to pass by the photographer’s, and to fling a glance of recognition at Poissy—Poissy, with its delicate grace, its exquisite lines—as who should say, “Tiens, ma belle, thou and I are no longer strangers; we belong to each other.”With M. Bourget in this amiable mood, all went smoothly.Léon, who was well aware of the accepted opinion of his father-in-law and his rigid economies, was amazed by the liberality of his proposals. He had expected carpings, opposition, cutting down, and he found, to his astonishment, that M. Bourget’s principal care was that the estate should pass unencumbered to Nathalie’s children. One day he said, frankly:“See here, Monsieur de Beaudrillart,”—he never called his future son-in-law by any other name—“I am perfectly aware that you have committed innumerable follies, and that it has even been touch and go whether you could keep Poissy. At one time, unless rumour lies even more than is usual with her, I might have got possession of it myself. But that, I at once admit, would not have suited me. Poissy without the De Beaudrillarts would be like a body without a soul; you two have to keep together, if you are to hold your position in the world; and now that Nathalie is to become one of you, it is my business to see that youdokeep together. You comprehend! For what is past I care nothing; I put no inquiries, it is over. It is what is to come which is my affair. There must be no more follies, no more extravagances. My part of the bargain is to see that when you start you stand on your legs. Well and good. I accept it. I will give my daughter a sum which should be sufficient to set you free from every entanglement—for hampered you must be, and heavily—and enable you with care to regain your proper position; and I tell you, without hesitation, that I do this because I have always resolved that Nathalie should marry above her station. What will you? It is perhaps a folly, a weakness, but—it pleases me. I wish to see her where I have no inclination to be myself, and, like other things in this world, what we want we must pay for. There, Monsieur de Beaudrillart, you have the situation, and my motive.”Léon had listened to this harangue with an inscrutable face. When M. Bourget paused—rather scant of breath—he looked up and said, pleasantly:“Mine is simpler. I love Nathalie.”

Young M. de Beaudrillart was as good as his word. In her wildest dreams even his mother—whose hopes had undergone many deaths and many resurrections—had not ventured to picture him so content to remain in the quiet of the provinces as he proved himself. Whatever distaste he felt, very few outward signs betrayed it. An easy temper came to his help, and carried him lightly over rough places. He applied himself to looking into his affairs, a work which the unlucky M. Georges had long and vainly urged, and he showed a somewhat unexpected aptitude for business matters. He made no protests—beyond an occasionally wry face—against the strict economies of the household, and, to Félicie’s unbounded delight, not only refrained from mocking her pious works, but more than once gave her unexpected assistance. To the women it appeared as if golden days had begun, only Claire felt that here was the fruit of M. Georges’ prudent counsels, and thought it hard that M. Georges himself should remain under undeserved obloquy. Perhaps these few months were the happiest Mme. de Beaudrillart had ever known. Her belief in her son was justified—more than justified—and she looked the world proudly in the face.

Then Léon made another step in the path of surprises, and fell in love. As has been already remarked, a rich marriage had seemed the easiest way out of his difficulties, and again and again had been suggested to him, not only by his mother, but by his boon companions. Fortunes were dangled temptingly before his eyes, and he would none of them. Some strange scruple—strange, at least, in the man—some mastering sentiment, had rooted itself so deeply in his heart that it was not to be disposed of. It was the noblest thing there, and it was sighed over and laughed at, as first one, then another, tried their hand at eradication. Léon would not give it up. He declined to marry for anything short of love, and he had persuaded himself that he should never know what that meant, when he accidentally caught sight of a tall, fair, innocent-faced girl, with red-brown hair, and, once seen, would not rest until he had contrived to hear her speak and to learn her name. Then he went home and implored his mother to make the necessary advances.

Mme. de Beaudrillart yielded with scarcely a word, and yet the pang to her was great. She had been prepared for, had even urged upon her son, a sacrifice to mammon in the shape of a wife of inferior birth and large wealth. If such a one had been chosen in Paris she would hardly have sighed; but it was a different matter to be asked to accept a roturière at their very doors. The wrong to the De Beaudrillarts became infinitely more insulting, and though, as has been said, strong common-sense led her immediately to grasp the advantage and to yield, it was tolerably certain that she would never forgive the offender.

