"Fair Ariadne, I beg of you,Help me, by lending me your clew.Toutou, toutou, toutaine, toutou!"
"Fair Ariadne, I beg of you,Help me, by lending me your clew.Toutou, toutou, toutaine, toutou!"
The chevalier ran to his door and opened it.
"My friend," said the captain, "the ladder up to your pigeon-house is infernally dark; still here I am, faithful to the agreement, exact to the time. Ten o'clock was striking as I came over the Pont-Neuf."
The chevalier extended his hand to Roquefinette, saying:
"Yes, you are a man of your word, but enter quickly; it is important that my neighbors should not notice you."
"In that case I am as dumb as a log," answered the captain; "besides," added he, pointing to the pâté and the bottles which covered the table, "you have found the true way of shutting my mouth."
The chevalier shut the door behind the captain and pushed the bolt.
"Ah! ah! mystery—so much the better, I am fond of mystery. There is almost always something to be gained when people begin by saying 'hush.' In any case you cannot do better than address yourself to your servant," continued the captain, resuming his mythological language. "You see in me the grandson of Hippocrates, the god of silence. So do not be uneasy."
"That is well, captain," answered D'Harmental, "for I confess that what I have to say to you is of sufficient importance for me to claim your discretion beforehand."
"It is granted, chevalier. While I was giving a lesson to little Ravanne, I saw, out of a corner of my eye, that you were a skillful swordsman, and I love brave men. Then, in return for a little service, only worth a fillip, you made me a present of a horse which was worth a hundred louis, and I love generous men. Thus you are twice my man, why should I not be yours once?"
"Well," said the chevalier, "I see that we understand each other."
"Speak, and I will listen," answered the captain, assuming his gravest air.
"You will listen better seated, my dear guest. Let us go to breakfast."
"You preach like St. John with the golden mouth, chevalier," said the captain, taking off his sword and placing that and his hat on the harpsichord; "so that," continued he, sitting down opposite D'Harmental, "one cannot differ from you in opinion. I am here; command the maneuver, and I will execute it."
"Taste that wine while I cut the pate."
"That is right," said the captain, "let us divide our forces, and fight the enemy separately, then let us re-unite to exterminate what remains."
And joining practice to theory, the captain seized the first bottle by the neck,drew the cork, and having filled a bumper, drank it off with such ease that one would have said that nature had gifted him with an especial method of deglutition; but, to do him justice, scarcely had he drunk it than he perceived that the liquor, which he had disposed of so cavalierly, merited a more particular attention than he had given it.
"Oh!" said he, putting down his glass with a respectful slowness, "what have I done, unworthy that I am? I drink nectar as if it were trash, and that at the beginning of the feast! Ah!" continued he, shaking his head, "Roquefinette, my friend, you are getting old. Ten years ago you would have known what it was at the first drop that touched your palate, while now you want many trials to know the worth of things. To your health, chevalier."
And this time the captain, more circumspect, drank the second glass slowly, and set it down three times before he finished it, winking his eyes in sign of satisfaction. Then, when he had finished—
"This is hermitage of 1702, the year of the battle of Friedlingen. If your wine-merchant has much like that, and if he will give credit, let me have his address. I promise him a good customer."
"Captain," answered the chevalier, slipping an enormous slice of pate on to the plate of his guest, "my wine-merchant not only gives credit, but to my friends he gives altogether."
"Oh, the honest man!" cried the captain. Then, after a minute's silence, during which a superficial observer would have thought him absorbed in the appreciation of the pate, as he had been an instant before in that of the wine, he leaned his two elbows on the table, and looking at D'Harmental with a penetrating glance between his knife and fork—
"So, my dear chevalier," said he, "we conspire, it seems, and in order to succeed we have need of poor Captain Roquefinette."
"And who told you that, captain?" broke in the chevalier, trembling in spite of himself.
"Who told me that, pardieu! It is an easy riddle to answer. A man who gives away horses worth a hundred louis, who drinks wine at a pistole the bottle, and who lodges in a garret in the Rue du Temps Perdu, what should he be doing if not conspiring?"
"Well, captain," said D'Harmental, laughing, "I shall never be discreet; you have divined the truth. Does a conspiracy frighten you?" continued he, filling his guest's glass.
"Frightenme! Who says that anything on earth can frighten Captain Roquefinette?"
"Not I, captain; for at the first glance, at the first word, I fixed on you as my second."
"Ah! that is to say, that if you are hung on a scaffold twenty feet high, I shall be hung on one ten feet high, that's all!"
"Peste! captain," said D'Harmental, "if one always began by seeing thing in their worst light, one would never attempt anything."
"Because I have spoken of the gallows?" answered the captain. "That proves nothing. What is the gallows in the eyes of a philosopher? One of the thousand ways of parting from life, and certainly one of the least disagreeable. One can see that you have never looked the thing in the face, since you have such an aversion to it. Besides, on proving our noble descent, we shall have our heads cut off, like Monsieur de Rohan. Did you see Monsieur de Rohan's head cut off?" continued the captain, looking at D'Harmental. "He was a handsome young man, like you, and about your age. He conspired, but the thing failed. What would you have? Everybody may be deceived. They built him a beautiful black scaffold; they allowed him to turn toward the window where his mistress was; they cut the neck of his shirt with scissors, but the executioner was a bungler, accustomed to hang, and not to decapitate, so that he was obliged to strike three or four times to cut the head off, and at last he only managed by the aid of a knife which he drew from his girdle, and with which he chopped so well thathe got the neck in half. Bravo! you are brave!" continued the captain, seeing that the chevalier had listened without frowning to all the details of this horrible execution. "That will do—I am your man. Against whom are we conspiring? Let us see. Is it against Monsieur le Duc de Maine? Is it against Monsieur le Duc d'Orleans? Must we break the lame one's other leg? Must we cut out the blind one's other eye? I am ready."
"Nothing of all that, captain; and if it pleases God there will be no blood spilled."
"What is going on then?"
"Have you ever heard of the abduction of the Duke of Mantua's secretary?"
"Of Matthioli?"——"Yes."
"Pardieu! I know the affair better than any one, for I saw them pass as they were conducting him to Pignerol. It was the Chevalier de Saint-Martin and Monsieur de Villebois who did it; and by this token they each had three thousand livres for themselves and their men."
"That was only middling pay," said D'Harmental, with a disdainful air.
"You think so, chevalier? Nevertheless three thousand livres is a nice little sum."
"Then for three thousand livres you would have undertaken it?"
"I would have undertaken it," answered the captain.
"But if instead of carrying off a secretary it had been proposed to you to carry off a duke?"
"That would have been dearer."
"But you would have undertaken it all the same?"
"Why not? I should have asked double—that is all."
"And if, in giving you double, a man like myself had said to you, 'Captain, it is not an obscure danger that I plunge you into; it is a struggle in which I am myself engaged, like you, and in which I venture my name, my future, and my head:' what would you have answered?"
"I would have given him my hand, as I now give it you. Now what is the business?"
The chevalier filled his own glass and that of the captain.
