Part 31 (2/2)

”Then why did you say nothing to me about it?” demanded he.

”I was wrong there,” said his wife, ”but my mistake was all for your good. Your niece will be Marquise d'Esgrignon some of these days, and you will perhaps be a deputy, if you behave well in this deplorable business. You have gone too far; you must find out how to get back again.”

Du Croisier, under stress of painful agitation, strode up and down his drawing-room; while his wife, in no less agitation, awaited the result of this exercise. Du Croisier at length rang the bell.

”I am not at home to any one to-night,” he said, when the man appeared; ”shut the gates; and if any one calls, tell them that your mistress and I have gone into the country. We shall start directly after dinner, and dinner must be half an hour earlier than usual.”

The great news was discussed that evening in every drawing-room; little shopkeepers, working folk, beggars, the n.o.blesse, the merchant cla.s.s--the whole town, in short, was talking of the Comte d'Esgrignon's arrest on a charge of forgery. The Comte d'Esgrignon would be tried in the a.s.size Court; he would be condemned and branded.

Most of those who cared for the honor of the family denied the fact.

At nightfall Chesnel went to Mme. Camusot and escorted the stranger to the Hotel d'Esgrignon. Poor Mlle. Armande was expecting him; she led the fair d.u.c.h.ess to her own room, which she had given up to her, for his lords.h.i.+p the Bishop occupied Victurnien's chamber; and, left alone with her guest, the n.o.ble woman glanced at the d.u.c.h.ess with most piteous eyes.

”You owed help, indeed, madame, to the poor boy who ruined himself for your sake,” she said, ”the boy to whom we are all of us sacrificing ourselves.”

The d.u.c.h.ess had already made a woman's survey of Mlle. d'Esgrignon's room; the cold, bare, comfortless chamber, that might have been a nun's cell, was like a picture of the life of the heroic woman before her. The d.u.c.h.ess saw it all--past, present, and future--with rising emotion, felt the incongruity of her presence, and could not keep back the falling tears that made answer for her.

But in Mlle. Armande the Christian overcame Victurnien's aunt. ”Ah, I was wrong; forgive me, Mme. la d.u.c.h.esse; you did not know how poor we were, and my nephew was incapable of the admission. And besides, now that I see you, I can understand all--even the crime!”

And Mlle. Armande, withered and thin and white, but beautiful as those tall austere slender figures which German art alone can paint, had tears too in her eyes.

”Do not fear, dear angel,” the d.u.c.h.ess said at last; ”he is safe.”

”Yes, but honor?--and his career? Chesnel told me; the King knows the truth.”

”We will think of a way of repairing the evil,” said the d.u.c.h.ess.

Mlle. Armande went downstairs to the salon, and found the Collection of Antiquities complete to a man. Every one of them had come, partly to do honor to the Bishop, partly to rally round the Marquis; but Chesnel, posted in the antechamber, warned each new arrival to say no word of the affair, that the aged Marquis might never know that such a thing had been. The loyal Frank was quite capable of killing his son or du Croisier; for either the one or the other must have been guilty of death in his eyes. It chanced, strangely enough, that he talked more of Victurnien than usual; he was glad that his son had gone back to Paris. The King would give Victurnien a place before very long; the King was interesting himself at last in the d'Esgrignons. And his friends, their hearts dead within them, praised Victurnien's conduct to the skies. Mlle. Armande prepared the way for her nephew's sudden appearance among them by remarking to her brother that Victurnien would be sure to come to see them, and that he must be even then on his way.

”Bah!” said the Marquis, standing with his back to the hearth, ”if he is doing well where he is, he ought to stay there, and not be thinking of the joy it would give his old father to see him again. The King's service has the first claim.”

Scarcely one of those present heard the words without a shudder.

Justice might give over a d'Esgrignon to the executioner's branding iron. There was a dreadful pause. The old Marquise de Casteran could not keep back a tear that stole down over her rouge, and turned her head away to hide it.

Next day at noon, in the sunny weather, a whole excited population was dispersed in groups along the high street, which ran through the heart of the town, and nothing was talked of but the great affair. Was the Count in prison or was he not?--All at once the Comte d'Esgrignon's well-known tilbury was seen driving down the Rue Saint-Blaise; it had evidently come from the Prefecture, the Count himself was on the box seat, and by his side sat a charming young man, whom n.o.body recognized. The pair were laughing and talking and in great spirits.

They wore Bengal roses in their b.u.t.ton-holes. Altogether, it was a theatrical surprise which words fail to describe.

At ten o'clock the court had decided to dismiss the charge, stating their very sufficient reasons for setting the Count at liberty, in a doc.u.ment which contained a thunderbolt for du Croisier, in the shape of an /inasmuch/ that gave the Count the right to inst.i.tute proceedings for libel. Old Chesnel was walking up the Grand Rue, as if by accident, telling all who cared to hear him that du Croisier had set the most shameful of snares for the d'Esgrignons' honor, and that it was entirely owing to the forbearance and magnanimity of the family that he was not prosecuted for slander.

On the evening of that famous day, after the Marquis d'Esgrignon had gone to bed, the Count, Mlle. Armande, and the Chevalier were left with the handsome young page, now about to return to Paris. The charming cavalier's s.e.x could not be hidden from the Chevalier, and he alone, besides the three officials and Mme. Camusot, knew that the d.u.c.h.ess had been among them.

”The house is saved,” began Chesnel, ”but after this shock it will take a hundred years to rise again. The debts must be paid now; you must marry an heiress, M. le Comte, there is nothing left for you to do.”

”And take her where you may find her,” said the d.u.c.h.ess.

”A second mesalliance!” exclaimed Mlle. Armande.

The d.u.c.h.ess began to laugh.

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