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Title: The sprightly romance of Marsac
Author: Molly Elliot Seawell
Release date: February 27, 2025 [eBook #75477]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1896
Credits: The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SPRIGHTLY ROMANCE OF MARSAC ***
[Illustration: _“Why were you so extravagant about bread?” asked
Marsac, very cheerfully working away at the old screen._]
THE SPRIGHTLY
ROMANCE OF
MARSAC
BY
MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL
AUTHOR OF
“CHILDREN OF DESTINY,” “A STRANGE SAD
COMEDY,” “THROCKMORTON,”
“LITTLE JARVIS,” ETC.
Illustrated by
GUSTAVE VERBEEK
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1897
_Copyright, 1896_,
BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS.
_Dramatic and all other rights
reserved._
University Press:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.
NOTE.
“The Sprightly Romance of Marsac” obtained the first prize of $3,000
for the best novelette in the _New York Herald_ competition in 1895.
List of Illustrations
PAGE
_“Why were you so extravagant about bread?” asked Marsac, very
cheerfully, working away at the old screen_ _Frontispiece_
_Madame Schmid was plainly in a rage_ 2
_Madame Schmid grew still redder in the face and shorter of breath_ 5
_It was easy enough to see who was the master mind_ 9
_Madame Fleury entered_ 17
“_Have you ever thought of marriage as a way out of your troubles?_” 25
_Marsac, advancing to Fontaine, whispered in his ear_ 37
_Marsac, taking his hand, led him to Madame Fleury_ 39
_With a few bold strokes the bull-fighter assumed the appearance of a
hale old gentleman of sixty_ 48
_He fell over on his chair with amazement and chagrin_ 50
_The two young men tore open the box_ 53
_They hugged each other and began to dance wildly_ 56
_“Don’t speak of your fiancée in that disrespectful manner,” cried
Marsac_ 65
_He opened it without a word and took out four bottles of champagne_ 67
_I saw these two poor creatures standing in front of a pastry-shop_ 68
_Marsac received them with as much kindness and respect as if they had
been banker’s daughters_ 75
_Madame Schmid made a dash for Fontaine, whom she collared and
dragged out_ 77
_“And now about the villa,” said the old brewer_ 83
_Monsieur Duval knelt down_ 89
_Monsieur Duval, closing one eye, playfully poked him in the ribs_ 93
_The door opened, admitting Fontaine and two remarkably pretty girls_ 97
_The young people talked gaily together while sipping champagne_ 100
_“A hundred and thirty thousand francs!” cried Maurepas_ 108
_Marsac turned a double handspring over the sofa_ 110
_Marsac, seizing her around the waist, began to waltz furiously_ 113
_They crept softly out of their apartment_ 115
_As it brought Delphine’s golden head quite close to Marsac’s brown one,
she consented willingly_ 121
_“Oh, Madame Fleury!” cried Marsac, actually hanging his head_ 129
_Madame Fleury pressed a handkerchief to her eyes_ 132
_Marsac could scarcely restrain a shout of joy_ 137
_Madame Fleury began eagerly searching on the ground for the letter_ 139
_“Here,” Marsac said, tearing the paper, “is half of it for you,
Fontaine, and dear Claire”_ 143
_Monsieur Duval’s victoria, with Madame Fleury in it_ 145
_Fontaine, sunk in a deep armchair, was a picture of misery_ 149
_He was a little old man clutching a rusty travelling-bag in his
trembling hands_ 151
_“Let me assist you,” said Fontaine, trying to take the old bag_ 159
_Marsac and Delphine were now left alone_ 161
_Madame Fleury stood petrified for a moment_ 175
_“The only thing for you to do now is to trust me,” said Fontaine_ 177
_In walked one of the most weazened, cadaverous little men who ever
stepped_ 180
_Madame Fleury rushed out, dragging the unhappy Fleury after her_ 188
_Marsac with his arm around Delphine’s waist_ 194
THE SPRIGHTLY
ROMANCE OF
MARSAC
The Sprightly Romance of Marsac[1]
[1] Dramatic and all other rights reserved.
[Illustration]
Chapter I
Madame Schmid, round and red, with the spotless lappets of her
washerwoman’s cap flapping angrily, was plainly in a rage; and the
three loud whacks she gave at the garret door of 17 Rue Montignal
caused two young gentlemen on the other side of the door to quake
visibly. One of them, Fontaine, ran incontinently into a closet and
hid, while Marsac, the other, after a ghastly pretence of a joke about
Madame Schmid’s whacks sounding like the three given at the Comédie
Française before the curtain goes up, stalked with dignity to a
corridor door. But, Madame Schmid bouncing in suddenly, Marsac as
suddenly whisked out of sight.
[Illustration]
Madame Schmid was of that coarse, buxom beauty common enough in her
class. She had one year been elected queen of the washer-women, in that
picturesque festival peculiar to Paris, and it had been said that fear
of her stout arm and robust tongue had some share in her election. But
she had a good heart, along with her vile temper; and as she planted
her basket viciously on the floor, and whipped out a tremendously
long bill, her quick eye took in the poverty of the surroundings, and
she was softened in spite of herself. However, as one whistles going
through a graveyard, so Madame Schmid always stormed the more when her
excellent heart prevented her from taking stronger measures.
The room was excessively shabby. A moth-eaten sofa, and a large but
rickety table, covered with newspapers and the implements of the
journalist’s trade, were the principal articles of furniture. The light
of a gray day shone dully in at the curtainless windows. A number of
pipes, together with a cracked mirror, ornamented the mantel, while
scattered about the room were a violin and case, an easel, and painting
materials.
Madame Schmid belonged to that large class of persons who believe that
a man who engages in any form of art is necessarily a loafer. The sight
of the painter’s tools, the violin, and especially the abundance of
pens, ink, and paper, acted on her like a red rag on a bull, and gave
her the excuse she wanted to raise a tempest. First, she exclaimed
scornfully,--
“Painters!”
Next, more scornfully still,--
“Fiddlers!”
And last, with a concentration of contempt that would have made her
fortune at any theatre in Paris,--
“Journalists!”
Then she began to bawl, in a voice like an auctioneer,--
“M’sieu Marsac! M’sieu Fontaine! Oh, I know you are somewhere about!
This is an old dodge, running away when I come with my bill! You owe
me, both of you, for seven weeks’ washing. Seven weeks have I rubbed
and scrubbed for you, and I have not seen the colour of my money yet!”
Madame Schmid stopped for a moment to take breath, and then, noticing
the door leading into the corridor, darted to it and began to tug
vigorously at the knob. But Marsac, who was holding it on the other
side, was Madame Schmid’s superior in muscle, though not in weight, and
the door resisted successfully. She then marched over to the closet
door; but Fontaine followed Marsac’s tactics, and Madame Schmid grew
still redder in the face and shorter of breath, with no better luck
than at the corridor door.
[Illustration]
At that moment a very well-dressed little man entered the room, after
an almost imperceptible knock, and, unrolling a bill about a yard long,
began,--
“Gentlemen, I have a little bill here--” and then, raising his eyes, he
said in a surprised voice, “Why, there aren’t any gentlemen here!”
“Not if gentlemen pay their bills, Monsieur Landais,” answered Madame
Schmid, sarcastically, who recognised an old acquaintance in Monsieur
Landais. Madame Schmid had had a good, obedient Alsatian husband, whom
she had talked to death some years before, and Landais and the late
lamented Schmid were from the same town.
Landais silently held out his bill, and Madame Schmid flourished hers
in his face, with an air as if Landais owed the money instead of Marsac
and Fontaine.
“Journalists are a bad lot, I can tell you,” rapidly began Madame
Schmid, who liked to have the first as well as the last word, “and a
lazy lot too. While you and I work for our living with our arms and our
legs, Monsieur Marsac and that pretty boy Fontaine do nothing but sit
in an easy-chair and write all day long. And they call that work!”
“I only wish I could sit in an easy-chair and amuse myself with a pen
all day, instead of toiling over a cutting-board,” answered the tailor,
ruefully.
“Painting and fiddling when they are not scribbling,--no wonder they
can’t pay their wash-bills. I dare say they think washing is an elegant
amusement. I’m sure I don’t know how I’ll ever get my money. Writing
them letters is a sinful waste of paper and ink.”
“And calling to see them is a sinful waste of time. That Marsac always
makes me laugh in spite of myself. The last time I saw him I put on
a very determined air,” here little Landais assumed a fierce look,
“and asked him why my bill had not been paid. He told me that he and
Monsieur Fontaine threw all their bills into a basket, and every six
months they drew one out at random and paid that bill,--and it so
happened they had never drawn my bill! It was a wretched joke, but it
made me laugh; and I assure you, the first thing I knew I was asking
the fellow if he and his chum wanted anything in the tailoring line!”
“And he chucks me under the chin, and tells me I’m so young and
handsome I’ll be getting married again; and then, like you, I turn
fool and laugh, and _pouf!_ goes my bill,” moaned Madame Schmid,
wagging her head dolefully, while Landais shook his like a Chinese
mandarin.
“Then,” said Landais, wearily, “what are we climbing up all these
stairs for?”
“God knows,” answered Madame Schmid. “But I have no more time to waste
on them, so I’ll leave my bill and go.”
“So will I,” said Landais; and they laid their bills on the rickety
table and went out, Madame Schmid clacking angrily all the way
downstairs.
The minute they disappeared, Fontaine slipped out of his closet, and
locked the door after them. He was a handsome, fair-haired fellow of
five-and-twenty, with the most winning air in the world; but it was
plain at the first glance that, with all his grace and intelligence, he
was a man to be led by his affections.
“I wish there was a drawbridge outside this door,” he muttered,
and then began to rummage about the room. “I wonder where Marsac’s
purse is,” he continued to himself. “Ah, here it is,--and only two
francs five centimes in it; and the shoemaker wants three francs for
half-soling Marsac’s shoes!” And then he began to call for Marsac,
meanwhile going through the empty form of searching through his own
pockets. In a moment Marsac entered the room.
[Illustration]
It was easy enough to see who was the master mind there. Marsac was
not so regularly handsome as Fontaine, but his dark bright eyes and
captivating smile seemed to radiate brilliance all round him. After
the first moment of seeing these two young men together, it was not
necessary to explain their relations to each other. Fontaine could not
look at Marsac without an almost feminine expression of fondness and
tender reliance coming into his eyes; and at the bottom of his heart he
thought Marsac the most brilliant, capable, and lovable of men. Marsac,
on his part, could not look or speak to Fontaine without showing the
affection of an elder for a younger brother.
They had been schoolmates, ten years before, at a provincial college.
From the first moment of their meeting, they loved each other. Fontaine
was of the best blood of the province; but he had neither father nor
mother nor brother nor sister nor any near relative living. His was
one of those hearts which must love something, and he could not help
loving Marsac,--a tall, lithe boy, older than he, and quite able to
fight Fontaine’s battles as well as his own. Marsac, like Fontaine,
was fatherless and motherless. He was educated from a fund for the
sons of poor gentlemen, which the recipient was expected to return when
he was able. After taking all the honours in his classes, and being
graduated with the highest distinction, Marsac went to Paris along
with Fontaine, both to seek their fortunes in journalism. They soon
got work, but they made precious little money. Marsac, inspired with
but one idea, sent every franc he made back to the fund, and repaid
the sum advanced in an astonishingly short time. But it was at the
cost of getting into debt on all sides. Neither he nor his chum had
that commercial knack, that intimate knowledge of the purchasing power
of a franc, which comes naturally to young men whose lives have been
spent in a large city. Marsac was of a buoyant temper, and constantly
expected something to turn up which would relieve them of all their
embarrassments. Meanwhile, confident of the honesty of his intentions,
he met his debts, duns, and difficulties with an incomparable archness
and good-humour.
When Fontaine asked him for a franc for the shoes, his reply was,--
“A franc! Do you think I have a complete counterfeiting apparatus, that
I can produce such a sum as a franc at a moment’s notice?”
“Then,” said Fontaine, ruefully, who would willingly have given his
only pair of shoes to Marsac would he accept them, “I don’t know what I
am to do. The shoemaker said three francs or no shoes, and I have only
two francs five centimes. You have already spent enough on them to have
bought a new pair,--new vamps in December, new uppers in January, and
now in February new soles.”
“Go along with you!” cried Marsac. “Tell the shoemaker I have a bad
case of confluent small-pox, and I dare say he will be glad to let you
have the shoes for nothing. But give me that paste-pot. Our friends
Madame Schmid and Monsieur Landais have left us souvenirs which I
can put to use.” And he began deftly cutting the bills, which were on
stout paper, into square pieces to mend the screen with, which, like
everything else in the room, had holes in it.
“I am afraid the small-pox story won’t be a--judicious subterfuge,” was
Fontaine’s reply.
“What did you do with the eleven francs we had yesterday?”
“I bought four bottles of wine, a box of cigars, and two loaves of
bread with it.”
“Why were you so extravagant about bread?” asked Marsac, very
cheerfully working away at the old screen. “If you squander our
substance on luxuries like bread, we sha’n’t have anything left for
necessaries like wine and cigars. The fact is,” he continued, “when a
man enters journalism, he ought to have an education suitable to the
profession. Instead of going to the University, I should have been
taught the shoemaking and tailoring trades. How often have I heard
that no learning comes amiss in journalism! Now, if I had the most
rudimentary knowledge of cobbling, I could have mended those shoes
myself.”
“At all events,” said Fontaine, brushing his hat, “I am rather glad to
be out of the way now; for this is the very day and hour that Madame
Fleury always appears to ask for the rent.”
“There!” cried Marsac, for the first time showing impatience, “I have
been trying for two weeks to forget what day the rent is due, and had
just succeeded when you reminded me of it. I would rather see Joan of
Arc coming at me full tilt on horseback, or Charlotte Corday with her
dagger, than Madame Fleury with her bill.”
“I have heard it said that it is possible to live comfortably on a
large capital of debts, but we have not found it so,” said Fontaine,
still brushing his hat, which, however, not all the brushing in the
world could benefit.
“But the debts must be on a respectable scale,” answered Marsac,
“something like seventy or eighty thousand francs. I don’t believe,
though, that everything we owe would mount up to ten thousand francs.
I felt so humiliated the other day when one of the young fellows on
the staff--a mere reporter, while I am an editorial writer--boasted of
owing his tailor alone as much as we owe altogether. I could not help
translating hundreds into thousands, and said I owed my tailor nearly
seven thousand francs, when it is not quite seven hundred. But I saw
that the youngster respected me more from that moment, and Maurepas,
the editor-in-chief, asked me to breakfast the very next day. I was
obliged to decline on account of these infernal shoes; but I said it
was because I was sent for by the Minister of Public Instruction.”
“Marsac,” said Fontaine, after a pause, “how can you be so cheerful in
the midst of our difficulties?”
“Have you not heard, my little man, that the laughing philosopher
attained the goal of all wisdom, while the weeping philosopher stood
whimpering at the starting-post? Does a long face pay a bill? Or a sour
temper? Depend upon it, Fortune looks for the smiling faces; and so I
try to keep mine ready to welcome her.”