She spoke of it, however, to her daughters calmly one morning as they were walking home from mass.—Félicie anxiously inquired for her brother, who occasionally, though rarely, accompanied them, and was told that he had driven that morning into Tours.

“To Tours? And so early!”

“He finds himself very often in Tours of late,” remarked Claire, significantly.

“He will have been at mass at the cathedral.”

“There is some one, then, whom he wishes to see?” Claire continued. “Does he think of marrying?”

Félicie cried out: “Claire, how you talk!”

“Your brother has different notions from other young men,” said Mme. de Beaudrillart, speaking, as her younger daughter detected, with an effort. “You are correct in supposing that he has an idea of marriage, and I am sure he is right. Good-morning, Martine. I did not see your eldest son at mass.”

“No, madame,” said the old woman, sadly; “he has come back from his soldiering saying things which would have made his father’s hair stand on end; and though I tell him that, even if matters are as his clever friends tell him, there’s always a chance that he will find Monsieur Abbé right after all, and then he will wish he had taken the precaution of going to mass, he won’t listen.”

“That is very bad,” said Mme. de Beaudrillart, gravely. “You should not have him at home with the others, Martine.”

“Ah, madame, he is my son, and the good God gave him to me!”

“That is true; but I am afraid you are weak with him. Well, I will speak to Monsieur Nisard, and he will talk to Jacques.”

She moved on, and Claire cried, eagerly: “Mamma, I am dying of impatience! Of whom is Léon thinking?”

“The young lady is Mademoiselle Bourget.”

“Mademoiselle Bourget!” exclaimed Claire, stupefied. “But—you do not mean the daughter of Monsieur Bourget, at Tours?”

“Precisely.”

“Léon! A Beaudrillart marry a Tours bourgeoise!”

“Is the idea so new to you?” demanded her mother, coldly. “For myself, I am satisfied. Poor Léon’s misfortunes have brought him many trials. With this marriage he will be able to pay off debts which otherwise would have hung round his neck for years, and be relieved from some of the privations which he has borne so nobly. Reflect whether it is not so.” Mlle. Claire marched towards the bridge, upright and frowning. It was Félicie who broke into gasping protestations.

“But you do not mean that terrible radical of a man who opposes all that is good and holy in the neighbourhood! Mamma, impossible! Say that it is impossible!”

“I believe that he is a radical.”

“An enemy of the Church.”

“That is not inconceivable. Hush, Félicie, and submit yourself to the inevitable. If Léon has resolved to marry the girl, he will do it.”

“Oh,” moaned her daughter, “why was any one so cruel as to mention her to him?”

Mme. de Beaudrillart was silent. To have told Félicie that Nathalie was Léon’s own choice would have shocked her further; and while detesting the proposed marriage more than either of her daughters, the task of reconciling them to it caused her sharp impatience. Nor were her prejudices without excuse.

M. Bourget was a retired builder, who, by dint of extreme sagacity and small economies, had contrived to amass a large fortune. It should be said at once that no suspicion of dishonesty had touched his name. It was popularly believed that he had never been known to forego an advantage or to condone a debt; but this reputation did him no harm in the eyes of those who had not felt his grasp, and the town was inclined to be proud of its shrewd citizen, the more so as he was never so happy as when he was in the thick of battle, where it is but doing him bare justice to allow that he seldom permitted himself to be beaten. He fought municipal authorities, he fought the arrondissement, he fought deputies and bishops, with equal delight and success, until his name had become in certain quarters a thing of terror. Radical and republican, it was considered extremely probable that he would put himself forward as a candidate for the Conseil-Général, and if he did, it was owned with a shudder that he would certainly carry his election. Perhaps, had Léon known from the first that the girl he one day noticed on her way from the cathedral was the daughter of old Bourget, he would have shut his heart to her image; but by the time he made the discovery it was installed.

