"Hallo! a nice name for a cashier"s daughter! I am aware that she once sent that poor Costeclar and his offer to-Chaillot. But she had resources then; whilst now-It"s stupid as it can be; but people have to eat!"
"There are still women, mademoiselle, capable of starving to death."
M. de Tregars now felt satisfied. It seemed evident to him that they had somehow got wind of his intentions; that Mlle. de Thaller had been sent to feel the ground; and that she only attacked Mlle. Gilberte in order to irritate him, and compel him, in a moment of anger, to declare himself.
"Bash!" she said, "Mlle. Favoral is like all the others. If she had to select between the amiable Costeclar and a charcoal furnace, it is not the furnace she would take."
At all times, Marius de Tregars disliked Mlle. Cesarine to a supreme degree; but at this moment, without the pressing desire he had to see the Baron and Baroness de Thaller, he would have withdrawn.
"Believe me, mademoiselle," he uttered coldly. "Spare a poor girl stricken by a most cruel misfortune. Worse might happen to you."
"To me! And what the mischief do you suppose can happen me?"
"Who knows?"
She started to her feet so violently, that she upset the piano-stool.
"Whatever it may be," she exclaimed, "I say in advance, I am glad!"
And as M. de Tregars turned his head in some surprise, "Yes, I am glad!" she repeated, "because it would be a change; and I am sick of the life I lead. Yes, sick to be eternally and invariably happy of that same dreary happiness. And to think that there are idiots who believe that I amuse myself, and who envy my fate! To think, that, when I ride through the streets, I hear girls exclaim, whilst looking at me, "Isn"t she lucky?" Little fools! I"d like to see them in my place. They live, they do. Their pleasures are not all alike. They have anxieties and hopes, ups and downs, hours of rain and hours of sunshine; whilst I-always dead calm! the barometer always at "Set fair." What a bore! Do you know what I did to-day? Exactly the same thing as yesterday; and to-morrow I"ll do the same thing as to-day.
"A good dinner is a good thing; but always the same dinner, without extras or additions-pouah! Too many truffles. I want some corned beef and cabbage. I know the bill of fare by heart, you see. In winter, theatres and b.a.l.l.s; in summer, races and the seash.o.r.e; summer and winter, shopping, rides to the bois, calls, trying dresses, perpetual adoration by mother"s friends, all of them brilliant and gallant fellows to whom the mere thought of my dowry gives the jaundice. Excuse me, if I yawn: I am thinking of their conversations.
"And to think," she went on, "that such will be my existence until I make up my mind to take a husband! For I"ll have to come to it too. The Baron Three Sixty-eight will present to me some sort of a swell, attracted by my money. I"ll answer, "I"d just as soon have him as any other," and he will be admitted to the honor of paying his attentions to me. Every morning he will send me a splendid bouquet: every evening, after bank-hours, he"ll come along with fresh kid gloves and a white vest. During the afternoon, he and papa will pull each other"s hair out on the subject of the dowry. At last the happy day will arrive. Can"t you see it from here? Ma.s.s with music, dinner, ball. The Baron Three Sixty-eight will not spare me a single ceremony. The marriage of the manager of the Mutual Credit must certainly be an advertis.e.m.e.nt. The papers will publish the names of the bridesmaids and of the guests.
"To be sure, papa will have a face a yard long; because he will have been compelled to pay the dowry the day before. Mamma will be all upset at the idea of becoming a grandmother. The bridegroom will be in a wretched humor, because his boots will be too tight; and I"ll look like a goose, because I"ll be dressed in white; and white is a stupid color, which is not at all becoming to me. Charming family gathering, isn"t it? Two weeks later, my husband will be sick of me, and I"ll be disgusted with him. After a month, we"ll be at daggers" points. He"ll go back to his club and his mistresses; and I-I shall have conquered the right to go out alone; and I"ll begin again going to the bois, to b.a.l.l.s, to races, wherever my mother goes. I"ll spend an enormous amount of money on my dress, and I"ll make debts which papa will pay."
