"If humanity alone, if the instinct of natural benevolence which we feel toward all who suffer, were the motive of the acquittal we expect of you, I should appeal to your compa.s.sion, gentlemen of the jury, to your hearts as fathers and as men; but we have law on our side, and it is the point of law only which we shall submit to your judgment."
Pierre was looking at this home which might have been his, and he was restive under his brother"s frolics, thinking him really too silly and witless.
Mme. Roland opened a door on the right.
"This is the bedroom," said she.
She had devoted herself to its decoration with all her mother"s love.
The hangings were of Rouen cretonne imitating old Normandy chintz, and the Louis XV design--a shepherdess, in a medallion held in the beaks of a pair of doves--gave the walls, curtains, bed, and armchairs a festive, rustic style that was extremely pretty!
"Oh, how charming!" Mme. Rosemilly exclaimed, becoming a little serious as they entered the room.
"Do you like it?" asked Jean.
"Immensely."
"You cannot imagine how glad I am."
They looked at each other for a second, with confiding tenderness in the depths of their eyes.
She had felt a little awkward, however, a little abashed, in this room which was to be hers. She noticed as she went in that the bed was a large one, quite a family bed, chosen by Mme. Roland, who had no doubt foreseen and hoped that her son should soon marry; and this motherly foresight pleased her, for it seemed to tell her that she was expected in the family.
When they had returned to the drawing-room Jean abruptly threw open the door to the left, showing the circular dining-room with three windows, and decorated to imitate a Chinese lantern. Mother and son had here lavished all the fancy of which they were capable, and the room, with its bamboo furniture, its mandarins, jars, silk hangings glistening with gold, transparent blinds threaded with beads looking like drops of water, fans nailed to the wall to drape the hangings on, screens, swords, masks, cranes made of real feathers, and a myriad trifles in china, wood, paper, ivory, mother of pearl, and bronze, had the pretentious and extravagant aspect which unpracticed hands and uneducated eyes inevitably stamp on things which need the utmost tact, taste, and artistic education. Nevertheless it was the most admired; only Pierre made some observations with rather bitter irony which hurt his brother"s feelings.
Pyramids of fruit stood on the table and monuments of cakes. No one was hungry; they picked at the fruit and nibbled at the cakes rather than ate them. Then, at the end of about an hour, Mme. Rosemilly begged to take leave. It was decided that old Roland should accompany her home and set out with her forthwith; while Madame Roland, in the maid"s absence, should cast a maternal eye over the house and see that her son had all he needed.
"Shall I come back for you?" asked Roland.
She hesitated a moment and then said: "No, dear old man; go to bed.
Pierre will see me home."
As soon as they were gone she blew out the candles, locked up the cakes, the sugar, and liqueurs in a cupboard of which she gave the key to Jean; then she went into the bedroom, turned down the bed, saw that there was fresh water in the water-bottle, and that the window was properly closed.
Pierre and Jean had remained in the little outer drawing-room; the younger still sore under the criticism pa.s.sed on his taste, and the elder chafing more and more at seeing his brother in this abode. They both sat smoking without a word. Pierre suddenly started to his feet.
"Cristi!" he exclaimed. "The widow looked very jaded this evening.
Long excursions do not improve her."
Jean felt his spirit rising with one of those sudden and furious rages which boil up in easy-going natures when they are wounded to the quick. He could hardly find breath to speak, so fierce was his excitement, and he stammered out:
"I forbid you ever again to say "the widow" when you speak of Mme.
Rosemilly."
Pierre turned on him haughtily:
"You are giving me an order, I believe. Are you gone mad by any chance?"
Jean had pulled himself up.
"I am not gone mad, but I have had enough of your manners to me."
Pierre sneered: "To you? And are you any part of Mme. Rosemilly?"
"You are to know that Mme. Rosemilly is about to become my wife."
Pierre laughed the louder.
"Ah! ha! Very good. I understand now why I should no longer speak of her as "the widow." But you have taken a strange way of announcing your engagement."
"I forbid any jesting about it. Do you hear? I forbid it."
Jean had come close up to him, pale, and his voice quivering with exasperation at this irony leveled at the woman he loved and had chosen.
But on a sudden Pierre turned equally furious. All the acc.u.mulation of impotent rage, of suppressed malignity, of rebellion choked down for so long past, all his unspoken despair mounted to his brain, bewildering it like a fit.
"How dare you? How dare you? I order you to hold your tongue--do you hear? I order you."
Jean, startled by his violence, was silent for a few seconds, trying in the confusion of mind which comes of rage to hit on the thing, the phrase, the word, which might stab his brother to the heart. He went on, with an effort to control himself that he might aim true, and to speak slowly that the words might hit more keenly:
"I have known for a long time that you were jealous of me, ever since the day when you first began to talk of "the widow" because you knew it annoyed me."
Pierre broke into one of those strident and scornful laughs which were common with him:
"Ah! ah! Good Heavens! Jealous of you? I? I? And of what? Good G.o.d! Of your person or your mind?"
But Jean knew full well that he had touched the wound in his soul.
"Yes, jealous of me--jealous from your childhood up. And it became fury when you saw that this woman liked me best and would have nothing to say to you."
Pierre, stung to the quick by this a.s.sumption, stuttered out:
"I? I? Jealous of you? And for the sake of that goose, that gaby, that simpleton?"
Jean, seeing that he was aiming true, went on:
"And how about the day when you tried to pull me round in the _Pearl_? And all you said in her presence to show off? Why you are bursting with jealousy? And when this money was left to me you were maddened, you hated me, you showed it in every possible way, and made every one suffer for it; not an hour pa.s.ses that you do not spit out the bile that is choking you."
Pierre clenched his fist in his fury with an almost irresistible impulse to fly at his brother and seize him by the throat.
"Hold your tongue," he cried. "At least say nothing about that money."
Jean went on:
"Why your jealousy oozes out at every pore. You never say a word to my father, my mother, or me that does not declare it plainly. You pretend to despise me because you are jealous. You try to pick a quarrel with every one because you are jealous. And now that I am rich you can no longer contain yourself; you have become venomous, you torture our poor mother as if she were to blame!"
Pierre had retired step by step as far as the fireplace, his mouth half open, his eyes glaring, a prey to one of those mad fits of pa.s.sion in which crime is committed.
He said again in a lower tone, gasping for breath: "Hold your tongue--for G.o.d"s sake hold your tongue!"