"If that were so, it seems to me, Widow Cadichard, that it is my business!--Will you sew on my b.u.t.tons?"
"I! I should think not! Go to your mistress!"
Pa.s.sedix stamped the floor in vexation. At that moment the door of the room was suddenly thrown open, and the Gascon uttered an exclamation of satisfaction, for he expected to see the maid-servant of the hotel; but he was speedily undeceived. Instead of Popelinette, it was the foreigner who appeared in the doorway.
XI
THE FOREIGNER
The new tenant of the Hotel du Sanglier paused on the threshold when he saw that there was someone with his hostess; he even took a step backward, as if he did not intend to enter. But in a moment, changing his mind, he walked into the room with a certain gravity of demeanor which was not without distinction.
The Gascon chevalier scrutinized the new arrival with interest, for he suspected that it was the foreigner whom Dame Cadichard was so proud to have under her roof, and he was curious to see whether he deserved the high-flown praise which his hostess had lavished on him.
A single glance was sufficient to satisfy Pa.s.sedix that the sprightly widow had not exaggerated at all. The gentleman who had just entered the room was still young, tall and well built; his features were handsome and refined, his eyes slightly veiled, but full of fire and expression; he wore no beard on his chin, but only small moustaches curled a little upward at the ends.
He wore with easy grace a rich velvet cloak, over an elegant pale-blue doublet; a beautiful white plume lay along the broad brim of his hat, and the sword at his side was suspended from a belt trimmed with rich lace.
The stranger bowed most courteously as he walked into the room. Pa.s.sedix made haste to return his salutation, saying to himself:
"He is a good-looking fellow, sandioux! I am too just to deny it. Almost as handsome a man as myself, and that is no small thing to say!"
Widow Cadichard had risen hastily on the entrance of her tenant, to whom she made a low reverence.
"Monsieur de Carvajal, your servant," she exclaimed; "I have the honor to salute you! Pray be kind enough to take a seat, monsieur le comte; do you wish for anything? Perhaps you are looking for Popelinette? She hasn"t returned yet, and that annoys you. She is not very quick when she has an errand to do. Would you like me to go to meet her, monseigneur?"
The stranger waited till this torrent of words had ceased, then replied, with a smile:
"What I wish first of all, my dear hostess, is that you will not put yourself out and that you will continue your repast."
"Oh! indeed I will do nothing of the sort, monsieur le comte; I know too well what I owe to you."
"In that case, madame, you will compel me to withdraw, for I do not like ceremony."
"Oh! monsieur le comte, since you insist, since you command me, I will do it to obey you. But allow me first to offer you a chair."
While Madame Cadichard bustled about the room, looking for her best easy-chair and the best place in the room to put it, Pa.s.sedix approached the new-comer and addressed him, trying all the while to hide with his cloak that part of his doublet from which the b.u.t.tons were missing.
"I presume that I have the honor to salute one of my neighbors? I say _neighbors_, because we both live in the same hotel; only I am at the top and monsieur le comte is at the bottom. But men of honor are always on the same level."
"Ah! does monsieur live in this hotel?" rejoined the stranger, bowing to the Gascon.
"With your kind permission."
"What, monsieur! why, I can only be flattered to have monsieur for my neighbor."
"Castor Pyrrhus de Pa.s.sedix, G.o.dson of the most honorable Chaudoreille, who left me only this sword, his trusty Roland, a finely tempered blade, which I dare to say that I use in an honorable way! My reputation in that regard is made!--And monsieur is the Comte de Carvajal, the n.o.ble Spaniard whom Dame Cadichard is so fortunate as to have as her tenant in the Hotel du Sanglier?"
"Madame Cadichard would do well, then, to be a little more discreet, and to respect the incognito which her guests desire to maintain."
The stout landlady blushed when she heard that; she realized that she deserved the rebuke, and in her despair dropped the spoon which she was about to raise to her mouth, and which remained standing upright in the soup.
But the stranger, as he lay back in the easy-chair she had offered him, continued, with something very like a smile:
"However, I do not feel that I have the courage to bear any ill will to our excellent hostess, since I owe to her the acquaintance of so ill.u.s.trious a knight as Monsieur de Pa.s.sedix, who, I am convinced, will not betray the incognito which important considerations compel me to adopt at this moment, in Paris."
