Part 23 (1/2)

And, on the strength of his genealogical tree, the old man swung himself off with a c.o.xcomb's air, as if he himself had once made a conquest of the Marchesa di Spinola, and still possessed the d.u.c.h.ess of to-day.

The two companions in unhappiness were left together on the garden bench, with the same thought for a bond of union. They sat for a long time, saying little save vague, unmeaning words, watching the father walk away in his happiness, gesticulating as if he were talking to himself.

”What will become of him now?” Mlle. Armande asked after a while.

”Du Croisier has sent instructions to the MM. Keller; he is not to be allowed to draw any more without authorization.”

”And there are debts,” continued Mlle. Armande.

”I am afraid so.”

”If he is left without resources, what will he do?”

”I dare not answer that question to myself.”

”But he must be drawn out of that life, he must come back to us, or he will have nothing left.”

”And nothing else left to him,” Chesnel said gloomily. But Mlle.

Armande as yet did not and could not understand the full force of those words.

”Is there any hope of getting him away from that woman, that d.u.c.h.ess?

Perhaps she leads him on.”

”He would not stick at a crime to be with her,” said Chesnel, trying to pave the way to an intolerable thought by others less intolerable.

”Crime,” repeated Mlle. Armande. ”Oh, Chesnel, no one but you would think of such a thing!” she added, with a withering look; before such a look from a woman's eyes no mortal can stand. ”There is but one crime that a n.o.ble can commit--the crime of high treason; and when he is beheaded, the block is covered with a black cloth, as it is for kings.”

”The times have changed very much,” said Chesnel, shaking his head.

Victurnien had thinned his last thin, white hairs. ”Our Martyr-King did not die like the English King Charles.”

That thought soothed Mlle. Armande's splendid indignation; a shudder ran through her; but still she did not realize what Chesnel meant.

”To-morrow we will decide what we must do,” she said; ”it needs thought. At the worst, we have our lands.”

”Yes,” said Chesnel. ”You and M. le Marquis own the estate conjointly; but the larger part of it is yours. You can raise money upon it without saying a word to him.”

The players at whist, reversis, boston, and backgammon noticed that evening that Mlle. Armande's features, usually so serene and pure, showed signs of agitation.

”That poor heroic child!” said the old Marquise de Casteran, ”she must be suffering still. A woman never knows what her sacrifices to her family may cost her.”

Next day it was arranged with Chesnel that Mlle. Armande should go to Paris to s.n.a.t.c.h her nephew from perdition. If any one could carry off Victurnien, was it not the woman whose motherly heart yearned over him? Mlle. Armande made up her mind that she would go to the d.u.c.h.esse de Maufrigneuse and tell her all. Still, some sort of pretext was necessary to explain the journey to the Marquis and the whole town. At some cost to her maidenly delicacy, Mlle. Armande allowed it to be thought that she was suffering from a complaint which called for a consultation of skilled and celebrated physicians. Goodness knows whether the town talked of this or no! But Mlle. Armande saw that something far more than her own reputation was at stake. She set out.

Chesnel brought her his last bag of louis; she took it, without paying any attention to it, as she took her white capuchine and thread mittens.

”Generous girl! What grace!” he said, as he put her into the carriage with her maid, a woman who looked like a gray sister.

Du Croisier had thought out his revenge, as provincials think out everything. For studying out a question in all its bearings, there are no folk in this world like savages, peasants, and provincials; and this is how, when they proceed from thought to action, you find every contingency provided for from beginning to end. Diplomatists are children compared with these cla.s.ses of mammals; they have time before them, an element which is lacking to those people who are obliged to think about a great many things, to superintend the progress of all kinds of schemes, to look forward for all sorts of contingencies in the wider interests of human affairs. Had de Croisier sounded poor Victurnien's nature so well, that he foresaw how easily the young Count would lend himself to his schemes of revenge? Or was he merely profiting by an opportunity for which he had been on the watch for years? One circ.u.mstance there was, to be sure, in his manner of preparing his stroke, which shows a certain skill. Who was it that gave du Croisier warning of the moment? Was it the Kellers? Or could it have been President du Ronceret's son, then finis.h.i.+ng his law studies in Paris?

Du Croisier wrote to Victurnien, telling him that the Kellers had been instructed to advance no more money; and that letter was timed to arrive just as the d.u.c.h.esse de Maufrigneuse was in the utmost perplexity, and the Comte d'Esgrignon consumed by the sense of poverty as dreadful as it was cunningly hidden. The wretched young man was exerting all his ingenuity to seem as if he were wealthy!

Now in the letter which informed the victim that in future the Kellers would make no further advances without security, there was a tolerably wide s.p.a.ce left between the forms of an exaggerated respect and the signature. It was quite easy to tear off the best part of the letter and convert it into a bill of exchange for any amount. The diabolical missive had been enclosed in an envelope, so that the other side of the sheet was blank. When it arrived, Victurnien was writhing in the lowest depths of despair. After two years of the most prosperous, sensual, thoughtless, and luxurious life, he found himself face to face with the most inexorable poverty; it was an absolute impossibility to procure money. There had been some throes of crisis before the journey came to an end. With the d.u.c.h.ess' help he had managed to extort various sums from bankers; but it had been with the greatest difficulty, and, moreover, those very amounts were about to start up again before him as overdue bills of exchange in all their rigor, with a stern summons to pay from the Bank of France and the commercial court. All through the enjoyments of those last weeks the unhappy boy had felt the point of the Commander's sword; at every supper-party he heard, like Don Juan, the heavy tread of the statue outside upon the stairs. He felt an unaccountable creeping of the flesh, a warning that the sirocco of debt is nigh at hand. He reckoned on chance. For five years he had never turned up a blank in the lottery, his purse had always been replenished. After Chesnel had come du Croisier (he told himself), after du Croisier surely another gold mine would pour out its wealth. And besides, he was winning great sums at play; his luck at play had saved him several unpleasant steps already; and often a wild hope sent him to the Salon des Etrangers only to lose his winnings afterwards at whist at the club. His life for the past two months had been like the immortal finale of Mozart's Don Giovanni; and of a truth, if a young man has come to such a plight as Victurnien's, that finale is enough to make him shudder. Can anything better prove the enormous power of music than that sublime rendering of the disorder and confusion arising out of a life wholly give up to sensual indulgence? that fearful picture of a deliberate effort to shut out the thought of debts and duels, deceit and evil luck? In that music Mozart disputes the palm with Moliere. The terrific finale, with its glow, its power, its despair and laughter, its grisly spectres and elfish women, centres about the prodigal's last effort made in the after-supper heat of wine, the frantic struggle which ends the drama. Victurnien was living through this infernal poem, and alone. He saw visions of himself--a friendless, solitary outcast, reading the words carved on the stone, the last words on the last page of the book that had held him spellbound--THE END!