The incident of their meeting was of the slightest. A little child had fallen down, and Nathalie, walking swiftly and firmly across the open space in front of the great church, an old woman for her companion, ran to pick him up. Struck by something frank and noble in her bearing, Léon pleased himself by stopping to assist her. At first Nathalie, whose thoughts were concentrated upon the child, scarcely glanced at him, but when the small victim was found to be practically unhurt, she looked full in his face with a smile and a frank directness which delighted him. He was not a bad judge of expression, and in hers he read certain qualities which he might not have been expected to appreciate, but which attracted him as much as if he had been a better man. He did not rest until he had found out all about her, and contriving more than once to get sight of her, commissioned a friend to make the necessary advances.

His suit was not so certain to be successful as he and Mme. de Beaudrillart supposed. But for one point in the old builder’s character, it might even have been violently rejected. The point was one which he shared with a large number of mercantile Frenchmen, republican or not, and it consisted in an inordinate craving to see his family become noble. He would not follow the example of many of his neighbours: adopt thede, and trust to time and custom riveting the distinction; but he desired it for his child with an intensity which became all the stronger because he was ashamed to admit it openly. When overtures reached him from Léon de Beaudrillart, he hesitated, knowing that rumour had been unpleasantly busy with his name. But—a De Beaudrillart! The temptation was irresistible. His affection for his daughter had woven itself into the strongest resolution of his life—a determination that she should be received into an aristocracy which he ran down in word and worshipped in heart. It was the strongest and the most difficult; the more reason for his stubborn will to carry it.

For many years it had been a bitter disappointment to him that he had no son, but by the time his wife died all his affections and all his ambitions had become centred in Nathalie, and he felt that if he could but see her married as he desired, the struggles and privations of his life would be amply repaid. For this end, as for his other ends, he worked shrewdly. From the first, and while still pinching himself in many ways, he had given her an excellent education at a convent. Nothing so much irritated him as extravagance, but he was almost displeased with Nathalie when she showed a shrinking from expenditure. He himself marched about Tours in the rustiest of coats, yet the girl’s dress must be as dainty as the best milliner could produce. His neighbours were amazed at such inconsistencies; they did not understand that they were part of a carefully-thought-out, well-organised intention. In his treatment of his daughter he was influenced not so much, perhaps not at all, by the impulse to indulge her with which they credited him—for her tastes were, in truth, provokingly simple—as by a clearly-formed design to fit her for another class than that in which she was born.

Perhaps, however, his ambitions and his methods would have been equally in vain had it not been for the fact that Nathalie was charmingly pretty. She was tall, slender, with hazel eyes, and as unlike as possible to M. Bourget himself. Moreover, she had the grace of simplicity, and appeared to be indifferent to her own beauty. This simplicity it was which, joined to a certain sweet dignity, first attracted Léon.

And then began M. Bourget’s struggle. He required no enlightenment. M. de Beaudrillart’s extravagances, M. de Beaudrillart’s follies, were well known in Tours and its neighbourhood. Over against them in the scale had to be placed Poissy and M. Bourget’s ambition. He knew very well that he would have to give, not only his daughter, but a great deal of money, and, to do him justice, he thought more of his daughter than of his money. But Poissy, Poissy! Poissy for years had been the safety-valve of his imagination, a quality the stronger for being unsuspected. It appeared to him that nothing which could befall Nathalie could quench the glory of becoming merged in that ancient family. When, therefore, the question arose of her being mistress, it will be perceived what a strong advocate was presented for Léon.

Moreover, sops for his better judgment were not wanting. If Léon’s conduct had exposed him to criticism, there always remained the strange change in his life, in his disposition, apparently in his fortunes. At a time when rumour had been most busy, and when misfortune appeared to hang most threateningly over the heads of the De Beaudrillarts, rumour had been checkmated. Money had been forthcoming, debts had been paid, and Léon, wrenching himself from life in Paris, had come back to work in a way which M. Bourget could appreciate and respect, and had saved Poissy. It is true that, during the time when talk had declared its fate to be imminent, M. Bourget had a hundred times turned over the possibility of stepping in himself and buying up the mortgages, but it is doubtful whether he would ever have been able to make up his mind to such an act; for while to his little world he delighted in breathing out all manner of ferociously republican sentiments, in heart he was an abject adorer of the ancien régime—at all events, so far as Poissy was concerned. It would have given him no real pleasure to become its owner; it is doubtful whether he would not have been the first to consider himself a sacrilegious dispossessor of the old family. It was not the bare possession which he coveted; for the De Beaudrillarts to go out and the Bourgets to come in was as unsuitable, as horrible in his eyes, as it could have been in their own. But for his family to become merged in theirs, his child to be actually one of them, that—that was indeed to satisfy the deeper subtleties of his ambition.