Though any thing might be expected of Mlle. Cesarine, still M. de Tregars seemed visibly astonished. And she, laughing at his surprise, "That"s the invariable programme," she went on; "and that"s why I say I"m glad at the idea of a change, whatever it may be. You find fault with me for not pitying Mlle. Gilberte. How could I, since I envy her? She is happy, because her future is not settled, laid out, fixed in advance. She is poor; but she is free. She is twenty; she is pretty; she has an admirable voice; she can go on the stage to-morrow, and be, before six months, one of the pet actresses of Paris. What a life then! Ah, that is the one I dream, the one I would have selected, had I been mistress of my destiny."
But she was interrupted by the noise of the opening door.
The Baroness de Thaller appeared. As she was, immediately after dinner, to go to the opera, and afterwards to a party given by the Viscountess de Bois d"Ardon, she was in full dress. She wore a dress, cut audaciously low in the neck, of very light gray satin, trimmed with bands of cherry-colored silk edged with lace. In her hair, worn high over her head, she had a bunch of fuchsias, the flexible stems of which, fastened by a large diamond star, trailed down to her very shoulders, white and smooth as marble.
But, though she forced herself to smile, her countenance was not that of festive days; and the glance which she cast upon her daughter and Marius de Tregars was laden with threats. In a voice of which she tried in vain to control the emotion, "How very kind of you, marquis," she began, "to respond so soon to my invitation of this morning! I am really distressed to have kept you waiting; but I was dressing. After what has happened to M. de Thaller, it is absolutely indispensable that I should go out, show myself: otherwise our enemies will be going around to-morrow, saying everywhere that I am in Belgium, preparing lodgings for my husband."
And, suddenly changing her tone, "But what was that madcap Cesarine telling you?" she asked.
It was with a profound surprise that M. de Tregars discovered that the entente cordiale which he suspected between the mother and daughter did not exist, at least at this moment.
Veiling under a jesting tone the strange conjectures which the unexpected discovery aroused within him, "Mlle. Cesarine," he replied, "who is much to be pitied, was telling me all her troubles."
She interrupted him.
"Do not take the trouble to tell a story, M. le Marquis," she said. "Mamma knows it as well as yourself; for she was listening at the door."
"Cesarine!" exclaimed Mme. de Thaller.
"And, if she came in so suddenly, it is because she thought it was fully time to cut short my confidences."
The face of the baroness became crimson.
"The child is mad!" she said.
The child burst out laughing.
"That"s my way," she went on. "You should not have sent me here by chance, and against my wish. You made me do it: don"t complain. You were sure that I had but to appear, and M. de Tregars would fall at my feet. I appeared, and-you saw the effect through the keyhole, didn"t you?"
Her features contracted, her eyes flashing, twisting her lace handkerchief between her fingers loaded with rings, "It is unheard of," said Mme. de Thaller. "She has certainly lost her head."
Dropping her mother an ironical courtesy, "Thanks for the compliment!" said the young lady. "Unfortunately, I never was more completely in possession of all the good sense I may boast of than I am now, dear mamma. What were you telling me a moment since? "Run, the Marquis de Tregars is coming to ask your hand: it"s all settled." And what did I answer? "No use to trouble myself: if, instead of one million, papa were to give me two, four millions, indeed all the millions paid by France to Prussia, M. de Tregars would not have me for a wife.""
And, looking Marius straight in the face, "Am I not right, M. le Marquis?" she asked. "And isn"t it a fact that you wouldn"t have me at any price? Come, now, your hand upon your heart, answer."
M. de Tregars" situation was somewhat embarra.s.sing between these two women, whose anger was equal, though it manifested itself in a different way. Evidently it was a discussion begun before, which was now continued in his presence.
"I think, mademoiselle," he began, "that you have been slandering yourself gratuitously."
"Oh, no! I swear it to you," she replied; "and, if mamma had not happened in, you would have heard much more. But that was not an answer."
And, as M. de Tregars said nothing, she turned towards the baroness, "Ah, ah! you see," she said. "Who was crazy,-you, or I? Ah! you imagine here that money is everything, that every thing is for sale, and that every thing can be bought. Well, no! There are still men, who, for all the gold in the world, would not give their name to Cesarine de Thaller. It is strange; but it is so, dear mamma, and we must make up our mind to it."
