"A thousand francs on a boatman! the fellow was in comfortable case!"
said Freluchon.
"This gold was to pay for his crime!" cried Paul; "this gold condemned to death Honorine and Agathe--two women who have never injured that Thelenie!--I will take it from him to give it back to her.--And now, come, my dear Monsieur Freluchon; let us leave this wretch"s body here, and join those who love us."
"Even so; and we will think of nothing but breakfast; it makes one hollow to row, and I put all my strength into it."
"Yes, and after that, I have still another duty to perform, and I shall not fail to perform it."
"Come; see, Ami will be there before us."
When Chamoureau reached home after the duel, he found Thelenie pacing the floor of her apartment in great agitation. She was counting the hours and minutes. It was not the result of the duel that preoccupied her so, but the result of the plan she had formed to destroy Honorine and Agathe.
Her messenger, after delivering the note with which she had entrusted him, had, in accordance with her orders, lain in ambush a short distance from the house, and had seen the two ladies rush out and hasten in the direction indicated by the note; then he had returned to Madame de Belleville and made his report.
She therefore had no doubt as to the result of her villainy, and yet she felt some inquietude, a vague terror which increased with every moment.
The slightest noise, the approach of some person, the sound of a voice, made her start, and stop abruptly to look about her. Despite her perversity, she found that a crime so detestable as that which she had committed, brings in its train,--if not remorse, when the criminal is too hardened,--at least a terror which is an incessant, never-ending torment.
And so, when her husband appeared before her, Thelenie glared at him in dismay, crying:
"What is it? What do you want of me, monsieur? What have you learned?"
"Be calm, my dear love, pull yourself together. You are very anxious, I see; you are very pale. I thank you for your deep interest in me, but there are as many killed as wounded, and no one is dead."
"No one dead? What are you talking about, monsieur? Explain yourself, pray."
"Why, I should think that you might guess. Don"t you know, madame, that I have just had a duel--that is to say, I have been a second in a duel--in fact, I have had a duel all the same----"
"Oh, yes! to be sure, it was this morning. Well?"
"Well, we fought with pistols, and we fired first; that was our right.
But we missed our adversary; thereupon he agreed not to fire if we would admit that we did wrong to speak ill of his fiancee and her friend; and we admitted it."
"Cowards! I recognize you there."
"That is to say, it was not I, it was Luminot, who----"
"All right! I know enough! leave me."
And Thelenie turned on her heel, leaving Chamoureau alone.
"That woman is never satisfied," he said to himself; "for heaven"s sake, was she anxious for the death of one of us? O Eleonore! you never longed for anybody"s death!--All the same, I won"t say anything to my wife about the appointment those men made to meet us here at five o"clock.
She would be capable of giving orders not to let them in. And those men, especially the owner of the dog, didn"t seem inclined to joke. He threatened us with a duel to the death; so that I am determined that he shall be satisfied; and if madame doesn"t like it, why, _fichtre_! I"ll show my teeth!"
The day seemed endless to Thelenie, who longed for six o"clock to come.
She shut herself up in her bedroom, and kept her eyes fixed upon a clock, waiting impatiently for the moment when she was to see Croque.
But, a few minutes before five, a servant informed her that several callers had arrived, and that her husband desired her to come down to the salon.
"Callers at this time of day!" thought Thelenie; "why, we have invited n.o.body to dinner to-day, unless monsieur has taken the liberty; but that is not probable.--Can it be that people know already of the accident that must have happened to those two women?--But no matter; I must not act as if I were afraid of anybody!--Let us find out what all these people want."
Messieurs Luminot and Remplume, who were no more anxious than Chamoureau for a duel to the death, had carried out Paul Duronceray"s wishes to the letter.
On leaving him, they went first to Madame Droguet, whom they found bathing her husband"s jaw. To her they said:
"You are requested to be at Madame de Belleville"s at five o"clock to-day."
"Are we invited to dinner again?"
"No, it is not a matter of dinner, but of an important meeting; something very interesting is going to happen; we don"t know yet what it is, but it"s something of very grave importance. Be sure to come; you are expected."
With such words they could have made the ex-vivandiere travel a hundred leagues.
In a small village, curiosity would make the very stones walk. With the same harangue Monsieur Luminot and his second set the whole neighborhood in a ferment.
That is why the salon of Goldfish Villa, at five o"clock that afternoon, contained almost as many people as on the day of the fete; only the guests from Paris were lacking.
Thelenie could not overcome a secret feeling of uneasiness when she saw all those people a.s.sembled under her roof. She observed, moreover, a certain embarra.s.sment and constraint on those faces which were accustomed to smile upon her; for Luminot had already said to his intimate friends:
"Madame de Belleville involved me in a wretched piece of business. I extricated myself from my duel with honor, but I must admit that I was in the wrong. The ladies at the Courtivaux house are as white as milk; I consider them most honorable persons."
The little, lame man had spoken in the same strain. As for Chamoureau, he wandered about his salon with a dismayed expression, answering at random the remarks that were addressed to him.
"May I know to what I am indebted for the presence of such a delightful a.s.semblage in my salon this afternoon?" said Thelenie, as she saluted the company.
"Why, did not you invite us, _belle dame_?" said Madame Droguet.
"I! indeed, no; although I congratulate myself upon your presence. I confess that I did not expect this pleasure to-day.--So it was you, Monsieur de Belleville, who chose to give me this delightful surprise?"
Chamoureau tried to a.s.sume an impressive manner, and stammered:
"No, madame."
"What! neither you, nor I! This is strange, to say the least.--I believe, monsieur, that you are concealing something from me."
"Well, madame, we had a duel this morning."
"I had a duel!" exclaimed Luminot.
"Well, yes, it was you who fought, that is true; but we were told that we would all have to fight if we did not to-day, and here, publicly retract the remarks that were made concerning Madame Dalmont and her young friend."
"And who dared to demand that?" cried Thelenie, pale with wrath.
"Paul and his dog--that is, the dog didn"t say anything, but he looked at us pretty hard. However, madame, those gentlemen are coming here, and they will explain themselves more fully."
"Who are coming here, monsieur?"
"The owner of the Tower, with----"
"I don"t propose that that man shall put his foot inside my door. Ah!