From dawn a stranger had been wandering about Montmorency. Armed with a large sun-umbrella and a Guid-Joanne, his copiously oiled black side-whiskers glistening in the sun, showing large teeth in a friendly grin to wayfarers of all degrees, one did not need to hear his strong accent of the people of Marseilles to know that he was a son of the South. Probably having made a fortune in shipping, in oils or wines, he was utilizing his holiday by touring in the north of his country, forced to admire, but still pugnaciously asseverating that no garden equalled his city park and no main street his Cannebiere. He seemed to have no destination in particular; he stopped here and there at random, and used a large and powerful field-glass, slung by a patent leather strap over his brawny shoulders, to study the points in the wide landscape. Now and then he made notes in his guide-book, but with a good-humored listlessness which would have disarmed the most suspicious of military detectives. On descending the hillside, he did not scruple to stop to chat with a nurse maid or two out with the children, and to open his hand as freely to give the latter some silver as he had opened his heart to the girl—all with an easy, hearty laugh, and the oily accent of his fellow-countrymen.
He exchanged the time of day with the clerks hurrying to the railroad station; he did not disdain to ask the roadmender, seated on a pile of stones, how his labor was getting on, and where he would work next week; he leaned on the gate to listen as if enrapt to the groom and gardener of a neighbor of Clemenceau's, regretting that the hubbub of cracking guns and other ominous explosions was driving their master from home. Then, rattling his loose silver, and whistling a fisher's song, which he must have picked up off the Hyéres, he paused before the gateway of the house which had become the Ogre's Cave of Montmorency, and read half aloud the placard nailed on a board to a tree and announcing that the property was in the open market.
"The Reine-Claude Villa, eh!" muttered he to himself. "The name pleases me! I must go in and see if it is worth the money. To say nothing," he added still more secretly, "of the mistress having returned this morning. I wonder how she had the courage to walk along the road in the dawn, when she might have met the ghost of our poor Gratian von Linden-hohen-Linden!"
This acquaintance with the unpublished story of Madame Clemenceau rather contradicted the aspect and accent of a Marseillais, and, although the black whiskers did not remind one of Von Sendlingen when we saw him at Munich, than of his clear shaven, wrinkled face as the Marchioness de Letourlagneau pianist, it was not so with the burly figure, more robust than corpulent.
He opened the gate without ringing and stepped inside on the gravel path winding up to the pretty but not lively house.
"Attention," he muttered suddenly, in a military tone. "Here is our own little spy in the camp—Hedwig. It will be as well she does not recognize me without my cue."
Running his large red hand over his whiskers, he jovially accosted the girl, after adjusting his formidable accoutrement field-glass, guide-book, case and heavy watch chain, adorned with a compass and a pedometer. She stood on the porch before the windows of the room into which her mistress had entered so early in the morning.
"What do you seek, monsieur?" she challenged, after an unfavorable glance upon the stranger who had greatly offended her idea of dignity by not ringing and waiting at the portals to be officially admitted.
"Pardon me, young lady," the man said, with the southern accent so strong that a flavor of garlic at once pervaded the air, "but I did not think that your papa and mamma and the family were in the house, seeing that it is for sale."
"Young lady? My papa? Let me tell you that I am the housemaid here and if you have intended to jest—"
"Jest! purchasing a house, and rather large gardens, is no jest, not in the environs of Paris!" returned the visitor. "Is it you who are to show the property?"
"No. If you will wait, I will tell master," said Hedwig, not at all flattered by being pretendedly taken for "the daughter of the house."
She turned round, made the half-circuit of the house, and entered the breakfast-room where the three gentlemen were still in debate.
"A gentleman, to see the house, with a view to purchase, eh?" said Clemenceau. "Very well, I will go into the drawing-room and speak with him. Is your mistress having a nap?"
"No, monsieur."
"Then, be so good as to tell her that somebody has come about the house, and as such inquirers are sure to be supplied by their wives with formidable lists of questions about domestic details, I should be obliged by her coming down to send the person away satisfied."
He followed Hedwig on the way up through the house as far as the drawing-room door, where his path branched off. Entering, he threw open the double window-sashes and politely asked the gentleman to make use of this direct road, with an apology for suggesting it. But he had seen at a glance that this kind of happy-go-lucky tourist was not of the ceremonious strain.
"It is you, monsieur," began the latter, taking the seat pointed out to him and immediately swinging one leg, mounted on the other knee, with the utmost nonchalance, "it is you who are the proprietor of this pretty place?"
"Yes; my name is Clemenceau, at your service."
"Then, monsieur, I am—where the plague have I put my card-case—I am Guillaume Cantagnac, lately in business as a notary, but for the present, at the head of an enterprise for the purchase of landed estates, and their development by high culture for the ground and superior structures instead of their antiquated houses. I read in theMoniteur des Ventes, and on the placard at your gates, that you are willing to dispose of this residence and the land appertaining thereunto. I am not on business this morning, but taking a little pleasure-trip—no, not pleasure-trip—God forbid I should find any pleasure now! I mean a little tour for distraction after a great sorrow that has befallen me."