"To the health of the regent," said he, "and may he arrive without accident at the Spanish frontier, as Matthioli arrived at Pignerol."
"Ah! ah!" said the captain, raising his glass. Then, after a pause, "And why not?" continued he, "the regent is but a man after all. Only we shall neither be hanged nor decapitated; we shall be broken on the wheel. To any one else I should say that a regent would be dearer, but to you, chevalier, I have only one price. Give me six thousand livres, and I will find a dozen determined men."
"But those twelve men, do you think that you may trust them?"
"What need for their knowing what they are doing? They shall think they are only carrying out a wager."
"And I," answered D'Harmental, "will show you that I do not haggle with my friends. Here are two thousand crowns in gold, take them on account if we succeed; if we fail we will cry quits."
"Chevalier," answered the captain, taking the bag of money and poising it on his hand with an indescribable air of satisfaction, "I will not do you the injustice of counting after you. When is the affair to be?"
"I do not know yet, captain; but if you find the pate to your taste, and the wine good, and if you will do me the pleasure of breakfasting with me every day as you have done to-day, I will keep you informed of everything."
"That would not do, chevalier," said the captain. "I should not have come to you three mornings before the police of that cursed Argenson would have found us out. Luckily he has found some one as clever as himself, and it will be some time before we are at the bar together. No, no, chevalier, from now till the moment for action, the less we see of one another the better; or rather, we must not see each other at all. Your street is not a long one, and as it opens at one end on the Rue du Gros-Chenet, and at the other on the Rue Montmartre, I shall have no reason for coming through it. Here," continued he, detaching his shoulder-knot,"take this ribbon. The day that you want me, tie it to a nail outside your window. I shall understand it, and I will come to you."
"How, captain!" said D'Harmental, seeing that his companion was fastening on his sword. "Are you going without finishing the bottle? What has the wine, which you appeared to appreciate so much a little while ago, done to you, that you despise it so now?"
"It is just because I appreciate it still that I separate myself from it; and the proof that I do not despise it," said the captain, filling his glass, "is that I am going to take an adieu of it. To your health, chevalier; you may boast of having good wine. Hum! And now, n—o, no, that is all. I shall take to water till I see the ribbon flutter from your window. Try to let it be as soon as possible, for water is a liquid that does not suit my constitution."
"But why do you go so soon?"
"Because I know Captain Roquefinette. He is a good fellow; but when he sits down before a bottle he must drink, and when he has drunk he must talk; and, however well one talks, remember that those who talk much always finish by making some blunder. Adieu, chevalier. Do not forget the crimson ribbon; I go to look after our business."
"Adieu, captain," said D'Harmental, "I am pleased to see that I have no need to preach discretion to you."
The captain made the sign of the cross on his mouth with his right thumb, placed his hat straight on his head, raised his sword for fear of its making a noise or beating against the wall, and went downstairs as silently as if he had feared that every step would echo in the Hotel d'Argenson.
The chevalier remained alone; but this time there was, in what had just passed between himself and the captain, sufficient matter for reflection to render it unnecessary for him to have recourse either to the poetry of the Abbe Chaulieu, his harpsichord, or his chalks. Indeed, until now, he had been only half engaged in the hazardous enterprise of which the Duchesse de Maine and the Prince de Cellamare had shown him the happy ending, and of which the captain, in order to try his courage, had so brutally exhibited to him the bloody catastrophe. As yet he had only been the end of a chain, and, on breaking away from one side, he would have been loose. Now he was become an intermediate ring, fastened at both ends, and attached at the same time to people above and below him in society. In a word, from this hour he no longer belonged to himself, and he was like the Alpine traveler, who, having lost his way, stops in the middle of an unknown road, and measures with his eye, for the first time, the mountain which rises above him and the gulf which yawns beneath his feet.
Luckily the chevalier had the calm, cold, and resolute courage of a man in whom fire and determination—those two opposite forces—instead of neutralizing, stimulated each other. He engaged in danger with all the rapidity of a sanguine man; he weighed it with all the consideration of a phlegmatic one. Madame de Maine was right when she said to Madame de Launay that she might put out her lantern, and that she believed she had at last found a man.
But this man was young, twenty-six years of age, with a heart open to all the illusions and all the poetry of that first part of existence. As a child he had laid down his playthings at the feet of his mother. As a young man he had come to exhibit his handsome uniform as colonel to the eyes of his mistress; indeed, in every enterprise of his life some loved image had gone before him, and he threw himself into danger with the certainty that, if he succumbed, there would be some one surviving who would mourn his fate.
But his mother was dead, the last woman by whom he had believed himself loved had betrayed him, and he felt alone in the world—bound solely by interest to men to whom he would become an obstacle as soon as he ceased to be an instrument, and who, if he broke down, far from mourning his loss, would only see in it a cause of satisfaction. But this isolated position, which ought to be the envy of all men in a great danger, is almost always (such is the egotism of our nature) a cause of the most profound discouragement. Such is the horror of nothingness in man, that he believes he still survives in the sentiments which he has inspired, and he in some measure consoles himself for leaving the world by thinking of the regrets which will accompany his memory, and of the pity which will visit his tomb. Thus, at this instant, the chevalier would have given everything to be loved, if it was only by a dog.
He was plunged in the saddest of these reflections when, passing and repassing before his window, he noticed that his neighbor's was open. He stopped suddenly, and shook his head, as if to cast off the most somber of these thoughts; leaning his elbow on the table, and his head on his hand, he tried to give a different direction to his thoughts by looking at exterior objects.
The young girl whom he had seen in the morning was seated near her window, in order to benefit by the last rays of daylight; she was working at some kind of embroidery. Behind her the harpsichord was open, and, on a stool at her feet, her greyhound slept the light sleep of an animal destined by nature to be the guard of man, waking at every noise which arose from the street, raising its ears, and stretching out its elegant head over the window-sill; then it lay down again, placing one of its little paws upon its mistress's knees. All this was deliciously lighted up by the rays of the sinking sun, which penetrated into the room, sparkling on the steel ornaments of the harpsichord and the gold beading of the picture-frames. The rest was in twilight.
Then it seemed to the chevalier (doubtless on account of the disposition of mind he was in when this picture had struck his eye) that this young girl, with the calm and sweet face, entered into his life, like one of those personages who always remain behind a veil, and make their entrance on a piece in the second or third act to take part in the action, and, sometimes, to change the denouement.
Since the age when one sees angels in one's dreams, he had seen no one like her. She was a mixture of beauty, candor, and simplicity, such as Greuze has copied, not from nature, but from the reflections in the mirror of his imagination. Then, forgetting everything, the humble condition in which without doubt she had been born, the street where he had found her, the modest room which she had inhabited, seeing nothing in the woman except the woman herself, he attributed to her a heart corresponding with her face, and thought what would be the happiness of the man who should first cause that heart to beat; who should be looked upon with love by those beautiful eyes, and who, in the words, "I love you!" should gather from those lips, so fresh and so pure, that flower of the soul—a first kiss.
