"Ah! excuse me! the two leaves of the door are merely drawn together."
"Yes, that"s true!"
And she smiled, as much as to say:
"I"m not a bit afraid!"
He asked her presently what was the object of her visit.
"My husband," she replied with an effort, "has urged me to call on you, not venturing to take this step himself!"
"And why?"
"You know M. Dambreuse, don"t you?"
"Yes, slightly."
"Ah! slightly."
She relapsed into silence.
"No matter! finish what you were going to say."
Thereupon she told him that, two days before, Arnoux had found himself unable to meet four bills of a thousand francs, made payable at the banker"s order and with his signature attached to them. She felt sorry for having compromised her children"s fortune. But anything was preferable to dishonour; and, if M. Dambreuse stopped the proceedings, they would certainly pay him soon, for she was going to sell a little house which she had at Chartres.
"Poor woman!" murmured Frederick. "I will go. Rely on me!"
"Thanks!"
And she arose to go.
"Oh! there is nothing to hurry you yet."
She remained standing, examining the trophy of Mongolian arrows suspended from the ceiling, the bookcase, the bindings, all the utensils for writing. She lifted up the bronze bowl which held his pens. Her feet rested on different portions of the carpet. She had visited Frederick several times before, but always accompanied by Arnoux. They were now alone together--alone in his own house. It was an extraordinary event--almost a successful issue of his love.
She wished to see his little garden. He offered her his arm to show her his property--thirty feet of ground enclosed by some houses, adorned with shrubs at the corners and flower-borders in the middle. The early days of April had arrived. The leaves of the lilacs were already showing their borders of green. A breath of pure air was diffused around, and the little birds chirped, their song alternating with the distant sound that came from a coachmaker"s forge.
Frederick went to look for a fire-shovel; and, while they walked on side by side, the child kept making sand-pies in the walk.
Madame Arnoux did not believe that, as he grew older, he would have a great imagination; but he had a winning disposition. His sister, on the other hand, possessed a caustic humour that sometimes wounded her.
"That will change," said Frederick. "We must never despair."
She returned:
"We must never despair!"
This automatic repet.i.tion of the phrase he had used appeared to him a sort of encouragement; he plucked a rose, the only one in the garden.
"Do you remember a certain bouquet of roses one evening, in a carriage?"
She coloured a little; and, with an air of bantering pity:
"Ah, I was very young then!"
"And this one," went on Frederick, in a low tone, "will it be the same way with it?"
She replied, while turning about the stem between her fingers, like the thread of a spindle:
"No, I will preserve it."
She called over the nurse, who took the child in her arms; then, on the threshold of the door in the street, Madame Arnoux inhaled the odour of the flower, leaning her head on her shoulder with a look as sweet as a kiss.
When he had gone up to his study, he gazed at the armchair in which she had sat, and every object which she had touched. Some portion of her was diffused around him. The caress of her presence lingered there still.
"So, then, she came here," said he to himself.
And his soul was bathed in the waves of infinite tenderness.
Next morning, at eleven o"clock, he presented himself at M. Dambreuse"s house. He was received in the dining-room. The banker was seated opposite his wife at breakfast. Beside her sat his niece, and at the other side of the table appeared the governess, an English woman, strongly pitted with small-pox.
M. Dambreuse invited his young friend to take his place among them, and when he declined:
"What can I do for you? I am listening to whatever you have to say to me."
Frederick confessed, while affecting indifference, that he had come to make a request in behalf of one Arnoux.
"Ha! ha! the ex-picture-dealer," said the banker, with a noiseless laugh which exposed his gums. "Oudry formerly gave security for him; he has given a lot of trouble."
And he proceeded to read the letters and newspapers which lay close beside him on the table.
Two servants attended without making the least noise on the floor; and the loftiness of the apartment, which had three portieres of richest tapestry, and two white marble fountains, the polish of the chafing-dish, the arrangement of the side-dishes, and even the rigid folds of the napkins, all this sumptuous comfort impressed Frederick"s mind with the contrast between it and another breakfast at the Arnouxs"
house. He did not take the liberty of interrupting M. Dambreuse.
Madame noticed his embarra.s.sment.
"Do you occasionally see our friend Martinon?"
"He will be here this evening," said the young girl in a lively tone.
"Ha! so you know him?" said her aunt, fixing on her a freezing look.
At that moment one of the men-servants, bending forward, whispered in her ear.
"Your dressmaker, Mademoiselle--Miss John!"
And the governess, in obedience to this summons, left the room along with her pupil.