The stout man, though he could have felled a bull with a blow of his leg-of-mutton fist, seemed about to break down in tears. But, burying his empurpled nose in a large red handkerchief, he passed off his emotion in a potent blast which made the ornaments on the mantel-shelf quake, and resumed in an unsteady voice:
"I would have made a note and deferred to another day seeing the property you offer and learning its area, value, situation, advantages and defects—for there is always some flaw in a terrestrial paradise, ha, ha! But your hospitable gate was on the latch—such an inviting expression was on the face of a rather pretty servant girl on your porch—faith! I could not resist the temptation to make the acquaintance of the happy owner of this Eden! and lo! I am rewarded by the power to go home to Marseilles and tell my companion domino-players in the Café Dame de la Garde that I saw the renowned constructor of the new cannon—M. Felix Clemenceau, with whom the Emperor has spoken about the defense of our beloved country!"
Clemenceau could only bow under this deluge of words.
"M. Clemenceau, will you honor me with the clasp of the hand?"
The host allowed his hand to disappear from view in the enormous one presented, timidly.
"Ah! in case of the universal European War, they are talking about, France will have need of such men as you!"
The embarrassing situation for the modest inventor was altered for the better by the entrance of Antonino, who darted a keen glance upon the genial stranger.
"How do you do?" cried the latter, nodding kindly. "Your son, I suppose, M. Clemenceau?"
"By adoption. I am hardly of the age to have a son as old as that!"
"I beg your pardon! I see now, that it is brain-work that has worn you out a little. But, bless you, that will all get smoothed out when you begin to enjoy the windfall of fortune! I dare say now you are selling out because the Emperor offers you a piece of one of his parks, wanting you to live near him. And I presume this bright young gentleman is of the same profession? Has he, too, invented a great gun?"
"He is the author of several not inconsiderable inventions," replied Clemenceau for Antonino, who was not delighted with the stranger's ways, had gone to look out of the nearest window, although it necessitated his rudely turning his back on him.
"Any cannon among them?"
"No, M. Cant—Cant—"
"Cantagnac—"
"Cantagnac; only a very notable bullet of novel shape."
"A bullet, dear me! a bullet! a novel bullet! what an age we are living in, to be sure! I applaud you, young man, and you must allow me to say to my companions in the Café de la Garde at Marseilles, that I shook the hand of the inventor of the new bullet!" But as Antonino did not make a responsive movement, he had to add, unabashed: "before I go, I mean! But allow me to say, gentlemen, that though I am only a commonplace notary, and a retired one, at that, ha, ha! a buyer of houses to modernize, and land to improve in cultivation; though lowly, and very ill-informed on the great questions which occupy you, yet I venture to assert that I take the greatest interest in your labors. I would give half—aye, three-quarters of my possessions toward your success. My life should be yours if it were useful in any way, although that would be a small gift, as it has no value in my own eyes. I had a son, M. Clemenceau—an only son, tall, dark, handsome and, though he took after me, bright—like this young gentleman of talent here!" He flourished the voluminous red handkerchief again. "In an evil hour, I let him go on a holiday excursion and he chose the Rhine. His boyish gallantry caused him to champion a waitress on a steamboat, whom a bullying German officer of the Landsturm had chucked under the chin. High words were exchanged—my boy challenged the giant, who did not understand our way among gentlemen of settling such matters—he knocked my hopeful one overboard—no, gentlemen, he was not drowned, but he never recovered from the mortification of being laughed at. He came home but to die—in the following year, poor, sensitive soul! His mother never held her head up again, and I—" he blew his nose with a tremendous peal, "I—I beg your pardon for forgetting my business, again."
"Not at all!" exclaimed Clemenceau, while Antonino, angry at having misjudged the bereaved parent, offered him the hand he had previously refused.
"I thank you both," said M. Cantagnac, hastening to dry his tears which might have seemed of the crocodile sort when they had time to remember he had been a notary. "This is not my usual bearing! Three years ago I was called the Merry One, for I was always laughing, but now"—he gave a great gulp at a sob like a rosy-gilled salmon taking in a fly and abruptly said:
"So you want to sell your house, with all belongings? Which are—"
"About twelve acres, mostly young wood, but some rocky ground ornamental enough, which will never be productive. Do you mind getting the plan, Antonino? It is hanging up in my study."
Antonino went out, not sorry to be beyond earshot of the boisterous negotiator.
"Young wood, eh?" repeated the latter, "humph! lots of stony ground! ahem! yet it is pretty and so near town. I wonder you sell it."
"I want ready money," returned Clemenceau, bluntly.
"So we all do, ha, ha! But you surely could raise on it by mortgage."
"I have tried that."
"The deuce you have! That's strange, when the Emperor said your discovery—"
"It is a gold mine, but like gold mines, it has plunged the discoverer into debt."
"I dare say it would! and I suppose it is not so certain-sure as the newspapers assert—"
"I beg your pardon, it is beyond all doubt," replied Clemenceau, sharply.
"Stop a bit," said M. Cantagnac, pulling a newspaper out of his pocket. "This is a journal I picked up in the cars. I always do that. There is sure to be some passenger to throw them down and so I never buy any myself when I am traveling, ha, ha! Well, in this very sheet, there is a long article about you. It is called 'The Ideal Cannon' and the writer declares that the experiment was a great hit, ha, ha! and he undertakes to explain the new system."
