"I felt disgusted at the proposition.
""Never!" I said.
""Why not?"
""Because I respect myself too much to make a living advertis.e.m.e.nt of myself."
"He shrugged his shoulders.
""You are wrong," he said. "You are not rich, and I would give you twenty francs for each ride. At the rate of eight rides a month, it would be one hundred and sixty francs added to your wages. Besides," he added with a wink, "it would be an excellent opportunity to make your fortune. Pretty as you are, who knows but what some millionaire might take a fancy to you!"
"I felt indignant.
""For that reason alone, if for no other," I exclaimed, "I refuse."
""You are a little fool," he replied. "If you do not accept, you cease being in my employment. Reflect!"
"My mind was already made up, and I was thinking of looking out for some other occupation, when I received a note from my friend the peace-officer, requesting me to call at his office.
"I did so, and, after kindly inviting me to a seat, ""Well," he said, "what is there new?"
""Nothing. I have noticed no one watching me."
"He looked annoyed.
""My agents have not detected any thing, either," he grumbled. "And yet it is evident that your enemies cannot have given it up so. They are sharp ones: if they keep quiet, it is because they are preparing some good trick. What it is I must and shall find out. Already I have an idea which would be an excellent one, if I could discover some way of throwing you among what is called good society."
"I explained to him, that, being employed at Van Klopen"s, I had an opportunity to see there many ladies of the best society.
""That is not enough," he said.
"Then M. Van Klopen"s propositions came back to my mind, and I stated them to him.
""Just the thing!" he exclaimed, starting upon his chair: "a manifest proof that luck is with us. You must accept."
"I felt bound to tell him my objections, which reflection had much increased.
""I know but too well," I said, "what must happen if I accept this odious duty. Before I have been four times to the Bois, I shall be noticed, and every one will imagine that they know for what purpose I come there. I shall be a.s.sailed with vile offers. True, I have no fears for myself. I shall always be better guarded by my pride than by the most watchful of parents. But my reputation will be lost."
"I failed to convince him.
""I know very well that you are an honest girl," he said to me; "but, for that very reason, what do you care what all these people will think, whom you do not know? Your future is at stake. I repeat it, you must accept."
""If you command me to do so," I said.
""Yes, I command you; and I"ll explain to you why.""
For the first time, Mlle. Lucienne manifested some reticence, and omitted to repeat the explanations of the peace-officer. And, after a few moments" pause, "You know the rest, neighbor," she said, "since you have seen me yourself in that inept and ridiculous role of living advertis.e.m.e.nt, of fashionable lay-figure; and the result has been just as I expected. Can you find any one who believes in my honesty of purpose? You have heard Mme. Fortin to-night? Yourself, neighbor -what did you take me for? And yet you should have noticed something of my suffering and my humiliation the day that you were watching me so closely in the Bois de Boulogne."
"What!" exclaimed Maxence with a start, "you know?"
"Have I not just told you that I always fear being watched and followed, and that I am always on the lookout? Yes, I know that you tried to discover the secret of my rides."
Maxence tried to excuse himself.
"That will do for the present," she uttered. "You wish to be my friend, you say? Now that you know my whole life almost as well as I do myself, reflect, and to-morrow you will tell me the result of your thoughts."
Whereupon she went out.
XXVIII
For about a minute Maxence remained stupefied at this sudden denouement; and, when he had recovered his presence of mind and his voice, Mlle. Lucienne had disappeared, and he could hear her bolting her door, and striking a match against the wall.
He might also have thought that he was awaking from a dream, had he not had, to attest the reality, the vague perfume which filled his room, and the light shawl, which Mlle. Lucienne wore as she came in, and which she had forgotten, on a chair.
The night was almost ended: six o"clock had just struck. Still he did not feel in the least sleepy. His head was heavy, his temples throbbing, his eyes smarting. Opening his window, he leaned out to breathe the morning air. The day was dawning pale and cold. A furtive and livid light glanced along the damp walls of the narrow court of the Hotel des Folies, as at the bottom of a well. Already arose those confused noises which announce the waking of Paris, and above which can be heard the sonorous rolling of the milkmen"s carts, the loud slamming of doors, and the sharp sound of hurrying steps on the hard pavement.
But soon Maxence felt a chill coming over him. He closed the window, threw some wood in the chimney, and stretched himself on his chair, his feet towards the fire. It was a most serious event which had just occurred in his existence; and, as much as he could, he endeavored to measure its bearings, and to calculate its consequences in the future.
