M. DORINET:--Madame Desjardins drew my attention to the toilette of Madame de Montparna.s.se. She said: "_Mon Dieu!_ Monsieur Dorinet, are you not tired of seeing La Montparna.s.se in that everlasting old black gown?
My Rosalie says she is in mourning for her ugliness."
MADAME DESJARDINS (_laughing heartily_):--_Eh bien--oui!_ I don"t deny it; and Rosalie"s _mot_ was not bad. And now, M"sieur the Englishman (_turning to me_), it is your turn to be betrayed. Monsieur, whose name I cannot p.r.o.nounce, said to me:--"Madame, the French, _selon moi_, are the best dressed and most _spirituel_ people of Europe. Their very silence is witty; and if mankind were, by universal consent, to go without clothes to-morrow, they would wear the primitive costume of Adam and Eve more elegantly than the rest of the world, and still lead the fashion,"
(_A murmur of approval on the part of the company, who take the compliment entirely aux serieux_.)
MYSELF (_agreeably conscious of having achieved popularity_):--Our hostess"s deafness having unfortunately excluded her from this part of the game, I was honored with the confidence of Mdlle. Honoria, who informed me that she is to make her _debut_ before long at the Theatre Francais, and hoped that I would take tickets for the occasion.
MDLLE. ROSALIE (_satirically_):--_Brava_, Honoria! What a woman of business you are!
MDLLE. HONORIA (_affecting not to hear this observation_)--
"_Roses bloom in the fourth, and your secret, my dear, Which you whispered so softly just now in my ear, I repeat word for word for the others to hear_."
Marie said to me.... _Tiens_! Marie, don"t pull my dress in that way.
You shouldn"t have said it, you know, if it won"t bear repeating! Marie said to me that she could have either Monsieur Muller or Monsieur Lenoir, by only holding up her finger--but she couldn"t make up her mind which she liked best.
MDLLE. MARIE (_half crying_):--Nay, Honoria--how can you be so--so unkind ... so spiteful? I--I did not say I could have either M"sieur Muller or... or...
M. LENOIR (_with great spirit and good breeding_):--Whether Mademoiselle used those words or not is of very little importance. The fact remains the same; and is as old as the world. Beauty has but to will and to conquer.
MULLER:--Order in the circle! The game waits for Mademoiselle Marie.
MARIE (_hesitatingly_):--
"_Roses bloom in the fourth, and your secret_"
M"sieur Lenoir said that--that he admired the color of my dress, and that blue became me more than lilac.
MULLER: (_coldly_)--_Pardon_, Mademoiselle, but I happened to overhear what Monsieur Lenoir whispered just now, and those were not his words.
Monsieur Lenoir said, "Look in"... but perhaps Mademoiselle would prefer me not to repeat more?
MARIE--(_in great confusion_):--As--as you please, M"sieur.
MULLER:--Then, Mademoiselle, I will be discreet, and I will not even impose a forfeit upon you, as I might do, by the laws of the game. It is for Monsieur Lenoir to continue.
M. LENOIR:--I do not remember what Monsieur Muller whispered to me at the close of the last round.
MULLER (_pointedly_):--_Pardon,_ Monsieur, I should have thought that scarcely possible.
M. LENOIR:--It was perfectly unintelligible, and therefore left no impression on my memory.
MULLER:--Permit me, then, to have the honor of a.s.sisting your memory. I said to you--"Monsieur, if I believed that any modest young woman of my acquaintance was in danger of being courted by a man of doubtful character, do you know what I would do? I would hunt that man down with as little remorse as a ferret hunts down a rat in a drain."
M. LENOIR:--The sentiment does you honor, Monsieur; but I do not see the application,
MULLER:--Vous ne le trouvez pas, Monsieur?
M. LENOIR--(_with a cold stare, and a scarcely perceptible shrug of the shoulders_):--Non, Monsieur.
Here Mdlle. Rosalie broke in with:--"What are we to do next, M"sieur Muller? Are we to begin another round, or shall we start a fresh game?"
To which Muller replied that it must be "_selon le plaisir de ces dames_;" and put the question to the vote.