Fontaine went out then, and Marsac, having finished the screen, took
off his coat, and with a needle and thread began sewing awkwardly on
it, whistling like a bird meanwhile. In the midst of it came a knock at
the door,--not a whack like Madame Schmid’s, nor a tap like Landais’s,
but a knock, delicate yet firm, polite but peremptory. Marsac turned
pale. Nevertheless he hustled on his coat, and opened the door with
his best air,--which was a very fine air, indeed,--and his landlady,
Madame Fleury, entered.
Madame Fleury was a handsome woman of about five-and-thirty, with fine
dark eyes, and a carriage full of grace and dignity; and, moreover, she
exhibited a self-poise and self-possession which a prime minister might
have envied. She was very simply dressed, as became the morning; but
the simplicity was of the kind that costs. Marsac courteously placed a
chair for her.
[Illustration]
“I am glad to find you at home, Monsieur Marsac,” were Madame Fleury’s
first words after the politest greetings had been exchanged. “I had not
seen you go in or out for a day or two, and thought perhaps you were
ill.”
“A trifle, a mere trifle,” answered Marsac, with much readiness; “a
little dinner at a ministerial house,--those fellows give one such
lots of champagne,--and I inherit gout, and it gave me a touch; so pray
excuse my slippers. As soon as Fontaine returns, I shall put on my
shoes and go for a little walk.” Then, seeing Madame Fleury’s handsome
face assume its “business expression,” he hastened to add: “How
wonderfully well you are looking! You are blooming like a rose.”
“Thank you,” answered Madame Fleury, calmly. “In a house like this,
there are certain lodgers whom I am compelled to call on occasionally,
in the way of business.”
“Do you know, Madame,” continued Marsac, who had not ceased to examine
Madame Fleury’s features as if she were a beautiful portrait or a
statue which he had never set eyes on before, “there is a picture
in the Salon this year that might be taken for you? It is called
‘Springtime,’--a young girl standing under an almond-tree in bloom.
The girl’s face--so fresh, so lovely--is simply yours.”
Madame Fleury’s discouraging reply to this was, “Business is business,
Monsieur Marsac, and must be attended to.”
Marsac kept on as if he had not heard a word. “I can’t, for the life of
me, recall the artist’s name; but I remarked aloud, ‘Madame Fleury must
have sat for this charming face;’ and a very distinguished-looking man
who stood next me said in English, ‘Then I would give a thousand pounds
to know Madame Fleury!’”
“I wish you had accepted his offer,” responded Madame Fleury, in a tone
that would have disconcerted a Talleyrand, “for never in my life would
a thousand pounds or even a thousand francs be more acceptable.”
Marsac, however, not at all abashed, exclaimed enthusiastically: “Then,
all you have to do is to offer to pose for a nymph or a goddess.
Bouguereau and all those high-priced fellows will simply be tumbling
over one another in their eagerness to paint you.”
“Monsieur Marsac,” said Madame Fleury, in a tone of velvet softness
which Marsac perfectly understood and shuddered to hear, “I am talking
business.”
“And I am talking art,” replied poor Marsac.
“If you will kindly recall the date,” continued Madame Fleury.
Marsac, taking up an almanac, began turning the leaves. “This is the
20th of February,” he mused. “Let me see--what happened on the 20th of
February? Ah, I have it! It is your twenty-fifth birthday, and you have
come to receive our felicitations.”
“Nonsense, Monsieur Marsac!” replied Madame Fleury, with the same tone
of deadly sweetness. “It is the day your rent is due; and I have come
to see if you are prepared to pay it, and also the arrears of two
months you still owe.”
Marsac merely shook his head, and for several minutes there was
unbroken silence in the room, each meanwhile closely attentive to the
other. At last Madame Fleury spoke.
“It seems to me that two young men with your talents and
character,--for I have found you both to have good characters, except
for this rent business,--and of good families, should be able to make a
better living out of journalism than you do.”
“Ah, Madame,” answered Marsac, sorrowfully, “modern journalism has but
one essential,--it requires a man to be an accomplished, ready, and
felicitous liar; and neither of us is that.”
“Then why don’t you--ahem!--try to acquire that one essential?”
“Transcendent liars, Madame Fleury, like poets, are born, not made.
And then there is a great deal in being notorious. Fontaine and I
have done everything short of felony, to bring ourselves before the
public; but we have failed. We have tried to drown ourselves in the
Seine,--with life-preservers on, of course; but the police found the
life-preservers on us, and instead of making us favourably known,
humph!--we were glad enough to hush up the affair. We have brought the
most horrible charges against each other in print, but nobody appeared
at all surprised at them; and the public, by its indifference, seemed
to take it for granted that the worst was true. The only newspaper
which took the trouble to investigate it sent a reporter here; and as
ill-luck would have it, the fellow caught us waltzing in each other’s
arms for joy because we had just got a dinner invitation,--and we
had not had anything that could be called a dinner for three weeks.
Our circumstances are indeed desperate. Yesterday we had some money,
and Fontaine bought two loaves of bread. I reproached him for his
extravagance in buying so much bread.”
With these words Marsac managed to cover dexterously a box of cigars on
the table, which Madame Fleury had not noticed.
“That is, indeed, poverty,” said Madame Fleury, with some feeling; and
Marsac, seeing she was a little touched, continued eagerly,--
“We have tried everything. I sent a play to a manager, and the only
notice he has taken of it has been to write me that he didn’t believe
it would draw. Of course it won’t draw, shut up in the manager’s strong
box. I never expected it to draw until it was produced. I sent it
under the name of Fontaine, as being more aristocratic than Marsac.
Fontaine, you know, has graveyards full of noble ancestors, while I,
like Napoleon, am the first of my family. Then I sent a picture, called
‘A Rough Sea,’ to the Salon, also under the name of Fontaine. One of
the judges said the thing made the whole committee ill,--it was so
realistic, I presume,--and yet they rejected it.”
Madame Fleury’s eyes softened, and with a glint of a “widow’s smile”
upon her handsome mouth, she said gently, after a moment, “Have
you--has either one of you--ever thought of--ahem!--marriage, as a way
out of your troubles?”
“Often,” answered Marsac, promptly,--“that is, for Fontaine. He was to
be the victim,--the Iphigenia, so to speak. As for myself, there are
two things I dread,--death and marriage. I must die, but I need not
marry. I have sworn I will never be taken alive.”
Madame Fleury blushed, smiled, and murmured, “More men marry than
don’t. Most of them marry without a qualm.”
“True,” answered Marsac, gravely; “and there are men who will pick up
a poisonous snake and dangle it in the air. But I am not one of them. I
have no taste for dangling poisonous snakes. I am afraid of them.”
[Illustration]
“And how stands Monsieur Fontaine on this subject?”
“He is brave to rashness. I believe him fully capable of marrying. In
fact, Fontaine seems to have a _penchant_ for Mademoiselle Claire
Duval, daughter of Duval the rich old brewer.”
“There is a niece--Mademoiselle Delphine Duval--who has just gone to
live with them,” said Madame Fleury, who liked to show her knowledge of
the acquaintances of the two young men.
“I had not heard of that. The truth is, since we pawned our evening
clothes we have not seen anything of the Duvals. However, as Fontaine
could not marry Claire until he paid his debts, and he could not pay
his debts until he married Claire, the matter seems to have settled
itself.”
Madame Fleury assumed a striking attitude in her chair, and then
began to speak, with an insinuating softness in every word and glance
and motion: “You have told me much about you and your friend; now I
will tell you something about myself, and it may result in--in--an
arrangement mutually advantageous.” Her voice sank to a mere whisper.
“As you know, I am a widow.”
“Certainly,” replied Marsac. “I knew it the very first moment I saw
you: you had such a cheerful air.”
“I have every reason to look cheerful. The late Monsieur Fleury was
nothing but a trouble to me, from the hour I married him until the day
the news was brought me that his body had been found in the river.”
“Gracious powers!” cried Marsac, in astonishment; “was not the late
Monsieur Fleury an angel?”
“No,” answered Madame Fleury; “and I don’t believe he is an angel now,
either.”
“Strange, strange!” murmured Marsac. “A departed husband not an angel!
This is a phenomenon. Allow me to make a note of it;” and taking out a
note-book, he gravely made a memorandum.
“A husband, Monsieur Marsac, is very like a lobster salad. When it is
good, it is very good, and when it is bad it is intolerable. Monsieur
Fleury was very bad. At last he sank so low that he became janitor in a
medical school. He was accused one day of stealing some valuable books
and instruments, and soon after his body was found in the Seine. It is
supposed he committed suicide, knowing himself to be guilty. I did not
see the body, and tried to avoid all associations with the affair; but,
do what I could, it became known that he had once been my husband. I
find the name of a man so unpleasantly notorious very inconvenient to
bear, and I should like to change it.”
Marsac, after listening intently to this, buried his ears in his hands
and appeared to be thinking profoundly for some minutes. “I should
think, Madame,” he said, after this pause of reflection, “that could be
accomplished. The authorities on application will permit you to change
your name.”
Something like contempt appeared in Madame Fleury’s dark eyes, and she
responded coldly, “I should also like the protection which the name of
some respectable man would give me.”
A pause, longer and more awkward, ensued. It seemed to Marsac as if he
actually felt the temperature in the room falling ten degrees every
second. For once, language failed him; and he heard himself saying, in
a quavering voice and almost without his own volition,--
“Would that I were a respectable man!”
Madame Fleury turned her dark eyes on him and drew nearer. Her
breathing quickened, and a faint pink rose in her smooth cheek, and she
said in a laughing voice, which also trembled a little,--
“You are quite respectable enough for me.”
Proposals of marriage are always embarrassing, and none the less so
when, as the Breton peasants say, “the haystack chases the cow.”
Marsac felt himself suddenly grow hot, and as suddenly grow cold. He
sat quite near Madame Fleury, her half-laughing and brightly burning
eyes fixed on him. Every detail of her elegant and correct morning
costume, her well-shod feet, her handsome figure, was abnormally
present to him. But he found it impossible to raise his eyes to her
face. The only clear idea in his mind was a frantic fury towards
the women of the present day, who, he foresaw, would make these bad
quarters of an hour, such as he was undergoing, common enough to men in
the future.
As for Madame Fleury, Marsac’s embarrassment was not lost on her; and
although a new woman, she was still a woman, and womanly pride impelled
her to control the slight tremor of her nerves, and say in a voice,
studiedly cold, “It is a mere matter of business and of convenience
with me.”
This gave Marsac, as he thought, a loophole of escape, and he said
hurriedly, “I, Madame, in my innocence, have regarded marriage as a
matter of sentiment.”
Imagine his chagrin, though, when Madame Fleury, smiling and blushing
like a girl, replied, “Well, Monsieur Marsac, if you will have it so--”
Marsac saw in a moment the pit he had dug for himself, but he preferred
to play the part of a poltroon to stepping into it. He turned and
fidgeted in his chair; he looked out of the window, down at the street,
hoping to see Fontaine returning, and every moment the situation grew
more appalling. Presently he managed to say,--
“Until he is forty, a man is too young to marry; and after he is forty,
he is too old.”
Madame Fleury surveyed him all over, with a cool contempt which seemed
to leave blisters on his body. Then a brilliant idea came to him. He
glanced at Madame Fleury, and saw as well as felt the rage rising in
her heart against him. He tried to speak calmly and naturally, but his
words were jerked out of him with stammering and stuttering,--
“You are very, very g-g-good, Madame; and I feel more pleased--no, no,
I mean honoured--than I can explain--express, that is. But you know how
Fontaine and I have lived together since our boyhood. We have nobody
but each other; we have shared everything as brothers. Now, d-d-do you
think it quite fair that I should, like a pig, accept this dazzling
offer without giving Fontaine a chance?”
It was blunderingly enough spoken, but it served. Marsac saw, in a
moment, that Madame Fleury would much rather after that have killed him
than married him; and when she spoke, her cold dignity made him feel
like a mouse under an exhausted air-receiver.
“I don’t know but that you are right, after all, and Monsieur Fontaine
is really the superior man, and consequently better suited to me.”
The door at that moment flew wide open, and Fontaine rushed in,--his
coat a mass of mud and rags, and his trousers slit from the knee to
the hip; and he did not have Marsac’s shoes. Without observing Madame
Fleury, who sat a little to one side, he burst out,--
“It’s no good, Marsac; the shoemaker said three francs or no shoes.”
Then seeing Madame Fleury, he stopped, overwhelmed with embarrassment.
Not so the lady, who quietly remarked to Marsac,--
“This accounts for the story of the cabinet dinner, and the gout, and
so on;” and she added, with an air of the finest sarcasm, “I see no
earthly reason why you, Monsieur Marsac, should not succeed brilliantly
in journalism.”
Marsac was quite disposed to let Fontaine take his part of the
situation then, and said not a word; but Fontaine exclaimed,--
“I know what you have come for, Madame Fleury. It is the rent.”
“Then you show very superior intelligence to Monsieur Marsac, as I had
the greatest difficulty in making him understand what I came for,”
responded Madame Fleury.
“I am awfully sorry,” kept on Fontaine, “but we haven’t a sou except
this,”--holding out two francs,--“and I had an accident on the way, and
ruined my only coat and trousers, and Marsac has no shoes, and I don’t
know what we shall do.” Fontaine stopped, half crying.
“I can suggest something,” said Madame Fleury, showing an amazing
calmness. “Not to go over the same ground twice, I have determined to
change my name and condition; and--” Here she paused for effect, and
Marsac came unexpectedly to her assistance.
“Fontaine,” said he, solemnly, “I have been a true friend to you. As
soon as Madame Fleury mentioned this, I offered her your hand.”
Fontaine looked at Marsac, supposing either he himself or his friend
had gone crazy; but Marsac’s cool demeanour proved that he at least was
sane. Fontaine, with his mouth open, but dumb with astonishment, gazed
first at Marsac and then at Madame Fleury.
“He is speechless with happiness,” cried Marsac. “I knew he would be
delighted. You see, marrying runs in Fontaine’s family. His father and
mother were married, and his grandparents on both sides were married;
and even his great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers were married.
Isn’t that so, Fontaine?”
Fontaine, still dazed, mumbled, “I don’t know.”
“Fie, you bad man!” replied Marsac, laughing. “Pray, Madame Fleury,
don’t believe that. I know what I am talking about, and I assure you
that all these people in Fontaine’s family were married.”
Madame Fleury then rose majestically. “Gentlemen, this matter must be
settled at once. You have your choice,--a marriage, or an eviction
within twenty-four hours, and all the arrears of rent paid.”
Fontaine, who was gradually returning to his senses, said, “But,
Madame, it is impossible. Marsac has no shoes; I have no clothes--”
“If you do not choose to accept my proposition, Monsieur Fontaine,”
coolly interrupted Madame Fleury, “you will be put into the street
within twenty-four hours; and when you reach the street, you will be
arrested for non-payment of rent.”