He kept thinking of the story of that strange girl, her haughty frankness when unrolling certain phases of her life, of her wonderful impa.s.sibility, and of the implacable contempt for humanity which her every word betrayed. Where had she learned that dignity, so simple and so n.o.ble, that measured speech, that admirable respect of herself, which had enabled her to pa.s.s through so much filth without receiving a stain?
"What a woman!" he thought.
Before knowing her, he loved her. Now he was convulsed by one of those exclusive pa.s.sions which master the whole being. Already he felt himself so much under the charm, subjugated, dominated, fascinated; he understood so well that he was going to cease being his own master; that his free will was about escaping from him; that he would be in Mlle. Lucienne"s hands like wax under the modeler"s fingers; he saw himself so thoroughly at the discretion of an energy superior to his own, that he was almost frightened.
"It"s my whole future that I am going to risk," he thought.
And there was no middle path. Either he must fly at once, without waiting for Mlle. Lucienne to awake, fly without looking behind, or else stay, and then accept all the chances of an incurable pa.s.sion for a woman who, perhaps, might never care for him. And he remained wavering, like the traveler who finds himself at the intersection of two roads, and, knowing that one leads to the goal, and the other to an abyss, hesitates which to take.
With this difference, however, that if the traveler errs, and discovers his error, he is always free to retrace his steps; whereas man, in life, can never return to his starting-point. Every step he takes is final; and if he has erred, if he has taken the fatal road, there is no remedy.
"Well, no matter!" exclaimed Maxence. "It shall not be said that through cowardice I have allowed that happiness to escape which pa.s.ses within my reach. I shall stay." And at once he began to examine what reasonably he might expect; for there was no mistaking Mlle. Lucienne"s intentions. When she had said, "Do you wish to be friends?" she had meant exactly that, and nothing else,-friends, and only friends.
"And yet," thought Maxence, "if I had not inspired her with a real interest, would she have so wholly confided unto me? She is not ignorant of the fact that I love her; and she knows life too well to suppose that I will cease to love her when she has allowed me a certain amount of intimacy."
His heart filled with hope at the idea.
"My mistress," he thought, "never, evidently, but my wife. Why not?"
But the very next moment he became a prey to the bitterest discouragement. He thought that perhaps Mlle. Lucienne might have some capital interest in thus making a confidant of him. She had not told him the explanation given her by the peace-officer. Had she not, perhaps, succeeded in lifting a corner of the veil which covered the secret of her birth? Was she on the track of her enemies? and had she discovered the motive of their animosity?
"Is it possible," thought Maxence, "that I should be but one of the powers in the game she is playing? How do I know, that, if she wins, she will not cast me off?"
In the midst of these thoughts, he had gradually fallen asleep, murmuring to the last the name of Lucienne.
The creaking of his opening door woke him up suddenly. He started to his feet, and met Mlle. Lucienne coming in.
"How is this?" said she. "You did not go to bed?"
"You recommended me to reflect," he replied. "I"ve been reflecting."
He looked at his watch: it was twelve o"clock.
"Which, however," he added, "did not keep me from going to sleep."
All the doubts that besieged him at the moment when he had been overcome by sleep now came back to his mind with painful vividness.
"And not only have I been sleeping," he went on, "but I have been dreaming too."
Mlle. Lucienne fixed upon him her great black eyes.
"Can you tell me your dream?" she asked.
He hesitated. Had he had but one minute to reflect, perhaps he would not have spoken; but he was taken unawares.
"I dreamed," he replied, "that we were friends in the n.o.blest and purest acceptance of that word. Intelligence, heart, will, all that I am, and all that I can,-I laid every thing at your feet. You accepted the most entire devotion, the most respectful and the most tender that man is capable of. Yes, we were friends indeed; and upon a glimpse of love, never expressed, I planned a whole future of love." He stopped.
"Well?" she asked.
"Well, when my hopes seemed on the point of being realized, it happened that the mystery of your birth was suddenly revealed to you. You found a n.o.ble, powerful, and wealthy family. You resumed the ill.u.s.trious name of which you had been robbed; your enemies were crushed; and your rights were restored to you. It was no longer Van Klopen"s hired carriage that stopped in front of the Hotel des Folies, but a carriage bearing a gorgeous coat of arms. That carriage was yours; and it came to take you to your own residence in the Faubourg St. Germain, or to your ancestral manor."
"And yourself?" inquired the girl.
