XXV

Mlle. Gilberte could hardly repress the sobs that rose to her throat.

“I never hoped to see you again,” she stammered; “and you’ll find there on the table the letter I had just commenced for you when M. Costeclar interrupted me.”

M. de Tregars took it up quickly. Two lines only were written. He read: “I release you from your engagement, Marius. Henceforth you are free.”

He became whiter than his shirt.

“You wish to release me from my engagement!” he exclaimed. “You—”

“Is it not my duty? Ah! if it had only been our fortune, I should perhaps have rejoiced to lose it. I know your heart. Poverty would have brought us nearer together. But it’s honor, Marius, honor that is lost too! The name I bear is forever stained. Whether my father is caught, or whether he escapes, he will be tried all the same, condemned, and sentenced to a degrading penalty for embezzlement and forgery.”

If M. de Tregars was allowing her to proceed thus, it was because he felt all his thoughts whirling in his brain; because she looked so beautiful thus, all in tears, and her hair loose; because there arose from her person so subtle a charm, that words failed him to express the sensations that agitated him.

“Can you,” she went on, “take for your wife the daughter of a dishonored man? No, you cannot. Forgive me, then, for having for a moment turned away your life from its object; forgive the sorrow which I have caused you; leave me to the misery of my fate; forget me!”

She was suffocating.

“Ah, you have never loved me!” exclaimed Marius.

Raising her hands to heaven,

“Thou hearest him, great God!” she uttered, as if shocked by a blasphemy.

“Would it be easy for you to forget me then? Were I to be struck by misfortune, would you break our engagement, cease to love me?”

She ventured to take his hands, and, pressing them between hers,

“To cease loving you no longer depends on my will,” she murmured with quivering lips. “Poor, abandoned of all, disgraced, criminal even, I should love you still and always.”

With a passionate gesture, Marius threw his arm around her waist, and, drawing her to his breast, covered her blonde hair with burning kisses.

“Well, ‘tis thus that I love you too!” he exclaimed, “and with all my soul, exclusively, and for life! What do I care for your parents? Do I know them? Your father—does he exist? Your name —it is mine, the spotless name of the Tregars. You are my wife! mine, mine!”

She was struggling feebly: an almost invincible stupor was creeping over her. She felt her reason disturbed, her energy giving way, a film before her eyes, the air failing to her heaving chest.

A great effort of her will restored her to consciousness. She withdrew gently, and sank upon a chair, less strong against joy than she had been against sorrow.

“Pardon me,” she stammered, “pardon me for having doubted you!”

M. de Tregars was not much less agitated than Mlle. Gilberte: but he was a man; and the springs of his energy were of a superior temper. In less than a minute he had fully recovered his self-possession and imposed upon his features their accustomed expression. Drawing a chair by the side of Mlle. Gilberte,

“Permit me, my friend,” he said, “to remind you that our moments are numbered, and that there are many details which it is urgent that I should know.”

“What details?” she asked, raising her head.

“About your father.”

She looked at him with an air of profound surprise.

“Do you not know more about it than I do?” she replied, “more than my mother, more than any of us? Did you not, whilst following up the people who robbed your father, strike mine unwittingly? And ‘tis I, wretch that I am, who inspired you to that fatal resolution; and I have not the heart to regret it.”

M. de Tregars had blushed imperceptibly. “How did you know?” he began.

“Was it not said that you were about to marry Mlle. de Thaller?”

He drew up suddenly.

“Never,” he exclaimed, “has this marriage existed, except in the brain of M. de Thaller, and, more still, of the Baroness de Thaller. That ridiculous idea occurred to her because she likes my name, and would be delighted to see her daughter Marquise de Tregars. She has never breathed a word of it to me; but she has spoken of it everywhere, with just enough secrecy to give rise to a good piece of parlor gossip. She went so far as to confide to several persons of my acquaintance the amount of the dowry, thinking thus to encourage me. As far as I could, I warned you against this false news through the Signor Gismondo.”

“The Signor Gismondo relieved me of cruel anxieties,” she replied; “but I had suspected the truth from the first. Was I not the confidante of your hopes? Did I not know your projects? I had taken for granted that all this talk about a marriage was but a means to advance yourself in M. de Thaller’s intimacy without awaking his suspicions.”

M. de Tregars was not the man to deny a true fact.

“Perhaps, indeed, I have not been wholly foreign to M. Favoral’s disaster. At least I may have hastened it a few months, a few days only, perhaps; for it was inevitable, fatal. Nevertheless, had I suspected the real facts, I would have given up my designs —Gilberte, I swear it—rather than risk injuring your father. There is no undoing what is done; but the evil may, perhaps, be somewhat lessened.”

Mlle. Gilberte started.

“Great heavens!” she exclaimed, “do you, then, believe my father innocent?”

Better than any one else, Mlle. Gilberte must have been convinced of her father’s guilt. Had she not seen him humiliated and trembling before M. de Thaller? Had she not heard him, as it were, acknowledge the truth of the charge that was brought against him? But at twenty hope never forsakes us, even in presence of facts.

And when she understood by M. de Tregars’ silence that she was mistaken,

“It’s madness,” she murmured, dropping her head:

“I feel it but too well. But the heart speaks louder than reason. It is so cruel to be driven to despise one’s father!”

She wiped the tears which filled her eyes, and, in a firmer voice,

“What happened is so incomprehensible!” she went on. “How can I help imagining some one of those mysteries which time alone unravels. For twenty-four hours we have been losing ourselves in idle conjectures, and, always and fatally, we come to this conclusion, that my father must be the victim of some mysterious intrigue.