“And if I go into the street without any coat or trousers, I shall
certainly be arrested,” answered Fontaine, desperately.
Madame Fleury shook her head, as if the whole affair were nothing to
her.
[Illustration]
Marsac, advancing to Fontaine, whispered in his ear, “Promise her.
Promising isn’t marrying, you know. You promise her.”
“No, _you_ do it.”
“I can’t. She won’t have me. You do it. I have known several men who
have escaped with their lives from widows.”
Fontaine, thus urged by Marsac, whom he had never resisted in his
life, looked helplessly from his friend to his landlady, and from his
landlady back to his friend. After all, promising was not marrying, and
it was worth a good deal to get her out of the room.
Madame Fleury brought matters to a crisis by asking, smiling, “Which
shall it be, gentlemen,--an engagement or an eviction?”
Fontaine could not bring himself to say the word, but he submitted
silently when Marsac, taking his hand, led him to Madame Fleury, and
placing their hands together said, with something dangerously near a
wink,--
“Take the lovely hand held out to you. Quaff the cup of happiness
held to your lips. Madame Fleury, you will exchange for your present
name one of the most distinguished names among the great families
of France,”--which was true enough as far as Fontaine’s name was
concerned.
[Illustration]
Madame Fleury, whose principle it was to get through quickly with an
awkward business, asked Marsac to sit down and write out a little
agreement, to be signed by Fontaine and herself. “And it might be as
well,” she added, “to name the date of the fulfilment of this promise.
Let me see,--this is the 20th of February.”
She paused and reflected. Marsac, who had seated himself at the table,
reflected too; and then after a moment he said,--
“The 31st of April.”
“There is no 31st of April,” replied Madame Fleury.
“The first of April would seem appropriate,” kept on Marsac, very
gravely.
“Don’t trouble yourself to be sarcastic, Monsieur Marsac,” replied
Madame Fleury, with cutting emphasis. “It would do admirably if I were
marrying you, but otherwise, not.”
“The twenty-ninth of February, then.”
“This is not leap year.”
“Oh, I thought it was.”
Madame Fleury did not condescend to notice this fling; and Marsac,
writing very slowly, proceeded to draw up an informal agreement to
marry, between Marie Fleury and Auguste Fontaine.
Fontaine had dropped limp upon a chair, and sat with his head buried
in his arms, the picture of misery. But awkward and humiliating as it
was, he had not the smallest doubt that Marsac, whom he thought capable
of meeting any emergency, would eventually get him out of the scrape.
When Madame Fleury had signed the paper, Marsac called Fontaine, who
remained motionless, without lifting his head.
“That’s his way of showing he is pleased,” explained Marsac in the most
serious manner. “I told you he would be delighted, and I know at this
moment he is revelling in rapture; only he has rather a singular manner
of showing it.”
“He has, indeed,” said Madame Fleury; “but I am vain enough to think
that it is merely the suddenness of the affair which has somewhat
disconcerted him.”
Fontaine, almost dragged out of his chair by Marsac, sullenly signed
the paper; and after taking possession of it, and recommending him to
act in good faith with her, Madame Fleury departed, with the air of a
person who has made a successful stroke of business.
As soon as she was gone, Fontaine with a loud groan threw himself on
the sofa. Even Marsac began to be somewhat frightened at the turn of
affairs. He thought it not unlikely that the prospect of marrying a
handsome young man far above her in social position might be really in
Madame Fleury’s mind. But he would not mention his fears to Fontaine;
and as soon as Madame Fleury was safely out of hearing, Marsac
contrived to raise a burst of rather hollow and hysterical laughter.
“To think she should imagine that she could trap us in any such way as
that! Ha! ha!”
Fontaine’s reply, from the depths of the sofa, was something between
a groan and a howl, and he moaned, “You know, Marsac, I love Claire
Duval; and this devilish Madame Fleury has my written promise--”
“A bagatelle!” cried Marsac, still keeping up the pretence of laughter.
“Do you suppose I would have let you get into such a trap if I could
not have got you out?”
This gave some comfort to Fontaine, who had sublime faith in Marsac’s
powers as well as his friendship. But in spite of all his efforts,
Marsac pretty soon had to give up the hilarious view of the situation.
Fontaine lay on the sofa, groaning, kicking, and occasionally sighing
out the name of Claire Duval. Marsac looked out of the window at a
prospect made up chiefly of chimney-pots and a fine small rain that
began to fall, and for the first time realised their truly desperate
situation. After half an hour of silence on his part, and complainings
on Fontaine’s, a shadow of his old spirit came back to Marsac.
“If one of us only had a rich relation we could murder! But I don’t
believe any two fellows in the world have so few near relations as we.”
Fontaine by this time was sitting up on the sofa, his head in his
hands. Presently he said, with gloomy indifference,--
“I had an uncle, an American,--Uncle Maurice,--who has not been
in France for twenty-five years; and the last we heard of him, he
was living on fifteen cents a day in New York. Then we heard in a
roundabout way that he was dead; but he had nothing to leave anybody.”
“Very likely,” sighed Marsac. “An American and his money are soon
parted.”
The next moment, Fontaine believed that the last and greatest of
misfortunes had befallen his friend; for Marsac, leaping up, began to
charge about the room, shouting at the top of his lungs.
“Hurrah! Hurrah! Your Uncle Maurice has died, and has left you a
fortune! Huzza! What a glorious idea! Huzza for Uncle Maurice!”
Fontaine, stunned at first, went up to Marsac, who was capering wildly
about, and in a voice tremulous with apprehension, and himself deadly
pale, said, “My dear, kind Marsac, be quiet, pray. You have taken our
misfortunes too much to heart, and they have unbalanced you. Sit down
awhile; I have some money,”--the poor lad had not a sou but the two
francs,--“quite enough for several days.”
It was piteous to see his weak pretences. He rattled the two francs
in his pocket and tried to smile. Marsac, seeing the dreadful thought
in Fontaine’s mind, stopped his whooping, and seizing Fontaine in his
arms, cried out,--
“You honest little simpleton! Of course Uncle Maurice hasn’t just
died and left you a fortune; but let the world think so, and see if
our fortunes are not made! How would a paragraph like this sound in
the papers: ‘We are happy to announce that Monsieur Auguste Fontaine,
the brilliant young journalist, has inherited a fortune of’--let me
see, it’s as easy to give you two million francs as one million--‘from
his lately deceased uncle, Monsieur Maurice Fontaine of New York,
the celebrated’--wine-importer, I should say; that’s a good decent
business. I can work the paragraph up more; tell about your Uncle
Maurice going against the traditions of his family in entering trade,
and all that sort of thing. Trust me to get it up!”
Fontaine was so delighted at finding Marsac was not crazy after all,
that he could do nothing but hug him and say, “Marsac, I was so
frightened when you began to talk so; and you may kill all my uncles
and aunts, if you can find any to kill. But will--will this dazzling
story be believed about Uncle What’s-his-name?”
“My dear fellow,” replied Marsac, in high good-humour, “don’t you know
there is a large section of the human race that goes about actually
begging to be humbugged? Did you ever know a wildly improbable
story started yet that wasn’t readily believed? And the more it is
contradicted, the more it is believed. At any rate, it can’t do us any
harm; nothing can harm us in our present straits.”
“Well, if people should believe in Uncle Maurice,” began Fontaine,
anxiously; but Marsac cut him short.
“Believe in Uncle Maurice! Why, I believe in him, and I created him
myself,--that is, _our_ Uncle Maurice. Dear kind old chap! I feel as if
I had just shaken hands with him.”
“But,” persisted Fontaine, “if Madame Fleury should believe in him and
the fortune, wouldn’t it be that much more difficult for me to escape
from her?”
[Illustration]
“We should be in that much better condition to fight her. No, my boy,
don’t refuse a fortune of two million francs even on paper. Why,”
continued Marsac, producing from a corner his palette, brushes, and
an unfinished portrait of a Spanish bull-fighter, “look! I will make
you a portrait of Uncle Maurice;” and with a few bold strokes the
bull-fighter assumed the appearance of a hale old gentleman of sixty,
in a black coat and a white tie. “But there is no time to lose,”
cried he, throwing down his palette and brushes. “It ought to be in
the afternoon papers. There is the clock on the church-tower striking
eleven,--I shall have time yet before they go to press. Give me your
shoes--” Fontaine kicked them off, and Marsac put them on. “And your
hat is better than mine--” Fontaine ran and fetched the hat. “Let me
see; the paragraph ought to be written out.” Marsac seated himself at
the table, and Fontaine hung over him, while he rapidly wrote half
a page, and then, rising and going out, cried: “Keep up your heart,
old boy! You are not married yet; you are a long way off from being
Monsieur Fleury!”
Left alone, Fontaine remained silent and overwhelmed at the various and
startling incidents which had befallen him that morning. “How little
one knows,” he thought, “what an hour may bring forth! It is now eleven
o’clock: since ten o’clock, I have become engaged to be married; I have
found a long-lost uncle; he has died, and left me two million francs.”
A slight sound caused him to raise his head, and he saw a letter pushed
under the door. He ran forward and opened it, and then literally fell
over on his chair with amazement and chagrin. The letter ran,--
MY DEAR NEPHEW AUGUSTE,--The report which reached my family that I was
dead was erroneous. I am very much alive, and think of soon revisiting
my native land. I have had a hard struggle, and I may not meet with
a very flattering reception from my family, of whom you are my only
really near relative; but I feel quite able to take care of myself. I
may appear at any moment; and, until we meet, I am
Your affectionate uncle,
MAURICE FONTAINE.
Fontaine rallied enough to run to the window to call Marsac back. But
it was too late. Marsac, with the slip of white paper in his hand, was
just turning the corner.
[Illustration]
Chapter II
Marsac returned within three hours, to be confronted by Fontaine with a
pale face and Uncle Maurice’s letter.
For once, Marsac was staggered. The paragraph was already in print, and
the afternoon papers containing it were being cried on the street. He
read the letter carefully, then laid it down, saying, “It is impossible
that he should return. Living on fifteen cents a day for twenty years
must have impaired his constitution to that degree that he cannot stand
the voyage.”
Fontaine, already in the depths of woe, seemed to sink deeper and
deeper. Not so Marsac, whose cheerfulness never left him. All day the
two friends sat in their garret, unable on account of Fontaine’s
dilapidated clothes and Marsac’s want of shoes to go out and get
anything to eat,--for they could still go to a restaurant near the
newspaper office and get a dinner on credit. They both shrank from
admitting their necessities by asking for an advance from the business
office of their newspaper.
Marsac spent the day in patching and cleaning, with awkward industry,
Fontaine’s torn coat and trousers. Never had Fontaine loved and admired
him more. He sang and whistled all day long, made jokes, and pretended
that doing without food and fire was rather an amusing experience.
At nightfall he held up the torn and soiled coat and trousers for
inspection. The poor fellow had done his best, but they were clearly
not presentable. Not even then did his courage and spirits desert him.
He laughed at his own failure, and said gaily,--
“Well, my boy, what a tale this will make to tell when we get rich!
For half the pleasure of rich people consists in telling how happy they
were when they had not a second shirt to their backs.”
[Illustration]
At that moment a servant in the establishment opened the door without
ceremony, and thrust in a huge box, with the name of “Charlevois,
Tailor,” on it. Scarcely was the door shut, when the two young men
tore open the box. There lay several suits of the handsomest mourning
clothes imaginable, with hats and gloves to match; and on top of
everything was pinned a letter. It was from Charlevois, one of the
best tailors in Paris, saying that he had taken the liberty of sending
Monsieur Auguste Fontaine several suits of clothes, asking his
inspection of them. He had read in the papers that evening of Monsieur
Maurice Fontaine’s death, and would be glad to supply Monsieur Auguste
Fontaine’s mourning. Also that his son was in the stationery business,
and had enclosed some samples of stationery.
The two young men gazed intently at each other. Then, without a word,
Fontaine, with Marsac’s help, put on an evening suit, and then a
top-coat, with crape-covered hat and black gloves. He certainly looked
very handsome in his new outfit. It was almost the first time in his
life that he had ever been really well dressed, and the elegantly
simple costume brought out his aristocratic beauty. Marsac looked at
him with the delight of a mother over a beautiful daughter dressed
for her first ball. Fontaine walked up and down, surveying himself
with satisfaction in the cracked mirror. He examined his old coat and
trousers,--they looked worse than ever by comparison. His silence said
eloquently, “I cannot take these gentlemanly habiliments off.” He put
the hat on his head. With Marsac, he moved toward the door; they paused.
“This is the Rubicon,” said Marsac.
“The Rubicon is passed,” replied Fontaine, stepping out.
They went to the restaurant where they had credit to dinner, and were
seen by twenty persons of their acquaintance. As they approached the
desk, on entering, the cashier, a handsome girl, was glancing at an
afternoon paper containing the paragraph about Uncle Maurice. She
recognised Fontaine, whom she had seen before.
“Do you wish a private room, gentlemen?” she asked.
“Certainly,” answered Marsac, solemnly, who had not thought of it
before. “Auguste, you would rather not dine in public to-day?”
Fontaine shook his head, and the two friends in silence, Fontaine with
his eyes bent on the mourning hat he carried, went into a private
dining-room. An obsequious waiter brought a card. Marsac ordered an
excellent dinner with champagne.
[Illustration]
When it came the sight of it was almost too much for the poor
half-starved young fellows. It was the first time they had really dined
in weeks. They made an excuse to send the waiter out of the room, when
they hugged each other and began to dance wildly, and barely had time
before he returned to scuttle back to their chairs and pull long faces
while they devoured fish, flesh, and fowl, entrées, _hors-d’oeuvres_,
and everything else eatable on the table. Marsac, in the waiter’s
absence, begged Fontaine to spare the candelabra, while Fontaine caught
Marsac in the act of chewing the paper off the _marrons glacés_.
“This,” said Marsac, while the waiter was out of the room (for they
kept him on the trot), “may be called our first dress rehearsal. We are
to appear before the public to-morrow,--you as the heir of your Uncle
Maurice, I as the friend of the nephew of his uncle.”
“Do you think we have deceived the waiter?” anxiously asked Fontaine.
“Perfectly. He never saw us order such a dinner before; but I hope he
will see us order a good many more like it. Look solemn--he is coming.”
And the waiter coming in found Marsac urging Fontaine to eat, who
seemed to be in the depths of despondency. When the time came for
feeing the man, Fontaine said sadly,--
“You, Marsac, must pay to-night. I forgot I had changed my clothes.”
“Certainly,” replied Marsac, clapping his hand to his pocket and
producing the two francs--the last they had on earth, which he had
taken the precaution to bring with him--and handing them to the
waiter. Those two francs made everybody in the restaurant believe the
story of Fontaine’s fortune.
After the dinner, which lasted for three hours, they went home, and
Fontaine wrote a note on the black-edged paper to the editor of their
paper, “La Lune,” asking for leave of absence for a few days, owing
to the loss of a near relative. Marsac took it to the office. His
fellow-workers crowded round him, asking questions about the paragraph
which had appeared that afternoon. Marsac confirmed it, but declared
they had not got any particulars as to the amount of the fortune.
