Part 13 (1/2)
”Therefore you would marry this woman,” said Pauline.
”Therefore I would obtain part of her fortune.”
”That is what I say; you would marry her.”
”No, I had not thought of that,” said Bruslart, carelessly.
”How, then, can you obtain it?”
”Once she is in Paris, there are many plans to choose from. I have not yet decided which one to take; but certainly it will not be marriage.
She, too, is a woman in love, and such a woman will do much for a man. A few marks of a pen and I am rich, free to work towards my end, free to help Mademoiselle St. Clair to return to Beauvais. You say you heard all that Latour told me?”
”Everything.”
”Then you heard his advice concerning marriage. Find a woman in Paris, as beautiful, more beautiful than this emigre aristocrat, a woman who is a patriot, a true daughter of France, marry her, prove yourself and see how the shouting crowds will welcome you. Latour might have known this part of my scheme, so aptly did he describe it. I have found the woman,”
and he stretched out his hand to her.
”Lucien!”
She let him draw her down beside him, his caress was returned with interest.
”Together, you and I are going to climb, Pauline. For me a high place in the government of France, not the short authority of a day; brains and money shall tell their tale. Citizen Bruslart shall be listened to and obeyed. Citizeness Bruslart shall become the rage of all Paris. Listen, Pauline. I have cast in my lot with the people, but I have something which the people have not, a line of ancestors who have ruled over those about them. Revolution always ends in a strong individual, who often proves a harder master than the one the revolution has torn from his place. I would be that man. Two things are necessary, money and you.”
”And your messenger has failed to reach mademoiselle,” she whispered.
”Another messenger may be found,” he said, quietly. ”Besides, it is just possible that Latour was lying, too.”
”Perhaps you are right;” and then she jumped up excitedly, ”I believe you are right. What then? Other men may be scheming for her wealth as well as you.”
”And others besides Latour have spies in the city,” Bruslart answered.
”You are wonderful, Lucien, wonderful, and I love you.”
She threw herself into his arms with an abandon which, like all her other actions, was natural to her; and while he held her, proud of his conquest, not all Lucien's thoughts were of love. Could Pauline Vaison have looked into his soul, could she have seen the network of scheming which was in his mind, the chaotic character of many of these plans, crossing and contradicting one another, a caricature, as it were, of a man's whole existence in which good and evil join issue and rage and struggle for the mastery, even then she would not have understood. She might have found that one end was aimed at more constantly than any other--self, yet in the schemes of most men self plays the most prominent part, and is not always sordid and altogether despicable. She would not have understood her lover; he did not understand himself. He was a product of the Revolution, as were thousands of others walking the Paris streets, or busy with villainies in country places; character was complex by force of circ.u.mstances, which, under other conditions, might have been simple and straightforward. With some a certain straightforwardness remained, not always directed to wrong ends. It was so in Lucien Bruslart. It was not easy for him to be a scoundrel, and self was not always master. Even with Pauline Vaison in his arms he thought of Jeanne St. Clair, and shuddered at the way he had spoken of her to this woman. What would happen if Jeanne came to Paris? For a moment the horrible possibilities seemed to paralyze every nerve and thought. He spoke no word, he did not cease his caressing, yet the woman suddenly released herself as though his train of thought exerted a subtle influence over her, and stood before him again, not angrily, yet with a look in her eyes which was a warning. So an animal looks when danger may be at hand.
”If you were to deceive me,” she said, in a low voice, almost in a whisper, the sound of a hiss in it.
”Deceive you?”
It was not easily said, but a question only half comprehended, as when one is recalled from a reverie suddenly, or awakes from a dream at a touch.
”To deceive me would be h.e.l.l for both of us, for all of us,” said the woman.
He tried to laugh at her, but he could not even bring a smile to his lips at that moment.
Pauline caught his hand and pulled him to the window, opened it, and pointed.
”There. You know what I mean,” she said.
The roar of Paris floated up to them, the daily toil, the noise of it, its bartering, its going and coming. Men and women must live, even in a revolution, and to live, work. Underneath it all there was something unnatural, a murmur, a growl, the sound of an undertone, secret, cruel, deadly; yet the woman's pointing finger was all Lucien was conscious of just now.
”You know what I mean,” she repeated.