"No doubt," said the servant, unconsciously holding the feather duster as a soldier holds his rifle; "madame has heard about our great discoveries in artillery? They are revo--revolutionizing--oof! What a mouthful--the military world!"
"Yes; I read the newspaper accounts during my convalescence," replied Madame Clemenceau.
"Then you fell in love with your husband because of his cannon," said Hedwig, laughing. "I do not see what connection there is between them, and, in fact," reflecting a little and suddenly laughing more loudly, "I hear that cannons produce breaches rather than re-union. Well, after all, if cannons do not further love, its a friend to glory and riches!
The Emperor, some of our visitors said, is very fond of artillery, and he will give master immense contracts from the report of the examining committee being so favorable."
"Really, Hedwig, you are becoming quite learned from the a.s.sociation with scientists. What long words you use!
"That"s nothing," said the servant, complacently.
"There is no word difficult in French to a German. but I can tell you that, as we cannot live on air, and these promises do not bear present fruit, master has been forced to sell this house."
"Eh! why is that? I like the place well enough."
"You were not here to be consulted, madame, and, we wanted the money.
Master does not wish to be obliged to M. Daniels and, besides, he, too, does not get in the cash for his company any too rapidly. Master ran into debt while making his guns and cannon, and we have been pinched for ready money."
"I am glad to hear it!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Cesarine, without spitefulness, and with more sincerity than she had spoken previously.
The girl stared without understanding.
"I have money--cash--to help him, and it will be far more proper for him to be obliged to his wife than to strangers. Besides, I should not tax him with usurious interest," she said maliciously.
"Money, madame," said the servant with her widely opened eyes still more distending.
"I have two hundred thousand francs, that is, nearly as many marks, coming from my good uncle who is a little late in doing me a kindness--but my attention touched him. But do I not hear steps--somebody at last moving in the house?"
"Very likely," replied the servant tranquilly, "but n.o.body will come in here, before master has breakfast. Since he stores his secrets in that chest, and no company drops in, this is a hermitage. Mademoiselle Rebecca is not one of the prying sort."
Madame Clemenceau, who had risen with more nervous anxiety than she cared to display to the servants, stood by her chair, looking toward the door.
"Has he talked about me, sometimes?"
"Master? never--not before me, anyway, madame."
"Yet you gave him the telegram that explained all?"
"Yes, madame; but not until some time after your departure and when master had returned from a promenade alone. I know he was alone, because M. Antonino was racing about to show him some of his wonderful experiments."
Beyond a doubt, it was Clemenceau who had stood witness to the tragedy in the meadow. Hence his inattention to the Russian"s despatch, which he naturally would disbelieve, and probably to her prolonged absence.
It was humiliating that he had not searched for her.
"What! no allusion to my stay--no hint of my possible return?"
"His silence has been perfect as the grave. Next morning after you left and did not return, master looked at the cover which I had from habit placed for you, and remarked: "Oh, by the way, you will have another to lay to-morrow, as we shall have two guests for, I hope, a long time." He meant the Danielses, madame. Their coming made it a little livelier for him and M. Antonino."
"It looks like a plot," murmured Cesarine, indignantly, as she pictured the happy reunions out of which she had been displaced in memory--not even her untouched plate left as memento! her chair taken by Rebecca Daniels!
"Mr. Daniels is like M. Antonino, too!" continued Hedwig. "Not only is he getting up the company for the master"s inventions, but for the young gentleman"s--he has made such a marvel of a rifle--they put a tin box into it, and lo! you can fire three hundred shots as quick as a wink! I walk in terror since I heard of it! and I touch things as if they would go off and make mince-meat of me in the desert to it."
"Never mind that!" cried Madame Clemenceau, testily.
"Although the connection between piping at music halls and enchanting the bulls and bears of the Bourse is not clear to me, I can understand how M. Daniels, as a financial agent, should be lodging under our roof, but his daughter--"
"She is our housekeeper, and, to tell the plain truth, madame, we have lived nicely, although money was scarce, since she ruled the roost. Ah, these Jews are clever managers!"
Cesarine did not like the earnest tone of praise and hastened to say bluntly:
"I suppose, then, she threw the spell over him again which once before, at Munich, caused him, a tame bookworm, to fight for her like a king-maker?"
"Mademoiselle Rebecca! she act the fascinatress!" exclaimed Hedwig, with a burst of indignation.
"What is there extraordinary, pray, in a husband, apparently deserted by his wife, paying attention to another handsome young woman?"
"Why, madame, you must forget that master is the most honorable gentleman as ever was, and that Mademoiselle Rebecca is a perfect lady!"
Then, perceiving that her enthusiasm on the latter head was not welcome to the hearer, Hedwig, added: "but it does not matter. We are receiving no more company, lest the great secret leak out, and so we don"t need a lady at the table. She is going away with her father, who is to open the Rifle Company"s offices in Paris, and that"s all!"
"It is quite enough!" remarked the other, frowning.
"What is the last word about him?" inquired the servant, "the viscount-baron, I mean."
"M. de Terremonde?"
"Yes; you haven"t said a word about him."
"Do you not know?" began Cesarine, shuddering as the scene in the twilight arose before her on the background of the sombre side of the room.
"He was not likely to return hereabouts. Master might have tried the new rifle upon him," with a suppressed laugh.
"Well, if you do not know, I need only say that I am perfectly ignorant of his whereabouts. I went to town without his escort, and I suppose--if he has disappeared," she concluded with emphasis, "that he has gone on a journey of pleasure, or is dead."
"Dead," uttered Hedwig, shuddering in her turn, "in what a singular tone you say that word."
"What concern is it of mine?" questioned Madame Clemenceau, pursing up her lips to conceal a little fluttering from the dread she felt at the effectual way in which her lover had been removed from mortal knowledge.
"I do not mind declaring that, if I am given any choice in the matter, I should prefer his taking the latter course."
Hedwig"s teeth chattered so that the other looked hard at her till she faltered the explanation:
"Your way of saying things, madame, gives me cold shivers up and down the back--ugh! Why, that gentleman was over head and ears in love with you!"
"That is why he probably went under so quickly, and could not keep his head above water!"
"I thought you liked him a goodish bit--"
"I--oh!"
An explosion, very sharp and peculiarly splitting the air, resounded under the windows and caused Cesarine to clap her hands to her ears in terror.