Clemenceau smiled contemptuously. He was not one of those to make a secret public property on which a nation's salvation might depend. In such momentous matters, he would have had arsenals, armories, navy yards and military museums labeled over the door:
"Speech is silver, silence is of gold;Death unto him who dares the tale unfold!"
"Speech is silver, silence is of gold;Death unto him who dares the tale unfold!"
"Ah, he wouldn't know everything, of course. However, he makes out that you obtain the wonderful result by fixing essential oils in a special magazine and that you managed to project a solid shot to the prodigious distance of—of—" he referred to the newspaper—"fifteen miles by means of—of—I do not understand these jaw-breaking scientific terms. Is it not nitroglycerine?"
"I do not use them myself," remarked Clemenceau, dryly.
"But he adds—look here!" continued the worthy Man from Marseilles, regretfully, "that what you managed to perform with your model and material, specially prepared by yourself, could not be attained on the proper scale in a war campaign. He goes on to say that the scientific world await the explanation of the means to obtain such power as, heretofore, the pressure of liquefied gases has been but some five hundred pounds to the square inch, about a tenth of that of explosives now used. It is admitted, however, that there may be something in your increase of effectiveness by reiterated emissions—" He began to stammer, as if he were speaking too glibly, but his auditor took no alarm. "He continues that, up to this day, gases have failed as propelling powers from their instantaneous explosions."
"The writer is correct," said Clemenceau, a little warmed, "or, rather, he had foundation for his criticism when he wrote. The powerful agent was not perfectly controllable at the period of my last official experiments, but that is not the case at present. This enormous, almost incalculable power is so perfectly under my thumb, monsieur, that not only is it manageable in the largest cannon, but it is suitable for a parlor pistol, which a child might play with."
"Wonderful!" ejaculated Cantagnac, with undoubted sincerity, for his eyes gleamed.
"In solving that last enigma, I found the power became more strong when curbed. Consequently, the gun that would before have carried fifteen miles, may send twenty, and the ball, if not explosible, might ricochet three."
"Wonderful!" cried the Marseillais again, who displayed very deep interest in the abstruse subject for a retired notary.
"The bullet, or shell, or ball—all the projectiles are perfected now!" went on Clemenceau, triumphantly, "and were I surrounded by a million of men, or had I an impregnable fortress before me, a battery of my cannon would finish the struggle in not more than four hours."
"Why, this is a force of nature, not man's work," said Cantagnac, through his grating teeth, as though the admiration were extracted from him. "I do not see how any army or any fort could resist such instruments."
"No, monsieur, not one."
"Would not all the other nations unite against your country?"
"What would that matter, when, I repeat, the number of adversaries would not affect the question?"
"What a dreadful thing! I beg your pardon, but I go to church and I have had 'Love one another!' dinned into my ears. What is to become of that precept, eh?"
"It is what I should diffuse by my cannon," returned Clemenceau.
"By scattering the limbs of thousands of men, ha, ha!" but his laugh sounded very hollow, indeed.
"Not so; by destroying warfare," was the inventor's reply. "War is impious, immoral and monstrous, and not the means employed in it. The more terrible they are, the sooner will come the millennium. On the day when men find that no human protection, no rank, no wealth, no influential connections, nothing can shield them from destruction by hundreds of thousands, not only on the battlefield, but in their houses, within the highest fortified ramparts, they will no longer risk their country, homes, families and bodies, for causes often insignificant or dishonest. At present, all reflecting men who believe that the divine law ought to rule the earth, should have but one thought and a single aim: to learn the truth, speak it and impress it by all possible means wherever it is not recognized. I am a man who has frittered away too much of his time on personal tastes and emotions, and I vow that I shall never let a day pass without meditating upon the destination whither all the world should move, and I mean to trample over any obstacle that rises before me. The time is one when men could carouse, amuse themselves, doze and trifle—or keep in a petty clique. The real society will be formed of those who toil and watch, believe and govern."
"I see, monsieur, that you cherish a hearty hatred for the enemies of the student and the worker," said the ex-notary, not without an inexplicable bitterness, "and that you seek the suppression of the swordsman."
"You mistake—I hate nobody," loftily answered Clemenceau. "If I thought that my country would use my discovery to wage an unjust war, I declare that I should annihilate the invention. But whatever rulers may intend, my country will never long carry on an unfair war and it is only to make right prevail that France should be furnished with irresistible power."
While listening, Cantagnac had probably considered that raillery was not proper to treat such exaltation, for he changed his tone and noisily applauded the sentiments.
"Capital, capital! that's what I call sensible talk! And do you believe that I would leave a man, a patriot, in temporary embarrassment when he has discovered the salvation of our country? Why, this house will become a sight for the world and his wife to flock unto! I am proud that I have stood within the walls and I shall tell the domino-players of the Café—but never mind that now! To business! Between ourselves, are you particularly fond of this house?"
"It is my only French home, where I brought my bride, where my child was born—where the great child of my brain came forth—"
"Enough! we can arrange this neatly. It is my element to smooth matters over. Something is in the air about a company to 'work' your minor inventions in firearms, eh? good! I engage, from my financial connections, to find you all funds required; I shall charge twenty-five per cent. on the profits, and never interfere with your scientific department, which I do not understand, anyway. There is no necessity of our seeing one another in the business, but I do want to put my shoulder to the wheel—wheelof Fortune, eh? ha, ha!" and he rubbed his large hands gleefully till they fairly glowed.