Such are the different aspects which the same objects borrow from the situation of him who looks at them. A week before, in the midst of his gayety, in his life which no danger menaced, between a breakfast at the tavern and a stag-hunt, between a wager at tennis and a supper at La Fillon's, if D'Harmental had met this young girl, he would doubtless have seen in her nothing but a charming grisette, whom he would have had followed by his valet-de-chambre, and to whom, the next day, he would have outrageously offered a present of some twenty-five louis.
But the D'Harmental of a week ago existed no more. In the place of the handsome seigneur—elegant, wild, dissipated, and certain of life—was an insulated young man, walking in the shade, alone, and self-reliant, without a star to guide him, who might suddenly feel the earth open under his feet, and the heavens burst above his head. He had need of a support, so feeble was he; he had need of love, he had need of poetry. It was not then wonderful that, searching for a Madonna to whom to address his prayers, he raised in his imagination this young and beautiful girl from the material and prosaic sphere in which he found her, andthat, drawing her into his own, he placed her, not such as she was, doubtless, but such as he wished her to be, on the empty pedestal of his past adorations.
All at once the young girl raised her head, and happened to look in his direction, and saw the pensive figure of the chevalier through the glass. It appeared evident to her that the young man remained there for her, and that it was at her he was looking. Then a bright blush spread over her face. Still she pretended she had seen nothing, and bent her head once more over her embroidery. But a minute afterward she rose, took a few turns round her room; then, without affectation, without false prudery, but nevertheless with a certain embarrassment, she returned and shut the window. D'Harmental remained where he was, and as he was; continuing, in spite of the shutting of the window, to advance into the imaginary country where his thoughts were straying.
Once or twice he thought that he saw the curtain of his neighbor's window raised, as if she wished to know whether he whose indiscretion had driven her from her place was still at his. At last a few masterly chords were heard; a sweet harmony followed; and it was then D'Harmental who opened his window in his turn.
He had not been mistaken, his neighbor was an admirable musician; she executed two or three little pieces, but without blending her voice with the sound of the instrument; and D'Harmental found almost as much pleasure in listening to her as he had found in looking at her. Suddenly she stopped in the midst of a passage. D'Harmental supposed either that she had seen him at his window, and wished to punish him for his curiosity, or that some one had come in and interrupted her. He retired into his room, but so as not to lose sight of the window, and soon discovered that his last supposition was the true one.
A man came to the window, raised the curtain, and pressed his fat, good-natured face against the glass, while with one hand he beat a march against the panes. The chevalier recognized, in spite of a sensible difference which there was in his toilet, the man of the water-jet whom he had seen on the terrace in the morning, and who, with a perfect air of familiarity, had twice pronounced the name of "Bathilde."
This apparition, more than prosaic, produced the effect which might naturally have been expected; that is to say, it brought D'Harmental back from imaginary to real life. He had forgotten this man, who made such a strange and perfect contrast with the young girl, and who must doubtless be either her father, her lover, or her husband. But in either of these cases, what could there be in common between the daughter, the wife, or the mistress of such a man, and the noble and aristocratic chevalier? The wife! It is a misfortune of her dependent situation that she rises and falls according to the grandeur or vulgarity of him on whose arm she leans; and it must be confessed that the gardener was not formed to maintain poor Bathilde at the height to which the chevalier had raised her in his dreams.
Then he began to laugh at his own folly; and the night having arrived, and as he had not been outside the door since the day before, he determined to take a walk through the town, in order to assure himself of the truth of the Prince de Cellamare's reports. He wrapped himself in his cloak, descended the four stories, and bent his steps toward the Luxembourg, where the note which the Abbe Brigaud had brought him in the morning said that the regent was going to supper without guards.
Arrived opposite the palace of the Luxembourg, the chevalier saw none of those signs which should announce that the Duc d'Orleans was at his daughter's house: there was only one sentinel at the door, while from the moment that the regent entered a second was generally placed there. Besides, he saw no carriage waiting in the court, no footmen or outriders; it was evident, then, that he had not come. The chevalier waited to see him pass, for, as the regent never breakfasted, and took nothing but a cup ofchocolate at two o'clock in the afternoon, he rarely supped later than six o'clock; but a quarter to six had struck at the St. Surplice at the moment when the chevalier turned the corner of the Rue de Conde, and the Rue de Vaugirard.
The chevalier waited an hour and a half in the Rue de Tournon, going from the Rue du Petit-Lion to the palace, without seeing what he had come to look for. At a quarter to eight he saw some movement in the Luxembourg. A carriage, with outriders armed with torches, came to the foot of the steps. A minute after three women got in; he heard the coachman call to the outriders, "To the Palais Royal;" and the outriders set off at a gallop, the carriage followed, the sentinel presented arms; and, quickly as the elegant equipage with the royal arms of France passed, the chevalier recognized the Duchesse de Berry, Madame de Mouchy, her lady of honor, and Madame de Pons, her tire-woman.
There had been an important error in the report sent to the chevalier; it was the daughter who went to the father, not the father who came to the daughter.
Nevertheless, the chevalier still waited, for some accident might have happened to the regent, which detained him at home. An hour after he saw the carriage repass. The Duchesse de Berry was laughing at a story which Broglie was telling her. There had not then been any serious accident; it was the police of the Prince de Cellamare, then, that were at fault.
The chevalier returned home about ten o'clock without having been met or recognized. He had some trouble to get the door opened, for, according to the patriarchal habits of Madame Denis's house, the porter had gone to bed, and came out grumbling to unfasten the bolts. D'Harmental slipped a crown into his hand, saying to him, once for all, that he should sometimes return late, but that each time that he did so he would give him the same; upon which the porter thanked him, and assured him that he was perfectly welcome to come home at any time he liked, or even not to return at all.
On returning to his room, D'Harmental saw that his neighbor's was lighted up; he placed his candle behind a piece of furniture, and approached the window, so that, as much as the muslin curtains allowed, he could see into her room, while she could not see into his.
She was seated near a table, drawing, probably, on a card which she held on her knees, for he saw her profile standing out black against the light behind her. Shortly another shadow, which the chevalier recognized as that of the good man of the terrace, passed twice between the light and the window. At last the shade approached the young girl, she offered her forehead, the shadow imprinted a kiss on it, and went away, with his candle in his hand. Directly afterward the windows of the fifth story were lighted up. All these little circumstances spoke a language which it was impossible not to understand. The man of the terrace was not the husband of Bathilde, he must be her father.
D'Harmental, without knowing why, felt overjoyed at this discovery; he opened his window as softly as he could, and leaned on the bar, which served him as a support, with his eyes fixed on the shadow. He fell into the same reverie out of which he had been startled that morning by the grotesque apparition of his neighbor. In about an hour the girl rose, put down her card and crayons on the table, advanced toward the alcove, knelt on a chair before the second window, and offered up her prayers. D'Harmental understood that her laborious watch was finished, but remembering the curiosity of his beautiful neighbor, when he had begun to play the first time, he wished to see if he could prolong that watch, and he sat down to his spinet. What he had foreseen happened; at the first notes which reached her, the young girl, not knowing that from the position of the light he could see her shadow through the curtains, approached the window on tiptoe, and thinking herself hidden, she listened to the melodious instrument, which, like the nightingale, awoke to sing in the middle of the night.
