Chapter II.11
The apartment was exactly as described by Mme. Cadelle. In the dark and narrow ante-chamber, three doors opened,--on the left, that of the dining-room; in the centre, that of a parlor and bedroom which communicated; on the right, that of the closet. M. de Tregars slipped in noiselessly through the latter, and at once recognized that Mme. Zelie had not deceived him, and that he would see and hear every thing that went on in the parlor. He saw the young woman walk into it. She laid her provisions down upon the table, and called, "Vincent!"
The former cashier of the Mutual Credit appeared at once, coming out of the bedroom.
He was so changed, that his wife and children would have hesitated in recognizing him. He had cut off his beard, pulled out almost the whole of his thick eye-brows, and covered his rough and straight hair under a brown curly wig. He wore patent-leather boots, wide pantaloons, and one of those short jackets of rough material, and with broad sleeves which French elegance has borrowed from English stable-boys. He tried to appear calm, careless, and playful; but the contraction of his lips betrayed a horrible anguish, and his look had the strange mobility of the wild beasts' eye, when, almost at bay, they stop for a moment, listening to the barking of the hounds.
"I was beginning to fear that you would disappoint me," he said to Mme. Zelie. "It took me some time to buy your breakfast."
"And is that all that kept you?"
"The porter detained me too, to hand me a letter, in which I found one for you. Here it is."
"A letter!" exclaimed Vincent Favoral.
And, snatching it from her, he tore off the envelope. But he had scarcely looked over it, when he crushed it in his hand, exclaiming, "It is monstrous! It is a mean, infamous treason!" He was interrupted by a violent ringing of the door-bell.
"Who can it be?" stammered Mme. Cadelle.
"I know who it is," replied the former cashier. "Open, open quick."
She obeyed; and almost at once a woman walked into the parlor, wearing a cheap, black woolen dress. With a sudden gesture, she threw off her veil; and M. de Tregars recognized the Baroness de Thaller.
"Leave us!" she said to Mme. Zelie, in a tone which one would hardly dare to assume towards a bar-maid.
The other felt indignant.
"What, what!" she began. "I am in my own house here."
"Leave us!" repeated M. Favoral with a threatening gesture. "Go, go!" She went out but only to take refuge by the side of M. de Tregars. "You hear how they treat me," she said in a hoarse voice.
He made no answer. All his attention was centred upon the parlor. The Baroness de Thaller and the former cashier were standing opposite each other, like two adversaries about to fight a duel.
"I have just read your letter," began Vincent Favoral. Coldly the baroness said, "Ah!"
"It is a joke, I suppose."
"Not at all."
"You refuse to go with me?"
"Positively."
"And yet it was all agreed upon. I have acted wholly under your urgent, pressing advice. How many times have you repeated to me that to live with your husband had become an intolerable torment to you! How many times have you sworn to me that you wished to be mine alone, begging me to procure a large sum of money, and to fly with you!"
"I was in earnest at the time. I have discovered, at the last moment, that it would be impossible for me thus to abandon my country, my daughter, my friends."
"We can take Cesarine with us."
"Do not insist."
He was looking at her with a stupid, gloomy gaze.
"Then," he stammered, "those tears, those prayers, those oaths!"
"I have reflected."
"It is not possible! If you spoke the truth, you would not be here."
"I am here to make you understand that we must give up projects which cannot be realized. There are some social conventionalities which cannot be torn up." As if he scarcely understood what she said, he repeated, "Social conventionalities!"
And suddenly falling at Mme. de Thaller's feet, his head thrown back, and his hands clasped together, "You lie!" he said. "Confess that you lie, and that it is a final trial which you are imposing upon me. Or else have you, then, never loved me? That's impossible! I would not believe you if you were to say so. A woman who does not love a man cannot be to him what you have been to me: she does not give herself up thus so joyously and so completely. Have you, then, forgotten every thing? Is it possible that you do not remember those divine evenings in the Rue de Cirque?--those nights, the mere thought of which fires my brain, and consumes my blood."
He was horrible to look at, horrible and ridiculous at the same time. As he wished to take Mme. de Thaller's hands, she stepped back, and he followed her, dragging himself on his knees.
