Part 28 (1/2)
”Come to dinner with us to-morrow, and we will talk it over,” answered Hortense. ”I do not know which way to turn; you know how hard life is, and you will advise me.”
While the whole family with one consent tried to persuade the Marshal to marry, and while Lisbeth was making her way home to the Rue Vanneau, one of those incidents occurred which, in such women as Madame Marneffe, are a stimulus to vice by compelling them to exert their energy and every resource of depravity. One fact, at any rate, must however be acknowledged: life in Paris is too full for vicious persons to do wrong instinctively and unprovoked; vice is only a weapon of defence against aggressors--that is all.
Madame Marneffe's drawing-room was full of her faithful admirers, and she had just started the whist-tables, when the footman, a pensioned soldier recruited by the Baron, announced:
”Monsieur le Baron Montes de Montejanos.”
Valerie's heart jumped, but she hurried to the door, exclaiming:
”My cousin!” and as she met the Brazilian, she whispered:
”You are my relation--or all is at an end between us!--And so you were not wrecked, Henri?” she went on audibly, as she led him to the fire. ”I heard you were lost, and have mourned for you these three years.”
”How are you, my good fellow?” said Marneffe, offering his hand to the stranger, whose get-up was indeed that of a Brazilian and a millionaire.
Monsieur le Baron Henri Montes de Montejanos, to whom the climate of the equator had given the color and stature we expect to see in Oth.e.l.lo on the stage, had an alarming look of gloom, but it was a merely pictorial illusion; for, sweet and affectionate by nature, he was predestined to be the victim that a strong man often is to a weak woman. The scorn expressed in his countenance, the muscular strength of his stalwart frame, all his physical powers were shown only to his fellow-men; a form of flattery which women appreciate, nay, which so intoxicates them, that every man with his mistress on his arm a.s.sumes a matador swagger that provokes a smile. Very well set up, in a closely fitting blue coat with solid gold b.u.t.tons, in black trousers, spotless patent evening boots, and gloves of a fas.h.i.+onable hue, the only Brazilian touch in the Baron's costume was a large diamond, worth about a hundred thousand francs, which blazed like a star on a handsome blue silk cravat, tucked into a white waistcoat in such a way as to show corners of a fabulously fine s.h.i.+rt front.
His brow, bossy like that of a satyr, a sign of tenacity in his pa.s.sions, was crowned by thick jet-black hair like a virgin forest, and under it flashed a pair of hazel eyes, so wild looking as to suggest that before his birth his mother must have been scared by a jaguar.
This fine specimen of the Portuguese race in Brazil took his stand with his back to the fire, in an att.i.tude that showed familiarity with Paris manners; holding his hat in one hand, his elbow resting on the velvet-covered shelf, he bent over Madame Marneffe, talking to her in an undertone, and troubling himself very little about the dreadful people who, in his opinion, were so very much in the way.
This fas.h.i.+on of taking the stage, with the Brazilian's att.i.tude and expression, gave, alike to Crevel and to the baron, an identical shock of curiosity and anxiety. Both were struck by the same impression and the same surmise. And the manoeuvre suggested in each by their very genuine pa.s.sion was so comical in its simultaneous results, that it made everybody smile who was sharp enough to read its meaning. Crevel, a tradesman and shopkeeper to the backbone, though a mayor of Paris, unluckily, was a little slower to move than his rival partner, and this enabled the Baron to read at a glance Crevel's involuntary self-betrayal. This was a fresh arrow to rankle in the very amorous old man's heart, and he resolved to have an explanation from Valerie.
”This evening,” said Crevel to himself too, as he sorted his hand, ”I must know where I stand.”
”You have a heart!” cried Marneffe. ”You have just revoked.”
”I beg your pardon,” said Crevel, trying to withdraw his card.--”This Baron seems to me very much in the way,” he went on, thinking to himself. ”If Valerie carries on with my Baron, well and good--it is a means to my revenge, and I can get rid of him if I choose; but as for this cousin!--He is one Baron too many; I do not mean to be made a fool of. I will know how they are related.”
That evening, by one of those strokes of luck which come to pretty women, Valerie was charmingly dressed. Her white bosom gleamed under a lace tucker of rusty white, which showed off the satin texture of her beautiful shoulders--for Parisian women, Heaven knows how, have some way of preserving their fine flesh and remaining slender. She wore a black velvet gown that looked as if it might at any moment slip off her shoulders, and her hair was dressed with lace and drooping flowers. Her arms, not fat but dimpled, were graced by deep ruffles to her sleeves.
She was like a luscious fruit coquettishly served in a handsome dish, and making the knife-blade long to be cutting it.
”Valerie,” the Brazilian was saying in her ear, ”I have come back faithful to you. My uncle is dead; I am twice as rich as I was when I went away. I mean to live and die in Paris, for you and with you.”
”Lower, Henri, I implore you----”
”Pooh! I mean to speak to you this evening, even if I should have to pitch all these creatures out of window, especially as I have lost two days in looking for you. I shall stay till the last.--I can, I suppose?”
Valerie smiled at her adopted cousin, and said:
”Remember that you are the son of my mother's sister, who married your father during Junot's campaign in Portugal.”
”What, I, Montes de Montejanos, great grandson of a conquerer of Brazil!
Tell a lie?”
”Hush, lower, or we shall never meet again.”
”Pray, why?”