“M. Chapelain, whom a loss of a hundred and sixty thousand francs has not made particularly indulgent, is of that opinion.”

“And so am I,” exclaimed Marius.

“You see, then—”

But without allowing her to proceed and taking gently her hand,

“Let me tell you all,” he interrupted, “and try with you to find an issue to this horrible situation. Strange rumors are afloat about M. Favoral. It is said that his austerity was but a mask, his sordid economy a means of gaining confidence. It is affirmed that in fact he abandoned himself to all sorts of disorders; that he had, somewhere in Paris, an establishment, where he lavished the money of which he was so sparing here. Is it so? The same thing is said of all those in whose hands large fortunes have melted.”

The young girl had become quite red.

“I believe that is true,” she replied. “The commissary of police stated so to us. He found among my father’s papers receipted bills for a number of costly articles, which could only have been intended for a woman.”

M. de Tregars looked perplexed.

“And does any one know who this woman is?” he asked.

“Whoever she may be, I admit that she may have cost M. Favoral considerable sums. But can she have cost him twelve millions?”

“Precisely the remark which M. Chapelain made.”

“And which every sensible man must also make. I know very well that to conceal for years a considerable deficit is a costly operation, requiring purchases and sales, the handling and shifting of funds, all of which is ruinous in the extreme. But, on the other hand, M. Favoral was making money, a great deal of money. He was rich: he was supposed to be worth millions. Otherwise, Costeclar would never have asked your hand.”

“M. Chapelain pretends that at a certain time my father had at least fifty thousand francs a year.”

“It’s bewildering.”

For two or three minutes M. de Tregars remained silent, reviewing in his mind every imaginable eventuality, and then,

“But no matter,” he resumed. “As soon as I heard this morning the amount of the deficit, doubts came to my mind. And it is for that reason, dear friend, that I was so anxious to see you and speak to you. It would be necessary for me to know exactly what occurred here last night.”

Rapidly, but without omitting a single useful detail, Mlle. Gilberte narrated the scenes of the previous night—the sudden appearance of M. de Thaller, the arrival of the commissary of police, M. Favoral’s escape, thanks to Maxence’s presence of mind. Every one of her father’s words had remained present to her mind; and it was almost literally that she repeated his strange speeches to his indignant friends, and his incoherent remarks at the moment of flight, when, whilst acknowledging his fault, he said that he was not as guilty as they thought; that, at any rate, he was not alone guilty; and that he had been shamefully sacrificed. When she had finished,

“That’s exactly what I thought,” said M. de Tregars.

“What?”

“M. Favoral accepted a role in one of those terrible financial dramas which ruin a thousand poor dupes to the benefit of two or three clever rascals. Your father wanted to be rich: he needed money to carry on his intrigues. He allowed himself to be tempted. But whilst he believed himself one of the managers, called upon to divide the receipts, he was but a scene-shifter with a stated salary. The moment of this denouement having come, his so-called partners disappeared through a trap-door with the cash, leaving him alone, as they say, to face the music.”

“If that’s the case,” replied the young girl, “why didn’t my father speak?”

“What was he to say?”

“Name his accomplices.”

“And suppose he had no proofs of their complicity to offer? He was the cashier of the Mutual Credit; and it is from his cash that the millions are gone.”

Mlle. Gilberte’s conjectures had run far ahead of that sentence. Looking straight at Marius,

“Then,” she said, “you believe, as M. Chapelain does, that M. de Thaller—”

“Ah! M. Chapelain thinks—”

“That the manager of the Mutual Credit must have known the fact of the frauds.”

“And that he had his share of them?”

“A larger share than his cashier, yes.”

A singular smile curled M. de Tregars’ lips. “Quite possible,” he replied: “that’s quite possible.”

For the past few moments Mlle. Gilberte’s embarrassment was quite evident in her look. At last, overcoming her hesitation,

“Pardon me,” said she, “I had imagined that M. de Thaller was one of those men whom you wished to strike; and I had indulged in the hope, that, whilst having justice done to your father, you were thinking, perhaps, of avenging mine.”

M. de Tregars stood up, as if moved by a spring. “Well, yes!” he exclaimed. “Yes, you have correctly guessed. But how can we obtain this double result? A single misstep at this moment might lose all. Ah, if I only knew your father’s real situation; if I could only see him and speak to him! In one word he might, perhaps, place in my hands a sure weapon,—the weapon that I have as yet been unable to find.”

“Unfortunately,” replied Mlle. Gilberte with a gesture of despair, “we are without news of my father; and he even refused to tell us where he expected to take refuge.”

“But he will write, perhaps. Besides, we might look for him, quietly, so as not to excite the suspicions of the police; and if your brother Maxence was only willing to help me—”

“Alas! I fear that Maxence may have other cares. He insisted upon going out this morning, in spite of mother’s request to the contrary.”

But Marius stopped her, and, in the tone of a man who knows much more than he is willing to say,—“Do not calumniate Maxence,” he said: “it is through him, perhaps, that we will receive the help that we need.”

Eleven o’clock struck. Mlle. Gilberte started.

“Dear me!” she exclaimed, “mother will be home directly.”

M. de Tregars might as well have waited for her. Henceforth he had nothing to conceal. Yet, after duly deliberating with the young girl, they decided that he should withdraw, and that he would send M. de Villegre to declare his intentions. He then left, and, five minutes later, Mme. Favoral and M. Chapelain appeared.

The ex-attorney was furious; and he threw the package of bank-notes upon the table with a movement of rage.

