The Vicomte reopened his eyes, then suddenly grasped at his sword like a madman. Frederick had held his in readiness, and now awaited him with steady eye and uplifted hand.
"Stop! stop!" cried a voice, which came from the road simultaneously with the sound of a horse at full gallop, and the hood of a cab broke the branches. A man bending out his head waved a handkerchief, still exclaiming:
"Stop! stop!"
M. de Comaing, believing that this meant the intervention of the police, lifted up his walking-stick.
"Make an end of it. The Vicomte is bleeding!"
"I?" said Cisy.
In fact, he had in his fall taken off the skin of his left thumb.
"But this was by falling," observed the Citizen.
The Baron pretended not to understand.
Arnoux had jumped out of the cab.
"I have arrived too late? No! Thanks be to G.o.d!"
He threw his arms around Frederick, felt him, and covered his face with kisses.
"I am the cause of it. You wanted to defend your old friend! That"s right--that"s right! Never shall I forget it! How good you are! Ah! my own dear boy!"
He gazed at Frederick and shed tears, while he chuckled with delight.
The Baron turned towards Joseph:
"I believe we are in the way at this little family party. It is over, messieurs, is it not? Vicomte, put your arm into a sling. Hold on! here is my silk handkerchief."
Then, with an imperious gesture: "Come! no spite! This is as it should be!"
The two adversaries shook hands in a very lukewarm fashion. The Vicomte, M. de Comaing, and Joseph disappeared in one direction, and Frederick left with his friends in the opposite direction.
As the Madrid Restaurant was not far off, Arnoux proposed that they should go and drink a gla.s.s of beer there.
"We might even have breakfast."
But, as Dussardier had no time to lose, they confined themselves to taking some refreshment in the garden.
They all experienced that sense of satisfaction which follows happy _denouements_. The Citizen, nevertheless, was annoyed at the duel having been interrupted at the most critical stage.
Arnoux had been apprised of it by a person named Compain, a friend of Regimbart; and with an irrepressible outburst of emotion he had rushed to the spot to prevent it, under the impression, however, that he was the occasion of it. He begged of Frederick to furnish him with some details about it. Frederick, touched by these proofs of affection, felt some scruples at the idea of increasing his misapprehension of the facts.
"For mercy"s sake, don"t say any more about it!"
Arnoux thought that this reserve showed great delicacy. Then, with his habitual levity, he pa.s.sed on to some fresh subject.
"What news, Citizen?"
And they began talking about banking transactions, and the number of bills that were falling due. In order to be more undisturbed, they went to another table, where they exchanged whispered confidences.
Frederick could overhear the following words: "You are going to back me up with your signature." "Yes, but you, mind!" "I have negotiated it at last for three hundred!" "A nice commission, faith!"
In short, it was clear that Arnoux was mixed up in a great many shady transactions with the Citizen.
Frederick thought of reminding him about the fifteen thousand francs.
But his last step forbade the utterance of any reproachful words even of the mildest description. Besides, he felt tired himself, and this was not a convenient place for talking about such a thing. He put it off till some future day.
Arnoux, seated in the shade of an evergreen, was smoking, with a look of joviality in his face. He raised his eyes towards the doors of private rooms looking out on the garden, and said he had often paid visits to the house in former days.
"Probably not by yourself?" returned the Citizen.
"Faith, you"re right there!"
"What blackguardism you do carry on! you, a married man!"
"Well, and what about yourself?" retorted Arnoux; and, with an indulgent smile: "I am even sure that this rascal here has a room of his own somewhere into which he takes his friends."
The Citizen confessed that this was true by simply shrugging his shoulders. Then these two gentlemen entered into their respective tastes with regard to the s.e.x: Arnoux now preferred youth, work-girls; Regimbart hated affected women, and went in for the genuine article before anything else. The conclusion which the earthenware-dealer laid down at the close of this discussion was that women were not to be taken seriously.
"Nevertheless, he is fond of his own wife," thought Frederick, as he made his way home; and he looked on Arnoux as a coa.r.s.e-grained man. He had a grudge against him on account of the duel, as if it had been for the sake of this individual that he risked his life a little while before.
But he felt grateful to Dussardier for his devotedness. Ere long the book-keeper came at his invitation to pay him a visit every day.
Frederick lent him books--Thiers, Dulaure, Barante, and Lamartine"s _Girondins_.
The honest fellow listened to everything the other said with a thoughtful air, and accepted his opinions as those of a master.
One evening he arrived looking quite scared.
That morning, on the boulevard, a man who was running so quickly that he had got out of breath, had jostled against him, and having recognised in him a friend of Senecal, had said to him:
"He has just been taken! I am making my escape!"
There was no doubt about it. Dussardier had spent the day making enquiries. Senecal was in jail charged with an attempted crime of a political nature.
The son of an overseer, he was born at Lyons, and having had as his teacher a former disciple of Chalier, he had, on his arrival in Paris, obtained admission into the "Society of Families." His ways were known, and the police kept a watch on him. He was one of those who fought in the outbreak of May, 1839, and since then he had remained in the shade; but, his self-importance increasing more and more, he became a fanatical follower of Alibaud, mixing up his own grievances against society with those of the people against monarchy, and waking up every morning in the hope of a revolution which in a fortnight or a month would turn the world upside down. At last, disgusted at the inactivity of his brethren, enraged at the obstacles that r.e.t.a.r.ded the realisation of his dreams, and despairing of the country, he entered in his capacity of chemist into the conspiracy for the use of incendiary bombs; and he had been caught carrying gunpowder, of which he was going to make a trial at Montmartre--a supreme effort to establish the Republic.
Dussardier was no less attached to the Republican idea, for, from his point of view, it meant enfranchis.e.m.e.nt and universal happiness. One day--at the age of fifteen--in the Rue Transnonain, in front of a grocer"s shop, he had seen soldiers" bayonets reddened with blood and exhibiting human hairs pasted to the b.u.t.t-ends of their guns. Since that time, the Government had filled him with feelings of rage as the very incarnation of injustice. He frequently confused the a.s.sa.s.sins with the gendarmes; and in his eyes a police-spy was just as bad as a parricide. All the evil scattered over the earth he ingenuously attributed to Power; and he hated it with a deep-rooted, undying hatred that held possession of his heart and made his sensibility all the more acute. He had been dazzled by Senecal"s declamations. It was of little consequence whether he happened to be guilty or not, or whether the attempt with which he was charged could be characterised as an odious proceeding! Since he was the victim of Authority, it was only right to help him.
"The Peers will condemn him, certainly! Then he will be conveyed in a prison-van, like a convict, and will be shut up in Mont Saint-Michel, where the Government lets people die! Austen had gone mad! Steuben had killed himself! In order to transfer Barbes into a dungeon, they had dragged him by the legs and by the hair. They trampled on his body, and his head rebounded along the staircase at every step they took. What abominable treatment! The wretches!"
He was choking with angry sobs, and he walked about the apartment in a very excited frame of mind.
"In the meantime, something must be done! Come, for my part, I don"t know what to do! Suppose we tried to rescue him, eh? While they are bringing him to the Luxembourg, we could throw ourselves on the escort in the pa.s.sage! A dozen resolute men--that sometimes is enough to accomplish it!"
There was so much fire in his eyes that Frederick was a little startled by his look. He recalled to mind Senecal"s sufferings and his austere life. Without feeling the same enthusiasm about him as Dussardier, he experienced nevertheless that admiration which is inspired by every man who sacrifices himself for an idea. He said to himself that, if he had helped this man, he would not be in his present position; and the two friends anxiously sought to devise some contrivance whereby they could set him free.