Then turning towards Marius, and bearing upon each syllable, as if afraid that the allusion might escape him, "The men of whom I speak," she added, "marry the girls who can starve to death."
Knowing her daughter well enough to be aware that she could not impose silence upon her, the Baroness de Thaller had dropped upon a chair. She was trying hard to appear indifferent to what her daughter was saying; but at every moment a threatening gesture, or a hoa.r.s.e exclamation, betrayed the storm that raged within her.
"Go on, poor foolish child!" she said,-"go on!"
And she did go on.
"Finally, were M. de Tregars willing to have me, I would refuse him myself, because, then-"
A fugitive blush colored her cheeks, her bold eyes vacillated, and, dropping her voice, "Because, then," she added, "he would no longer be what he is; because I feel that fatally I shall despise the husband whom papa will buy for me. And, if I came here to expose myself to an affront which I foresaw, it is because I wanted to make sure of a fact of which a word of Costeclar, a few days ago, had given me an idea, -of a fact which you do not, perhaps, suspect, dear mother, despite your astonishing perspicacity. I wanted to find out M. de Tregars" secret; and I have found it out."
M. de Tregars had come to the Thaller mansion with a plan well settled in advance. He had pondered long before deciding what he would do, and what he would say, and how he would begin the decisive struggle. What had taken place showed him the idleness of his conjectures, and, as a natural consequence, upset his plans. To abandon himself to the chances of the hour, and to make the best possible use of them, was now the wisest thing to do.
"Give me credit, mademoiselle," he uttered, "for sufficient penetration to have perfectly well discerned your intentions. There was no need of artifice, because I have nothing to conceal. You had but to question me, I would have answered you frankly, "Yes, it is true I love Mlle. Gilberte; and before a month she will be Marquise de Tregars.""
Mme. de Thaller, at those words, had started to her feet, pushing back her arm-chair so violently, that it rolled all the way to the wall.
"What!" she exclaimed, "you marry Gilberte Favoral,-you!"
"I-yes."
"The daughter of a defaulting cashier, a dishonored man whom justice pursues and the galleys await!"
"Yes!" And in an accent that caused a shiver to run over the white shoulders of Mme. de Thaller, "Whatever may have been," he uttered, "Vincent Favoral"s crime; whether he has or has not stolen, the twelve millions which are wanting from the funds of the Mutual Credit; whether he is alone guilty, or has accomplices; whether he be a knave, or a fool, an impostor, or a dupe,-Mlle. Gilberte is not responsible."
"You know the Favoral family, then?"
"Enough to make their cause henceforth my own."
The agitation of the baroness was so great, that she did not even attempt to conceal it.
"A n.o.body"s daughter!" she said.
"I love her."
"Without a sou!"
Mlle. Cesarine made a superb gesture.
"Why, that"s the very reason why a man may marry her!" she exclaimed, and, holding out her hand to M. de Tregars, "What you do here is well," she added, "very well."
There was a wild look in the eyes of the baroness.
"Mad, unhappy child!" she exclaimed. "If your father should hear!"
"And who, then, would report our conversation to him? M. de Tregars? He would not do such a thing. You? You dare not."
Drawing herself up to her fullest height, her breast swelling with anger, her head thrown back, her eyes flashing, "Cesarine," ordered Mme. de Thaller, her arm extended towards the door-"Cesarine, leave the room; I command you."
But motionless in her place the girl cast upon her mother a look of defiance.
"Come, calm yourself," she said in a tone of crushing irony, "or you"ll spoil your complexion for the rest of the evening. Do I complain? do I get excited? And yet whose fault is it, if honor makes it a duty for me to cry "Beware!" to an honest man who wishes to marry me? That Gilberte should get married: that she should be very happy, have many children, darn her husband"s stockings, and skim her pot-au-feu,-that is her part in life. Ours, dear mother,-that which you have taught me-is to laugh and have fun, all the time, night and day, till death."