“In order to return them to M. de Thaller,” he exclaimed, “it was at least necessary to see him. But the gentleman is invisible; keeps himself under lock and key, guarded by a perfect cloud of servants in livery.”

Meantime, Mme. Favoral had approached her daughter.

“Your brother?” she asked in a whisper.

“He has not yet come home.”

“Dear me!” sighed the poor mother: “at such a time he forsakes us, and for whose sake?”

Mme. Favoral, usually so indulgent, was too severe this time; and it was very unjustly that she accused her son. She forgot, and what mother does not forget, that he was twenty-five years of age, that he was a man, and that, outside of the family and of herself, he must have his own interests and his passions, his affections and his duties. Because he happened to leave the house for a few hours, Maxence was surely not forsaking either his mother or his sister. It was not without a severe internal struggle that he had made up his mind to go out, and, as he was going down the steps,

“Poor mother,” he thought. “I am sure I am making her very unhappy; but how can I help it?”

This was the first time that he had been in the street since his farther’s disaster had been known; and the impression produced upon him was painful in the extreme. Formerly, when he walked through the Rue St. Gilles, that street where he was born, and where he used to play as a boy, every one met him with a friendly nod or a familiar smile. True he was then the son of a man rich and highly esteemed; whereas this morning not a hand was extended, not a hat raised, on his passage. People whispered among themselves, and pointed him out with looks of hatred and irony. That was because he was now the son of the dishonest cashier tracked by the police, of the man whose crime brought disaster upon so many innocent parties.

Mortified and ashamed, Maxence was hurrying on, his head down, his cheek burning, his throat parched, when, in front of a wine-shop,

“Halloo!” said a man; “that’s the son. What cheek!”

And farther on, in front of the grocer’s.

“I tell you what,” said a woman in the midst of a group, “they still have more than we have.”

Then, for the first time, he understood with what crushing weight his father’s crime would weigh upon his whole life; and, whilst going up the Rue Turenne:

“It’s all over,” he thought: “I can never get over it.” And he was thinking of changing his name, of emigrating to America, and hiding himself in the deserts of the Far West, when, a little farther on, he noticed a group of some thirty persons in front of a newspaper-stand. The vender, a fat little man with a red face and an impudent look, was crying in a hoarse voice,

“Here are the morning papers! The last editions! All about the robbery of twelve millions by a poor cashier. Buy the morning papers!”

And, to stimulate the sale of his wares, he added all sorts of jokes of his own invention, saying that the thief belonged to the neighborhood; that it was quite flattering, etc.

The crowd laughed; and he went on,

“The cashier Favoral’s robbery! twelve millions! Buy the paper, and see how it’s done.”

And so the scandal was public, irreparable. Maxence was listening a few steps off. He felt like going; but an imperative feeling, stronger than his will, made him anxious to see what the papers said.

Suddenly he made up his mind, and, stepping up briskly, he threw down three sous, seized a paper, and ran as if they had all known him.

“Not very polite, the gentleman,” remarked two idlers whom he had pushed a little roughly.

Quick as he had been, a shopkeeper of the Rue Turenne had had time to recognize him.

“Why, that’s the cashier’s son!” he exclaimed. “Is it possible?”

“Why don’t they arrest him?”

Half a dozen curious fellows, more eager than the rest, ran after him to try and see his face. But he was already far off.

Leaning against a gas-lamp on the Boulevard, he unfolded the paper he had just bought. He had no trouble looking for the article. In the middle of the first page, in the most prominent position, he read in large letters,

“At the moment of going to press, the greatest agitation prevails among the stock-brokers and operators at the bourse generally, owing to the news that one of our great banking establishments has just been the victim of a theft of unusual magnitude.

“At about five o’clock in the afternoon, the manager of the Mutual Credit Society, having need of some documents, went to look for them in the office of the head cashier, who was then absent. A memorandum forgotten on the table excited his suspicions. Sending at once for a locksmith, he had all the drawers broken open, and soon acquired the irrefutable evidence that the Mutual Credit had been defrauded of sums, which, as far as now known, amount to upwards of twelve millions.

“At once the police was notified; and M. Brosse, commissary of police, duly provided with a warrant, called at the guilty cashier’s house.

“That cashier, named Favoral,—we do not hesitate to name him, since his name has already been made public,—had just sat down to dinner with some friends. Warned, no one knows how, he succeeded in escaping through a window into the yard of the adjoining house, and up to this hour has succeeded in eluding all search.

“It seems that these embezzlements had been going on for years, but had been skillfully concealed by false entries.

“M. Favoral had managed to secure the esteem of all who knew him. He led at home a more than modest existence. But that was only, as it were, his official life. Elsewhere, and under another name, he indulged in the most reckless expenses for the benefit of a woman with whom he was madly in love.

“Who this woman is, is not yet exactly known.

“Some mention a very fascinating young actress, who performs at a theatre not a hundred miles from the Rue Vivienne; others, a lady of the financial high life, whose equipages, diamonds, and dresses are justly famed.

“We might easily, in this respect, give particulars which would astonish many people; for we know all; but, at the risk of seeming less well informed than some others of our morning contemporaries, we will observe a silence which our readers will surely appreciate. We do not wish to add, by a premature indiscretion, any thing to the grief of a family already so cruelly stricken; for M. Favoral leaves behind him in the deepest sorrow a wife and two children,—a son of twenty-five, employed in a railroad office, and a daughter of twenty, remarkably handsome, who, a few months ago, came very near marrying M. C. ——.