There was no resisting openness like this, and Clemenceau heartily thanked the volunteer "backer," as is said in monetary circles.
"That's very kind; but the proposal has previously been made to me by an old friend, an Israelite who also has connections with the principal bankers. But these transactions take time, on a large scale and to embrace the world. Meanwhile, although he would readily and easily find me temporary accommodation, the pressure on me is not acute enough for me to accept a helping hand."
"I understand: you would not be in difficulties if you were another kind of man. Let us say no more about it. As the company will be a public one, I suppose, I can take shares. About this mortgage over our heads, is some bank holding it?"
"Well, no; my wife has it, as part of the marriage portion, or rather my gift. I have sent for her to step down to discuss the matter with you."
"Happy to see the lady," said Cantagnac, pulling out his whiskers and adjusting the points of his collar. "We will discuss it, with an eye to your interests, monsieur."
It was clear that M. Cantagnac had not enchanted Antonino, for he had taken care not to bring the plan of the house; it was brought, but by another hand. On seeing the lady, the Marseillais bowed with exaggerated politeness of the old school and stammered his compliments.
"No, no;" Clemenceau hastened to say, "this is not the lady of the house, but a guest who, however, will show you the place."
It was Rebecca Daniels. As always happens with the Jews, whose long, oval faces are not improved by mental trouble, she looked less captivating than when she had shone as the star of the Harmonista Music-hall; but, nevertheless, she was, for the refined eye, very alluring. She accepted the task imposed on her with a gentle smile, although it was evident that in her quick glance she had summed up the visitor's qualities without much favor for him.
While Cantagnac was bowing again and fumbling confusedly with his hat, Rebecca laid the plan on the table and whispered to Clemenceau:
"Do you know that she is here again?"
He nodded, whereupon her features, which had been animated, fell back into habitual calm.
"She sends word by Hedwig, whom I intercepted, that she wants to see you before seeing this purchaser of the house. I need not urge you to keep calm?"
"No!"
"Come this way, please, monsieur," said Rebecca, lightly, as if fully at ease, and she led Cantagnac out of the room.
Left to himself, with the notification of the important interview overhanging him, the host pondered. He had at the first loved Rebecca, and it was strange to him now that he had let Césarine outshine her. He had acted like an observer, who takes a comet for a planet shaken out of its course. Since he loved the Jewess with a holier flame than ever the Russian kindled, he perceived which was the true love. This is not an earthly fire, but a divine spirit; not a chance shock, but the union of two souls in unbroken harmony.
It is possible that Von Sendlingen in transmitting to Clemenceau the notice by the butler's wife, that the Viscount Gratian was to aid her in flight, but which as plainly revealed the wife's flight, had expected the angered husband to execute justice on the betrayer. Human laws could have absolved him if he had slain the couple at sight, but Clemenceau, after the example of his father, had resolved not to transgress the divine mandate again, even in this cause. He would have separated the congenial spirits of cunning and deceit, but not by striking a blow, and the rebuke to Césarine would have been so scathing she would never have had the impudence to see him again. Not by murder did he mean to liberate himself.
On seeing that heaven had taken the parting of the gallant and the wanton into its hand, he had simply forbore to intervene. On the one hand, he let Gratian's mysterious and stealthy assassins stifle him and the other, Césarine, run to the railroad station unhailed. The one deserved death as the other deserved oblivion.
This woman was of the world and would be a clod when no longer living—her essence would remain to inspirit some other evil woman—the same malignity in a beautiful shape which appeared in Lais, Messalina, Lucrezia Borgia, the Medici, Ninon, Lecouvreur, Iza, not links of a chain, but the same gem, a little differently set.
But Rebecca's was an ethereal spirit eternal. Thinking of her he could believe himself young and comely again and loving forever in another sphere. This was the being whom he would eternally adore, whether he or she were the first to quit the earth.
Here lay the consolation. Césarine, like all evil, was transient; Rebecca, like all good, everlasting.
"Let her come," said he at last, lifting his head slowly and no longer troubled. "She need not fear. I shall bear in mind the Oriental proverb Daniels quoted: 'Do not beat a woman, even with roses!'"
Hardly were the words formed in his mind than his wife appeared as though by that mind reading, frequent in married couples—she had waited for this assurance of her personal safety to be mentally formed.
In the short time given her toilet, she had performed wonders. Perhaps, with a surprising effort of her will, she had snatched some rest, for her eyes wore the fresh, pellucid gleam after prolonged slumber. Her cheeks were smooth and by artifice, seemed to wear the virginal down. Easy and graceful as ever, she affected a slight constraint, which agreed with a pretence of avoiding his glances.
"You must be astonished to see me!" she exclaimed, for he did not say a word of greeting.
No man could have looked less astonished, and, with the greatest evenness of tone, he answered:
"You ought to know that nothing you do astonishes me."
"But I remember—I wrote you a long letter explaining my absence and the necessity of my sudden departure—the despatch from my poor uncle's secretary—I ordered it to be given you—it explained my sudden departure—"
"Hedwig gave me the paper," he said shortly.