The concert would have probably continued thus for some hours, for D'Harmental, encouraged by the result produced, felt an energy and an ease of execution such as he had never known before. Unluckily, the occupier of the third floor was undoubtedly some clown, no lover of music, for D'Harmental heard suddenly, just below his feet, the noise of a stick knocking on the ceiling with such violence that he could not doubt that it was a warning to him to put off his melodious occupation till a more suitable period. Under other circumstances, D'Harmental would have sent the impertinent adviser to the devil, but reflecting that any ill-feeling on the lodger's part would injure his own reputation with Madame Denis, and that he was playing too heavy a game to risk being recognized, and not to submit philosophically to all the inconveniences of the new position which he had adopted, instead of setting himself in opposition to the rules established without doubt between Madame Denis and her lodgers, he obeyed the intimation, forgetting in what manner that intimation had been given him.
On her part, as soon as she heard nothing more, the young girl left the window, and as she let the inner curtains fall behind her, she disappeared from D'Harmental's eyes. For some time longer he could still see a light in her room; then the light was extinguished. As to the window on the fifth floor, for some time that had been in the most perfect darkness. D'Harmental also went to bed, joyous to think that there existed a point of sympathy between himself and his neighbor.
The next day the Abbe Brigaud entered the room with his accustomed punctuality. The chevalier had already been up more than an hour; he had gone twenty times to his window, but without seeing his neighbor, although it was evident that she was up, even before himself; indeed, on waking he had seen the large curtains put up in their bands. Thus he was disposed to let out his ill-humor on any one.
"Ah! pardieu! my dear abbe," said he, as soon as the door was shut; "congratulate the prince for me on his police; it is perfectly arranged, on my honor!"
"What have you got against them?" asked the abbe, with the half-smile which was habitual to him.
"What have I! I have, that, wishing to judge for myself, last evening, of its truth, I went and hid myself in the Rue Tournon. I remained there four hours, and it was not the regent who came to his daughter, but Madame de Berry who went to her father."
"Well, we know that."
"Ah! you know that!" said D'Harmental.
"Yes, and by this token, that she left the Luxembourg at five minutes to eight, with Madame de Mouchy and Madame de Pons, and that she returned at half-past nine, bringing Broglie with her, who came to take the regent's place at table."
"And where was the regent?"
"The regent?"
"Yes."
"That is another story; you shall learn. Listen, and do not lose a word; then we shall see if you will say that the prince's police is badly arranged."
"I attend."
"Our report announced that at three o'clock the duke-regent would go to play tennis in the Rue de Seine."
"Yes."
"He went. In about half an hour he left holding his handkerchief over his eyes. He had hit himself on the brow with the racket, and with such violence that he had torn the skin of his forehead."
"Ah, this then was the accident!"
"Listen. Then the regent, instead of returning to the Palais Royal, was driven to the house of Madame de Sabran. You know where Madame de Sabran lives?"
"She lived in the Rue de Tournon, but since her husband has become maitre d'hotel to the regent, she lives in the Rue des Bons Enfants, near the Palais Royal."
"Exactly; but it seems that Madame de Sabran, who until now was faithful to Richelieu, was touched by the pitiable state in which she saw the prince, and wished to justify the proverb, 'Unluckyat play, lucky at love.' The prince, by a little note, dated half-past seven, from the drawing-room of Madame de Sabran, with whom he supped, announced to Broglie that he should not go to the Luxembourg, and charged him to go in his stead, and make his excuses to the Duchesse de Berry."
"Ah, this then was the story which Broglie was telling, and at which the ladies were laughing."
"It is probable; now do you understand?"
"Yes; I understand that the regent is not possessed of ubiquity, and could not be at the house of Madame de Sabran and at his daughter's at the same time."
"And you only understand that?"
"My dear abbe, you speak like an oracle; explain yourself."
"This evening, at eight o'clock, I will come for you; we will go to the Rue des Bons Enfants together. To me the locality is eloquent."
"Ah! ah!" said D'Harmental, "I see; so near the Palais Royal, he will go on foot. The hotel which Madame de Sabran inhabits has an entrance from the Rue des Bons Enfants; after a certain hour they shut the passage from the Palais Royal, which opens on the Rue des Bons Enfants: and he will be obliged, on his return, to follow either the Cour des Fontaines, or the Rue Neuve des Bons Enfants, and then we shall have him. Mordieu! you are a great man, and if Monsieur de Maine does not make you cardinal, or at least archbishop, there will be no justice done."
"I think, therefore, that now you must hold yourself in readiness."
"I am ready."
"Have you the means of execution prepared?"——"I have."
"Then you can correspond with your men?"
"By a sign."
"And that sign cannot betray you?"
"Impossible."
"Then all goes well, and we may have breakfast; for I was in such haste to tell you the good news that I came out fasting."
"Breakfast, my dear abbe! you speak coolly; I have nothing to offer you, except the remains of the paté and two or three bottles of wine, which, I believe, survived the battle."
"Hum! hum," murmured the abbe; "we will do better than that, my dear chevalier."
"I am at your orders."
"Let us go down and breakfast with our good hostess, Madame Denis."
"And why do you want me to breakfast with her? Do I know her?"
"That concerns me. I shall present you as my pupil."
"But we shall get a detestable breakfast."
"Comfort yourself. I know her table."
"But this breakfast will be tiresome."
"But you will make a friend of a woman much known in the neighborhood for her good conduct, for her devotion to the government—a woman incapable of harboring a conspirator. Do you understand that?"
"If it be for the good of the cause, abbe, I sacrifice myself."
"Moreover, it is a very agreeable house, where there are two young people who play—one on the spinet, and the other on the guitar—and a young man who is an attorney's clerk; a house where you may go down on Sunday evenings to play lots."
"Go to the devil with your Madame Denis. Ah! pardon, abbe, perhaps you are her friend. In that case, imagine that I have said nothing."
"I am her confessor," replied the Abbe Brigaud, with a modest air.
"Then a thousand excuses, my dear abbe; but you are right indeed. Madame Denis is still a beautiful woman, perfectly well preserved, with superb hands and very pretty feet. Peste! I remember that. Go down first; I will follow."
"Why not together?"
"But my toilet, abbe. Would you have me appear before the Demoiselles Denis with my hair in its present state? One must try to look one's best—que diable! Besides, it is better that you should announce me: I have not a confessor's privilege."
"You are right. I will go down and announce you, and in ten minutes you will arrive—will you not?"
"In ten minutes."
"Adieu!"——"Au revoir!"