Maxence repressed one of those nervous spasms which frequently break out in tears, and, with a gloomy look, "I," he answered, "standing on the edge of the pavement, I waited for a word or a look from you. You had forgotten my very existence. Your coachman whipped his horses; they started at a gallop; and soon I lost sight of you. And then a voice, the inexorable voice of fate, cried to me, "Never more shalt thou see her!""
With a superb gesture Mlle. Lucienne drew herself up.
"It is not with your heart, I trust, that you judge me, M. Maxence Favoral," she uttered.
He trembled lest he had offended her.
"I beseech you," he began.
But she went on in a voice vibrating with emotion, "I am not of those who basely deny their past. Your dream will never be realized. Those things are only seen on the stage. If it did realize itself, however, if the carriage with the coat-of-arms did come to the door, the companion of the evil days, the friend who offered me his month"s salary to pay my debt, would have a seat by my side."
That was more happiness than Maxence would have dared to hope for. He tried, in order to express his grat.i.tude, to find some of those words which always seem to be lacking at the most critical moments. But he was suffocating; and the tears, acc.u.mulated by so many successive emotions, were rising to his eyes.
With a pa.s.sionate impulse, he seized Mlle. Lucienne"s hand, and, taking it to his lips, he covered it with kisses. Gently but resolutely she withdrew her hand, and, fixing upon him her beautiful clear gaze, "Friends," she uttered.
Her accent alone would have been sufficient to dissipate the presumptuous illusions of Maxence, had he had any. But he had none.
"Friends only," he replied, "until the day when you shall be my wife. You cannot forbid me to hope. You love no one?"
"No one."
"Well since we are going to tread the path of life, let me think that we may find love at some turn of the road."
She made no answer. And thus was sealed between them a treaty of friendship, to which they were to remain so strictly faithful, that the word "love" never once rose to their lips.
In appearance there was no change in their mode of life.
Every morning, at seven o"clock, Mlle. Lucienne went to M. Van Klopen"s, and an hour later Maxence started for his office. They returned home at night, and spent their evenings together by the fireside.
But what was easy to foresee now took place.
Weak and undecided by nature, Maxence began very soon to feel the influence of the obstinate and energetic character of the girl. She infused, as it were, in his veins, a warmer and more generous blood. Gradually she imbued him with her ideas, and from her own will gave him one.
He had told her in all sincerity his history, the miseries of his home, M. Favoral"s parsimony and exaggerated severity, his mother"s resigned timidity, and Mlle. Gilberte"s resolute nature.
He had concealed nothing of his past life, of his errors and his follies, confessing even the worst of his actions; as, for instance, having abused his mother"s and sister"s affection to extort from them all the money they earned.
He had admitted to her that it was only with great reluctance and under pressure of necessity, that he worked at all; that he was far from being rich; that although he took his dinner with his parents, his salary barely sufficed for his wants; and that he had debts.
He hoped, however, he added, that it would not be always thus, and that, sooner or later, he would see the termination of all this misery and privation; for his father had at least fifty thousand francs a year and some day he must be rich.
Far from smiling, Mlle. Lucienne frowned at such a prospect.
"Ah! your father is a millionaire, is he?" she interrupted. "Well, I understand now how, at twenty-five, after refusing all the positions which have been offered to you, you have no position. You relied on your father, instead of relying on yourself. Judging that he worked hard enough for two, you bravely folded your arms, waiting for the fortune which he is ama.s.sing, and which you seem to consider yours."
Such morality seemed a little steep to Maxence. "I think," he began, "that, if one is the son of a rich man-"
"One has the right to be useless, I suppose?" added the girl.
"I do not mean that; but-"
"There is no but about it. And the proof that your views are wrong, is that they have brought you where you are, and deprived you of your own free will. To place one"s self at the mercy of another, be that other your own father, is always silly; and one is always at the mercy of the man from whom he expects money that he has not earned. Your father would never have been so harsh, had he not believed that you could not do without him."
He wanted to discuss: she stopped him.
"Do you wish the proof that you are at M. Favoral"s mercy?" she said. "Very well. You spoke of marrying me."
"Ah, if you were willing!"
"Very well. Go and speak of it to your father."
"I suppose-"
"You don"t suppose any thing at all: you are absolutely certain that he will refuse you his consent."
"I could do without it."
"I admit that you could. But do you know what he would do then? He would arrange things in such a way that you would never get a centime of his fortune."
Maxence had never thought of that.
"Therefore," the young girl went on gayly, "though there is as yet no question of marriage, learn to secure your independence; that is, the means of living. And to that effect let us work."