“Next—”

Tears of rage obscured Maxence’s sight whilst reading the last few lines of this terrible article. To find himself thus held up to public curiosity, though innocent, was more than he could bear.

And yet he was, perhaps, still more surprised than indignant. He had just learned in that paper more than his father’s most intimate friends knew, more than he knew himself. Where had it got its information? And what could be these other details which the writer pretended to know, but did not wish to publish as yet? Maxence felt like running to the office of the paper, fancying that they could tell him there exactly where and under what name M. Favoral led that existence of pleasure and luxury, and who the woman was to whom the article alluded.

But in the mean time he had reached his hotel,—the Hotel des Folies. After a moment of hesitation,

“Bash!” he thought, “I have the whole day to call at the office of the paper.”

And he started in the corridor of the hotel, a corridor that was so long, so dark, and so narrow, that it gave an idea of the shaft of a mine, and that it was prudent, before entering it, to make sure that no one was coming in the opposite direction. It was from the neighboring theatre, des Folies-Nouvelles (now the Theatre Dejazet), that the hotel had taken its name.

It consists of the rear building of a large old house, and has no frontage on the Boulevard, where nothing betrays its existence, except a lantern hung over a low and narrow door, between a Café and a confectionery-shop. It is one of those hotels, as there are a good many in Paris, somewhat mysterious and suspicious, ill-kept, and whose profits remain a mystery for simple-minded folks. Who occupy the apartments of the first and second story? No one knows. Never have the most curious of the neighbors discovered the face of a tenant. And yet they are occupied; for often, in the afternoon, a curtain is drawn aside, and a shadow is seen to move. In the evening, lights are noticed within; and sometimes the sound of a cracked old piano is heard.

Above the second story, the mystery ceases. All the upper rooms, the price of which is relatively modest, are occupied by tenants who may be seen and heard,—clerks like Maxence, shop-girls from the neighborhood, a few restaurant-waiters, and sometimes some poor devil of an actor or chorus-singer from the Theatre Dejazet, the Circus, or the Chateau d’Eau. One of the great advantages of the Hotel des Folies—and Mme. Fortin, the landlady, never failed to point it out to the new tenants, an inestimable advantage, she declared—was a back entrance on the Rue Beranger.

“And everybody knows,” she concluded, “that there is no chance of being caught, when one has the good luck of living in a house that has two outlets.”

When Maxence entered the office, a small, dark, and dirty room, the proprietors, M. and Mme. Fortin were just finishing their breakfast with an immense bowl of coffee of doubtful color, of which an enormous red cat was taking a share.

“Ah, here is M. Favoral!” they exclaimed.

There was no mistaking their tone. They knew the catastrophe; and the newspaper lying on the table showed how they had heard it.

“Some one called to see you last night,” said Mme. Fortin, a large fat woman, whose nose was always besmeared with snuff, and whose honeyed voice made a marked contrast with her bird-of-prey look.

“Who?”

“A gentleman of about fifty, tall and thin, with a long overcoat, coming down to his heels.”

Maxence imagined, from this description, that he recognized his own father. And yet it seemed impossible, after what had happened, that he should dare to show himself on the Boulevard du Temple, where everybody knew him, within a step of the Café Turc, of which he was one of the oldest customers.

“At what o’clock was he here?” he inquired.

“I really can’t tell,” answered the landlady. “I was half asleep at the time; but Fortin can tell us.”

M. Fortin, who looked about twenty years younger than his wife, was one of those small men, blonde, with scanty beard, a suspicious glance, and uneasy smile, such as the Madame Fortins know how to find, Heaven knows where.

“The confectioner had just put up his shutters,” he replied: “consequently, it must have been between eleven and a quarter-past eleven.”

“And didn’t he leave any word?” said Maxence.

“Nothing, except that he was very sorry not to find you in. And, in fact, he did look quite annoyed. We asked him to leave his name; but he said it wasn’t worth while, and that he would call again.”

At the glance which the landlady was throwing toward him from the corner of her eyes, Maxence understood that she had on the subject of that late visitor the same suspicion as himself.

And, as if she had intended to make it more apparent still,

“I ought, perhaps, to have given him your key,” she said.

“And why so, pray?”

“Oh! I don’t know, an idea of mine, that’s all. Besides, Mlle. Lucienne can probably tell you more about it; for she was there when the gentleman came, and I even think that they exchanged a few words in the yard.”

Maxence, seeing that they were only seeking a pretext to question him, took his key, and inquired,

“Is—Mlle. Lucienne at home?”

“Can’t tell. She has been going and coming all the morning, and I don’t know whether she finally staid in or out. One thing is sure, she waited for you last night until after twelve; and she didn’t like it much, I can tell you.”

Maxence started up the steep stairs; and, as he reached the upper stories, a woman’s voice, fresh and beautifully toned, reached his ears more and more distinctly.

She was singing a popular tune,—one of those songs which are monthly put in circulation by the singing Cafés—

“To hope! O charming word,Which, during all life,Husband and children and wifeRepeat in common accord!When the moment of successFrom us ever further slips,‘Tis Hope from its rosy lipsWhispers, To-morrow you will bless.‘Tis very nice to run,But to have is better fun.”

“She is in,” murmured Maxence, breathing more freely.

Reaching the fourth story, he stopped before the door which faced the stairs, and knocked lightly.

At once, the voice, which had just commenced another verse stopped short, and inquired, “Who’s there?”

“I, Maxence!”

“At this hour!” replied the voice with an ironical laugh. “That’s lucky. You have probably forgotten that we were to go to the theatre last night, and start for St. Germain at seven o’clock this morning.”