"But my letter, saying I had nursed him to convalescence and had fallen ill myself? You had time to reply but you did not do so."
"I received no letter," he said, like a speaking machine.
"Dear, dear, how could that be!" she muttered, tapping her foot on the head of the tiger-skin rug.
"Perhaps it arises from your never writing me any," he said, but without bitterness.
"Oh, I could swear—"
"It is of no consequence either way."
"Since you did not reply, I came to you although it was at a great risk. I would not tell you that I was leaving a sickroom for fear it would fill you with too great pain or too great hope."
"How witty you are!"
"Would you not be happy if I died?"
"If you were in a dying state, somebody might have written for you—Madame Lesperon or your uncle," speaking as if the persons were fabulous creatures.
"Oh, my granduncle is well known at the Russian Embassy, and Madame and M. Lesperon remember your lamented father distinctly."
He bit his lip as if he detested hearing his father spoken of by her.
"Madame wanted to write to you—she expected you to come for me, like any other husband, but I knew you were not like other husbands, and would not come."
She was sincere; women always speak out when boldness is an excuse.
"You mistake," he interrupted, "I would have come, under the belief that on your death bed, you would have confession to make or desires to express which a husband alone should hear."
"What do you suppose?" cried Césarine, trying to forget that the speaker must have seen the death of her lover—whether he connived at it or not—and her flight, whether he facilitated it or not.
"I do not suppose anything, but I remember and I forsee."
"Do you mean to say that you do not feel ill-will because I have come back?"
"Madame Clemenceau, this house is ours—as much yours as mine. That is why I asked you to come down here, for it is necessary to sell it."
"Why am I charged with the business?"
"Because you have an interest in it. Half of all I own is yours."
"But you long ago repaid my share, and generously!"
"Not in the eyes of the law, and it pleases me that you should do this."
"But I do not need anything. My uncle was pleased at my nursing him back to health; his children have been unkind to him, and he has transferred to me some property in France, a handsome income! Grant to me a great pleasure—of which I am not worthy," she went on tearfully, "but you will have the more merit, then! Let me lend you any sum of which you have need."
"I thank you, but I have already refused a thousand times the amount from an unsullied hand!" returned Clemenceau, emphatically.
"That Jewess'!" she exclaimed, with a great change in her bearing.
"Hush! strangers present!" and in uttering this talismanic cue between married people, he pointed to the shadow on the curtains.
Rebecca had concluded her pilotage of M. Cantagnac and it was he whom Clemenceau soon after presented to his wife.
"Let me add, M. Cantagnac, that you must be my guest as long as you stay at Montmorency, for the hotels are conducted solely for the excursionists who come out of Paris and their accommodations would not please you. You are expected to sit down to dinner with us at one o'clock, country fashion and I will order a bedroom ready also."
"Gracious heavens! you are really too good!" exclaimed Cantagnac, lifting his hands almost devoutly.
After one sharp slighting look at the visitor, Madame Clemenceau had withdrawn her senses within herself, so to say, to come to a conclusion on the singular conduct of her husband. His cold scorn daunted her, and filled her with dread. Had not the Jewess been on the spot, whom she believed to be a rival once more, however high was her character and Hedwig's eulogy, she would have prudently fled again without fighting. She had the less reason to stay, as the house was to be sold, in a manner of speaking, from under her feet.
Yet the Marseillais was worth more than a passing glance. When alone with the lady, whom he regarded steadfastly, a radical change took place in his carriage, and he who had been so easy and oily became stiff, stern and rigid. It was the attitude no longer of a secret agent, wearing the mien and mask of his profession, but of a military spy, who stands before a subordinate when disguise is superfluous.
"Truly, she is more bewitching than when I first knew her," he muttered between his close teeth, as if he admired with awe and suppressed breath. "What a pretty monster she is!"
Feeling that his view was weighing upon her, Madame Clemenceau suddenly looked up. It seemed to her that something in the altered and insolent bearing was not unknown to her but the recollection was hazy, and the black whiskers perplexed.
"Did you speak, monsieur?" she said, to give herself countenance.
"I spoke nothing," he replied still in the smooth accent which was not familiar to her. "A man of business like myself, feels bound, if he has any natural turning that way, to become a physiognomist and thought-reader in order not to pay too dearly for bargains; I am happy to say that I rarely blunder."
"Then you can read my disposition?" exclaimed Césarine mockingly.
"I knew it before."
"Indeed! then you would do me a great service, monsieur, if you would tell me how it strikes you, as an average man. For I assure you," she went on, taking a seat without pointing out one to him, "that some days I do not understand myself, a most humiliating thing, though ancient wisdom acknowledged that the hardest thing is self-knowledge."
"If you authorize me to be outspoken, madame, I will enlighten you," returned Cantagnac.
"Do not let me be in your way!" impertinently.
"It is the most simple thing, for your entire character is described in these four words: venal, ferocious, frivolous and insubmissive!"
She sprang to her feet with quivering lips and flashing eyes, while he, like a statue, lowered upon its pedestal, calmly sank upon an arm-chair. Then, looking round and listening to make certain that they had no observers, he leaned both elbows on the table and fixed his sea-blue eyes on the startled lady.