A footman who came in interrupted her. Handing a card to Mme. de Thaller, "The gentleman who gave it to me," he said, "is in the large parlor."
The baroness had become very pale.
"Oh!" she said turning the card between her fingers,-"oh!"
Then suddenly she ran out exclaiming, "I"ll be back directly."
An embarra.s.sing, painful silence followed, as it was inevitable that it would, the Baroness de Thaller"s precipitate departure.
Mlle. Cesarine had approached the mantel-piece. She was leaning her elbow upon it, her forehead on her hand, all palpitating and excited. Intimidated for, perhaps, the first time in her life, she turned away her great blue eyes, as if afraid that they should betray a reflex of her thoughts.
As to M. de Tregars, he remained at his place, not having one whit too much of that power of self-control, which is acquired by a long experience of the world, to conceal his impressions. If he had a fault, it was certainly not self-conceit; but Mlle. de Thaller had been too explicit and too clear to leave him a doubt. All she had said could be comprised in one sentence, "My parents were in hopes that I would become your wife: I had judged you well enough to understand their error. Precisely because I love you I acknowledge myself unworthy of you and I wish you to know that if you had asked my hand,-the hand of a girl who has a dowry of a million-I would have ceased to esteem you."
That such a feeling should have budded and blossomed in Mlle. Cesarine"s soul, withered as it was by vanity, and blunted by pleasure was almost a miracle. It was, at any rate, an astonishing proof of love which she gave; and Marius de Tregars would not have been a man, if he had not been deeply moved by it. Suddenly, "What a miserable wretch I am!" she uttered.
"You mean unhappy," said M. de Tregars gently.
"What can you think of my sincerity? You must, doubtless, find it strange, impudent, grotesque."
He lifted his hand in protest; for she gave him no time to put in a word.
"And yet," she went on, "this is not the first time that I am a.s.sailed by sinister ideas, and that I feel ashamed of myself. I was convinced once that this mad existence of mine is the only enviable one, the only one that can give happiness. And now I discover that it is not the right path which I have taken, or, rather, which I have been made to take. And there is no possibility of retracing my steps."
She turned pale, and, in an accent of gloomy despair, "Every thing fails me," she said. "It seems as though I were rolling into a bottomless abyss, without a branch or a tuft of gra.s.s to cling to. Around me, emptiness, night, chaos. I am not yet twenty and it seems to me that I have lived thousands of years, and exhausted every sensation. I have seen every thing, learned every thing, experienced every thing; and I am tired of every thing, and satiated and nauseated. You see me looking like a brainless hoyden, I sing, I jest, I talk slang. My gayety surprises everybody. In reality, I am literally tired to death. What I feel I could not express, there are no words to render absolute disgust. Sometimes I say to myself, "It is stupid to be so sad. What do you need? Are you not young, handsome, rich?" But I must need something, or else I would not be thus agitated, nervous, anxious, unable to stay in one place, tormented by confused aspirations, and by desires which I cannot formulate. What can I do? Seek oblivion in pleasure and dissipation? I try, and I succeed for an hour or so; but the reaction comes, and the effect vanishes, like froth from champagne. The la.s.situde returns; and, whilst outwardly I continue to laugh, I shed within tears of blood which scald my heart. What is to become of me, without a memory in the past, or a hope in the future, upon which to rest my thought?"
And bursting into tears, "Oh, I am wretchedly unhappy!" she exclaimed; "and I wish I was dead."
M. de Tregars rose, feeling more deeply moved than he would, perhaps, have liked to acknowledge.
"I was laughing at you only a moment since," he said in his grave and vibrating voice. "Pardon me, mademoiselle. It is with the utmost sincerity, and from the innermost depths of my soul, that I pity you."
She was looking at him with an air of timid doubt, big tears trembling between her long eyelashes.
"Honest?" she asked.
"Upon my honor."
"And you will not go with too poor an opinion of me?"
"I shall retain the firm belief that when you were yet but a child, you were spoiled by insane theories."
Gently and sadly she was pa.s.sing her hand over her forehead.