The Gascon bowed again, taking care not to relax his hold of the corners of his cloak, and replied:
"You may rely on my discretion, monsieur le comte; the secrets that are intrusted to me will go down with me into the darkness of the grave, unless I am released from my oath."
Thereupon the chevalier seized a chair and placed it at the table, opposite Madame Cadichard, who had taken one of the eggs from the plate and was trying to devise some refined method of breaking the sh.e.l.l and dipping her pieces of toast into the egg, in her ill.u.s.trious tenant"s presence.
"I will not presume to ask monsieur le comte how he pa.s.ses his time in Paris; that is his business, and I never meddle in other people"s affairs! But I venture to say that I should be an invaluable guide for a stranger who wished to become acquainted with the pleasures, the merry gatherings, of the capital. I go about a great deal in the best society.
I am a jovial companion, a st.u.r.dy toper; all the dandies, all the young n.o.blemen who love to fight and drink and make love to the fair, are my friends. Does anyone need a second for a duel, a fourth for a party of four, Pa.s.sedix is always there! I do not like to boast, but I could mention exploits of my own which the Amadises and Renauds would not have disavowed!"
"One needs only to see you, chevalier, to entertain no manner of doubt that you would be successful in whatever you might undertake!"
"Monsieur le comte is too kind! But it is quite true that I count only victories, sandioux!"
"If I remember aright," murmured the little widow, carefully placing a bit of toast in her egg, "you were on your back a fortnight as a result of the blows you received the last time that you tried to rob several bourgeois on Rue Mauconseil of their sleep!"
Pa.s.sedix cast a savage glance at his landlady, as he cried:
"No, no! you are wrong, Dame Cadichard. I covered myself with glory in that affair; and if I did keep my bed for some time after, it was only because, in the heat of the affray, I gave myself a strain which kept me from going to my usual resorts for a few days. Your eggs are too hard, _belle dame_, you will never be able to dip your toast in them. I advise you to eat them as a salad."
"They are all right, monsieur le chevalier; I like them this way.--Mon Dieu! how sorry I am, monsieur le comte, that my servant keeps you waiting like this!"
"There is no harm done, madame, I am in no hurry."
"If only I had something to offer monsieur le comte; but this breakfast is not worthy of him."
"I should think it very nice, if I had not already eaten mine."
"In any case," observed Pa.s.sedix, "you wouldn"t offer your tenants boiled eggs, I trust; for these are as hard as rocks--like Easter eggs."
"Oh! what a tease you are, monsieur le chevalier! But I think that you know very little about cooking!"
"Sandioux! Dame Cadichard--on the contrary, I know a great deal about it. My G.o.dfather Chaudoreille used to give his friends banquets that lasted a whole week; I remember that he used to have delicacies from the four quarters of the globe, and he was not satisfied unless his guests had indigestion.--If Monsieur de Carvajal has no restaurant to which he is attached, I could take him to a cabaret where they serve the most delicious calves" heads, and stewed rabbits _en c.r.a.paudine_--you would swear they were hares."
"I thank you, chevalier; but I do not take my meals at wine shops."
"I understand--I understand. You prefer darkness and mystery, with some fair lady who awaits you in her _pet.i.te maison_; for we have ladies who have them, as well as men; I know something about it, for I have supped in more than one of those enchanting retreats--near Porte Saint-Antoine, on the other side of the Fosses Jaunes. I am not inquisitive, I do not mean to ask you indiscreet questions; but, between us, monsieur le comte, I will take the liberty to give you a piece of advice; it is this: it is not very safe in certain quarters of Paris at night; people are attacked, robbed, and sometimes murdered, without anyone interfering to prevent it. I warn you of this, because our landlady told me that you went out very late, and returned at very advanced hours of the night.
That is imprudent! extremely imprudent!"
"Ah! madame told you that, did she?" rejoined the stranger, with a glance at Widow Cadichard that arrested one of the pieces of toast on its way to her mouth.