As he marched with short, determined steps through the streets of Tours, M. Bourget flung back his head, advanced an aggressive chest, swelled, and assumed what he felt to be the grand air. Passing in front of a photographer’s shop, it seemed like a response to behold Poissy in all its delicate beauty looking serenely at him from out of a collection of Touraine châteaux.

“Aha, see there!” he cried, rubbing his hands in delighted apostrophe. “And to think that the day is come when Nathalie may, if I but say the word, step into its walls, and hold up her head with the proudest of them. She shall be painted, too, and by the best painter in France, so as to hang with the others in the picture-gallery—Nathalie de Beaudrillart, née Bourget,mychild.”

The man’s whole figure was transformed, his round red face, garnished with thick iron-grey eyebrows, gleamed with pride and exultation, and at this moment, although it pleased him to profess that the overture he had received was still under consideration, worse sins than any which he had heard laid to the charge of Léon de Beaudrillart would assuredly have been condoned.

The matter, therefore, went on apace. To the elder people the preliminaries were the most important part, and Mme. de Beaudrillart, although she found it a bitter draught to swallow, had long desired that her son’s romantic notions should give way to what she called reason. Here was reason, plain, bourgeois, moneyed reason, and there was no excuse for falling foul of it. Such a dowry as Nathalie would bring was sufficient to wipe off the debt to M. de Cadanet, and to replace the owner of Poissy in his old position. And, after all, when a man marries a woman, Mme. de Beaudrillart argued, it is she who is raised, not he who is dragged down. King Cophetua’s beggar-girl became a queen, and the Bourget would be merged in the De Beaudrillarts.

She said this to her son, and he smiled.

“With all my heart, though you may find it difficult to efface my future father-in-law.”

Mme. de Beaudrillart shuddered.

“I imagine that he can be made to understand the situation.”

“He would tell you that he understood it perfectly. If you could look into his ledger, I am convinced that you would find on one page an entry of value received, title, position, what you like, and on the opposite the purchase-money, so many hundred thousand francs. But he will see that he gets what he pays for.”

“You mean he will expect to come here!”

“Is that unreasonable?”

Mme. de Beaudrillart flung back her head.

“I think so. If he regards the matter in the light of a bargain, I do not see where he comes in.”

“I imagine his daughter will think otherwise,” said Léon, caressing a kitten which had sprung on his knee.

Mme. de Beaudrillart replied, with perhaps unintentional bitterness:

“She, at any rate, may be satisfied with what she has got.”

“As to that,” returned her son, a little less lazily than he had hitherto spoken, “she has not yet consented.”

His mother folded her hands on the table before her, and looked steadily at him.

“Do me the favour, Léon, to explain.”

“It is perfectly simple. I do not think that I am repugnant to her; but she says that she must know me better, and judge for herself before deciding.”

Mme. de Beaudrillart shut her thin lips and remained silent. When she spoke at last, it was to say, in a hushed voice:

“Do not repeat this to your sisters, Léon, unless you wish to degrade your future wife in their eyes. It is all unspeakably bourgeoise.”

“It is charming, whatever it is,” he replied, good-humouredly. “The world goes on, mother, even at Poissy. My great-great-grandfather stormed a castle and killed half a dozen gentlemen to gain a bride; I, his descendant, am—”

“Bidden to a builder’s back parlour to see whether you are approved of! The first was infinitely the more respectable. The world goes fast, as you say, because it is easy enough to go downhill. Even the crimes of the present day are petty and sordid. In old times men smote and slew; now they cheat and steal.”

With a sudden movement Léon turned on his chair and dislodged the kitten, which sprang to the ground and mewed protestingly. The change which every now and then altered his face, and robbed it of its youth, was there now, and it startled his mother.

“My Léon, what is it? You are ill!” she exclaimed, anxiously.