“But I should say it will be under three millions,” he added with
entire accuracy.
Next day Paris rang with the story. It cannot be denied that both
Marsac and Fontaine were a little frightened at the sudden and
overpowering success of their little romance. They had not counted
upon the instant and enormous sensation it created. But there was now
no retreat for them. Being once committed to Uncle Maurice, they had
to abide by their own invention; and it taxed even Marsac’s powers to
meet the emergency. Fontaine simply declared that he could not face the
world in his new character, and kept close to his lodgings, to avoid
interrogatories. Naturally that did still more to set the story on its
legs; and when he began to receive letters of condolence mixed with
congratulations, and was forced to reply to them on paper with a black
border an inch deep and signed with inky sealing-wax, even he himself
began to believe that his Uncle Maurice had died and left him a fortune.
Marsac, who was remarkably clever with his brush, made an excellent
picture of Uncle Maurice out of the transformed bull-fighter, and by
dint of artistically smoking it, the newness of the paint was taken
off. He was, however, simply forced to invent a biography of Uncle
Maurice, with names, dates, and events. The first time he was asked
how Uncle Maurice made his money, he was obliged to say how; so he
represented that it was all made in the wine-importing line.
“If I had had a moment to think, I should have said mining operations,”
he said to Fontaine afterward; “but taken unawares, I hit upon the
wine-business. And then I had to explain that he went against the
traditions of his family by engaging in trade, but was immensely
successful, so they forgave him. And then I drew a noble picture of
Uncle Maurice,--for, look you, Fontaine, as we have profited by the old
gentleman, the least we can do is to give him a good character. I have
adorned him with every virtue. If he could come to life, I am sure he
would be pleased with the reputation I have given him.”
“But, Marsac, he _is_ alive! That is the maddening part. Suppose the
real Uncle Maurice should come walking in here some fine day,--what
would you say?”
“I should say, ‘Good morning, Monsieur Fontaine; delighted to see you.
Have a cigar? We heard that you were dead.’ And the old gentleman
would be so pleased at finding himself alive, that he would forgive us
anything.”
Among the first persons to hear the story was Madame Fleury; and the
hardest task before Marsac was when he was stopped by her in the
entresol, one morning, with an inquiry whether the story was true or
not about Fontaine’s uncle’s death.
“Alas! it is only too true,” replied Marsac, sorrowfully.
“I think Monsieur Auguste should have informed me of it,” said Madame
Fleury, “considering our relations.”
“Ah, Madame, you, a widow, can have no idea of the bashfulness of a
young man like Fontaine, in his first love affair. The relations of
men and women are so changed now. I am barely thirty, but I remember
when it was the lady who was diffident. But the last diffident woman, I
understand, has been secured for the Jardin des Plantes.”
Madame Fleury heard this with a smile playing round her handsome mouth.
“I hardly think that the engagement between Monsieur Auguste Fontaine
and me can be called a love affair. It was a business arrangement, pure
and simple. However, if this story about his Uncle Maurice and his
fortune is true, then I shall look forward with more satisfaction than
ever to the 15th of May. But why does not Monsieur Fontaine call to see
me occasionally?”
“Bashfulness, Madame Fleury,--pure bashfulness. I tell you, men and
women have changed places. I predict that in a few years a young man
will no more think of calling on his _fiancée_ than a few years back
his _fiancée_ would have called on him.”
Madame Fleury heard this, uttered in Marsac’s airiest manner, with the
same inscrutable smile. When Marsac left her presence, after an hour’s
laboured explanations, he had not the slightest certainty whether
she believed in Uncle Maurice or not. He rather thought she did not,
from her last remark,--which was that if Monsieur Fontaine really had
inherited two million francs, she would be glad to have the two hundred
he owed her.
However, to have got two hundred francs from Fontaine would have been
like getting oysters out of a strawberry bed. As the days went on, he
got a great many things, like the mourning clothes and black-edged
paper; and he was pursued by tradesmen desiring him to open accounts
with them. But not a franc had he. His absence from the newspaper
office cut off his small salary there; and while dining at his
favourite restaurant every day, smoking the best cigars and enjoying
other luxuries, he often had not one sou to rattle against another.
Marsac kept up his courage, though, by telling him that something
would soon turn up which would enable them to pay their debts, escape
from Madame Fleury’s house, and live like lords. And when that happy
event was accomplished, Marsac promised that Fontaine should be rid of
Madame Fleury, and in a position to ask the hand of Claire Duval, whom
Fontaine grew every day more passionately in love with, although it had
been months since he had seen her. Whenever Fontaine’s courage failed,
Marsac always held out to him the hope of marrying Claire.
“Just let me catch old Duval,--I don’t like to go in search of
him,”--cried Marsac, “and I will give him such an account of you
that he will be throwing his daughter at your head. And as she is a
sweet girl, and I believe is really in love with you, there will be a
marriage, sure. The only thing on my conscience is, that I am putting a
noose around your neck.”
[Illustration]
“A noose! A garland, you mean! Ah, could I live to have Claire for my
wife! But that infernal widow downstairs--”
“Don’t speak of your _fiancée_ in that disrespectful manner,” cried
Marsac, at the same time dodging Fontaine’s new hat, which flew in his
direction.
One night about six weeks after Uncle Maurice’s advent, Fontaine was
in their garret, waiting for Marsac to return. The room was as shabby
as ever, but Fontaine was dressed in the height of the style, although
still in the deepest mourning. His bright face, as he walked about
whistling jovially, with his hands in his trousers pockets (which
were empty, as usual), was in striking contrast to his livery of woe.
Fontaine occasionally had spasms of fear concerning their ruse; but
at twenty-five, with a good appetite, and enough to satisfy it, with
love and hope and a friend like Marsac, one is apt to whistle jovially.
In one corner of the room was a table with a delicious supper set
out,--sent from the restaurant, which the two young men patronised
liberally. On the rickety writing-table lay a letter, bearing the stamp
of one of the leading theatres in Paris. In the intervals of walking
about, and wondering why Marsac was so late, Fontaine would read and
re-read this letter, with the most evident delight.
At last, just as Fontaine was beginning to be impatient, in walked
Marsac, carrying his violin-case in his hand. He opened it without a
word, and took out four bottles of champagne. Then in solemn silence he
removed his tall hat, which proved to be full of flowers, and these he
arranged in the middle of the supper-table.
[Illustration]
“What are you up to now?” asked Fontaine, in surprise.
“Ladies to supper,” gravely replied Marsac.
Fontaine was astounded. Marsac habitually ran away from respectable
women, declaring he was afraid of them; and for those of another kind
he had nothing but the pity of a refined and honourable soul, which
leaves to harder hearts and more evil natures the condemnation of those
who sin because they are sinned against. Fontaine uttered only one
word,--
“Ladies!”
[Illustration]
“Yes,” said Marsac; “that is, they are ladies to me and to you,--for
they are women, half-starved and hard-working. What does it matter that
they are ballet-girls in a third-rate theatre? Listen. As I was coming
home just now, I saw these two poor creatures standing in front of a
pastry shop close by, eying the cakes in the window, and without a sou
to buy anything with. I overheard them, as they sorrowfully recalled
that their last franc had gone in white satin shoes for the ballet next
week. I have been hungry myself, and so have you, and I felt for them
in my pockets as well as in my heart; but I had no more money than
they. I had credit, though, thanks to your admirable Uncle Maurice, and
a good supper at home, and I said to them that for once they should be
warmed and filled. They are of a grade in society that is not bound by
conventionalities, and were quite willing to go anywhere for a good
meal. So I told them to slip by the concierge,--they will be here in a
few minutes,--and I went and got the wine and the flowers to make it
a little more of a feast for the poor souls; and you and I, Fontaine,
will be the better, not the worse, for this night’s work.”
“Marsac, you are the best fellow that ever lived,” cried Fontaine,
hugging him. Fontaine was always hugging Marsac, and Marsac always
responded by a pat on the head, such as a father gives a small boy.
“And read this letter,” he continued, thrusting the letter in Marsac’s
hand. It ran as follows:--
M. AUGUSTE FONTAINE.
MY DEAR SIR,--Happening, some days ago, to read an account of your
deserved good fortune, I remember having had some correspondence
with you regarding a play,--“A White Marriage.” I chanced to look in
my strong box the same day, and there discovered the play itself,
where it had lain a whole year,--a fate most unworthy of its great
merit, and which could only have occurred by the most astonishing
forgetfulness on my part. I make you ten thousand apologies, and
assure you the loss is mine; for since reading the piece, I beg to
have the honour of presenting it at the Gaieté Theatre. You have
written a play which must command success; for I cannot understand
it, nor can the public, and I presume no more can you. All you have
to do, therefore, is to have it presented, and then sit down and wait
for the critics to explain the play to you as to the rest of the
world. Each one is bound to give a different explanation; they will
get to quarrelling, and your fortune will be made. It is essential,
in the drama of to-day, to be complex; and when you are so complex
that nobody, from the author down, knows what the devil a play is
about, or what problems you are proving or disproving, you will be
placed upon the same pinnacle with Ibsen, Maaterlinck, and the rest of
the Dutch Shakspeares. Ibsen or a skirt dance is what goes nowadays.
There is a slight tendency to clearness in your style, which must be
remedied if you wish to be a really great modern dramatist. And your
play is not really vicious enough: the wife merely gives her husband
an opiate while she escapes with her lover, instead of being driven by
an imperative fate to give him about a quart of corrosive sublimate.
But these are minor faults in a work of great villany, obscurity, and
prolixity, which I hope to have the privilege of presenting.
Yours truly,
M. SAVARY,
_Manager of the Gaieté Theatre_.
Fontaine capered about gleefully, while Marsac read this letter,
and then handed him another note which seemed to give him almost
equal pleasure. It was from a picture-dealer, and briefly announced
that an offer of a thousand francs had been made for “A Rough Sea,”
and he hesitated about taking it: there was a price marked on the
picture,--fifty something; it couldn’t be fifty francs!
“But it was fifty francs, all the same,” cried Marsac; “and a thousand
francs! Good heavens! We shall be as rich as the Rothschilds, and we
shall be able to get away from these quarters and that dreadful woman
downstairs, and I shall marry you to Claire Duval!”
Fontaine’s reply to this was humming a little song with a refrain,
“Claire, I love thee!” which presently made him sigh and look very
gloomy. Marsac, who knew what turn his thoughts were taking, said
slyly,--
“I met old Duval to-day.”
Fontaine jumped as if he had been shot. “And what did he say? How is
Claire? When are you going to let me out of this infernal confinement,
so I can go to see the darling?”
“Fie! fie! and you an engaged man,” cried Marsac; at which Fontaine
groaned and tore his hair. “But,” continued Marsac, “I have some good
news for you. Old Duval has read all the accounts of Uncle Maurice, and
has the most childlike faith in him; and I declare, Auguste, I begin to
believe in the old fellow myself. Anyhow, Monsieur Duval talked with me
a whole hour this afternoon, and you may depend upon it I stuffed him;
and the result is--now, don’t go crazy--that he more than hinted at a
match between you and Claire.”
Fontaine fell on the sofa in an ecstasy, murmuring, “Dear, darling
Claire!”
“And he is coming to see you very soon, to congratulate you. I told
him you were going nowhere on account of your recent bereavement;
and, listen to this! The old fellow wants to oblige you; and as I
mentioned, by way of corroborative testimony, that you were looking
round for a country-seat, he said he would sell you a villa he has
at Melun for ninety thousand francs. Now, I know that Maurepas, our
editor-in-chief, is wild for that villa; and I have reason to think he
will give a hundred and forty thousand francs for it. Do you see?”
“Yes,” said Fontaine. “I buy it for ninety thousand, and sell it for a
hundred and forty thousand. But will it work?”
“Not if you jump down old Duval’s throat when he offers it to you.”
“I sha’n’t be able to prevent it.”
“Then you will be unworthy of your Uncle Maurice, and I shall be sorry
to have provided you with such a relative.”
A sound was heard outside. Marsac listened intently, thinking it to be
his two friends of the ballet; but it proved not.
“I wonder, as much afraid as you are of women,” said Fontaine, “that
you should have had the courage to ask those two poor creatures here
even for the pleasure of doing a kind action,--for nothing gives you
so much pleasure as that.”
“Pooh!” replied Marsac. “It is not women I fear, it is matrimony; and I
show my regard for the sex by remaining a bachelor. I feel that by not
marrying I shall secure one woman, at least, from eternal misery.”
[Illustration]
Again there was a noise outside the door; and this time it was the two
ballet-girls,--Mademoiselle Marie and Mademoiselle Louise, as they
introduced themselves. Marsac received them with as much kindness and
respect as if they had been banker’s daughters; and as for the girls
themselves, they were tawdry yet shabby, and extraordinarily painted
and bedizened. But the divinity of woman-hood was not extinguished in
them, and modesty itself would not have been abashed in the presence of
the four assembled in the garret of No. 17 Rue Montignal.
Mademoiselle Marie and Mademoiselle Louise wished to be extremely
elegant in the company in which they found themselves; but it must
be admitted that they laughed rather loud, and talked excessively.
However, their account of the way in which they slipped past the
entresol was very amusing, and the two young men roared with laughter;
and then the fun began. But at the very moment that two corks flew out
with a loud report, the door came open with a bang, and Madame Schmid
stalked in.
[Illustration]
Not Banquo’s ghost made a greater sensation at a party than this stout
Alsatian. Fontaine, following his usual tactics, ran behind the screen.
Madame Schmid, with one rapid glance at the table and the champagne,
uttered but one word, “Thieves!” and made a dash for Fontaine, whom she
collared and dragged out.
“Oh, you pretty boy,” she screamed, “this is your poverty,--champagne
and oysters and giving parties, when you can’t pay your wash-bill! I
used to feel sorry for you when you were so poor; but now I know you
are rolling in money, with twenty million francs left you in America,
and owing a poor woman two hundred francs for washing,--that is, you
and that slick-tongued Marsac yonder!”
Marsac was not “yonder,” but directly behind Madame Schmid, and holding
a big tumbler of champagne in one hand, while with the other he deftly
seized her round the waist, and began pouring the champagne down her
throat. At the same time he was talking her down in vigorous tones,
shouting,--
“My dear girl, you really oughtn’t to come here. It will ruin our
reputations to have a handsome young thing like you found in our
apartment.”
Madame Schmid, sputtering, protesting, but obliged to drink the
champagne, willy-nilly, was still able to make a good deal of noise.
“Oh, you hypocrite! you can’t honeyfuggle me--” Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle,
the champagne flowed down her throat.
“Honeyfuggle _you_? Oh, you bewitching creature, _you_ honeyfuggle
_me_! Another glass, Fontaine.”
Another tumbler followed the first, Madame Schmid trying to say, “Stop
hugging me, you impudent--”
The young ladies enjoyed this excessively; and before the second glass
was wholly disposed of, Madame Schmid was struggling with the emotions
produced by the champagne, Marsac’s flattery, and wrath at her unpaid
bill, but being a thrifty Alsatian, the last was by no means forgotten.