The chevalier had only told half the truth. He might have remained partly to dress, but also in the hope of seeing his beautiful neighbor, of whom he had dreamed all the night, but in vain. He remained hidden behind the curtains of his window: those of the young girl with the fair hair and the beautiful black eyes remained closed. It is true that, in exchange, he could perceive his neighbor, who, opening his door, passed out, with the same precaution as the day before, first his hand, then his head; but this time his boldness went no further, for there was a slight fog, and fog is essentially contrary to the organization of the Parisian bourgeois. Our friend coughed twice, and then, drawing in his head and his arm, re-entered his room like a tortoise into his shell. D'Harmental saw with pleasure that he might dispense with buying a barometer, and that this neighbor would render him the same service as the butterflies which come out in the sunshine, and remain obstinately shut up in their hermitages on the days when it rains.
The apparition had its ordinary effect, and reacted on poor Bathilde. Every time that D'Harmental perceived the young girl, there was in her such a sweet attraction that he saw nothing but the woman—young, beautiful, and graceful, a musician and painter—that is to say, the most delicious and complete creature he had ever met. But when, in his turn, the man of the terrace presented himself to the chevalier's gaze, with his common face, his insignificant figure—that indelible type of vulgarity which attaches to certain individuals—directly a sort of miraculous transition took place in the chevalier's mind. All the poetry disappeared, as a machinist's whistle causes the disappearance of a fairy palace. Everything was seen by a different light. D'Harmental's native aristocracy regained the ascendency. Bathilde was then nothing but the daughter of this man—that is to say, a grisette: her beauty, her grace, her elegance, even her talents, were but an accident—an error of nature—something like a rose flowering on a cabbage-stalk. The chevalier shrugged his shoulders as he stood before the glass, began to laugh, and to wonder at the impression which he had received. He attributed it to the preoccupation of his mind, to the strange and solitary situation, to everything, in fact, except its true cause—the sovereign and irresistible power of distinction and beauty. D'Harmental went down to his hostess disposed to find the Demoiselles Denis charming.
Madame Denis did not think it proper that two young persons as innocent as her daughters should breakfast with a young man who, although he had been only three days in Paris, already came in at eleven o'clock at night, and played on the harpsichord till two in the morning. In vain the Abbe Brigaud affirmed that this double infraction of the rules of her house should in no degree lower her opinion of his pupil, for whom he could answer as for himself. All he could obtain was that the young ladies should appear at the dessert; but the chevalier soon perceived that if their mother had ordered them not to be seen, she had not forbidden them to be heard, for scarcely were they at table, round a veritable devotée's breakfast, composed of a multitude of little dishes, tempting to the eye and delicious to the palate, when the sounds of a spinet were heard, accompanying a voice which was not wanting in compass, but whose frequent errors of intonation showed lamentable inexperience. At the first notes Madame Denis placed her hand on the abbe's arm, then, after an instant's silence, during which she listened with a pleased smile to that music which made the chevalier's flesh creep, "Do you hear?" she said. "It is our Athenais who is playing, and it is Emilie who sings."
The Abbe Brigaud, making signs that he heard perfectly, trod on D'Harmental's foot under the table, to hint that this was an opportunity for paying a compliment.
"Madame," said the chevalier, who understood this appeal to his politeness perfectly, "we are doubly indebted to you; for you offer us not only an excellent breakfast, but a delightful concert."
"Yes," replied Madame Denis, negligently, "it is those children: they do not know you are here, and they are practicing; but I will go and tell them to stop."
Madame Denis was going to rise.
"What, madame!" said D'Harmental, "because I come from Ravenne do you believe me unworthy to make acquaintance with the talents of the capital?"
"Heaven preserve me, monsieur, from having such an opinion of you," said Madame Denis, maliciously, "for I know you are a musician; the lodger on the third story told me so."
"In that case, madame, perhaps he did not give you a very high idea of my merit," replied the chevalier, laughing, "for he did not appear to appreciate the little I may possess."
"He only said that it appeared to him a strange time for music. But listen, Monsieur Raoul," added Madame Denis, "the parts are changed now, my dear abbe, it is our Athenais who sings, and it is Emilie who accompanies her on the guitar."
It appeared that Madame Denis had a weakness for Athenais, for instead of talking as she did when Emilie was singing, she listened from one end to the other to the romance of her favorite, her eyes tenderly fixed on the Abbe Brigaud, who, still eating and drinking, contented himself with nodding his head in sign of approbation. Athenais sang a little more correctly than her sister, but for this she made up by a defect at least equivalent in the eyes of the chevalier. Her voice was equally vulgar.
As to Madame Denis, she beat wrong time with her head, with an air of beatitude which did infinitely more honor to her maternal affection than to her musical intelligence.
A duet succeeded to the solos. The young ladies appeared determined to give their whole repertoire. D'Harmental, in his turn, sought under the table for the abbe's feet, to crush at least one, but he only found those of Madame Denis, who, taking this for a personal attention, turned graciously toward him.
"Then, Monsieur Raoul," she said, "you come, young and inexperienced, to brave all the dangers of the capital?"
"Yes," said the Abbe Brigaud, taking upon himself to answer, for fear that D'Harmental might not be able to resist answering by some joke. "You see in this young man, Madame Denis, the son of a friend who was very dear to me" (the abbe put his table-napkin up to his eyes), "and whom, I hope, will do credit to the care I have bestowed on his education."
"And monsieur is right," replied Madame Denis; "for, with his talents and appearance, there is no saying to what he may attain."
"Ah! but, Madame Denis," said the Abbe Brigaud, "if you spoil him thus I shall not bring him to you again. My dear Raoul," continued the abbe, addressing him in a paternal manner, "I hope you will not believe a word of all this." Then, whispering to Madame Denis, "Such as you see him, he might have remained at Sauvigny, and taken the first place after the squire. He has three thousand livres a year in the funds."
"That is exactly what I intend giving to each of my daughters," replied Madame Denis, raising her voice, so as to be heard by the chevalier, and giving a side-glance to discover what effect the announcement of such magnificence would have upon him.
Unfortunately for the future establishment of the Demoiselles Denis, the chevalier was not thinking of uniting the three thousand livres which this generous mother gave to her daughters to the thousand crowns a year which the Abbe Brigaud had bestowed on him. The shrill treble of Mademoiselle Emilie, the contralto of Mademoiselle Athenais, the accompaniment of both, had recalled to his recollection the pure and flexible voice and the distinguished execution of his neighbor. Thanks to that singular power which a great preoccupation gives us over exterior objects, the chevalier had escaped from the charivari which was executed in the adjoining room, and was following a sweet melody which floated in his mind, and which protected him, like an enchanted armor, from the sharp sounds which were flying around him.
"How he listens!" said Madame Denis to Brigaud. "'Tis worth while taking trouble for a young man like that. I shall have a bone to pick with Monsieur Fremond."
"Who is Monsieur Fremond?" said the abbe, pouring himself out something to drink.
"It is the lodger on the third floor. A contemptible little fellow, with twelve hundred francs a year, and whose temper has caused me to have quarrels with every one in the house; and who came to complain that Monsieur Raoul prevented him and his dog from sleeping."
"My dear Madame Denis," replied the abbe, "you must not quarrel with Monsieur Fremond for that. Two o'clock in the morning is an unreasonable time; and if my pupil must sit up till then, he must play in the daytime and draw in the evening."