“It is past,” he said, with an effort.

“But what was it!”

“A spasm.”

“My poor boy! I know how it is. You work too hard, and fret yourself over that debt. As if Monsieur de Cadanet would not be happy enough to wait your convenience! Well, there is this to be said for Mademoiselle Bourget: although I know you are indifferent to her dowry, it will free you from worry on that score.” While she spoke she went to a small cupboard, unlocked it, took out a glass and bottle, each of rare design and workmanship, and came back. “There,” she said, pouring a few drops into a glass, and putting it to his lips, “drink. It is an old cordial, which agrees with the Beaudrillart blood. You are better!”

“Well,” said Léon, smiling again. “I know that stuff of old. It is magical.”

“For your family, yes.”

“You think it would not cure Monsieur Bourget!”

“It will not have the chance,” said Mme. de Beaudrillart, quietly. She was replacing the glass and bottle in the cupboard when a thought struck her. “By-the-way, Léon—”

“Yes.”

“You have never given me Monsieur de Cadanet’s acknowledgment of the five hundred francs you forwarded; and as I keep all the receipts together, I should be glad to have it.” There was a short silence. Then Léon stretched himself, got up, and went to the window, the kitten in his arms.

“Ah,” he said, “he has not sent any.”

“Not sent any! But why?”

“Who can tell? Monsieur de Cadanet appeared to me to be an eccentric. Perhaps he thinks the sum too trifling. Perhaps he is conveniently forgetful—perhaps—oh, we need not worry. He has received it, without doubt.”

“I do not like it,” said Mme. de Beaudrillart, frowning.

“No, it is unbusinesslike, is it not? Console yourself, mother. When you pay anything to Monsieur Bourget, you will have your acknowledgment executed with every formality and the most scrupulous exactitude.”

If he hoped by this counter-irritation to turn her thoughts, he apparently succeeded. The idea of M. Bourget’s tradesmanlike qualities produced its desired effect as a foil to M. de Cadanet’s carelessness. But that she was not absolutely satisfied was evident from her calling after Léon, as he left the room:

“All the same, would it not be well for me to write and ascertain whether the money has reached him safely? The post is not absolutely safe, and it would be extremely annoying to find there had been any failure in delivery.”

Léon came back hurriedly.

“Mother, I must entreat you, leave the matter with me. Do not on any account, now or at a future time, interfere between me and Monsieur de Cadanet. You might do me incalculable harm.”

He spoke with sharp excitement, altogether unlike himself, and Mme. de Beaudrillart stared amazedly. If either of her other children had addressed her in such a tone, the offence would have been grievous; as it was, it was Léon, and Léon, as she immediately reflected, not quite himself, so that she contented herself with saying, stiffly:

“Calm yourself, Léon; you should be well aware that I am not likely to act in a manner to endanger either your interests or your honour with Monsieur de Cadanet or any other person.”

He turned from her, came back, and kissed her impulsively. But what he said had apparently nothing to do with what had passed.

“Poor mother! You are glad that we kept Poissy?”

“If we had lost it, I think it would have killed me.”

She had never admitted so much.

“Come, courage, then!” he exclaimed; “it appears now as if it would be tolerably safe; and with you and Nathalie—if I can win her—by my side, one may defy even—”

“Who!” demanded his mother, anxiously.

“Oh, Monsieur Bourget, to be sure!” he cried, with a laugh, as he shut the door.

It was true, although Mme. de Beaudrillart would not believe it, and although M. de Bourget growled at the girl’s whims, that Nathalie hesitated whether or not she should accept M. de Beaudrillart. For her neither Poissy nor alliance with an ancient family offered attractions; on the contrary, she thought of both with dread and shrinking, foreseeing trials which might prove almost unendurable. If the course of wooing had been such as Mme. de Beaudrillart’s etiquette exacted, and all the advances had been made by deputy, it is very certain that Nathalie would have rejected her honours, in spite of her terrible father’s displeasure. But a nameless something had attracted her to Léon on the day when they first met before the cathedral, and each of the two interviews which followed deepened the attraction. There was an open, easy charm about the young man difficult to resist. She knew that he had been extravagant, and the knowledge caused her some disquiet, but would not have shaken her determination; indeed, disgraceful as it would have seemed to Mme. de Beaudrillart, when they had seen each other but three times, she was hopelessly and irretrievably in love.