"Yes, that"s it," she murmured. "How could I resist examples coming from certain persons? How could I help becoming intoxicated when I saw myself, as it were, in a cloud of incense when I heard nothing but praises and applause? And then there is the money, which depraves when it comes in a certain way."
She ceased to speak; but the silence was soon again broken by a slight noise, which came from the adjoining room.
Mechanically, M. de Tregars looked around him. The little parlor in which he found himself was divided from the main drawing-room of the house by a tall and broad door, closed only by heavy curtains, which had remained partially drawn. Now, such was the disposition of the mirrors in the two rooms, that M. de Tregars could see almost the whole of the large one reflected in the mirror over the mantelpiece of the little parlor. A man of suspicious appearance, and wearing wretched clothes, was standing in it.
And, the more M. de Tregars examined him, the more it seemed to him that he had already seen somewhere that uneasy countenance, that anxious glance, that wicked smile flitting upon flat and thin lips.
But suddenly the man bowed very low. It was probable that Mme. de Thaller, who had gone around through the hall to reach the grand parlor, must be coming in; and in fact she almost immediately appeared within the range of the gla.s.s. She seemed much agitated; and, with a finger upon her lips, she was recommending to the man to be prudent, and to speak low. It was therefore in a whisper, and such a low whisper that not even a vague murmur reached the little parlor, that the man uttered a few words. They were such that the baroness started back as if she had seen a precipice yawning at her feet; and by this action it was easy to understand that she must have said, "Is it possible?"
With the voice which still could not be heard, but with a gesture which could be seen, the man evidently replied, "It is so, I a.s.sure you!"
And leaning towards Mme. de Thaller, who seemed in no wise shocked to feel this repulsive personage"s lips almost touching her ear, he began speaking to her.
The surprise which this species of vision caused to M. de Tregars was great, but did not keep him from reflecting what could be the meaning of this scene. How came this suspicious-looking man to have obtained access, without difficulty, into the grand parlor? Why had the baroness, on receiving his card, turned whiter than the laces on her dress? What news had he brought, which had made such a deep impression? What was he saying that seemed at once to terrify and to delight Mme. de Thaller?
But soon she interrupted the man, beckoned to him to wait, disappeared for a minute; and, when she came in again, she held in her hand a package of bank-notes, which she began counting upon the parlor-table.
She counted twenty-five, which, so far as M. de Tregars could judge, must have been hundred-franc notes. The man took them, counted them over, slipped them into his pocket with a grin of satisfaction, and then seemed disposed to retire.
The baroness detained him, however; and it was she now, who, leaning towards him, commenced to explain to him, or rather, as far as her att.i.tude showed, to ask him something. It must have been a serious matter; for he shook his head, and moved his arms, as if he meant to say, "The deuse, the deuse!"
The strangest suspicions flashed across M. de Tregars" mind. What was that bargain to which the mirror made him thus an accidental witness? For it was a bargain: there could be no mistake about it. The man, having received a mission, had fulfilled it, and had come to receive the price of it. And now a new commission was offered to him.
But M. de Tregars" attention was now called off by Mlle. Cesarine. Shaking off the torpor which for a moment had overpowered her, "But why fret and worry?" she said, answering, rather, the objections of her own mind than addressing herself to M. de Tregars. "Things are just as they are, and I cannot undo them.
"Ah! if the mistakes of life were like soiled clothes, which are allowed to acc.u.mulate in a wardrobe, and which are all sent out at once to the wash. But nothing washes the past, not even repentance, whatever they may say. There are some ideas which should be set aside. A prisoner should not allow himself to think of freedom.
"And yet," she added, shrugging her shoulders, "a prisoner has always the hope of escaping; whereas I-" Then, making a visible effort to resume her usual manner, "Bash!" she said, "that"s enough sentiment for one day; and instead of staying here, boring you to death, I ought to go and dress; for I am going to the opera with my sweet mamma, and afterwards to the ball. You ought to come. I am going to wear a stunning dress. The ball is at Mme. de Bois d"Ardon"s,-one of our friends, a progressive woman. She has a smoking-room for ladies. What do you think of that? Come, will you go? We"ll drink champagne, and we"ll laugh. No? Zut then, and my compliments to your family."