Part 21 (1/2)

But M. Lacheneur shrugged his shoulders.

”And so you are foolish enough to suppose that it was to me that he offered all that money?”

”Zounds! I have ears.”

”Ah, well! my poor boy, you must not believe all they hear, if you have.

The truth is, that these large sums were intended to win the favor of my daughter. She has pleased this c.o.xcomb of a marquis; and--he wishes to make her his mistress----”

Chanlouineau stopped short, with eyes flas.h.i.+ng, and hands clinched.

”Good G.o.d!” he exclaimed; ”prove that, and I am yours, body and soul--to do anything you desire.”

CHAPTER XII

”No, never in my whole life have I met a woman who can compare with this Marie-Anne! What grace and what dignity! Ah! her beauty is divine!”

So Martial was thinking while returning to Sairmeuse after his proposals to M. Lacheneur.

At the risk of losing his way he took the shortest course, which led across the fields and over ditches, which he leaped with the aid of his gun.

He found a pleasure, entirely novel and very delightful, in picturing Marie-Anne as he had just seen her, blus.h.i.+ng and paling, about to swoon, then lifting her head haughtily in her pride and disdain.

Who would have suspected that such indomitable energy and such an impa.s.sioned soul was hidden beneath such girlish artlessness and apparent coldness? What an adorable expression illumined her face, what pa.s.sion shone in those great black eyes when she looked at that little fool d'Escorval! What would not one give to be regarded thus, even for a moment? How could the boy help being crazy about her?

He himself loved her, without being, as yet, willing, to confess it.

What other name could be given to this pa.s.sion which had overpowered reason, and to the furious desires which agitated him?

”Ah!” he exclaimed, ”she shall be mine. Yes, she shall be mine; I will have her!”

Consequently he began to study the strategic side of the undertaking which this resolution involved with the sagacity of one who had not been without an extended experience in such matters.

His debut, he was forced to admit, had been neither fortunate nor adroit. Conveyed compliments and money had both been rejected. If Marie-Anne had heard his covert insinuations with evident horror, M.

Lacheneur had received, with even more than coldness, his advances and his offers of actual wealth.

Moreover, he remembered Chanlouineau's terrible eyes.

”How he measured me, that magnificent rustic!” he growled. ”At a sign from Marie-Anne he would have crushed me like an eggsh.e.l.l, without a thought of my ancestors. Ah! does he also love her? There will be three rivals in that case.”

But the more difficult and even perilous the undertaking seemed, the more his pa.s.sions were inflamed.

”My failures can be repaired,” he thought. ”Occasions of meeting shall not be wanting. Will it not be necessary to hold frequent interviews with Monsieur Lacheneur in effecting a formal transfer of Sairmeuse?

I will win him over to my side. With the daughter my course is plain.

Profiting by my unfortunate experience, I will, in the future, be as timid as I have been bold; and she will be hard to please if she is not flattered by this triumph of her beauty. D'Escorval remains to be disposed of----”

But this was the point upon which Martial was most exercised.