"Monsieur,--I--do--not--know."
The great door of the vestibule was suddenly opened. One of the aids-de-camp of the prince, having seen from the parlour window the altercation between the visitor and the porter, hastily descended the staircase, and, eagerly approaching M. Pascal, said to him in excellent French, with a sympathetic tone:
"Ah, monsieur, his Royal Highness will, I am sure, be much grieved by this misunderstanding. Do me the honour to follow me; I will introduce you at once. I have just received orders from monseigneur concerning you, sir."
M. Pascal bowed his head in a.s.sent, and followed the aid-de-camp, leaving the porter amazed and afflicted by his own want of address.
When M. Pascal and his guide arrived in the chamber of waiting, where other officials were congregated, the young officer said:
"The audience of his Royal Highness is crowded this morning, because the review detained monseigneur much longer than he expected, so, desiring to make you wait as short a time as possible, he has ordered me to conduct you, upon your arrival, into a chamber adjoining his private office, where his Royal Highness will meet you as soon as his conference with the minister of foreign affairs is ended."
M. Pascal again made sign of a.s.sent, and, following the aid-de-camp, crossed a dark pa.s.sage, and entered a chamber overlooking the magnificent garden of the elysee-Bourbon.
Before withdrawing, the aid-de-camp, not a little annoyed by the unfortunate altercation between the porter and M. Pascal, remarked the negligent attire of the latter. Habituated to the severe formalities of etiquette, the young courtier was shocked at the unconventional dress of the person he was about to introduce, and hesitated between the fear of antagonising a man like Pascal and the desire to protest against the unsuitability of his bearing as an insult to the dignity of a prince, who was known to be inexorable in all that pertained to the respect due his rank; but the first fear prevailed, and as it was too late to insist upon a change of dress consistent with the requirements of court etiquette, the young courtier said:
"As soon as the foreign minister withdraws from the presence of his Royal Highness, I will inform him, sir, that you are at his orders."
These last words, "that you are at his orders," did not appear to sound very well in the ears of M. Pascal. A sardonic smile played upon his lips, but making himself at home, so to speak, and finding the temperature of the room too warm, he opened one of the windows, placed his elbows on the bal.u.s.trade, and, keeping his hat on his head, occupied himself with a survey of the garden.
CHAPTER II.
Everybody knows the garden of the elysee, that charming little park, planted with the most beautiful trees in the world, whose fresh green turf is watered by a clear winding river; a terraced walk, shaded by elms a century old, borders this park on the side of the avenue called Marigny; a similar walk, parallel to it, bounds it on the opposite side, and a very low wall separates it from the neighbouring gardens. This last mentioned walk ended a short distance from the window where M.
Pascal was so comfortably seated, and soon his attention was keenly awakened by several incidents.
The young man who had pa.s.sed through the parlour, occupied by secretaries and gentlemen, and who had, for reason of his timidity, been the subject of several remarks, was slowly promenading the shaded walk.
He was of slender and graceful stature. Every few moments he stopped, stooped down, and remained immovable a second, then continued his promenade. When he reached the extremity of the walk, he approached, almost by stealth, the wall bordering upon the adjacent garden, and, as at this point the wall was hardly more than four feet high, he leaned upon it, apparently absorbed in reflection or the expectation of meeting another person.
So long as the promenader kept his back turned to M. Pascal, who now began to feel very curious concerning him, his features of course could not be distinguished; but when he turned, after having made some desired discovery, and retraced his steps, he was face to face with his observer at the window.
Count Frantz de Neuberg, as we have said, pa.s.sed for the G.o.dson of the archduke, by whom he was tenderly loved. According to the rumours of the court, his Royal Highness, having had no children since his marriage with the Princess of Saxe-Teschen, had abundant reason for exercising paternal interest in Frantz de Neuberg, the secret fruit of a first love.
Frantz, scarcely twenty years old at the time of this history, presented the perfect type of the melancholy beauty of the North. His long blond hair, parted in the middle of a brow as white and ingenuous as that of a young girl, framed a face whose regularity was without a flaw. His large blue eyes, soft and dreaming, seemed to reflect the purity of his soul, and an incipient beard, shading his chin and upper lip with a silken, golden down, accentuated the virility of his charming face.
As he came up the walk, Frantz more and more attracted the attention of M. Pascal, who looked at him with a sort of admiring surprise, for it would have been difficult not to observe the rare perfection of the young man"s features; but when at a short distance from the window he encountered the fixed and persistent gaze of M. Pascal, he appeared not less provoked than embarra.s.sed, blushed, looked downward, and, turning on his heel, abruptly, quickened his pace until he reached the middle of the walk, where he began again his slow promenade, evidently constrained by the thought that a stranger was watching his movements. He hardly dared approach the boundary of the neighbouring garden, but suddenly, forgetting all preoccupation, he ran toward the wall at the sight of a little straw hat which appeared on the other side, and encased in its frame lined with rose-coloured silk was the freshest, most entrancing countenance of fifteen years that ever entered into a young man"s dream.
"Mlle. Antonine," said Frantz quickly, in a low voice, "some one is looking at us."
"This evening," murmured a sweet voice, in reply.