Suddenly, amid all the laughing, choking, joking, and commotion, a
voice was heard calling at the foot of the stairs,--
“Monsieur Marsac! Monsieur Fontaine! open the door and help me up
these confounded narrow stairs! I am not built for such Alpine work as
this.”
“Great heavens! it is old Duval!” exclaimed Fontaine, who had dropped
limp into a chair at the first sound of this voice.
“Go and keep him below for a moment,” said Marsac; and with wonderful
quickness he hustled the two girls, nothing loath, into the closet,
where they willingly shut the door, tittering at their own predicament.
It was something else, though, to get rid of Madame Schmid. Marsac had
almost to drag her to the corridor door, she fighting like a tiger,
and Marsac assuring her that it would forever destroy them should a
young and handsome woman like her be found in their apartment. Barely
was she shoved out, and scarcely had Marsac time to seat himself in
a meditative attitude with a book, when Fontaine, with old Duval,
entered; and while greeting him, Marsac could hear Madame Schmid
prancing up and down the corridor in her wrath.
Monsieur Duval, broad, rubicund, benevolent, conceited, and with the
true auriferous air which belongs to the vulgar rich, congratulated
Fontaine on his accession of fortune. Fontaine received this modestly,
while Marsac eulogised Uncle Maurice and pointed out the goodness
indicated in every feature of the portrait hanging on the wall.
“Yes, yes,” said Monsieur Duval, “you have had a great stroke of luck,
young man; and I hope you will be worthy of it.”
To which Fontaine replied that he hoped to prove himself entirely
worthy of his Uncle Maurice’s goodness.
“And now,” cried Monsieur Duval, swelling out his waistcoat, “I must
tell you that I have other objects in calling to see you to-night,
besides congratulating you on your good fortune. One is, to sell you
a piece of property at Melun; and the other is to ask you both to
dine with me at my Passy villa very soon. I wish you to meet my niece
Delphine, who has lately come to live with my daughter and me. Would
to-morrow suit?”
“Perfectly,” cried Fontaine, eagerly, but was checked by Marsac with a
look.
“I think you have the poorest memory I ever saw,” said Marsac,
severely, to Fontaine. “Have you forgotten that to-morrow we dine with
the Prince, and next day with the Marshal, the day after with the
Archbishop?”
Duval, a little staggered by these magnificent names, remarked, “I
thought you told me to-day that Monsieur Fontaine was not going into
society on account of his mourning?”
“So he is not,” coolly responded Marsac. “These are merely little
family affairs with people we have always known.”
This did not make old Duval any the less anxious to have them, and
he named a day the next week, which Marsac and Fontaine, after an
elaborate consultation of their notebooks, finally found they could
accept.
[Illustration]
“And now about the villa,” said the old brewer, standing with his feet
wide apart and his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets. “It’s a very pretty
place at Melun; my daughter is very fond of it; and if you are looking
for a country place, Monsieur Fontaine, you could not do better than
take it, at ninety thousand francs.”
Fontaine, remembering Marsac’s injunction not to be too eager, hummed
and ha’d a little for effect. He was deeply indebted to Monsieur Duval
for his offer; ninety thousand was a mere bagatelle, etc. Old Duval
persisted, and his motive was ridiculously clear; every other word was,
“My daughter is fond of the Melun place,”--“My daughter could scarcely
be persuaded to leave it even for our finer house at Passy.”
Marsac urged the apparently unwilling Fontaine to accept the offer,
mentioning several countesses, duchesses, and princesses of their
acquaintance who thought about buying places at Melun. At every mention
of a title, the old brewer rose to the bait, and was a perfectly happy
man when Fontaine agreed to take the place at ninety thousand, and
expressed his gratitude to Monsieur Duval for favouring him with the
purchase.
The old man then got on the subject of his daughter, varied with
digressions on his niece Delphine, which seemed to amuse him very much.
“A fine, handsome girl she is, but the ‘new woman’ with a vengeance.
Believes in a woman’s having a mission, and all that, and is as deadly
opposed to matrimony as our friend Marsac,”--at which Monsieur Duval
cackled and chuckled with great enjoyment for some time. “By the way,”
he continued, “I expect her and my daughter to call for me on their way
from a dinner, and they will be here before long. Monsieur Fontaine,
will you oblige me by telling the porter to direct them to wait awhile
in case I should not be quite ready to go?”
Monsieur Duval had an object in getting Fontaine out of the way, for
the moment the door closed upon him, he drew his chair up to Marsac’s,
and began very seriously, and mopping his forehead in his anxiety: “You
know, Monsieur Marsac, I have always thought extremely well of Monsieur
Fontaine; and now that he has come into a snug fortune, I should not
mind if he--if my daughter--” Here Monsieur Duval winked, and Marsac
grinned appreciatively.
“I understand perfectly,” answered Marsac.
“About ten millions, I hear,” remarked Monsieur Duval, in a whisper.
“Oh, no, no!” replied Marsac, deprecatingly. “That is a gross
exaggeration. I give you my word, Monsieur Duval, it is nothing like
that. I know more about the matter than anybody except Fontaine, and I
assure you that it is but two millions.”
“And how do you think Monsieur Fontaine feels toward my daughter?”
Marsac knitted his brows thoughtfully. “I really don’t know,” he said
at last; “I have never heard Fontaine mention Mademoiselle Claire
except in general terms; but I know she is a very charming girl, and
any man might be glad and proud to have her. But, Monsieur Duval,” said
Marsac, confidentially, “you have no idea how the poor fellow has been
persecuted with propositions of the sort since his Uncle Maurice’s
death. At the club the dukes and marquises are sometimes four deep
around him, all with an eye on having him for a son-in-law; and as for
the widows, the poor fellow has had to insure his life against their
eating him up.”
This whetted old Duval’s desire considerably. Marsac, seeing this, kept
on.
“Now, here is a letter from the Prince de Landais,” taking up Landais’s
bill,--“I assure you, neither of us knows the man except in a business
way--and here he writes, not only wanting Fontaine to marry his
daughter, but actually asking for money in advance,--about six hundred
and seventy-five francs,--and he takes the tone of a person already
entitled to it!”
“A wretched, aristocratic pauper!” cried old Duval, indignantly.
“At least, the man who marries my Claire will not have a worthless
father-in-law, like this Prince de Landais, to prey upon him!”
“And here is a letter from Madame Schmid, or rather the Baroness
Schmid,”--Marsac made this addition, seeing how quickly Monsieur Duval
had jumped at every title he had named. “She is very particular about
her title, because she has just got one. This woman is a great swell,
but a rude, coarse creature, old enough to be Fontaine’s mother, and
was once a washerwoman, I am told. By the way,”--here Marsac put his
mouth to old Duval’s ear,--“she comes to this apartment in pursuit of
him! He keeps out of her way, refuses to answer her letters, and then
she pursues him here! She was in this room when you were announced
below, and it was with the greatest difficulty we got her out. She is
in the corridor still, I believe.”
Marsac rose, and taking the old brewer by the hand, they tipped to the
corridor door. Monsieur Duval knelt down, and through the keyhole saw
Madame Schmid rampaging up and down the corridor like a caged lioness.
[Illustration]
“Great heavens!” whispered old Duval, “no one can blame Monsieur
Fontaine from running away from such a woman!”
Scarcely were the words out of his mouth, when, Madame Schmid making
a lunge at the door, it flew open, knocking Monsieur Duval sprawling.
Madame Schmid dashed in, walking over the prostrate Monsieur Duval as
if he had been a frog, and began to harangue Marsac violently, swinging
her arms about like a Dutch windmill.
“Oh, you deceiver! I know it isn’t worth while to do anything with
Monsieur Fontaine,--you have him under your thumb; but I will bring
you both to terms, that I promise you. And where has Monsieur Fontaine
gone? You have spirited him out of the way,--I know it; you do it every
time I come!”
Marsac’s only reply was to catch her round the waist, and say
soothingly, as he dragged her back to the door, “My dear girl, you will
certainly ruin Fontaine’s reputation if you act in this manner.”
“I don’t care a fig for my reputation,” bawled Madame Schmid,--“it is
money I am after; and money I mean to have, out of Monsieur Fontaine!”
Marsac managed to get her outside the door, which he took the
precaution to lock behind her, and said as he stepped back into the
room, “That’s a sample of what poor Fontaine has had to put up with
since he came into his money. And there is another one--a widow--who is
worse than all.”
“Oh, Jupiter!” was Monsieur Duval’s exclamation, as he picked himself
up off the floor, and dusted his knees and elbows.
“A very handsome woman, a comtesse,--the Comtesse de Fleury. She
got a written promise out of Fontaine, in a moment of weakness--you
understand?”
“Yes--a widow and a moment of weakness! I understand,” said the old
brewer, feelingly.
“It isn’t of the slightest legal value, though, as I can testify that
it was obtained under duress; and Fontaine would give half he is worth
to get rid of her.”
As Marsac said this about the written agreement, he could not help
wishing, with all his heart, that he had it that moment in his
possession.
Monsieur Duval reflected seriously for some minutes before speaking.
“I acknowledge to you,” he said, “that I regard a widow in an affair
of this sort as a person to be reckoned with; and it is I who tell
you so, and I have a head on my shoulders. Now, I hear you have great
influence with Monsieur Fontaine--”
“Not a particle,” Marsac protested vigorously.
“Nonsense! You are trying to fool me! But I will say this to you.
Taking into account my daughter’s fancy for your friend Fontaine, and
his good character and his good birth and his fortune, if you can bring
about an--arrangement--you understand--it will be for the happiness of
the young people.”
“I would do anything for Fontaine’s happiness,” said Marsac.
“Then, couldn’t you--ahem--the widow--Now, you are yourself a very
attractive fellow. Perhaps the widow might make an exchange?”
“Take me, do you mean? My dear sir, I would do anything on earth for
Fontaine but one; and that is, to get married.”
“Ha! ha! That’s the way Delphine talks.”
“I haven’t the remotest idea how to make an offer. It would be like a
horse trying to play the fiddle.”
“Oh, well, you need not mind about that, with a widow. She will do the
business for you.”
“She shall not have a chance, if I can help it--that is,” stammered
Marsac, as he recollected that Madame Fleury had already proposed to
him. “To be very confidential, this particular widow has--er--before
entangling Fontaine--in an interview with me--” Marsac stopped,
blushing; and Monsieur Duval, closing one eye, playfully poked him in
the ribs.
[Illustration]
“My dear young friend,” said he, with an air of superior wisdom,
“she did not want you very much, else she would have had you. Even
I have had to use all my astuteness to keep from being gobbled up by
widows. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty where widows are
concerned. But if you won’t listen to my proposition in that respect,
I am sure you will to one upon another subject. I intend, next month,
reorganising my breweries into a stock company, and I have positive
assurances that the shares will command a premium. If you and your
friend Fontaine can raise ten thousand francs within the next week, I
can let you in on the ground floor; and within three weeks you will
make fifty thousand francs each.”
“You shall have my cheque to-morrow morning,” promptly answered Marsac,
who had not a sou to his credit or in hand.
Old Duval then began to examine the room. The supper-table seemed to
strike him favourably, but the room did not. “It seems to me,” he
said, “that--ahem--your friend might have better quarters. This is
pretty high up.”
“Yes,” answered Marsac, “but we remain here on account of the widow,
the Comtesse de Fleury; and our surroundings are more valuable than you
think, perhaps. We have been collectors in our time, I assure you. Do
you see that sofa?”
“Yes,” said Monsieur Duval, punching the poor old sofa; “but it’s
moth-eaten. It ought to be mended here.”
“It would be sacrilege to touch that sofa. It belonged to Peter the
Great. He made that hole in it. I forget exactly what we paid for it,
but it is insured for forty thousand francs.”
Monsieur Duval’s mouth came wide open with surprise.
“And this mirror,” kept on Marsac, pursuing his advantage. “It is
cracked--but by whom? By Madame Pompadour. One day, the King was very
disobliging to her, and she flew into a passion. She picked up a--”
Here Marsac halted, but his eye travelling round the room fell on their
rusty bellows; he resumed glibly: “She picked up a pair of bellows, and
threw them at the King. His Majesty dodged, and smash went the bellows
against the mirror,--and here are the veritable bellows. The mirror and
bellows are worth, together, about twenty-five thousand francs.”
Old Duval examined them with the highest respect. “I see,” said he,
“they are immensely valuable.”
“And do you see this violin?” Marsac handed the old brewer the violin.
“Ah!” cried Monsieur Duval, delighted to show he knew something about
violins, “a Stradivarius, perhaps?”
“My dear sir,” said Marsac, in a tone of pity, “that violin was old
when Stradivarius was young. It is the identical instrument that Nero
fiddled on when Rome was burning!”
This reduced Monsieur Duval to an amazed silence, during which they
heard laughter and voices on the stairs, and the door opened, admitting
Fontaine and two remarkably pretty girls.
[Illustration]
“Dear papa!” cried one of them, “just as we got to the door the wheel
came off the carriage, and the coachman had to go to a stable after
another carriage--and Monsieur Fontaine brought us up here.”
“Quite right,” replied Monsieur Duval, looking fondly at his daughter.
“You know Monsieur Marsac; but I must present him to _you_, Delphine.
Oh, you two should get on famously,--you are both such haters of
marriage!”
The instant Marsac’s eyes lighted on Delphine, he felt a singular
sensation. She was slight and tall, with a patrician beauty of face
and figure, and an air of self-possession second only to Madame
Fleury’s. Delphine, too, felt an instant attraction toward Marsac, with
his bright eyes, his alert look of intelligence, and his gentlemanly
figure. This perception of Marsac’s charm caused her to say lightly,
yet with a faint blush,--
“I am not exactly a hater of marriage. I only regard it as a primitive
and somewhat unintelligent arrangement.”
The effect of these few words from the lips of a woman he had seen but
sixty seconds, produced a strange effect on Marsac. He felt a slight
chill of disappointment; but he answered in his old strain, “Just what
I have often longed to say, Mademoiselle, but never had the courage.”
“But I have,” remarked Delphine, showing her beautiful teeth in
a smile. “Women, you know, have much more real courage than men.
Especially is this true in times of great calamity.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Marsac, with energy. “I have often noticed, at
the wedding ceremony, the bride is always much more composed than the
groom.”
Being launched into the discussion, Delphine’s next blow at the
masculine sex was this: “One phase of the question has frequently
occurred to me. Does the higher education unfit men for marriage?”
Marsac shook his head, unable to find an answer to this proposition,
which he frankly acknowledged had never before presented itself to him.
Fontaine and Claire had listened to this in silence, but the furtive
looks exchanged between them showed a silent protest against it, and
also a very deep interest in each other. Old Duval laughed at the
discussion between Marsac and Delphine, and then they gathered round
the table to have a glass of champagne while waiting for the carriage.