"What! Monsieur Raoul draws also!" cried Madame Denis, quite astonished at so much talent.
"Draws like Mignard."
"Oh! my dear abbe," said Madame Denis, "if you could but obtain one thing."
"What?" asked the abbe.
"That he would take the portrait of our Athenais."
The chevalier awoke from his reverie, as a traveler, asleep on the grass, feels a serpent glide up to him, and instinctively understands that a great danger threatens him.
"Abbe!" cried he, in a bewildered manner, "no folly!"
"Oh! what is the matter with your pupil?" asked Madame Denis, quite frightened.
Happily, at the moment when the abbe was seeking a subterfuge, the door opened, and the two young ladies entered blushing, and, stepping from right to left, each made a low courtesy.
"Well!" said Madame Denis, affecting an air of severity, "what is this? Who gave you permission to leave your room?"
"Mamma," replied a voice which the chevalier recognized, by its shrill tones, for that of Mademoiselle Emilie, "we beg pardon if we have done wrong, and are willing to return."
"But, mamma," said another voice, which the chevalier concluded must belong to Mademoiselle Athenais, "we thought that it was agreed that we were to come in at dessert."
"Well, come in, since you are here; it would be ridiculous now to go back. Besides," added Madame Denis, seating Athenais between herself and Brigaud, and Emilie between herself and the chevalier, "young persons are always best—are they not, abbe?—under their mother's wing."
And Madame Denis presented to her daughters a plate of bon-bons, from which they helped themselves with a modest air which did honor to their education.
The chevalier, during the discourse and action of Madame Denis, had time to examine her daughters.
Mademoiselle Emilie was a tall and stiff personage, from twenty-two to twenty-three, who was said to be very much like her late father; an advantage which did not, however, suffice to gain for her in the maternal heart an affection equal to what Madame Denis entertained for her other two children. Thus poor Emilie, always afraid of being scolded, retained a natural awkwardness, which the repeated lessons of her dancing-master had not been able to conquer.
Mademoiselle Athenais, on the contrary, was little, plump, and rosy; and, thanks to her sixteen or seventeen years, had what is vulgarly called the devil's beauty. She did not resemble either Monsieur or Madame Denis, a singularity which had often exercised the tongues of the Rue St. Martin before she went to inhabit the house which her husband had bought inthe Rue du Temps Perdu. In spite of this absence of all likeness to her parents, Mademoiselle Athenais was the declared favorite of her mother, which gave her the assurance that poor Emilie wanted. Athenais, however, it must be said, always profited by this favor to excuse the pretended faults of her sister.
Although it was scarcely eleven o'clock in the morning, the two sisters were dressed as if for a ball, and carried all the trinkets they possessed on their necks, arms, and ears.
This apparition, so conformable to the idea which D'Harmental had formed beforehand of the daughters of his landlady, gave him a new subject for reflection. Since the Demoiselles Denis were so exactly what they ought to be, that is to say, in such perfect harmony with their position and education, why was Bathilde, who seemed their equal in rank, as visibly distinguished as they were vulgar? Whence came this immense difference between girls of the same class and age? There must be some secret, which the chevalier would no doubt know some day or other. A second pressure of the Abbe Brigaud's foot against his made him understand that, however true his reflections were, he had chosen a bad moment for abandoning himself to them. Indeed, Madame Denis took so sovereign an air of dignity, that D'Harmental saw that he had not an instant to lose if he wished to efface from her mind the bad impression which his distraction had caused.
"Madame," said he directly, with the most gracious air he could assume, "that which I already see of your family fills me with the most lively desire to know the rest. Is not your son at home, and shall not I have the pleasure of seeing him?"
"Monsieur," answered Madame Denis, to whom so amiable an address had restored all her good humor, "my son is with M. Joulu, his master; and, unless his business brings him this way, it is improbable that he will make your acquaintance."
"Parbleu! my dear pupil," said the Abbe Brigaud, extending his hand toward the door; "you are like Aladdin. It is enough for you to express a wish, and it is fulfilled."
Indeed, at this moment they heard on the staircase the song about Marlborough, which at this time had all the charm of novelty; the door was thrown open, and gave entrance to a boy with a laughing face, who much resembled Mademoiselle Athenais.
"Good, good, good," said the newcomer, crossing his arms, and remarking the ordinary number of his family increased by the abbe and the chevalier. "Not bad, Madame Denis; she sends Boniface to his office with a bit of bread and cheese, saying, 'Beware of indigestion,' and, in his absence, she gives feasts and suppers. Luckily, poor Boniface has a good nose. He comes through the Rue Montmartre; he snuffs the wind, and says, 'What is going on there at No. 5, Rue du Temps Perdu?' So he came, and here he is. Make a place for one."
And, joining the action to the word, Boniface drew a chair to the table, and sat down between the abbe and the chevalier.
"Monsieur Boniface," said Madame Denis, trying to assume a severe air, "do you not see that there are strangers here?"
"Strangers!" said Boniface, taking a dish from the table, and setting it before himself; "and who are the strangers? Are you one, Papa Brigaud? Are you one, Monsieur Raoul? You are not a stranger, you are a lodger." And, taking a knife and fork, he set to work in a manner to make up for lost time.
"Pardieu! madame," said the chevalier, "I see with pleasure that I am further advanced than I thought I was. I did not know that I had the honor of being known to Monsieur Boniface."
"It would be odd if I did not know you," said the lawyer's clerk, with his mouth full; "you have got my bedroom."
"How, Madame Denis!" said D'Harmental, "and you left me in ignorance that I had the honor to succeed in my room to the heir apparent of your family?I am no longer astonished to find my room so gayly fitted up; I recognize the cares of a mother."
"Yes, much good may it do you; but I have one bit of advice to give you. Don't look out of window too much."
"Why?" asked D'Harmental.
"Why? because you have a certain neighbor opposite you."
"Mademoiselle Bathilde," said the chevalier, carried away by his first impulse.
"Ah! you know that already?" answered Boniface; "good, good, good; that will do."——"Will you be quiet, monsieur!" cried Madame Denis.
"Listen!" answered Boniface; "one must inform one's lodgers when one has prohibited things about one's house. You are not in a lawyer's office; you do not know that."
"The child is full of wit," said the Abbe Brigaud in that bantering tone, thanks to which it was impossible to know whether he was serious or not.
"But," answered Madame Denis, "what would you have in common between Monsieur Raoul and Bathilde?"
"What in common? Why, in a week, he will be madly in love with her, and it is not worth loving a coquette."
"A coquette?" said D'Harmental.
"Yes, a coquette, a coquette," said Boniface; "I have said it, and I do not draw back. A coquette, who flirts with the young men and lives with an old one, without counting that little brute of a Mirza, who eats up all my bon-bons, and now bites me every time she meets me."
"Leave the room, mesdemoiselles," cried Madame Denis, rising and making her daughters rise also. "Leave the room. Ears so pure as yours ought not to hear such things."
And she pushed Mademoiselle Athenais and Mademoiselle Emilie toward the door of their room, where she entered with them.