And the little straw hat disappeared as by enchantment, as the young girl jumped from a bench she had mounted on the other side of the wall.
But as compensation, no doubt, for this abrupt retreat, a beautiful rose fell at the feet of Frantz, who picked it up and pa.s.sionately pressed it to his lips, then, hiding the flower in his waistcoat, the young man disappeared in a thicket instead of continuing his promenade in the long walk. Notwithstanding the rapidity with which these incidents transpired, and the instantaneous disappearance of the little straw hat, M. Pascal had seen distinctly the exquisite loveliness of the young girl"s face, and Frantz also, as he kissed the rose which fell at his feet.
The hard and saturnine features of M. Pascal took on a strange and gloomy expression, where one could read violent anger mingled with jealousy, pain, and hatred. For some moments, his physiognomy, almost terrifying in its malevolence, betrayed the man, who, accustomed to see all bend before him, is capable of sentiments and actions of diabolical wickedness when an unforeseen obstacle contradicts his iron will.
"She! she! here in this garden near the elysee!" exclaimed he, with concentrated rage. "What is she doing there? Triple fool that I am! she comes here to coquet with this puny, blond youth. Perhaps she lives in the next hotel. Misery! misery! to find out the place where she dwells after having done everything in vain to discover it since this d.a.m.ned pretty face of fifteen struck my eyes, and made me a fool,--I, who believed myself dead to these sudden and frantic caprices, compared to which what are called violent pa.s.sions of the heart are ice. I have met this little girl three times, and feel myself, as in my young days, capable of anything in order to possess her. How jealousy irritates and devours me this moment! Misery! it is stupid, it is silly, but oh, how I suffer!"
As he uttered these words, M. Pascal"s face expressed malicious and ferocious grief; then shaking his fist at the side of the wall where the little straw hat had disappeared, he muttered, in a voice of concentrated rage:
"You shall pay for it. Go, little girl, and whatever it may cost me, you shall belong to me."
And sitting with his elbows on the bal.u.s.trade, unable to detach his angry glances from the spot where he had seen Frantz speak to the young girl, M. Pascal presented a picture of fury and despair, when one of the doors of the parlour softly opened, and the archduke entered.
The prince, evidently, felt so sure that he would meet his expected visitor face to face, that, beforehand, instead of his usual cold arrogance, he had a.s.sumed a most agreeable expression, entering the room with a smile upon his lips.
But M. Pascal, leaning half way out of the window, had not heard the door open, and, never suspecting the presence of the prince, he remained seated, his back to the Royal Highness, and his elbows on the sill of the window.
A physiognomist witnessing this silent scene would have found in it a curious study of the reaction of feeling in the countenance of the prince.
At the sight of M. Pascal leaning out of the window, wearing a summer greatcoat, and violating all propriety by keeping his hat on his head, the archduke stopped short; his a.s.sumed smile vanished from his lips, and, taking a prouder att.i.tude than ordinary, he stiffened himself in his handsome uniform, turned purple with anger, knit his eyebrows, while his eyes flashed with indignation. But soon reflection, doubtless, appeasing this inner storm, the features of the prince took on an expression of resignation as bitter as it was sad, and he bowed his head, as if he submitted to a fatal necessity.
Stifling a sigh of offended pride as he threw a glance of vindictive contempt on Pascal at the window, the prince again a.s.sumed, as we have said, his smile of affability, and walked toward the cas.e.m.e.nt, coughing loud enough to announce his presence, and spare himself the last humiliation of touching the shoulder of our familiar visitor in order to attract his attention.
At the sonorous "hum-hum!" of his Royal Highness, M. Pascal turned around suddenly. The gloomy expression of his face was succeeded by a sort of cruel and malicious satisfaction, as if the occasion had furnished a victim upon whom he could vent his suppressed wrath.
M. Pascal approached the prince, saluted him in a free and easy manner, and holding his hat in one hand, while the other was plunged deep in his pocket, he said:
"A thousand pardons, monseigneur, really I did not know you were there."
"I am persuaded of that, M. Pascal," replied the prince, with ill-disguised haughtiness.
Then he added:
"Please follow me into my study, sir. I have some official news to communicate to you."
And he walked toward his study, when M. Pascal, with apparent calmness, for this man had a wonderful control over himself when it was necessary, said:
"Monseigneur, will you permit me one question?"
"Speak, sir," replied the prince, stopping and turning to his visitor, with surprise.
"Monseigneur, who is that young man of twenty at the most, with long blond hair, who promenades in the walk which can be seen from this window? Who is he, monseigneur?"
"You mean, no doubt, monsieur, my G.o.dson, Count Frantz de Neuberg."
"Ah, this young man is your G.o.dson, monseigneur? I congratulate you sincerely,--one could not see a prettier boy."
"Is he not?" replied the prince, sensible of this praise, even in the mouth of Pascal. "Has he not a charming face?"
"That is what I have just been observing at my leisure, monseigneur."
"And Count Frantz has not only a charming face," added the prince; "he has fine qualities of heart and great bravery."
"I am enchanted, monseigneur, to know that you have such an accomplished G.o.dson. Has he been in Paris long?"