"Kaiserina!" he said in a commanding voice, without the least softening with that southern suavity, "for how much do you want to sell me secretly, your husband's invention?"
The altered voice appeared not at all strange, but the words were so unexpected that she merely stared in bewilderment while he had even more deliberately to repeat them. Deeply frightened by this mystery which in vain she tried to solve, she forced a laugh.
"Oh, it is no jest—I am one of the most serious of men," proceeded Cantagnac, "as becomes one of the busiest."
She looked at him like a fawn, which, having never seen a human being, is suddenly peered upon in the lair by the hunter.
"You want to know who I am, speaking to you in this style? See my card on the table there—it says I am Cantagnac, the agent, modest but passing for rather subtle, of a private and limited company recently established with a cash capital fully paid up of several millions offredericks—for, to tell the plain facts to you—the obtaining for its profit the ideas, inventions and discoveries of others. In short, we, who used to despise mental fruits, see that it is the most profitable of trades to work genius. As soon as we see, learn, or even scent that an important thing is being produced anywhere in the world, we hurry to the spot and by one means or another—money, cunning, persuasion, main force, if needs must, we make ourselves master of what we must have if we mean to be the world's rulers. With a European war impending, even a lady will see at once of what value an invention is, like M. Clemenceau's."
"In plain language, you are proposing to me an infamous deed!" she exclaimed with scathing irony which failed to scare the other.
"I am proposing a matter of business. Where are you going?"
"Straight to my husband—whose confidence you have imposed on by some deception"
"Dear madame, do not do what you would eternally deplore," said Cantagnac quietly, and motioning with his broad hand for her to be seated again. "I deceived your husband with a bit of character acting which you would, I think, have applauded, as you were once on the stage—the music hall stage, at least."
She sat down, as if this allusion had stunned her.
"His secret is indispensable to my company and I was given instructions to try to obtain it, by surprise and for nothing, if possible. Without it, many another purchase of ours made at great expense, would become utterly useless. From an incomplete acquaintance with your husband, I feared I could do nothing with him; from a study of him here, at a later period, I doubted still more; and, having spoken with him, I am sure."
A previous acquaintance with Clemenceau? It was a ray of light, but still Césarine, who did not cease to stare at him, failed to identify him with a figure in her past. Was this only a new phase of a Proteus?
"Clemenceau is no longer the frank and enthusiastic student but a man of talent and feeling who has found his true course. In what concerns the revelation he has had from science, he is reserved and circumspect. Happily, man that is borne of woman, however great, if a simpleton and an idealist, almost always is the prey of the sex in one form or another. When they escape feminine influence, they are impregnable, and strong measures must be employed."
"Strong measures," repeated Césarine, shuddering at the icy, passionless tone like a lecturer's.
"They must be blotted off the book of life—and it is always painful to have to proceed to such extremities. It is frequent, very—and ninety-nine times in the hundred, we run up against the woman for whom a great magistrate advised the search whenever a crime is perpetrated."
"It would appear that you expect to induce me to commit that crime!" sneered the woman, pale but rebellious.
"We have no need to induce you, dear madame, for we can constrain you."
"Constrain me!" repeated the woman savagely and tossing her head with pride. "If you really knew my nature, you would not say that. You might tell me how?"
"Really know you? you shall judge for yourself. In your marriage certificate, you are described as of the Vieradlers, but your eagle is not the German one—it is the Polish. The women of your race are distinguished for beauty, when young, and freedom in love at all times. Your grandma has a volumnious chronicle of scandal all to herself, but her glory is thrown into the shade by the peculiar celebrity enjoyed rather briefly by her favorite daughter, La Belle Iza, that one of the Sirens of Paris who has, under the present Empire, lured the most men to wreck. This was your aunt. Her sister, your mother, quite as beautiful, was rescued at an early hour from her mother's manoevres to 'place' her, as she called it, and for this loss, the indignant old lady vowed a kind of unnatural vengeance, to be visited on the child of her who had offended her by remaining in the path of virtue. This child is the woman before me. Oh, it is useless to look at me like that!" he grimly said, with the perplexed air of a man with no ear for music who listens to a music-box delighting others. "Pure wasted labor! The old lady, who had fallen from her high estate where Iza had lifted her, and was ordered out of the capital for extorting hush-money upon her daughter's stock of love-letters, the old lady became a queen—a queen of the disreputable classes. In Munich, sleepy old town where superstitions linger and the women are as besotted with ignorance as the men with beer, she ruled the beggars and vagabonds. It was there that fate led you and you fell under her hand. She pretended to befriend you, for even so young, you promised to have power by your charms, renewing those she had never forgotten in her lost Iza. No one consulted the Almanack de Gotha when you were launched on an admiring society as one of the Vieradlers. You soon won a great reputation for freshness of wit and coquetry in all South Germany. In plain words, you could not see a man come into the drawing-room without wishing to make him fall in love with you. We want to monopolize genius—you to monopolize the love of man. You have the mania of loving, more common than it is suspected, especially by those who would have us believe that good society is a fold where snowy lambs are led about from the cradle to the butcher's shambles, by pastors carrying crooks decked with sky blue ribbons. The feeling is a craving in you—an involuntary and invincible instinct which was to have its inevitable end. You turned from a man who sincerely loved you to make a conquest of another whose heart was engaged."