“Don’t you know then?” Maxence began, as soon as he could put in a word.

“I know that you did not come home last night.”

“Quite true. But when I have told you—”

“What? the lie you have imagined? Save yourself the trouble.”

“Lucienne, I beg of you, open the door.”

“Impossible, I am dressing. Go to your own room: as soon as I am dressed, I’ll join you.”

And, to cut short all these explanations, she took up her song again:

“Hope, I’ve waited but too longFor thy manna divine!I’ve drunk enough of thy wine,And I know thy siren song:Waiting for a lucky turn,I have wasted my best days:Take up thy magic-lanternAnd elsewhere display its rays.‘Tis very nice to run,But to have is better fun!”

It was on the opposite side of the landing that what Mme. Fortin pompously called “Maxence’s apartment” was situated.

It consisted of a sort of antechamber, almost as large as a handkerchief (decorated by the Fortins with the name of dining-room), a bedroom, and a closet called a dressing-room in the lease. Nothing could be more gloomy than this lodging, in which the ragged paper and soiled paint retained the traces of all the wanderers who had occupied it since the opening of the Hotel des Folies. The dislocated ceiling was scaling off in large pieces; the floor seemed affected with the dry-rot; and the doors and windows were so much warped and sprung, that it required an effort to close them. The furniture was on a par with the rest.

“How everything does wear out!” sighed Mme. Fortin. “It isn’t ten years since I bought that furniture.”

In point of fact it was over fifteen, and even then she had bought it secondhanded, and almost unfit for use. The curtains retained but a vague shade of their original color. The veneer was almost entirely off the bedstead. Not a single lock was in order, whether in the bureau or the secretary. The rug had become a nameless rag; and the broken springs of the sofa, cutting through the threadbare stuff, stood up threateningly like knife-blades.

The most sumptuous object was an enormous China stove, which occupied almost one-half of the hall-dining-room. It could not be used to make a fire; for it had no pipe. Nevertheless, Mme. Fortin refused obstinately to take it out, under the pretext that it gave such a comfortable appearance to the apartment. All this elegance cost Maxence forty-five francs a month, and five francs for the service; the whole payable in advance from the 1st to the 3d of the month. If, on the 4th, a tenant came in without money, Mme. Fortin squarely refused him his key, and invited him to seek shelter elsewhere.

“I have been caught too often,” she replied to those who tried to obtain twenty-four hours’ grace from her. “I wouldn’t trust my own father till the 5th, he who was a superior officer in Napoleon’s armies, and the very soul of honor.”

It was chance alone which had brought Maxence, after the Commune, to the Hotel des Folies; and he had not been there a week, before he had fully made up his mind not to wear out Mme. Fortin’s furniture very long. He had even already found another and more suitable lodging, when, about a year ago, a certain meeting on the stairs had modified all his views, and lent a charm to his apartment which he did not suspect.

As he was going out one morning to his office, he met on the very landing a rather tall and very dark girl, who had just come running up stairs. She passed before him like a flash, opened the opposite door, and disappeared. But, rapid as the apparition had been, it had left in Maxence’s mind one of those impressions which are never obliterated. He could not think of any thing else the whole day; and after business-hours, instead of going to dine in Rue St. Gilles, as usual, he sent a despatch to his mother to tell her not to wait for him, and bravely went home.

But it was in vain, that, during the whole evening, he kept watch behind his door, left slyly ajar: he did not get a glimpse of the neighbor. Neither did she show herself on the next or the three following days; and Maxence was beginning to despair, when at last, on Sunday, as he was going down stairs, he met her again face to face. He had thought her quite pretty at the first glance: this time he was dazzled to that extent, that he remained for over a minute, standing like a statue against the wall.

And certainly it was not her dress that helped setting off her beauty. She wore a poor dress of black merino, a narrow collar, and plain cuffs, and a bonnet of the utmost simplicity. She had nevertheless an air of incomparable dignity, a grace that charmed, and yet inspired respect, and the carriage of a queen. This was on the 30th of July. As he was handing in his key, before leaving,

“My apartment suits me well enough,” said Maxence to Mme. Fortin: “I shall keep it. And here are fifty francs for the month of August.”

And, while the landlady was making out a receipt,

“You never told me,” he began with his most indifferent look, “that I had a neighbor.”

Mme. Fortin straightened herself up like an old warhorse that hears the sound of the bugle.

“Yes, yes!” she said,—“Mademoiselle Lucienne.”

“Lucienne,” repeated Maxence: “that’s a pretty name.”

“Have you seen her?”

“I have just seen her. She’s rather good looking.”

The worthy landlady jumped on her chair. “Rather good looking!” she interrupted. “You must be hard to please, my dear sir; for I, who am a judge, I affirm that you might hunt Paris over for four whole days without finding such a handsome girl. Rather good looking! A girl who has hair that comes down to her knees, a dazzling complexion, eyes as big as this, and teeth whiter than that cat’s. All right, my friend. You’ll wear out more than one pair of boots running after women before you catch one like her.”

That was exactly Maxence’s opinion; and yet with his coldest look,

“Has she been long your tenant, dear Mme. Fortin?” he asked.

“A little over a year. She was here during the siege; and just then, as she could not pay her rent, I was, of course, going to send her off; but she went straight to the commissary of police, who came here, and forbade me to turn out either her or anybody else. As if people were not masters in their own house!”

“That was perfectly absurd!” objected Maxence, who was determined to gain the good graces of the landlady.