As to D'Harmental, he felt a violent desire to break Boniface's head with a wine-bottle. Nevertheless, seeing the absurdity of the situation, he made an effort and restrained himself.
"But," said he, "I thought that the bourgeois whom I saw on the terrace—for no doubt it is of him that you speak, Monsieur Boniface—"
"Of himself, the old rascal; what did you think of him?"
"That he was her father."
"Her father! not quite. Mademoiselle Bathilde has no father."
"Then, at least, her uncle?"
"Her uncle after the Bretagne fashion, but in no other manner."
"Monsieur," said Madame Denis, majestically coming out of the room, to the most distant part of which she had doubtless consigned her daughters, "I have asked you, once for all, not to talk improprieties before your sisters."
"Ah, yes," said Boniface, "my sisters; do you believe that, at their age, they cannot understand what I said, particularly Emilie, who is three-and-twenty years old?"
"Emilie is as innocent as a new-born child," said Madame Denis, seating herself between Brigaud and D'Harmental.
"I should advise you not to reckon on that. I found a pretty romance for Lent in our innocent's room. I will show it to you, Pere Brigaud; you are her confessor, and we shall see if you gave her permission to read her prayers from it."
"Hold your tongue, mischief-maker," said the abbe, "do you not see how you are grieving your mother?"
Indeed Madame Denis, ashamed of this scene passing before a young man on whom, with a mother's foresight, she had already begun to cast an eye, was nearly fainting. There is nothing in which men believe less than in women's faintings, and nothing to which they give way more easily. Whether he believed in it or not, D'Harmental was too polite not to show his hostess some attention in such circumstances. He advanced toward her with his arms extended. Madame Denis no sooner saw this support offered to her than she let herself fall, and, throwing her head back, fainted in the chevalier's arms.
"Abbe," said D'Harmental, while Boniface profited by the circumstance to fillhis pockets with all the bon-bons left on the table, "bring a chair."
The abbe pushed forward a chair with the nonchalance of a man familiar with such accidents, and who is beforehand quite secure as to the result.
They seated Madame Denis, and D'Harmental gave her some salts, while the Abbe Brigaud tapped her softly in the hollow of the hand; but, in spite of these cares, Madame Denis did not appear disposed to return to herself; when all at once, when they least expected it, she started to her feet as if by a spring, and gave a loud cry.
D'Harmental thought that a fit of hysterics was following the fainting. He was truly frightened, there was such an accent of reality in the scream that the poor woman gave.
"It is nothing," said Boniface, "I have only just emptied the water-bottle down her back. That is what brought her to; you saw that she did not know how to manage it. Well, what?" continued the pitiless fellow, seeing Madame Denis look angrily at him; "it is I; do you not recognize me, Mother Denis? It is your little Boniface, who loves you so."
"Madame," said D'Harmental, much embarrassed at the situation, "I am truly distressed at what has passed."
"Oh! monsieur," cried Madame Denis in tears, "I am indeed unfortunate."
"Come, come; do not cry, Mother Denis, you are already wet enough," said Boniface; "you had better go and change your linen; there is nothing so unhealthy as wet clothes."
"The child is full of sense," said Brigaud, "and I think you had better follow his advice."
"If I might join my prayers to those of the abbe," said D'Harmental, "I should beg you, madame, not to inconvenience yourself for us. Besides, we were just going to take leave of you."
"And you, also, abbe?" said Madame Denis, with a distressed look at Brigaud.
"As for me," said Brigaud, who did not seem to fancy the part of comforter, "I am expected at the Hotel Colbert, and I must leave you."
"Adieu, then," said Madame Denis, making a curtsey, but the water trickling down her clothes took away a great part of its dignity.
"Adieu, mother," said Boniface, throwing his arms round her neck with the assurance of a spoiled child. "Have you nothing to say to Maître Joulu?"
"Adieu, mauvais sujet," replied the poor woman, embracing her son, and yielding to that attraction which a mother cannot resist; "adieu, and be steady."
"As an image, mother, on condition that you will give us a nice little dish of sweets for dinner."
He joined the Abbe Brigaud and D'Harmental, who were already on the landing.
"Well, well," said the abbe, lifting his hand quickly to his waistcoat pocket, "what are you doing there?"
"Oh, I was only looking if there was not a crown in your pocket for your friend Boniface."
"Here." said the abbe, "here is one, and now leave us alone."
"Papa Brigaud," said Boniface, in the effusion of his gratitude, "you have the heart of a cardinal, and if the king only makes you an archbishop, on my honor you will be robbed of half. Adieu, Monsieur Raoul," continued he, addressing the chevalier as familiarly as if he had known him for years. "I repeat, take care of Mademoiselle Bathilde if you wish to keep your heart, and give some sweetmeats to Mirza if you care for your legs;" and holding by the banister, he cleared the first flight of twelve steps at one bound, and reached the street door without having touched a stair.
Brigaud descended more quietly behind him, after having given the chevalier a rendezvous for eight o'clock in the evening.
As to D'Harmental, he went back thoughtfully to his attic.
What occupied the mind of the chevalier was neither the denouement of the drama where he had chosen so importanta part, nor the admirable prudence of the Abbe Brigaud in placing him in a house which he habitually visited almost daily, so that his visits, however frequent, could not be remarkable. It was not the dignified speeches of Madame Denis, nor the soprano of Mademoiselle Emilie. It was neither the contralto of Mademoiselle Athenais, nor the tricks of M. Boniface. It was simply poor Bathilde, whom he had heard so lightly spoken of; but our reader would be mistaken if he supposed that M. Boniface's brutal accusation had in the least degree altered the sentiments of the chevalier for the young girl, for an instant's reflection showed him that such an alliance was impossible.
Chance might give a charming daughter to an undistinguished father. Necessity may unite a young and elegant woman to an old and vulgar husband, but a liaison, such as that attributed to the young girl and the bourgeois of the terrace, can only result from love or interest. Now between these two there could be no love; and as to interest, the thing was still less probable; for, if they were not in absolute poverty, their situation was certainly not above mediocrity—not even that gilded mediocrity of which Horace speaks, with a country house at Tibur and Montmorency, and which results from a pension of thirty thousand sestercia from the Augustan treasury, or a government annuity of six thousand francs—but that poor and miserable mediocrity which only provides from day to day, and which is only prevented from becoming real poverty by incessant labor.
D'Harmental gathered from all this the certainty that Bathilde was neither the daughter, wife, nor mistress of this terrible neighbor, the sight of whom had sufficed to produce such a strange reaction on the growing love of the chevalier. If she was neither the one nor the other, there was a mystery about her birth; and if so, Bathilde was not what she appeared to be. All was explained, her aristocratic beauty, her finished education. Bathilde was above the position which she was temporarily forced to occupy: there had been in the destiny of this young girl one of those overthrows of fortune, which are for individuals what earthquakes are for towns, and she had been forced to descend to the inferior sphere where he found her.