"Stop!" interrupted Césarine, triumphantly for she had detected genuine feeling the last tone used by the living enigma. "I know you now! you are the man whom you say really loved me. Down with the masks! You are—"
"Not so loud!"
"You are Major von Sendlingen!"
"Say 'Colonel' and you will be exact. Yes; I am the lover whom you cast off in favor of the student Ruprecht, as this Clemenceau was called when he pottered about Europe, sketching ruined doorways and broken windows and dreamed of architectural structures. A man whom destiny had chosen to be the greatest demolisher of the age! what sarcasm!"
"Well, you should be the last to complain! Was it like devotion to me that you should try to abduct La Belle Stamboulane in the public street?
"To remove her from your path! She was your rival in the music hall! Love her, love a Jewess? You do not understand men—you fancy they are put here for your pleasure, safeguard and redemption. An error! We are neither your joy or your punishment. Let that pass. You married the student Ruprecht who turned out to be your cousin Felix Clemenceau. For a time you played the part of the idolizing young wife admirably. You never reproached his father's head for the murder of your aunt and he said never a word about the old beggar-sovereign Baboushka. In your gladness at having stolen the man away from Fraulein Daniels, I believe you imagined that it was love you felt. Not a bit of it! Love is the sun of the soul—all light, heat, motion and creativeness! there are no more two loves than two suns. There may be two or many passions, but not two loves. If a man loved twice, it would not be love!"
The hard man spoke so tenderly that his hearer dared not scoff.
"He ran through your witchery after a while, but he built his hopes upon maternity. You had a child but you connived at its death, if you did not deal the stroke."
How accurately Sendlingen had measured this woman! Another would have cried out against him at this accusation—or burst into tears and so disarmed a less adamantine man. She did not blanch; she did not lift her hand to cover her unaltered features, but listened as idly as she would to the last plaint of the fool who might blown out his brains at her feet. The false Cantagnac pursued in his natural voice, rancid and imperious, rolling out the gutturals like a heavy wagon thundering over an old road.
"It follows, madame, that if you run to your husband at a faster gait than you took to run away with the Baron of Linden, to inform him of my proposition, I will tell him what you hear—I will accuse you of infanticide, of unfaithfulness—"
"He knows that!" ejaculated the woman with irony and in defiance. "Ask him, if you do not believe."
"Impossible."
"He would not say a word to anybody, and I would not have confessed only I was driven to it."
"And he forgave you?"
"All!"
"He is very grand; and few men of my acquaintance would not at least have caned you smartly. However, it was not long after the 'removal' of your child, to put it mildly, that you threw yourself into the swim of distractions, such as were to be had hereabouts. The old marchioness' circle soon surrounded you; she was one of my company's instruments, and from that time we counted on you as a coadjutrix some day."
"On me!"
"Precisely! to whom should we look for aid and complicity in our concealed and wary work but to the embodiment of permanent and domestic corruption? You are merely an impulse—we are a policy, and you will be our bondwoman. Ah, we are merely men—not fools, scoundrels or gods like your husband, for only such would tolerate depravity like yours."
"He is like a god," said Césarine, trembling, in a low, hushed voice. "When he speaks, it seems to me that it is what people call conscience."
"How long is it since you acknowledged this superiority?" sneered the sham Marseillais.
"Too short a while, alas! some few minutes," sighed she.
"Well, granting he is at least a demi-god, he is a power which we have an interest in destroying. Hercules became a nuisance to neglectful stable-keepers, and like conservative institutions. Let us have done with him. But, first, the final training of yourself. I repeat that the marchioness' house was the rendezvous at the gates of Paris, where we assembled our bearers of intelligence. Under cover of chit-chat and vocal-waltzes, we heard reports and issued orders. It was necessary to link you to us and we employed our foremost captivator, the dandy of two countries, the international Lothario, the Viscount-baron Gratian von Linden-hohen-Linden-cumde Terremonde. Luckily, too, he had been at the same period as myself, smitten with your vernal charms, and he entered upon his amorous mission with gusto. You believed him very wealthy, but let me tell you that the cash he really had under hand was our petty expense fund. Judge by that what a capital we control!" exclaimed Von Sendlingen proudly. "Our poor Gratian the double dealer, seemed not to be loved by the gods any more truly than by his goddess here present, for she let him, unassisted, be thrust down, on falling through a broken bridge, into the mire of a rivulet visible from your window. There he breathed his last. Fit death for a traitor! For our corporation, the untimely, unmanageable passion of this athletic fop might have had grave consequences, and for you. We did not find the money on his person only a pocketbook stuffed with rubbish, as if he were the victim of some gross deception. But, have no fear, Madame, we are not going to claim the sum from you, we prefer to let you regard it as a payment on account. We intend you no mischief, and we intended you none, then; we might have stopped your flight—that is, I might have done so, but I only threw myself across your path after you ran on, to stay your husband from pursuing you."
"You were there?" she stammered, more and more frightened at the vastness of the serpent which involved her with its coils, and which was so careless about the loss of its golden scales.