“Never heard of such a thing!” she went on. “Compel you to lodge people free! Why not feed them too? In short, she remained so long, that, after the Commune, she owed me a hundred and eighty francs. Then she said, that, if I would let her stay, she would pay me each month in advance, besides the rent, ten francs on the old account. I agreed, and she has already paid up twenty francs.”

“Poor girl!” said Maxence.

But Mme. Fortin shrugged her shoulders.

“Really,” she replied, “I don’t pity her much; for, if she only wanted, in forty-eight hours I should be paid, and she would have something else on her back besides that old black rag. I tell her every day, ‘In these days, my child, there is but one reliable friend, which is better than all others, and which must be taken as it comes, without making any faces if it is a little dirty: that’s money.’ But all my preaching goes for nothing. I might as well sing.”

Maxence was listening with intense delight.

“In short, what does she do?” he asked.

“That’s more than I know,” replied Mme. Fortin. “The young lady has not much to say. All I know is, that she leaves every morning bright and early, and rarely gets home before eleven. On Sunday she stays home, reading; and sometimes, in the evening, she goes out, always alone, to some theatre or ball. Ah! she is an odd one, I tell you!”

A lodger who came in interrupted the landlady; and Maxence walked off dreaming how he could manage to make the acquaintance of his pretty and eccentric neighbor.

Because he had once spent some hundreds of napoleons in the company of young ladies with yellow chignons, Maxence fancied himself a man of experience, and had but little faith in the virtue of a girl of twenty, living alone in a hotel, and left sole mistress of her own fancy. He began to watch for every occasion of meeting her; and, towards the last of the month, he had got so far as to bow to her, and to inquire after her health.

But, the first time he ventured to make love to her, she looked at him head to foot, and turned her back upon him with so much contempt, that he remained, his mouth wide open, perfectly stupefied.

“I am losing my time like a fool,” he thought.

Great, then, was his surprise, when the following week, on a fine afternoon, he saw Mlle. Lucienne leave her room, no longer clad in her eternal black dress, but wearing a brilliant and extremely rich toilet. With a beating heart he followed her.

In front of the Hotel des Folies stood a handsome carriage and horses.

As soon as Mlle. Lucienne appeared, a footman opened respectfully the carriage-door. She went in; and the horses started at a full trot.

Maxence watched the carriage disappear in the distance, like a child who sees the bird fly upon which he hoped to lay hands.

“Gone,” he muttered, “gone!”

But, when he turned around, he found himself face to face with the Fortins, man and wife; who were laughing a sinister laugh.

“What did I tell you?” exclaimed Mme. Fortin. “There she is, started at last. Get up, horse! She’ll do well, the child.”

The magnificent equipage and elegant dress had already produced quite an effect among the neighbors. The customers sitting in front of the Café were laughing among themselves. The confectioner and his wife were casting indignant glances at the proprietors of the Hotel des Folies.

“You see, M. Favoral,” replied Mme. Fortin, “such a girl as that was not made for our neighborhood. You must make up your mind to it; you won’t see much more of her on the Boulevard du Temple.”

Without saying a word, Maxence ran to his room, the hot tears streaming from his eyes. He felt ashamed of himself; for, after all, what was this girl to him?

“She is gone!” he repeated to himself. “Well, good-by, let her go!”

But, despite all his efforts at philosophy, he felt an immense sadness invading his heart: ill-defined regrets and spasms of anger agitated him. He was thinking what a fool he had been to believe in the grand airs of the young lady, and that, if he had had dresses and horses to give her, she might not have received him so harshly. At last he made up his mind to think no more of her,—one of those fine resolutions which are always taken, and never kept; and in the evening he left his room to go and dine in the Rue St. Gilles.

But, as was often his custom, he stopped at the Café next door, and called for a drink. He was mixing his absinthe when he saw the carriage that had carried off Mlle. Lucienne in the morning returning at a rapid gait, and stopping short in front of the hotel. Mlle. Lucienne got out slowly, crossed the sidewalk, and entered the narrow corridor. Almost immediately, the carriage turned around, and drove off.

“What does it mean?” thought Maxence, who was actually forgetting to swallow his absinthe.

He was losing himself in absurd conjectures, when, some fifteen minutes later, he saw the girl coming out again. Already she had taken off her elegant clothes, and resumed her cheap black dress. She had a basket on her arm, and was going towards the Rue Chariot. Without further reflections, Maxence rose suddenly, and started to follow her, being very careful that she should not see him. After walking for five or six minutes, she entered a shop, half-eating house, and half wine-shop, in the window of which a large sign could be read: “Ordinary at all hours for forty centimes. Hard boiled eggs, and salad of the season.”

Maxence, having crept up as close as he could, saw Mlle. Lucienne take a tin box out of her basket, and have what is called an “ordinaire” poured into it; that is, half a pint of soup, a piece of beef as large as the fist, and a few vegetables. She then had a small bottle half-filled with wine, paid, and walked out with that same look of grave dignity which she always wore.

“Funny dinner,” murmured Maxence, “for a woman who was spreading herself just now in a ten-thousand-franc carriage.”

From that moment she became the sole and only object of his thoughts. A passion, which he no longer attempted to resist, was penetrating like a subtle poison to the innermost depths of his being. He thought himself happy, when, after watching for hours, he caught a glimpse of this singular creature, who, after that extraordinary expedition, seemed to have resumed her usual mode of life. Mme. Fortin was dumfounded.

“She has been too exacting,” she said to Maxence, “and the thing has fallen through.”

