Part 41 (1/2)
”His clumsiness could not have been, I think, very unexpected to you,”
replied la Peyrade; ”therefore the protection you have deigned to give him is the more cruel to me.”
”What a misfortune it would be,” said the countess, with charmingly affected satire, ”if your marriage with Mademoiselle Celeste were prevented! Do you really care so much, monsieur, for that little school-girl?”
In that last word, especially the intonation with which it was uttered, there was more than contempt, there was hatred. This expression did not escape an observer of la Peyrade's strength, but not being a man to advance very far on a single remark he merely replied:--
”Madame, the vulgar expression, to 'settle down,' explains this situation, in which a man, after many struggles and being at an end of his efforts and his illusions, makes a compromise with the future.
When this compromise takes the form of a young girl with, I admit, more virtue than beauty, but one who brings to a husband the fortune which is indispensable to the comfort of married life, what is there so astonis.h.i.+ng in the fact that his heart yields to grat.i.tude and that he welcomes the prospect of a placid happiness?”
”I have always thought,” replied the countess, ”that the power of a man's intellect ought to be the measure of his ambition; and I imagined that one so wise as to make himself, at first, the poor man's lawyer, would have in his heart less humble and less pastoral aspirations.”
”Ah! madame,” returned la Peyrade, ”the iron hand of necessity compels us to strange resignations. The question of daily bread is one of those before which all things bend the knee. Apollo was forced to 'get a living,' as the shepherd of Admetus.”
”The sheepfold of Admetus,” said Madame de G.o.dollo, ”was at least a royal fold; I don't think Apollo would have resigned himself to be the shepherd of a--bourgeois.”
The hesitation that preceded that last word seemed to convey in place of it a proper name; and la Peyrade understood that Madame de G.o.dollo, out of pure clemency, had suppressed that of Thuillier, had turned her remark upon the species and not the individual.
”I agree, madame, that your distinction is a just one,” he replied, ”but in this case Apollo has no choice.”
”I don't like persons who charge too much,” said the countess, ”but still less do I like those who sell their merchandise below the market price; I always suspect such persons of trying to dupe me by some clever and complicated trick. You know very well, monsieur, your own value, and your hypocritical humility displeases me immensely. It proves to me that my kindly overtures have not produced even a beginning of confidence between us.”
”I a.s.sure you, madame, that up to the present time life has never justified the belief in any dazzling superiority in me.”
”Well, really,” said the Hungarian, ”perhaps I ought to believe in the humility of a man who is willing to accept the pitiable finale of his life which I threw myself into the breach to prevent.”
”Just as I, perhaps,” said la Peyrade, with a touch of sarcasm, ”ought to believe in the reality of a kindness which, in order to save me, has handled me so roughly.”
The countess cast a reproachful look upon her visitor; her fingers crumpled the ribbons of her gown; she lowered her eyes, and gave a sigh, so nearly imperceptible, so slight, that it might have pa.s.sed for an accident in the most regular breathing.
”You are rancorous,” she said, ”and you judge people by one aspect only.
After all,” she added, as if on reflection, ”you are perhaps right in reminding me that I have taken the longest way round by meddling, rather ridiculously, in interests that do not concern me. Go on, my dear monsieur, in the path of this glorious marriage which offers you so many combined inducements; only, let me hope that you may not repent a course with which I shall no longer interfere.”
The Provencal had not been spoilt by an experience of ”bonnes fortunes.”
The poverty against which he had struggled so long never leads to affairs of gallantry, and since he had thrown off its harsh restraint, his mind being wholly given up to the anxious work of creating his future, the things of the heart had entered but slightly into his life; unless we must except the comedy he had played on Flavie. We can therefore imagine the perplexity of this novice in the matter of adventures when he saw himself placed between the danger of losing what seemed to be a delightful opportunity, and the fear of finding a serpent amid the beautiful flowers that were offered to his grasp. Too marked a reserve, too lukewarm an eagerness, might wound the self-love of that beautiful foreigner, and quench the spring from which he seemed invited to draw. On the other hand, suppose that appearance of interest were only a snare? Suppose this kindness (ill-explained, as it seemed to him), of which he was so suddenly the object, had no other purpose than to entice him into a step which might be used to compromise him with the Thuilliers? What a blow to his reputation for shrewdness, and what a role to play!--that of the dog letting go the meat for the shadow!
We know that la Peyrade was trained in the school of Tartuffe, and the frankness with which that great master declares to Elmire that without receiving a few of the favors to which he aspired he could not trust in her tender advances, seemed to the barrister a suitable method to apply to the present case, adding, however, a trifle more softness to the form.
”Madame la comtesse,” he said, ”you have turned me into a man who is much to be pitied. I was cheerfully advancing to this marriage, and you take all faith in it away from me. Suppose I break it off, what use can I--with that great capacity you see in me--make of the liberty I thus recover?”
”La Bruyere, if I am not mistaken, said that nothing freshens the blood so much as to avoid committing a folly.”
”That may be; but it is, you must admit, a negative benefit; and I am of an age and in a position to desire more serious results. The interest that you deign to show to me cannot, I think, stop short at the idea of merely putting an end to my present prospects. I love Mademoiselle Colleville with a love, it is true, which has nothing imperative about it; but I certainly love her, her hand is promised to me, and before renouncing it--”
”So,” said the countess, hastily, ”in a given case you would not be averse to a rupture? And,” she added, in a more decided tone, ”there would be some chance of making you see that in taking your first opportunity you cut yourself off from a better future, in which a more suitable marriage may present itself?”
”But, at least, madame, I must be enabled to foresee it definitely.”
This persistence in demanding pledges seemed to irritate the countess.