The result of all this was, that the chevalier might, without losing rank in his own estimation, allow himself to love Bathilde. When a man's heart is at war with his pride, he seldom wants excuses to defeat his haughty enemy. Bathilde had now neither name nor family, and nothing prevented the imagination of the man who loved her from raising her to a height even above his own; consequently, instead of following the friendly advice of M. Boniface, the first thing D'Harmental did was to go to his window and inspect that of his neighbor. It was wide open. If, a week ago, any one had told the chevalier that such a simple thing as an open window would have made his heart beat, he would have laughed at the idea. However, so it was; and after drawing a long breath, he settled himself in a corner, to watch at his ease the young girl in the opposite room, without being seen by her, for he was afraid of frightening her by that attention which she could only attribute to curiosity, but he soon perceived that the room was deserted.
D'Harmental then opened his window, and at the noise he made in doing so, he saw the elegant head of the greyhound, which, with his ears always on the watch, and well worthy of the trust that her mistress had reposed in her, in making her guardian of the house, was awake, and looking to see who it was that thus disturbed her sleep.
Thanks to the indiscreet counter-tenor of the good man of the terrace and the malice of M. Boniface, the chevalier already knew two things very important to know—namely, that his neighbor was called Bathilde, a sweet and euphonious appellation, suitable to a young, beautiful, and graceful girl; and that the greyhound was called Mirza, a name which seemed to indicate a no less distinguished rank in the canine aristocracy. Now as nothing is to be disdained when we wishto conquer a fortress, and the smallest intelligence from within is often more efficacious than the most terrible machines of war, D'Harmental resolved to commence opening communications with the greyhound; and with the most caressing tone he could give to his voice, he called Mirza. Mirza, who was indolently lying on the cushion, raised her head quickly, with an expression of unmistakable astonishment; and, indeed, it must have appeared strange to the intelligent little animal, that a man so perfectly unknown to her as the chevalier should address her by her Christian name. She contented herself with fixing on him her uneasy eyes, which, in the half-light where she was placed, sparkled like two carbuncles, and uttering a little dull sound which might pass for a growl.
D'Harmental remembered that the Marquis d'Uxelle had tamed the spaniel of Mademoiselle Choin, which was a much more peevish beast than any greyhound in the world, with roast rabbits' heads; and that he had received for this delicate attention the baton of Maréchal de France; and he did not despair of being able to soften by the same kind of attention the surly reception which Mademoiselle Mirza had given to his advances: so he went toward the sugar-basin; then returned to the window, armed with two pieces of sugar, large enough to be divided ad infinitum.
The chevalier was not mistaken; at the first piece of sugar which fell near her, Mirza negligently advanced her head; then, being by the aid of smell made aware of the nature of the temptation offered to her, she extended her paw toward it, drew it toward her, took it in her teeth, and began to eat it with that languid air peculiar to the race to which she belonged. This operation finished, she passed over her mouth a little red tongue, which showed, that in spite of her apparent indifference, which was owing, no doubt, to her excellent education, she was not insensible to the surprise her neighbor had prepared for her; instead of lying down again on the cushion as she had done the first time, she remained seated, yawning languidly, but wagging her tail, to show that she would wake entirely, after two or three such little attentions as she had just had paid to her.
D'Harmental, who was well acquainted with the habits of all the King Charles' dogs of the pretty women of the day, understood the amiable intentions of Mirza, and not wishing to give her time to change her mind, threw a second piece of sugar, taking care that it should fall at such a distance as to oblige her to leave her cushion to get it. This test would decide whether she was most inclined to laziness or greediness. Mirza remained an instant uncertain, but then greediness carried the day, and she went across the room to fetch the piece of sugar, which had rolled under the harpsichord. At this moment a third piece fell near the window, and Mirza came toward it; but there the liberality of the chevalier stopped; he thought that he had now given enough to require some return, and he contented himself with calling Mirza in a more imperative tone, and showing her the other pieces of sugar which he held in his hand.
Mirza this time, instead of looking at the chevalier with uneasiness or disdain, rested her paws on the window, and began to behave as she would to an old acquaintance. It was finished; Mirza was tamed.
The chevalier remarked that it was now his turn to play the contemptuous with Mirza, and to speak to her, in order to accustom her to his voice; however, fearing a return of pride on the part of his interlocutor, who sustained her part in the dialogue by little whines and grumblings, he threw her a fourth piece of sugar, which she seized with greater avidity from having been kept waiting. This time, without being called, she came to take her place at the window. The chevalier's triumph was complete. So complete, that Mirza, who the day before had given signs of so superior an intelligence in discovering Bathilde's return, and in running to the door as she descended the staircase, this time discovered neither the one nor the other, so that her mistress, entering all at once, surprised her in the midst ofthese coquetries with her neighbor. It is but just to say, however, that at the noise the door made in opening Mirza turned, and recognizing Bathilde, bounded toward her, lavishing on her the most tender caresses; but we must add, to the shame of the species, that this duty once accomplished, she hastened back to the window. This unusual action on the part of the dog naturally guided Bathilde's eyes toward the cause which occasioned it. Her eyes met those of the chevalier.
Bathilde blushed: the chevalier bowed; and Bathilde, without knowing what she was doing, returned the salute.
Her first impulse was to go and close the window, but an instinctive feeling restrained her. She understood that this was giving importance to a thing which had none, and that to put herself on the defensive was to avow herself attacked. In consequence, she crossed to that part of the room where her neighbor's glance could not reach. Then, at the end of a few minutes, when she returned, she found that he had closed his window. Bathilde understood that there was discretion in this action, and she thanked him. Indeed, the chevalier had just made a masterstroke. On the terms which he was on with his neighbor, it was impossible that both windows should remain open at once; if the chevalier's window was open, his neighbor's must be shut; and he knew that when that was closed, there was not a chance of seeing even the tip of Mirza's nose behind the curtain; while if, on the contrary, his window was closed, hers might possibly remain open, and he could watch her passing to and fro, or working, which was a great amusement for a poor devil condemned to absolute seclusion; besides, he had made an immense step:—he had saluted Bathilde, and she had returned it. They were no longer strangers to each other, but, in order that their acquaintance might advance, he must be careful not to be too brusk.
To risk speaking to her after the salute would have been risking too much; it was better to allow Bathilde to believe that it was all the effect of chance. Bathilde did not believe it, but she appeared to do so. The result was that she left her window open, and, seeing her neighbor's closed, sat down by her own with a book in her hand. As to Mirza, she jumped on to the stool at her mistress's feet, but instead of resting her head as usual on the knees of the young girl, she placed it on the sill, of the window, so much was she occupied with the generous unknown. The chevalier seated himself in the middle of his room, took his pencils, and thanks to a corner of his curtain skillfully raised, he sketched the delicious picture before him. Unfortunately the days were short, and toward three o'clock the little light which the clouds and rain had permitted to descend to the earth began to decline, and Bathilde closed her window. Nevertheless, even in this short time the chevalier had finished the young girl's head, and the likeness was perfect. There was her waving hair, her fine transparent skin, the graceful curve of her swan-like neck; in fact, all to which art can attain with one of those inimitable models which are the despair of artists.