He made no answer. He felt a perfect horror for the honorable landlady’s insinuations; and yet he never ceased to repeat to himself that he must be a great simpleton to have faith for a moment in that young lady’s virtue. What would he not have given to be able to question her? But he dared not. Often he would gather up his courage, and wait for her on the stairs; but, as soon as she fixed upon him her great black eye, all the phrases he had prepared took flight from his brain, his tongue clove to his mouth, and he could barely succeed in stammering out a timid,

“Good-morning, mademoiselle.”

He felt so angry with himself, that he was almost on the point of leaving the Hotel des Folies, when one evening:

“Well,” said Mme. Fortin to him, “all is made up again, it seems. The beautiful carriage called again to-day.”

Maxence could have beaten her.

“What good would it do you,” he replied, “if Lucienne were to turn out badly?”

“It’s always a pleasure,” she grumbled, “to have one more woman to torment the men. Those are the girls, you see, who avenge us poor honest women!”

The sequel seemed at first to justify her worst previsions. Three times during that week, Mlle. Lucienne rode out in grand style; but as she always returned, and always resumed her eternal black woolen dress,

“I can’t make head or tail of it,” thought Maxence. “But never mind, I’ll clear the matter up yet.”

He applied, and obtained leave of absence; and from the very next day he took up a position behind the window of the adjoining Café. On the first day he lost his time; but on the second day, at about three o’clock, the famous equipage made its appearance; and, a few moments later, Mlle. Lucienne took a seat in it. Her toilet was richer, and more showy still, than the first time. Maxence jumped into a cab.

“You see that carriage,” he said to the coachman, “Wherever it goes, you must follow it. I give ten francs extra pay.”

“All right!” replied the driver, whipping up his horses.

And much need he had, too, of whipping them; for the carriage that carried off Mlle. Lucienne started at full trot down the Boulevards, to the Madeleine, then along the Rue Royale, and through the Place de la Concorde, to the Avenue des Champs-Elysees, where the horses were brought down to a walk. It was the end of September, and one of those lovely autumnal days which are a last smile of the blue sky and the last caress of the sun.

There were races in the Bois de Boulogne; and the equipages were five and six abreast on the avenue. The side-alleys were crowded with idlers. Maxence, from the inside of his cab, never lost sight of Mlle. Lucienne.

She was evidently creating a sensation. The men stopped to look at her with gaping admiration: the women leaned out of their carriages to see her better.

“Where can she be going?” Maxence wondered.

She was going to the Bois; and soon her carriage joined the interminable line of equipages which were following the grand drive at a walk. It became easier now to follow on foot. Maxence sent off his cab to wait for him at a particular spot, and took the pedestrians’ road, that follows the edge of the lakes. He had not gone fifty steps, however, before he heard some one call him. He turned around, and, within two lengths of his cane, saw M. Saint Pavin and M. Costeclar. Maxence hardly knew M. Saint Pavin, whom he had only seen two or three times in the Rue St. Gilles, and execrated M. Costeclar. Still he advanced towards them.

Mlle. Lucienne’s carriage was now caught in the file; and he was sure of joining it whenever he thought proper.

“It is a miracle to see you here, my dear Maxence!” exclaimed M. Costeclar, loud enough to attract the attention of several persons.

To occupy the attention of others, anyhow and at any cost, was M. Costeclar’s leading object in life. That was evident from the style of his dress, the shape of his hat, the bright stripes of his shirt, his ridiculous shirt-collar, his cuffs, his boots, his gloves, his cane, every thing, in fact.

“If you see us on foot,” he added, “it is because we wanted to walk a little. The doctor’s prescription, my dear. My carriage is yonder, behind those trees. Do you recognize my dapple-grays?” And he extended his cane in that direction, as if he were addressing himself, not to Maxence alone, but to all those who were passing by.

“Very well, very well! everybody knows you have a carriage,” interrupted M. Saint Pavin.

The editor of “The Financial Pilot” was the living contrast of his companion. More slovenly still than M. Costeclar was careful of his dress, he exhibited cynically a loose cravat rolled over a shirt worn two or three days, a coat white with lint and plush, muddy boots, though it had not rained for a week, and large red hands, surprisingly filthy.

He was but the more proud; and he wore, cocked up to one side, a hat that had not known a brush since the day it had left the hatter’s.

“That fellow Costeclar,” he went on, “he won’t believe that there are in France a number of people who live and die without ever having owned a horse or a coupe; which is a fact, nevertheless. Those fellows who were born with fifty or sixty thousand francs’ income in their baby-clothes are all alike.”

The unpleasant intention was evident; but M. Costeclar was not the man to get angry for such a trifle.

“You are in bad humor to-day, old fellow,” he said. The editor of “The Financial Pilot” made a threatening gesture.

“Well, yes,” he answered, “I am in bad humor, like a man who for ten years past has been beating the drum in front of your d—d financial shops, and who does not pay expenses. Yes, for ten years I have shouted myself hoarse for your benefit: ‘Walk in, ladies and gentlemen, and, for every twenty-cent-piece you deposit with us, we will return you a five-franc-piece. Walk in, follow the crowd, step up to the office: this is the time.’ They go in. You receive mountains of twenty-cent-pieces: you never return anything, neither a five-franc-piece, nor even a centime. The trick is done, the public is sold. You drive your own carriage; you suspend diamonds to your mistress’ ears; and I, the organizer of success, whose puffs open the tightest closed pockets, and start up the old louis from the bottom of the old woolen stocking,—I am driven to have my boots half-soled. You stint me my existence; you kick as soon as I ask you to pay for the big drums bursted in your behalf.”