Then, one day, in an old carriage, as old as the hills, drawn by two borrowed horses, and driven by Jean Charpentier’s brother, Mme. de Beaudrillart rolled into Tours, and solemnly demanded the hand of Mlle. Nathalie Bourget for her son, M. Léon de Beaudrillart.

To her son, even, his mother never related the details of that interview. M. Bourget, not so reticent, repeated over and over again with glee the speeches he had made, the answers he had received. While he took care to preserve to himself the honours of the encounter, he delighted in accentuating Mme. de Beaudrillart’s pride, that those who listened to him might not fail to understand what sort of family this was into which Nathalie was about to marry. It was true that some of her fine sarcasms, her scarcely-veiled contempt, were as little felt by him as the sting of a gnat upon the hide of a rhinoceros; but he was acute enough to understand that she wished to humiliate him as a revenge for the humiliation she was enduring herself, and appreciated the desire as fitting on the part of the owners of Poissy. She had said to him:

“I cannot attempt to conceal from you, Monsieur Bourget, that my son’s choice has caused me profound astonishment. With his person and his position, he might have married into any of the great families of France, and I am certain you are too sensible a man to take offence when I say that such a marriage would have appeared to me far more appropriate.”

“Perhaps Monsieur de Beaudrillart reflects that when one marries one must live,” remarked M. Bourget, dryly.

But so far was he from taking offence that he repeated the speech with real enjoyment to a small lawyer of his acquaintance, a red republican like himself.

“And you endured such insolence!” cried M. Leroux, bounding on his chair.

“Endured? I can tell you that I admired it. I did not let her see it, it is true, for one must keep such people in their places; but, after all, she is right, for a De Beaudrillart may marry where he pleases.” And M. Bourget, radiant with delight, brought his hand heavily down on the table, and leaned forward to give his words more effect: “He marries my daughter.”

It was the crowning point of his life. No other moment in his career—and he had had his triumphs—had caused him such unmitigated satisfaction. Tours rang with the news, the very walls seemed to whisper it in his ears as he walked along the narrow streets, and he never failed to pass by the photographer’s, and to fling a glance of recognition at Poissy—Poissy, with its delicate grace, its exquisite lines—as who should say, “Tiens, ma belle, thou and I are no longer strangers; we belong to each other.”

With M. Bourget in this amiable mood, all went smoothly.

Léon, who was well aware of the accepted opinion of his father-in-law and his rigid economies, was amazed by the liberality of his proposals. He had expected carpings, opposition, cutting down, and he found, to his astonishment, that M. Bourget’s principal care was that the estate should pass unencumbered to Nathalie’s children. One day he said, frankly:

“See here, Monsieur de Beaudrillart,”—he never called his future son-in-law by any other name—“I am perfectly aware that you have committed innumerable follies, and that it has even been touch and go whether you could keep Poissy. At one time, unless rumour lies even more than is usual with her, I might have got possession of it myself. But that, I at once admit, would not have suited me. Poissy without the De Beaudrillarts would be like a body without a soul; you two have to keep together, if you are to hold your position in the world; and now that Nathalie is to become one of you, it is my business to see that youdokeep together. You comprehend! For what is past I care nothing; I put no inquiries, it is over. It is what is to come which is my affair. There must be no more follies, no more extravagances. My part of the bargain is to see that when you start you stand on your legs. Well and good. I accept it. I will give my daughter a sum which should be sufficient to set you free from every entanglement—for hampered you must be, and heavily—and enable you with care to regain your proper position; and I tell you, without hesitation, that I do this because I have always resolved that Nathalie should marry above her station. What will you? It is perhaps a folly, a weakness, but—it pleases me. I wish to see her where I have no inclination to be myself, and, like other things in this world, what we want we must pay for. There, Monsieur de Beaudrillart, you have the situation, and my motive.”

Léon had listened to this harangue with an inscrutable face. When M. Bourget paused—rather scant of breath—he looked up and said, pleasantly:

“Mine is simpler. I love Nathalie.”

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