Part 42 (1/2)
”But you forget that Monsieur de Rochefide's consent is necessary.”
”Oh, my dear child,” said La Palferine, ”we have arranged all that; I have given my word of honor as a gentleman that you are worth all the Schontzes of the quartier Saint-Georges, and you must fulfil my pledge.”
For the next week Calyste went every day to Madame de Rochefide's door, only to be refused by Antoine, who said with a studied face, ”Madame is ill.”
From there Calyste hurried to La Palferine's lodging, where the valet answered, ”Monsieur le comte is away, hunting.” Each time this happened the Breton baron left a letter for La Palferine.
On the ninth day Calyste received a line from La Palferine, making an appointment to receive him. He hurried to his lodgings and found the count, but in company with Maxime de Trailles, to whom the young _roue_ no doubt wished to give proof of his _savoir-faire_ by making him a witness of this scene.
”Monsieur le baron,” began Charles-Edouard, tranquilly, ”here are the six letters you have done me the honor to write to me. They are, as you see, safe and sound; they have not been unsealed. I knew in advance what they were likely to contain, having learned that you have been seeking me since the day when I looked at you from the window of a house from which you had looked at me on the previous day. I thought I had better ignore all mistaken provocations. Between ourselves, I am sure you have too much good taste to be angry with a woman for no longer loving you.
It is always a bad means of recovering her to seek a quarrel with the one preferred. But, in the present case, your letters have a radical fault, a nullity, as the lawyers say. You have too much good sense, I am sure, to complain of a husband who takes back his wife. Monsieur de Rochefide has felt that the position of the marquise was undignified.
You will, therefore, no longer find Madame de Rochefide in the rue de Chartres, but--six months hence, next winter--in the hotel de Rochefide.
You flung yourself rather heedlessly into the midst of a reconciliation between husband and wife,--which you provoked yourself by not saving Madame de Rochefide from the humiliation to which she was subjected at the Opera. On coming away, the marquise, to whom I had already carried certain amicable proposals from her husband, took me up in her carriage, and her first words were, 'Bring Arthur back to me!'”
”Ah! yes,” cried Calyste, ”she was right; I was wanting in true devotion.”
”Unhappily, monsieur, Rochefide was living with one of those atrocious women, Madame Schontz, who had long been expecting him to leave her.
She had counted on Madame de Rochefide's failure in health, and expected some day to see herself marquise; finding her castles in the air thus scattered, she determined to revenge herself on husband and wife. Such women, monsieur, will put out one of their own eyes to put out two of their enemy. La Schontz, who has just left Paris, has put out six! If I had had the imprudence to love the marquise, Madame Schontz would have put out eight. You see now that you are in need of an oculist.”
Maxime could not help smiling at the change that came over Calyste's face; which turned deadly pale as his eyes were opened to his situation.
”Would you believe, Monsieur le baron, that that unworthy woman has given her hand to the man who furnished the means for her revenge? Ah!