He spoke so loud, that three or four idlers had stopped. Without being very shrewd, Maxence understood readily that he had happened in the midst of an acrimonious discussion. Closely pressed, and desirous of gaining time, M. Costeclar had called him in the hopes of effecting a diversion.

Bowing, therefore, politely,

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” he said: “I fear I have interrupted you.”

But M. Costeclar detained him.

“Don’t go,” he declared; “you must come down and take a glass of Madeira with us, down at the Cascade.”

And, turning to the editor of “The Pilot”:

“Come, now, shut up,” he said: “you shall have what you want.”

“Really?”

“Upon my word.”

“I’d rather have two or three lines in black and white.”

“I’ll give them to you to-night.”

“All right, then! Forward the big guns! Look out for next Sunday’s number!”

Peace being made, the gentlemen continued their walk in the most friendly manner, M. Costeclar pointing out to Maxence all the celebrities who were passing by them in their carriages.

He had just designated to his attention Mme. and Mlle. de Thaller, accompanied by two gigantic footmen, when, suddenly interrupting himself, and rising on tiptoe,

“Sacre bleu!” he exclaimed: “what a handsome woman!”

Without too much affectation, Maxence fell back a step or two. He felt himself blushing to his very ears, and trembled lest his sudden emotion were noticed, and he were questioned; for it was Mlle. Lucienne who thus excited M. Costeclar’s noisy enthusiasm. Once already she had been around the lake; and she was continuing her circular drive.

“Positively,” approved the editor of “The Financial Pilot,” “she is somewhat better than the rest of those ladies we have just seen going by.”

M. Costeclar was on the point of pulling out what little hair he had left.

“And I don’t know her!” he went on. “A lovely woman rides in the Bois, and I don’t know who she is! That is ridiculous and prodigious! Who can post us?”

A little ways off stood a group of gentlemen, who had also just left their carriages, and were looking on this interminable procession of equipages and this amazing display of toilets.

“They are friends of mine,” said M. Costeclar: “let us join them.”

They did so; and, after the usual greetings,

“Who is that?” inquired M. Costeclar,—“that dark person, whose carriage follows Mme. de Thaller’s?”

An old young man, with scanty hair, dyed beard, and a most impudent smile, answered him,

“That’s just what we are trying to find out. None of us have ever seen her.”

“I must and shall find out,” interrupted M. Costeclar. “I have a very intelligent servant.”

Already he was starting in the direction of the spot where his carriage was waiting for him. The old beau stopped him.

“Don’t bother yourself, my dear friend,” he said. “I have also a servant who is no fool; and he has had orders for over fifteen minutes.”

The others burst out laughing.

“Distanced, Costeclar!” exclaimed M. Saint Pavin, who, notwithstanding his slovenly dress and cynic manners, seemed perfectly well received.

No one was now paying any attention to Maxence; and he slipped off without the slightest care as to what M. Costeclar might think. Reaching the spot where his cab awaited him,

“Which way, boss?” inquired the driver. Maxence hesitated. What better had he to do than to go home? And yet . . .

“We’ll wait for that same carriage,” he answered; “and we’ll follow it on the return.”

But he learned nothing further. Mlle. Lucienne drove straight to the Boulevard du Temple, and, as before, immediately resumed her eternal black dress; and Maxence saw her go to the little restaurant for her modest dinner.

But he saw something else too.

Almost on the heels of the girl, a servant in livery entered the hotel corridor, and only went off after remaining a full quarter of an hour in busy conference with Mme. Fortin.

“It’s all over,” thought the poor fellow. “Lucienne will not be much longer my neighbor.”

He was mistaken. A month went by without bringing about any change. As in the past, she went out early, came home late, and on Sundays remained alone all day in her room. Once or twice a week, when the weather was fine, the carriage came for her at about three o’clock, and brought her home at nightfall. Maxence had exhausted all conjectures, when one evening, it was the 31st of October, as he was coming in to go to bed, he heard a loud sound of voices in the office of the hotel. Led by an instinctive curiosity, he approached on tiptoe, so as to see and hear every thing. The Fortins and Mlle. Lucienne were having a great discussion.

“That’s all nonsense,” shrieked the worthy landlady; “and I mean to be paid.”

Mlle. Lucienne was quite calm.

“Well,” she replied: “don’t I pay you? Here are forty francs, —thirty in advance for my room, and ten on the old account.”

“I don’t want your ten francs!”

“What do you want, then?”

“Ah,—the hundred and fifty francs which you owe me still.”

The girl shrugged her shoulders.

“You forget our agreement,” she uttered.

“Our agreement?”

“Yes. After the Commune, it was understood that I would give you ten francs a month on the old account; as long as I give them to you, you have nothing to ask.”

Crimson with rage, Mme. Fortin had risen from her seat.

“Formerly,” she interrupted, “I presumed I had to deal with a poor working-girl, an honest girl.”

Mlle. Lucienne took no notice of the insult.

“I have not the amount you ask,” she said coldly.

“Well, then,” vociferated the other, “you must go and ask it of those who pay for your carriages and your dresses.”

Still impassible, the girl, instead of answering, stretched her hand towards her key; but M. Fortin stopped her arm.

“No, no!” he said with a giggle. “People who don’t pay their hotel-bill sleep out, my darling.”

Maxence, that very morning, had received his month’s pay, and he felt, as it were, his two hundred francs trembling in his pockets.

Yielding to a sudden inspiration, he threw open the office-door, and, throwing down one hundred and fifty francs upon the table,

“Here is your money, wretch!” he exclaimed. And he withdrew at once.

Back to Index Next