Both the young men urged Monsieur Duval and the young ladies to
partake of what Marsac called their frugal supper, and Monsieur Duval
chuckled at the idea of such frugality, while declining it.
[Illustration]
The young people talked gaily together while sipping champagne, and
blessed the coachman for taking so long to bring another carriage.
Marsac and Delphine seemed to find it impossible to get away from the
question of marriage, albeit they tried to outdo each other in railing
at it. Delphine declared that a woman should keep her eyes open at
the moment of marrying even the best of men, and Marsac recommended
that she should keep her eyes half shut ever afterward. Claire charmed
Fontaine by saying sweetly, after this,--
“I should scorn to watch the man I married. I should want to have every
confidence in him.”
“Then, Mademoiselle, you would need to kill him immediately after the
ceremony,” counselled Marsac.
Then the conversation turned on Uncle Maurice. Marsac and Fontaine
had a number of ready-made anecdotes respecting the old man and his
honourable career in New York, which they told with gravity and
effect. Marsac declared that he felt like going in mourning himself,
so grateful was he for what Uncle Maurice had done for Fontaine;
while Fontaine, with perfect truth, said that he thought more of his
Uncle Maurice than of any relative he had in the world. Every moment
passed in one another’s society drew these four young hearts closer
together,--Fontaine and Claire willingly, and Marsac and Delphine
loudly protesting and abusing the emotions which, just born in their
hearts, yet grew like Jonah’s gourd.
At last, however, this accidental half-hour--which brought so much
happiness to Fontaine and Claire, and turned the world topsy-turvy for
Marsac and Delphine--came to an end. The carriage was reported, the
Duval party rose to go, after the two young men had reiterated their
promise to dine on the Saturday at Passy, old Duval saying,--
“Of course, it is most kind of you to come to us, with all your
engagements with marshals and dukes and princes; but,” with a
significant look at Marsac, “some of those titled people you want to
keep at long range.”
“Especially the Prince de Landais and the Baroness Schmid,” boldly
responded Marsac.
The door was open, and the Duvals were going out after saying good-bye
for the tenth time, when the two young men saw coming up the stairs the
compact figure and shrewd face of Maurepas, their editor-in-chief. He
met old Duval face to face on the landing.
“Delighted to see you, Monsieur Duval,” cried Maurepas. “I was going to
see you to-morrow; but if you will pardon a busy man for introducing
business, just let me ask you to give me the refusal of that villa you
have at Melun until I can get to see you.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but it is the day after the ball. I have just
in effect sold it to Monsieur Fontaine,” replied Monsieur Duval, going
on downstairs.
Maurepas entered the room with the air of a chagrined man, and throwing
down his hat, said crossly,--
“So, Fontaine, that newspaper story is true, and you have come into a
great fortune?”
“Not so very great,” answered Fontaine, modestly,--“only a couple of
million francs.”
“Oh, Lord!” sniffed Maurepas, “how our ideas have expanded! Well, I am
glad your old uncle cut up so handsomely.”
“Monsieur Maurepas,” said Marsac, severely, “I beg you will at least
respect Fontaine’s mourning attire. It is exceedingly painful to us to
have Monsieur Maurice Fontaine’s death alluded to in that flippant and
heartless manner.”
Monsieur Maurepas sniffed louder than ever, but did not pursue the
objectionable subject. “Well,” he said, “I suppose Fontaine will give
up journalism now?”
“I don’t know,” responded Fontaine, dubiously; “I always liked my
profession.”
“In that case,” replied Maurepas, “I will make you an offer. I know
what you can do.”
Fontaine could not forbear remarking, “You used to say I couldn’t do
anything!”
“My dear fellow,” answered Maurepas, coolly, “that was before you were
talked about. Now, as the most talked-about young man in Paris, your
name is worth something to a newspaper, even if your ideas are not. I
will make you this proposition. If you will give ‘La Lune’ three signed
articles a week, of a thousand words each, I will give you five hundred
francs a week. I make but one stipulation,--your name must be signed to
them, but Marsac must write them.”
Fontaine hesitated for a moment, but Marsac answered for him: “Done!”
“And another thing. There is to be a great journalists’ dinner given
on the 17th, and I want you, when called upon, to make a speech in the
name of the younger members of the staff of ‘La Lune.’”
“I couldn’t! I wouldn’t! I never made a speech in my life.”
“But you could. What’s the matter with Marsac composing the speech, and
your delivering it?”
“None in the world,” answered Marsac, laughing. “So you can put him
down for the 17th.”
“And now about the Melun villa,” continued Maurepas, after making a
memorandum in his note-book. “I dare not go home to my wife without the
promise of that place. I told her I would see Monsieur Duval to-day,
but I forgot it. I don’t know what you paid for it, but I will give you
a hundred thousand francs for it.”
The prospect of making a clear ten thousand francs delighted Fontaine
so that he could not speak for a moment,--when, catching Marsac’s eye
fixed upon him, he understood the signal, and gave an evasive answer,
which Maurepas pooh-poohed. Marsac then interfered.
“The fact is,” he said, with his most candid manner, “I am against you
there, Monsieur Maurepas. I want Fontaine to keep the villa. He wants
to buy a great hotel on the Avenue de l’Alma for seven hundred and
fifty thousand francs. I tell him it is much too expensive for him, and
I don’t think his Uncle Maurice would have approved of it.”
Fontaine had never heard of the Avenue de l’Alma house, but he assented
promptly. Maurepas, however, being intensely anxious for the villa,
cut short the discussion about the Avenue de l’Alma house by offering
one hundred and ten thousand francs for the villa. Fontaine, dying
to accept, glanced at Marsac, who began to whistle softly. Maurepas,
growing more eager, jumped his bid immediately to one hundred and
twenty thousand francs. Fontaine thought Marsac crazy, when he rose,
buttoned his coat, and said,--
“Pray excuse us, Monsieur Maurepas. We have an engagement at a little
supper to-night at the Archbishop’s,--quite an informal little affair.”
[Illustration]
“A hundred and thirty thousand francs!” cried Maurepas. “I am a great
fool; but--”
Marsac handed Fontaine’s crape-covered hat to him.
“A hundred and forty thousand for the villa, and may the devil take
it!” said Maurepas, in desperation.
“No!” joyfully shouted Fontaine, who saw acquiescence in Marsac’s eye.
“I’ll take it!”
“Make one condition, my dear fellow,” said Marsac, earnestly, to
Fontaine. “If you will be such a fool as to sell the villa, make
Monsieur Maurepas promise you not to mention the price to Monsieur
Duval. The old gentleman thought he was selling it to you for a mere
song, and he will never forgive you if he finds out you re-sold it
immediately at so small an advance.”
“Yes, yes,” said Fontaine; and Maurepas, who was making out a little
memorandum of the transaction, added readily,--
“Yes, yes. I will not mention it.”
“Stop,” cried Marsac. “It would be as well to tell Monsieur Duval that
Fontaine got a large advance on it. That will reconcile old Duval to
his selling it.”
“I’ll tell the old fellow anything you like. Only sign this little
memorandum, Fontaine, and you can pass the papers over directly to me
as soon as you get them. And if you will take a cheque to bind the
bargain--”
Fontaine could scarcely refrain from embracing the editor on the spot,
but obeying a telegraphic signal from Marsac, he merely said, “If it
is any inconvenience to you--”
“It is not the slightest; and it will please my wife to know it is
settled,” answered Maurepas, taking out a cheque-book and rapidly
writing a cheque for twenty thousand francs.
[Illustration]
In ten minutes the informal but binding agreement was made and signed,
and Maurepas took his departure.
Fontaine and Marsac, left alone, sat looking intently at each other,
simply stunned by their good fortune. Marsac, finding words unable
to express his rapture, turned a double handspring over the sofa,
when Fontaine, rushing up to him, hugged and kissed him violently.
After this, they stood grasping each other for five minutes in silent
rapture, when Marsac’s countenance, losing its blissful expression,
became suddenly grave.
“Fontaine, this is glorious; but tell me one thing. What is that
singular sensation which I felt the instant my eyes rested on Delphine?
I feel it now. It is most peculiar and penetrating, and, although
agitating, not unpleasant.”
“Love, you idiot!”
“You alarm me,” said Marsac, anxiously. “Tell me it is something
less dangerous, -- locomotor ataxia or paresis: I have been told the
symptoms are somewhat alike.”
“I tell you that you are in love with Delphine, just as I am in love
with my sweet Claire; and you need not fight and struggle against it.
Love is lord of all. No man has lived until he has loved.”
“But is there no way out of love? A course of Plato and a low diet--”
“Not a particle of good!”
Marsac relapsed into gloom, until Fontaine, whacking him on the back,
cried exultingly,--
“Think, Marsac, twenty thousand francs in hand; thirty thousand more
coming; forty thousand francs profit each from the brewery shares we
can now buy; a thousand francs for a picture; a play placed; clothes
enough for two years,--hurrah for Uncle Maurice!”
“Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! for Uncle Maurice!” shouted Marsac, capering
wildly about.
Fontaine ran and opened the closet door to let out the two
ballet-girls, who had gone to sleep. He pulled them out, and began
dancing gaily with them; while Marsac, finding Madame Schmid at the
keyhole listening, dragged her in out of the corridor, and seizing her
round the waist, began to waltz furiously, both of them hurrahing for
Uncle Maurice at the top of their lungs, and singing doggerel verses
made up as they danced, and all ending with a joyous refrain of,--
“Houp-là! for Uncle Maurice!”
[Illustration]
Chapter III
The dinner at Passy resulted in several things. Fontaine and Claire
could no longer conceal their infatuation with each other, and a tacit
engagement ensued, to be announced as soon as Fontaine could free
himself wholly from Madame Fleury,--which meant, as soon as she gave up
the pursuit of him.
[Illustration]
The two friends had escaped from under the roof of 17 Rue Montignal
by the exercise of an ingenuity akin to that which enables men to dig
under castle walls, to steal past sentries, and to find their way
over prison gates. They secretly hired another lodging, and, to avoid
suspicion, made no move toward paying their rent to Madame Fleury, in
spite of their coming into ready money. This apparent absence of cash
led her to believe, more than ever, that the story of the rich uncle
was an invention of Marsac’s. They had little to move, except their new
clothes and Uncle Maurice’s portrait. For a week before their flight,
every day they came downstairs whistling, and wearing two and sometimes
three suits of clothes, which they shed, as a snake sheds his skin, at
their new lodgings. At last, in the dead of night, they crept softly
out of their apartment, leaving on the table a note addressed to Madame
Fleury, enclosing the full amount of their indebtedness; and stealing
downstairs,--Marsac with his violin case, and Fontaine with Uncle
Maurice’s portrait,--they gained the street, where they ran as if
Satan were after them.
Madame Fleury’s chagrin next morning was excessive, particularly
when she read the note, in which Marsac thanked her ironically for
her hospitality to them. She had not the smallest clew to their
whereabouts, but she went to work quietly to find them out. Meanwhile,
Marsac and Fontaine, having her out of sight, were not disposed to
trouble themselves further about her; but old Duval naturally wished
his daughter to avoid any scandal which might arise over the affair,
and was very solicitous that Madame Fleury be settled with. “Let
sleeping dogs lie,” was Marsac’s motto; and he was not inclined to hunt
up Madame Fleury in order to get a formal release from her.
Meanwhile, the catastrophe indicated at the very first meeting between
Marsac and Delphine had fallen out in the most violent manner. They
fell mutually in love, with a precipitance to which even Claire and
Fontaine’s ardour was not a patch. But although there was disaffection
in the citadel of both their hearts, pride and policy made a brave show
of defence when really each only waited the demand from the other to
surrender. Marsac dared not propose to Delphine that to secure himself
the charm of her society he enslave her in marriage. To ward off the
suspicions which might arise in her mind from the sly jokes and hints
of the two confessed lovers, he gibed at marriage more keenly than
ever. Delphine, who was not a whit behind Marsac in falling in love,
scorned to be outdone, and railed at love and marriage, quoted Plato
and Nordau, and made herself miserable in a manner truly feminine.
Old Duval was bent on the match between his daughter and Fontaine,--the
more so, as Marsac informed him confidentially that Fontaine had two
more uncles in America, and an aged and infirm aunt, all of whom
intended to make him their heir, and each of whom was over eighty
years of age.
The two young men were much at Passy, and the invitations elsewhere
which they had once been forced to invent now really existed. The
whole face of existence, indeed, was changed for them,--for Marsac
as for Fontaine. Fontaine had always thought Marsac the cleverest
fellow in the world, and he now ranked him with Napoleon and Alexander
the Great. The play had been produced, and was immensely successful;
the picture had been exhibited, and highly praised; while at the
journalists’ dinner, Marsac’s speech delivered by Fontaine had marked
Fontaine forever as a born after-dinner speaker and a man of _esprit_.
This last reputation was amply confirmed by the brilliant articles,
signed by Fontaine and written by Marsac, which sparkled three times
a week upon the pages of “La Lune.” In short, it appeared as if the
mere report of a fortune of two million francs was enough to produce
two million francs. But the real fact was that Marsac, hitherto an
unappreciated genius, had risen to the great occasion offered him, and
his success was not that of a charlatan. It was that of a man of parts,
accomplishments, and that large generosity which does a good thing and
troubles not that the world gives the credit to some one else. And as
everybody believed in the defunct Uncle Maurice, Fontaine and Marsac
actually seemed to be deceived by their own illusion, and would talk
quite gravely between themselves of Uncle Maurice,--his tastes, his
habits, and his appearance. As for the real Uncle Maurice, nothing
more had been heard of him, and the two young men easily persuaded
themselves that nothing would. In any event, they did not intend to
cross the bridge until they came to it; and some of the advantages
gained by the fictitious uncle were of so solid a nature that even if
Uncle Maurice turned up, he could not rob them of the entire fruits of
their scheme.
One bright evening early in May, they had dined at Passy, and after
dinner sat, with the two girls and old Duval, on the terrace. The
evening was warm for the season, and coffee was served out of doors.
After a while Delphine, who carried a volume of Plato about with her as
her oriflamme of battle, asked Marsac to read something to them from
the great philosopher. This Marsac promptly agreed to, if Delphine
would hold a candle,--which would be necessary in the fading light.
As it brought Delphine’s golden head quite close to Marsac’s closely
cropped brown one, she consented willingly. Old Duval, who had but a
poor opinion of Plato, sauntered off to the other end of the terrace,
close by the hedge which overlooked the high-road. A table with
coffee, iced champagne, and cigars mitigated his solitude. Afar off
in the dark illumined by the wax candle which looked like a firefly,
Marsac read Plato aloud, with assent on his lips and contradiction in
his heart. Fontaine and Claire, exchanging laughing glances, varied
by an occasional tender pressure of the hands, half listened; while
Delphine, happy to be near Marsac, and smiling at him, yet cherished
bitterness against him in her heart for his professed disdain of love.
[Illustration]
Presently Monsieur Duval was heard calling, “Monsieur Marsac!” Marsac,
to whom Plato had become well-nigh intolerable, laid the book down with
a vicious slam, and walked to the other end of the terrace, where they
were almost out of sight and hearing.