But too many plain, unvarnished truths had cropped up in the course of the last round of my Aunt"s Flower Garden; and the ladies were out of humor. Madame de Montparna.s.se, frigid, Cyclopian, black as Erebus, found that it was time to go home; and took her leave, bristling with gentility. The tragic Honoria stalked majestically after her. Madame Desjardins, mortally offended with M. Dorinet on the score of Rosalie"s legs, also prepared to be gone; while M. Philomene, convicted of hair-dye and _brouille_ for ever with "the most disagreeable girl in Paris," hastened to make his adieux as brief as possible.
"A word in your ear, mon cher Dorinet," whispered he, catching the little dancing-master by the b.u.t.ton-hole. "Isn"t it the most unpleasant party you were ever at in your life?"
The ex-G.o.d Scamander held up his hands and eyes.
"_Eh, mon Dieu_!" he replied. "What an evening of disasters! I have lost my best pupil and my second-best wig!"
In the meanwhile, we went up like the others, and said good-night to our hostess.
She, good soul! in her deafness, knew nothing about the horrors of the evening, and was profuse of her civilities. "So amiable of these gentlemen to honor her little soiree--so kind of M"sieur Muller to have exerted himself to make things go off pleasantly--so sorry we would not stay half an hour longer," &c., &c.
To all of which Muller (with a sly grimace expressive of contrition) replied only by a profound salutation and a rapid retreat. Pa.s.sing M.
Lenoir without so much as a glance, he paused a moment before Mdlle.
Marie who was standing near the door, and said in a tone audible only to her and myself:--
"I congratulate you, Mademoiselle, on your admirable talent for intrigue. I trust, when you look in the usual place and find the promised letter, it will prove agreeable reading. J"ai l"honneur, Mademoiselle, de vous saluer."
I saw the girl flush crimson, then turn deadly white, and draw back as if his hand had struck her a sudden blow. The next moment we were half-way down the stairs.
"What, in Heaven"s name, does all this mean?" I said, when we were once more in the street.
"It means," replied Muller fiercely, "that the man"s a scoundrel, and the woman, like all other women, is false."
"Then the whisper you overheard" ...
"Was only this:--"_Look in the usual place, and you will find a letter_." Not many words, _mon cher_, but confoundedly comprehensive!
And I who believed that girl to be an angel of candor! I who was within an ace of falling seriously in love with her! _Sacredie_! what an idiot I have been!"
"Forget her, my dear fellow," said I. "Wipe her out of your memory (which I think will not be difficult), and leave her to her fate."
He shook his head.
"No," he said, gloomily, "I won"t do that. I"ll get to the bottom of that man"s mystery; and if, as I suspect, there"s that about his past life which won"t bear the light of day--I"ll save her, if I can."
CHAPTER x.x.xV.
WEARY AND FAR DISTANT.
Twice already, in accordance with my promise to Dalrymple, I had called upon Madame de Courcelles, and finding her out each time, had left my card, and gone away disappointed. From Dalrymple himself, although I had written to him several times, I heard seldom, and always briefly. His first notes were dated from Berlin, and those succeeding them from Vienna. He seemed restless, bitter, dissatisfied with himself, and with the world. Naturally unfit for a lounging, idle life, his active nature, now that it had to bear up against the irritation of hope deferred, chafed and fretted for work.
"My sword-arm," he wrote in one of his letters, "is weary of its holiday. There are times when I long for the smell of gunpowder, and the thunder of battle. I am sick to death of churches and picture-galleries, operas, dilettantism, white-kid-glovism, and all the hollow shows and seemings of society. Sometimes I regret having left the army--at others I rejoice; for, after all, in these piping times of peace, to be a soldier is to be a mere painted puppet--a thing of pipe-clay and gold bullion--an expensive scarecrow--an elegant Guy Fawkes--a sign, not of what is, but of what has been, and yet may be again. For my part, I care not to take the livery without the service. Pshaw! will things never mend! Are the good old times, and the good old international hatreds, gone by for ever? Shall we never again have a thorough, seasonable, wholesome, continental war? This place (Vienna) would be worth fighting for, if one had the chance. I sometimes amuse myself by planning a siege, when I ride round the fortifications, as is my custom of an afternoon."