"Where could you find," he continued, "a man to worship you like me, with an ardent, absolute, blind, mad passion? With what can you reproach me? Have I not sacrificed to you without a murmur every thing that a man can sacrifice here below,--fortune, family, honor, --to supply your extravagance, to anticipate your slightest fancies, to give you gold to scatter by the handful? Did I not leave my own family struggling with poverty? I would have snatched bread from my children's mouths in order to purchase roses to scatter under your footsteps. And for years did ever a word from me betray the secret of our love? What have I not endured? You deceived me. I knew it, and I said nothing. Upon a word from you I stepped aside before him whom your caprice made happy for a day. You told me, 'Steal!' and I stole. You told me, 'Kill!' and I tried to kill."
"Fly. A man who has twelve hundred thousand francs in gold, bank-notes, and good securities, can always get along."
"And my wife and children?"
"Maxence is old enough to help his mother. Gilberte will find a husband: depend upon it. Besides, what's to prevent you from sending them money?"
"They would refuse it."
"You will always be a fool, my dear!"
To Vincent Favoral's first stupor and miserable weakness now succeeded a terrible passion. All the blood had left his face: his eyes was flashing.
"Then," he resumed, "all is really over?"
"Of course."
"Then I have been duped like the rest,--like that poor Marquis de Tregars, whom you had made mad also. But he, at least saved his honor; whereas I--And I have no excuse; for I should have known. I knew that you were but the bait which the Baron de Thaller held out to his victims."
He waited for an answer; but she maintained a contemptuous silence.
"Then you think," he said with a threatening laugh, "that it will all end that way?"
"What can you do?"
"There is such a thing as justice, I imagine, and judges too. I can give myself up, and reveal every thing."
She shrugged her shoulders.
"That would be throwing yourself into the wolf's mouth for nothing," she said. "You know better than any one else that my precautions are well enough taken to defy any thing you can do or say. I have nothing to fear."
"Are you quite sure of that?"
"Trust to me," she said with a smile of perfect security.
The former cashier of the Mutual Credit made a terrible gesture; but, checking himself at once, he seized one of the baroness's hands. She withdrew it quickly, however, and, in an accent of insurmountable disgust, "Enough, enough!" she said.
In the adjoining closet Marius de Tregars could feel Mme. Zelie Cadelle shuddering by his side.
"What a wretch that woman is!" she murmured; "and he--what a base coward!"
The former cashier remained prostrated, striking the floor with his head.
"And you would forsake me," he groaned, "when we are united by a past such as ours! How could you replace me? Where would you find a slave so devoted to your every wish?"
The baroness was getting impatient.
"Stop!" she interrupted,--"stop these demonstrations as useless as ridiculous.
" This time he did start up, as if lashed with a whip and, double locking the door which communicated with the ante-chamber, he put the key in his pocket; and, with a step as stiff and mechanical as that of an automaton, he disappeared in the sleeping-room.
"He is going for a weapon," whispered Mme. Cadelle.
It was also what Marius thought.
"Run down quick," he said to Mme. Zelie. "In a cab standing opposite No. 25, you will find Mlle. Gilberte Favoral waiting. Let her come at once."
And, rushing into the parlor,
"Fly!" he said to Mme. Thaller.
But she was as petrified by this apparition.
"M. de Tregars!"
"Yes, yes, me. But hurry and go!" And he pushed her into the closet.
It was but time. Vincent Favoral reappeared upon the threshold of the bedroom. But, if it was a weapon he had gone for, it was not for the one which Marius and Mme. Cadelle supposed. It was a bundle of papers which he held in his hand. Seeing M. de Tregars there, instead of Mme. de Thaller, an exclamation of terror and surprise rose to his lips. He understood vaguely what must have taken place; that the man who stood there must have been concealed in the glass closet, and that he had assisted the baroness to escape.
"Ah, the miserable wretch!" he stammered with a tongue made thick by passion, "the infamous wretch! She has betrayed me; she has surrendered me. I am lost!"
Mastering the most terrible emotion he had ever felt,
"No, no! you shall not be surrendered," uttered M. de Tregars.
Collecting all the energy that the devouring passion which had blasted his existence had left him, the former cashier of the Mutual Credit took one or two steps forward.
"Who are you, then?" he asked.
"Do you not know me? I am the son of that unfortunate Marquis de Tregars of whom you spoke a moment since. I am Lucienne's brother."
Like a man who has received a stunning blow, Vincent Favoral sank heavily upon a chair.
"He knows all," he groaned. "Yes, all!"
"You must hate me mortally."
"I pity you."
The old cashier had reached that point when all the faculties, after being strained to their utmost limits, suddenly <