“Come,” said the old man, good-humouredly, “haven’t you had enough of
that old fool Plato?”
“My dear Monsieur Duval, you horrify me, you pain me!” responded
Marsac, in a shocked voice. “Plato--the divine Plato--may go to the
devil,” was his inward conclusion.
“Well, well,” continued Monsieur Duval, “we won’t say anything more
on the subject, since you and Delphine are so touchy about it. Take a
glass of champagne,--you like it?”
“I am not afraid of it,” said Marsac, pouring out a glass.
Monsieur Duval sighed, fidgeted, and then burst out with, “Do you know,
I am afraid--I am afraid I have been to blame in letting my daughter
and Monsieur Fontaine see so much of each other, while matters are
still so uncertain about the Comtesse de Fleury; for I see the two
young people are deeply in love with each other. Now,” he continued,
with a smile, “there is no such danger for you and Delphine, for I
believe you talk about nothing except the folly of loving and being
loved.”
“True,” responded Marsac, gloomily, and trying to drown in champagne
the resentment he felt at the scurvy trick which fate had played him.
“Monsieur Fontaine is a very gifted young fellow,” said Monsieur Duval.
“He is,” replied Marsac, with enthusiasm.
“That picture he painted--”
“Admirable!”
“I have no objections to a man’s knowing something about art, if he
can sell his pictures,” said Monsieur Duval, with cautious praise.
“There was--ahem--Michael Angelo, for example--”
“Michael Angelo was a devil of a fellow with a brush and a paint-pot;
but the man who painted Fontaine’s picture wasn’t far behind him.”
“And that play?”
“Literally, a screaming success. The women are carried out in hysterics
at every performance. One of them, we hoped, would die from excitement.
It would have been worth five thousand francs’ advertising. But,
unfortunately, she recovered just when our prospects seemed brightest.”
“And the speech at the journalists’ dinner--”
“The greatest effort of my--I mean, of Fontaine’s life.”
“Those signed articles are making a sensation.”
“Ah, yes; many a night have I sat up writing--that is, reading those
articles. Depend upon it, the things that go under Fontaine’s name are
very remarkable.”
At that moment a footman approached, and handed Marsac a card, saying,
“The lady asked for Monsieur Fontaine.”
Marsac was about to hand the card back, when he happened to see on it
“Madame Fleury.”
“Stop!” he cried instantly; “give me a moment to think. Monsieur Duval,
here is the Comtesse de Fleury come after Fontaine! She must not see
him!”
Monsieur Duval jumped up, flurried, and anxious to be out of the way
at the coming scene. “Good heavens! Let me get away. I must keep my
poor child out of sight. And Fontaine--” Monsieur Duval waddled off,
making remarkably good time for a gentleman of his years, but returned
to say impressively, “Take care she doesn’t bamboozle you. You need
two pairs of eyes to watch, and four legs to run away, where a widow is
concerned;” and then he disappeared.
“Show the lady here,” said Marsac, with assumed calmness, and at the
same time taking another glass of champagne to steady his nerves.
In a minute or two he saw Madame Fleury’s imposing figure advancing
along the gravelled walk, and then she had mounted the terrace steps
and was gliding over the velvet turf toward him. As usual, she was
perfectly well dressed. Her bonnet was set on her head with the grace
of a coronet. In one hand she carried a parasol, and in the other a
silver card-case. Marsac advanced politely to meet her, and the two
exchanged bows, as pugilists shake hands on entering the ring.
Madame Fleury lost no time in proceeding to business. “Monsieur Marsac,
I have been at a great deal of trouble to find you; but, as you see,
I have succeeded. I wish to see Monsieur Fontaine in regard to the
engagement between us.”
“Is there an engagement between you?” asked Marsac, innocently. “Of
what nature, may I ask?”
Madame Fleury smiled scornfully at Marsac’s pretended ignorance. “If it
be true that he has come into a fortune, then I am the more determined
that our contract shall be fulfilled on the 15th of this month. I
acknowledge, though, that I have not yet been able to persuade myself
fully of this old uncle’s death, or even of his previous existence,
because _you_ have had too much to do with the affair.”
“This, indeed, is humiliating,” said Marsac, with an offended air.
“But, Madame, uncle or no uncle, let me beg of you to give up this
pursuit of Fontaine. He loves another woman,--perhaps not so beautiful
or attractive as you, but still he loves her. I can invent some
plausible story to account for your coming here. I will introduce
Monsieur Duval to you; he will, I guarantee, offer to send you back to
Paris in a superb victoria.”
“No, I thank you.”
“In a brougham, then. The brougham is very handsome. I will also
introduce you as the Comtesse de Fleury--think of that!--coming from
Paris as Madame Fleury in a cab, returning as the Comtesse de Fleury in
a splendid private carriage!”
Madame Fleury only laughed a little at this. “I know what your offers
to serve me mean, and also how much good-will you owe me.”
“Do you doubt, Madame, that I have the very highest regard for you? Try
me. There is, just behind the house, a well sixty feet deep, and the
water of an icy coldness. Just you jump in, and see how quickly I will
jump in after you to save you.”
Madame Fleury laughed more than ever as she declined this, and said
banteringly, “How could I believe you, considering that when I made
you an offer you refused me?”
“Oh, Madame Fleury!” cried Marsac, actually hanging his head,
“surely I said my affections were engaged--or--or I asked time for
consideration--or I was too young to marry--or something of the sort.
I did not put it in that brutally frank fashion in which you represent
me.”
[Illustration]
“Yes, you did,” replied Madame Fleury. “But I like your proposition
that I shall meet Monsieur Duval. I know a good deal about him and
his family, but I have never seen him, and this is an admirable
opportunity.”
The world called Marsac a clever man, but at that moment he felt
himself to be the greatest lunkhead in existence. What had he mentioned
old Duval’s name for? And at that very moment the old brewer’s
curiosity having got the better of his cowardice, he was seen advancing
across the terrace. There was no help for it; and Marsac, with a very
bad grace, had to present him to the widow.
Madame Fleury was a perfect mistress of the art of coquetry as applied
to elderly gentlemen. She turned her eyes upon Monsieur Duval with a
melting glance that would have put a younger man on his guard. Not so
Monsieur Duval. It had been a long time since a woman so young and
handsome had made eyes at him, and he relished it exceedingly. All his
precautions against widows were thrown to the four winds of heaven.
Marsac almost groaned aloud as he saw, in five minutes’ talk, the widow
sailing into the old fellow’s good graces. Monsieur Duval offered
Madame Fleury a glass of champagne; and when the two sat down together
on a rustic bench, Marsac was so overcome with chagrin at the chance
he had given his enemy that he turned his back and walked toward the
edge of the terrace.
Madame Fleury improved her opportunity. She drew closer to Monsieur
Duval, and from tapping his hand gently with her card-case soon grew
to letting her hand rest on his, while she poured into his ears the
story of her alleged engagement to Fontaine. According to her account,
Fontaine had pursued her, and by his importunity had made her consent
to an engagement, which he now refused to fulfil. Her desire for a
settlement of the question was simply to avoid scandal; and she dwelt
so upon the impossibility of her feeling any affection for so young a
man as Fontaine, and the chance she sacrificed of meeting a man old
enough to please her, that old Duval began seriously to fear that his
own age--sixty-seven--was callow and immature.
After fifteen minutes of this had gone on, Marsac turned round and
glanced at the pair. It was still light enough to see. Madame Fleury
had reached the weeping stage. Her left hand pressed a handkerchief to
her eyes, while Monsieur Duval patting her right was saying tenderly,--
“There, there, don’t cry.”
[Illustration]
“Ah, if one has a heart, one must suffer,” murmured Madame Fleury, with
a beautiful little sob, and pressing a lace-trimmed handkerchief to her
eyes. “And I have a heart too impulsive, a nature too unsophisticated.”
“I see it, I know it,” was old Duval’s fervent answer. “It is that
charming simplicity, that inability to take care of your dear little
self, that wins upon me.”
“I am so weak,” whispered Madame Fleury, squeezing his hand. “Pray,
forgive me. You are so good--I know you are so good.”
“Yes, yes, I’ll forgive you,” Marsac heard old Duval answer, although
what he was forgiving her he could not have told to save his life; “and
it is a thousand shames that any man should cause that innocent little
heart of yours to ache. Now, wouldn’t it be better for all parties if
you and Fontaine could separate amicably? And then you might find some
other man that you could love.” Old Duval, at this, stuck his head
sentimentally on one side.
“A mature man, Monsieur Duval,” said Madame Fleury, wiping her eyes.
“I have had enough of young men. It is impossible for me to feel a
passionate regard for any man under sixty-five, at the least.”
At this, old Duval assumed a seraphic air, which fairly made Marsac,
who could see it all, perfectly ill with disgust. Nevertheless,
knowing that Madame Fleury and her victim both wished him out of the
way, he continued to stand his ground stoutly, walking up and down
and whistling loudly and contemptuously, as their voices sank to the
sentimental pitch. Presently he saw Madame Fleury take carefully out
of her card-case a folded slip of paper, which she read in a low voice
to the old brewer. Marsac’s heart jumped into his mouth at the thought
that it was the marriage contract she was reading.
Monsieur Duval kept looking toward Marsac with the evident desire to
get rid of him. Presently he rose and walked over to where Marsac
stood, and began to whisper in an embarrassed manner,--
“I say, Monsieur Marsac--pray pardon me for asking--would
you--er--ah--be kind enough to tell me--excuse me for inquiring--”
Here the old fellow burst out explosively: “What the devil are you
sticking here for?”
“Because,” answered Marsac, “I thought you would like the protection of
my presence, under the circumstances.”
“Well--I don’t.”
“And then, it occurred to me that you had once suggested I should
myself make an offer to Madame Fleury. The lady is here; also the moon,
nightingales, flowers, and other incentives to romance.”
“I withdraw that suggestion, Monsieur Marsac.”
“I have not asked to have it withdrawn, Monsieur Duval.”
“O-o-o-h!” groaned old Duval. Then, suddenly, the absurdity of Marsac’s
making love to any woman overcame him, and he burst out, laughing:
“This tickles me under the fifth rib! Delphine must know it.”
It was now Marsac’s turn to be chagrined.
“My dear sir,” he cried, “I beg of you not to mention it to
Mademoiselle Delphine. It was a mere idle remark. As you have
frequently heard me say, my ideal of a woman is a Platonist. I would
not marry any other, and no Platonist would marry me; so you perceive
the utter baselessness of my language.”
“I do,” answered old Duval, looking much relieved, “and I hope you’ll
stick to it. Now, I’ll return to that poor woman yonder;” which he
immediately proceeded to do. Within two minutes he said in a loud
voice, meant for Marsac to hear, “Come, Madame, let us look for
Fontaine in the garden.”
The two walked off, round the corner of the terrace, in a direction
opposite to the garden.
[Illustration]
Marsac knew in an instant that Madame Fleury’s manœuvre meant a chance
to finish up old Duval in private, as a tigress drags her prey off
to the jungle to devour. Marsac then looked carefully around him, and
seeing that he was quite unobserved, he took from his pocket the copy
of Plato out of which he had been reading to Delphine, and giving the
book a vicious kick, sent it spinning to the other end of the terrace.
“Villain,” “scoundrel,” “dolt,” “rascal,” “idiot,” were a few of the
expletives that he hurled after the greatest of the Greeks. Then he
walked over to the corner of the terrace where the table was, as the
best point to command a view of the grounds, and seeing a champagne
bottle half emptied was about to drink the balance of the wine in order
to save it, when his eye suddenly fell upon a paper lying face upward
on the table. It was the contract between Fontaine and Madame Fleury.
Marsac could scarcely restrain a shout of joy. He seized it and put
it in his pocket; but the next moment he saw Madame Fleury crossing
swiftly toward him, and alone.
“Pardon me,” she said in a voice that she tried unavailingly to make
calm. “I had a letter here a moment ago, in an envelope. I put the
envelope back in my card-case, and thought I had the letter in it, but
I have not. Did you see it on the ground anywhere about here?”
“No, Madame,” answered Marsac, looking her steadily in the eye,--a gaze
which she as steadily returned.
Madame Fleury began eagerly searching on the ground for the letter,
Marsac politely assisting, and lighting matches from time to time to
supply the fast-vanishing light. Marsac never had so hard a task in
his life as to keep his countenance straight while he fondled the
breast-pocket in which lay the document that Madame Fleury searched for
so eagerly.
Madame Fleury grew more and more anxious as she failed to find the
paper. They were both tired with stooping, and presently sat down on
the ground, facing each other, and each steadily eying the other.
[Illustration]
“It is so vexatious to lose a letter,” said Madame Fleury.
“Yes; one might lose a love-letter,” hazarded Marsac.
“Not you, Monsieur Marsac,” replied Madame Fleury, sarcastically.
“True; I am not a widow,” was Marsac’s response to this shot.
Then they both began crawling round again, watching each other like
cats. An idea came into Marsac’s head which almost made him laugh
aloud. With a great show of secrecy, he took an old bill of Landais’s
from his pocket, and began to tear it up into little bits, which he
scattered about. Madame Fleury saw the bits, and with as much secrecy
as Marsac she began to collect them, smiling to herself: she was
convinced that Marsac was tearing up the contract. Presently, Marsac
lighting another match dropped it, as if by accident, upon a little
pile of these pieces of paper. Madame Fleury pretended to stumble
against him, nearly knocking him over, and then deftly secured the
half-burned scraps. They each sat on the ground and surveyed the other
with an air of triumph.
“Never mind about the letter,” said Madame Fleury with a brilliant
smile, clutching her precious scraps in her gloved hand; and then they
both laughed.
Madame Fleury rose, and shaking her skirts into place, said, “I have
not seen Monsieur Fontaine; but I am not ill-satisfied with my visit.”
“May I have the pleasure of escorting you to your carriage?” asked
Marsac.
“No, no!” cried Madame Fleury, hastily; “I have promised Monsieur Duval
that he shall put me in the carriage.”
A grinding of wheels on the roadway beneath them and behind the tall
hedge was now heard, and Madame Fleury flew down the terrace steps
as lightly as the swallow skims the ground; and then Marsac heard
a vehicle rattle off. He could hardly wait until the carriage was
half-way down the drive before shouting in his delight for Fontaine.
But Fontaine and Claire and Delphine were all peeping round the
verandah; and seeing that Madame Fleury was gone, all three came
trooping toward Marsac.
“My dear fellow,” cried Marsac, in a tone of suppressed rapture, as he
took out the contract, “here is that cursed paper. She has gone off
with a lot of half-burned scraps of an old bill of Landais’s which she
thinks is this contract.”
Fontaine, without a word, hugged Marsac according to custom; and Claire
showed such an evident inclination to do the same that Marsac gave her
a truly brotherly embrace, to which Fontaine made no objection.