"Enough! all is well that ends well! You will serve us?"
"But I have repented!"
"Nonsense! you returned home because your husband was suddenly enriched above your dreams. Your repentance was simply a prompting of moral hygiene for you to take rest before a new and less unlucky flight. You had the instinctive warning that to the greatly successful inventor, the modern king or knowing man—for civilization has come round the circle to the point where savagery commenced and the wise man rules—to the wizard, power, riches, beauty, all gravitate. Your husband would be courted; duchesses would sue him to place their husbands or gallants on the board of his company—the dark-eyed charmer whom you ousted in the Munich music hall and whom you foresaw to be your eternal rival, might meet him again. With you beside him, she might be repulsed—with you distant, he would surrender at discretion. What a triumph for your self-conceit and banquet for your senses to make your husband love you even more than when he was the suitor! Look out! in battling with your husband you say you fight Conscience; with Mademoiselle Daniels, with whom I have had twenty minutes' pleasant conversation, enlightening him, you would conflict with Virtue. Tell your husband that the money you offered to help him, came out of our bank, and he will not forgive you or tolerate you this time. No, for his silence would no longer be loftiness of soul, but complicity of which I do not think him capable," he grudgingly said. "He would hand you over to the police, and believe me, the Emperor Napoleon, having a mania on the subject of artillery, would personally instruct hisprocureurto draw up an indictment against you which would not miss fire. And were you to escape in France, we should have that abstracted money's worth from you elsewhere. Now, dear lady, for how much will you sell us the secret of M. Clemenceau?"
The woman bowed her head, like one imprisoned in a sand drift, not to be crossed in any direction, but closing in and weighing down. She was in a pitfall, overpowered like Gratian had been, subjugated, soon to be put to the yoke and compelled to draw steadily the harrow of transcendental politics. Her caprices, faults, fancies, duplicities, wiles, caresses, impudence, conquests and delights were but straws out of which some great diplomatist would draw supplies for his cattle. It was humiliating to the superb creature, but logical. She gnashed her teeth, but she was sure that her cajolery—even her tears would be thrown away on this soldier-spy whom once she had jilted, and who at present surfeited himself with her defeat.
"It is a crime," she moaned, "a dastardly crime that you require me to do."
"Not your first! You robbed us for your own private ends—we want you to rob another for ours! you must not always be selfish."
'But I had really repented—"
"Pooh! you may repent of this fresh misdeed while you are about penance. I have no objections to you becoming a good wife! it will be a novel sensation, and of nothing are you more fond! Suppose you convince your husband that it is wicked to kill his fellow-men by the myriad—that love of woman is better than glory—decide him to go into a cottage by the Mediterranean with you, and—sell us the invention. We could put it to a righteous end; clear Africa of cannibals, that the merchants' stores, and farms to raise produce to fill them, should replace cane-huts. But I doubt you will succeed!"
"Never!" she exclaimed, afraid that her hopelessness would injure her, for she would be the creditor of this remorseless combination without any prospect of repaying them. But all resistance was useless, she was convinced; she had to submit or she would be expunged from life. She who had fancied herself so powerful was but the lowly, abject subaltern at the beck of a preponderating power of which she understood no more the details than the aim and principle.
"There is always a second course," observed Von Sendlingen slowly. "That weak, inexperienced, young Italian, who loves you passionately."
"Antonino?"
"Antonino, yes; he carries the key to that coffer, and the key, too, of the private cipher in which the inventor records his discoveries."
Shrinking away aghast, her blanched countenance expressed her wonder at this preternatural knowledge. These master-spies knew everything, even under this roof, better than the wife! This grim giant carried on an abominable craft with thorough insight. That she could never emulate, for completeness was not her forte. Oh, had she but been a virtuous woman—an honorable wife, he had not dared assume to govern her! but when of a girl's age, she had acted like a woman; when a wife she had acted like the dissolute and unwived; when a mother, she had disembarrassed herself of the token of her glory of maternity. She was not fit to be anything but the instrument of such universal conspirators. She whom the viscount had playfully called "Donna Juana!" had met the Statue of the Commander at last, and once grasped, she would no more be free.
"I shall report to our committee that we have made our agreement," he said calmly and then, as he proceeded toward the door with the jolly swagger of the Marseillais transforming his stalwart and rigid frame, he added in the southern bland tone, "Delighted to see you again, dear Madame Clemenceau!"
She did not hear him, for she had sunk too deeply within the abyss. She regretted she had come back. It is true that the company which he represented so terrifyingly, might have pursued her and pestered her for their money, but she had the gifts that would arouse defenders for her in any quarter of the globe.
Had she not one ally? certainly no friend! and yet, if Clemenceau would only help her a little, she might cope with the arch-intriguer. If, indeed, Felix did not save her, she would be lost. It was a dreadful game, but glorious to win it, and she would be another and worthy woman if she came out unwounded. In her distress, she would have had recourse to the Jew and have utilized Rebecca though her rival, too! Besides, there was Antonino, so passionate as to rush blindly, dagger in hand, on even a Von Sendlingen.
"Come, come, cheer up," she said to herself, "there is a chance or two yet. If only I could get over this crisis, I will reform and sincerely resolve not to do a single act for which to reproach myself!"