“Here,” Marsac said, tearing the paper, “is half of it for you,
Fontaine, and dear Claire; the other half is for Mademoiselle Delphine
and me. And,” he added timidly, “we will have a marriage contract
between us.”
“To be destroyed,” answered Delphine, supplying what she supposed
Marsac meant.
[Illustration]
Then, with laughter and little jokes, and blushes on Claire’s part, the
contract was destroyed. Never were four persons merrier, until Claire
suddenly asked,--
“Where is papa?”
At that moment Marsac happened to glance toward the high-road that
crossed a hill about a mile off. The sunset glow was still upon the
hill, and Marsac’s keen eyes recognised Monsieur Duval’s victoria, with
Madame Fleury in it; and that stout figure in nankeen trousers and
gaiters, with the Panama hat on his lap, could be no other than old
Duval. The situation flashed upon them. Madame Fleury had bamboozled
the old man into taking her back to town in one of his own carriages.
Marsac could only point in silent consternation to the carriage. The
two girls burst into hysterical tears. Marsac, throwing himself into
a chair, groaned aloud; while Fontaine alone, although pretending to
be grieved, felt perfectly willing to get rid of Madame Fleury at
any price, even by presenting her with the head of his prospective
father-in-law on a charger,--after the manner of Herodias, another
enterprising would-be widow of a good many years ago.
[Illustration]
Chapter IV
Some weeks now passed, but not in the happiness which might have been
expected when it was at least certain that Fontaine and Claire could
freely love each other. Old Duval had returned late, the night he had
driven with Madame Fleury to Paris, and his conduct since had been such
as to make his family miserable. Under pretence of having some repairs
made in the Passy villa, he had brought them all back to Paris in the
heats of May; and it was tolerably certain that this move was in order
to be nearer Madame Fleury. Claire was wretched at this idea; and
although, being a timid girl, she dared not question her father, she
had every reason to suspect his infatuation for the widow who had come
so near wrecking Fontaine’s life.
As for Fontaine, although he daily and hourly got the benefit of his
reputed two millions, all the money he made went like wildfire in
the effort to keep up the delusion of a great fortune. He spent his
principal, and the world thought he was spending his income. Besides,
he feared seriously the effect his deception might have upon Claire
when she found it out,--which she must, sometime or other. Then he
began to have a morbid apprehension of the real Uncle Maurice turning
up; and last and worst of all, he was now saddled with a reputation for
brilliancy founded upon the play, the speech, and the picture,--all
Marsac’s work, which had been ably sustained by the series of powerful
articles signed by him and written by Marsac,--which was simply
maddening. Fontaine, who was of an extremely honest and simple nature,
suffered agonies from this false reputation; but the embarrassed manner
and sickly smile with which he received compliments on his achievements
was taken for modesty; and he passed, therefore, as the most modest as
well as the most gifted young man in Paris.
As for Marsac and Delphine, they were tormented in a hell of their own
making. Each profoundly in love with the other, and each smarting under
the supposed contempt of the other, they grew sharper in their attacks
on love and marriage, and suffered accordingly.
One morning, Marsac happening to go to Monsieur Duval’s quite
early,--for they were now upon the most intimate terms at the
house,--he found Fontaine sitting alone in a little drawing-room
which communicated with the conservatory and overlooked the trees and
fountains in the Luxembourg gardens. The morning papers lay on a table
before him; but Fontaine, sunk in a deep armchair, was a picture of
misery. Marsac, seeing Fontaine’s gloomy mood, began jovially and
jauntily,--
“I say, old man, what a good time you must have had last night!”
[Illustration]
“Why?” asked Fontaine, sulkily.
“Because you are so blue this morning.”
“You would be blue too, in my place,” answered Fontaine, sullenly.
“Here I am, spending every franc I make in the pretence of a fortune I
haven’t got; and when I tell the truth to Claire, whom I love from the
bottom of my heart, she will hate me for the fraud I have practised
upon her.”
This view had not occurred so forcibly to Marsac before. He took a turn
about the room, and then said in an agitated voice, “Is it possible
that Uncle Maurice was not a happy invention?”
“Happy invention! Damn Uncle Maurice!” almost shouted Fontaine, burying
his head in the pillows of the great chair. “Marsac, you are the best
fellow in the world; but you have been just a little too clever this
time. Besides giving me a fictitious fortune, you have made me out to
be the most brilliant man in Paris; and I can tell you it is simply
killing me, trying to live up to the character. If that picture hadn’t
been so deuced good; if that speech hadn’t been so devilish funny; if
that play hadn’t been so damnably bright,--ah, hell and all its furies!”
Fontaine rolled about his chair in anguish, while Marsac sat silent and
appalled at the result of his own ingenuity.
“And,” cried Fontaine, desperately, dashing his hand to his forehead,
“suppose that infernal old Uncle Maurice of mine should turn up from
America?”
“No, no!” said Marsac, “that is impossible. No, no, fate has not such a
cruel blow in store for us. It is just as rational to suppose that the
other uncles and aunts I gave you should materialise and come to life
in Paris--”
[Illustration]
A knock at the door startled them both. It was an ordinary enough
knock, such as might precede a footman or a tradesman; but to Marsac
and Fontaine, whose nerves had been a good deal wrought upon in the
last few exciting months, it sounded like the crack of doom. Both
of them sat with pale faces, and neither could say the ordinary
words, “Come in.” But the person knocking came in, after a moment.
He was a little old man, a shabby little old man, clutching a rusty
travelling-bag in his trembling hands. He stood in the centre of the
room, looking about awkwardly and timidly. Marsac felt as if he were
frozen to his chair. His tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and
he could feel his hair rising on his head. Not Frankenstein, when his
monster came to life, could have felt more horror. Fontaine, with one
wild look, seemed inspired with the motion that was denied Marsac, and
darted into the conservatory.
The old man advanced, still holding on to his shabby bag. “I am told,”
he said hesitatingly, “that this is the house of Monsieur Duval, and
I would find my nephew, Monsieur Auguste Fontaine, here. The lackeys
below didn’t want to let me up: I suppose I am not so well dressed as
I ought to be. I am Auguste’s uncle, just from America. I am Monsieur
Maurice Fontaine.”
Had the arch-fiend appeared in person, with a tail and hoofs and horns,
and said calmly, “I am Beelzebub, Prince of Darkness, just from Hades,”
he could not have disconcerted Marsac more. He rose to his feet, but
found himself incapable of speech.
This, then, was Uncle Maurice! Like the foolish man who let the genie
out of the trunk, the apparition had grown and grown, until it was
now unmanageable. And here was the substance, the actual man of that
figment of Marsac’s imagination; here was Uncle Maurice! Marsac felt a
singular kind of acquaintanceship and even kinship with Uncle Maurice;
and through it all he had a dim sensation of pity for the poor old
man standing there, holding on apparently to all his few worldly
possessions, and looking so deprecating, so apologetic, so blankly
disappointed.
Uncle Maurice began to speak again, trying to smile, but his eyes
meanwhile filling with tears. “Perhaps I counted too much on this
home-coming; and--and--it’s ridiculous, you know, for a poor old man to
expect a very warm welcome. I haven’t had a single hand held out to me
yet, since I landed.”
A wave of pity swept over Marsac. Terrible as this _dénouement_ was,
wreck and havoc as it made, the old man’s disappointment touched him;
and Marsac had one of the best hearts in the world.
“My dear Monsieur Fontaine,” he said, advancing, and trying to speak in
a natural voice, “you shall not say that again. Here is my hand, and
I guarantee that Fontaine, who is my best friend, my brother in fact,
will not fail to welcome you. I have often heard him speak of you, and
in the kindest terms.”
“Did he?” asked the old man, delightedly grasping Marsac’s hand. “That
was good of the boy! I dare say he heard that false report that I was
dead.”
“He did,” answered Marsac, “and he put on mourning for you, and did not
go into society for several weeks.”
That seemed to overjoy the poor old man. “Good lad, good fellow! I’ll
not forget that. There’s no such proof of real respect. And you--What
is your name, may I ask?”
“Marsac,--and at your service.”
“Well, Monsieur Marsac, since you are so kind, tell me more about my
nephew. You know he is my only near living relative.”
“He is a noble fellow; and he is engaged to be married to the daughter
of the owner of this house,--a lovely girl, Mademoiselle Claire Duval.”
The old man seated himself, and with his precious bag between his knees
drank in eagerly Marsac’s every word. Marsac saw the advisability of
preparing Monsieur Maurice Fontaine for the state of affairs that he
must presently find out.
“When Fontaine went in mourning for you--which I am glad to see there
was no occasion for--”
“And I am glad too. Go on--”
“Some miscreant started the report that you had left him a fortune.
It got into the newspapers, and everybody believed it,--even Claire.
Fontaine--foolishly, I think--did not confide to her frankly how it
was; and he was telling me just now his distress at having to confess
his deception to Claire. She is a sweet girl, though, and I believe his
confession will not alter her affection in the least. I will go and
fetch Fontaine.”
Marsac went into the conservatory. There stood Fontaine, as white as a
sheet, and wild-eyed.
“Come in and see your uncle,” whispered Marsac.
“I can’t--I won’t,” answered Fontaine, desperately.
“But you must. The best and only thing now is to face the music. And,
besides, you would feel sympathy for the old man,--he is so humble, so
gentle, and seems so grateful for even the small kindness I have shown
him.”
“He has wrecked my life,” was Fontaine’s angry reply.
“Rubbish! you are twenty times better off for him. Come along;” and
Fontaine never having resisted Marsac in his life could not do so now,
and went obediently into the drawing-room to greet affectionately the
man whose very existence he conceived was utterly disastrous to him.
Uncle Maurice was charmed with the reception he got from Fontaine,
and immediately began joking him about Claire. “And she thought you
had a rich old uncle who had died and left you a fortune--ha! ha!” he
chuckled. “Well, perhaps, after all, you will be just as happy when the
truth is known.”
Fontaine could scarcely stand this; but luckily Uncle Maurice concluded
he would make himself a little presentable before being introduced to
Claire.
“I have some better clothes than these,” he said apologetically,
“though I haven’t them in my bag with me.”
“Never mind,” said Marsac, cordially; “go to our quarters, just around
the corner; here are my keys. Get anything you want,--linen, cigars,
liqueurs,--and come back very soon, so we can present you to Claire and
her cousin Delphine. We will wait for you here.”
“Let me assist you,” said Fontaine, trying to take the old bag.
“No, no, no!” cried Uncle Maurice, determinedly; “I’ve got to hold on
to that,--it has all my little savings in it.” And the old man went
off, promising to return in half an hour.
Left alone, Marsac and Fontaine avoided each other’s gaze, and said not
a word. Language could not express the depth, the height, the breadth
of the catastrophe that had befallen them. Yet they were undeniably
better off than if Uncle Maurice had never lived. After a long and
painful pause, Marsac spoke.
“You must confess at once to Claire; and I don’t believe it will change
her affection for you.”
[Illustration]
Fontaine had no time to reply, for at that moment Claire and Delphine
entered the room together. It was plain that they were distressed
about something, and Delphine’s first words were,--
“We are in very great trouble.”
“All is not bright for us, either,” gloomily replied Marsac.
“Ours is a very real trouble,” began Claire, half crying. “We have
found out that papa spends half his time with Madame Fleury. He writes
to her, and to-day came a bill for thirty bouquets in three weeks for
her. If he should marry her--oh, the thought is too dreadful!” and
Claire burst into tears.
Fontaine took her hand tenderly, and led her into the conservatory.
Marsac and Delphine were now left alone. Marsac for once was completely
unnerved, but he managed to hide it from Delphine.
“What do you suppose Auguste and Claire find to say to each other in
these tremendously long private interviews?” she asked, wishing from
the bottom of her heart that Marsac would show some inclination toward
long private interviews with her. “I have a great mind to interrupt
this one.”
“Pray, don’t,” cried Marsac, eagerly; and then with a sickly attempt at
a return to his old manner, he said, “Let them be happy while they can.
Soon they will be married, and then--”
A dismal shaking of the head finished the sentence.
Every word went like a knife to Delphine’s tortured heart; but not to
be outdone, she flippantly replied, “As far as those two go, Plato
might never have lived, and Socrates might never have died!”
Now, for a long time, ever since Marsac had known and loved Delphine,
the name of Plato had become peculiarly odious to him. He considered
that a large part of the misery he was enduring was directly to be laid
at the door of that philosopher, and he had often ardently wished
to himself that Plato and not Socrates had been forced to drink the
hemlock. He could not forbear saying bitterly,--
“Do you know, Mademoiselle, there are persons who loathe and hate and
despise and revile and scorn and contemn the divine Plato?”
Marsac’s tone of ineffable disgust when he said “divine” might have
enlightened Delphine; but it did not. “I am afraid our two friends in
the conservatory do not appreciate him,” she answered, smiling. “I dare
say Claire is asking Auguste the very same question that Eve asked Adam
in the Garden of Eden,--is she the only woman he has ever loved?”
It occurred to Marsac that it would be well to prepare Delphine for
what Fontaine actually was revealing at that moment; so drawing his
chair nearer, he said confidentially, “Mademoiselle, I can tell you
exactly what they are talking about at this moment. What would you
think if I were to tell you that Fontaine’s Uncle Maurice was not dead,
after all, but has just arrived at our lodgings, and will very soon
present himself in this room?”
Delphine’s mouth came open with astonishment, and her first question
when she had recovered from the shock of her surprise was, “And how
about the fortune?”
Marsac shook his head lugubriously. “I can tell you nothing. That
fortune is involved in the deepest mystery. There are indications of a
plot the most extraordinary you can conceive. I know nothing, except
that Monsieur Maurice Fontaine is alive, and is in Paris, and will be
here shortly.” And then, to divert her from so perilous a subject, he
said, “But we are consumed with anxiety regarding Monsieur Duval and
the Comtesse de Fleury. It will be terrible for you and Claire if she
succeeds in capturing Monsieur Duval.”
Delphine’s answer was artfully contrived: “If that dreadful woman
should succeed in marrying my uncle, this could no longer be a home for
me.”
Here was an opportunity at once for Marsac to declare himself, if
he had a spark of tenderness for her. The tenderness, amounting to
adoration, was there; but Marsac--the ready, the witty, the glib, the
daring--was silent and abashed in the presence of the master-passion.
His silence, which was really one of deep emotion, was naturally
misunderstood by Delphine. Just as he had nerved himself to take what
he thought a desperate chance, by telling her of his love, her face
hardened, she deliberately turned her back to him, and picking up some
fancy-work on the table, seated herself at it.
There was nothing left for Marsac but the newspaper which Fontaine had
dropped. He took it, and for half an hour no sound was heard except
the rattle of the sheets as they were turned. Delphine stitched in
silent anger and disappointment.
It seemed fated that all the persons whom Marsac and Fontaine
particularly did not wish to see at M. Duval’s house should turn up
that morning, for within five minutes of Marsac’s and Delphine’s latest
misunderstanding a footman appeared to announce another startling
arrival. The man usually maintained the stolid countenance of his
tribe, but on this occasion he wore a grin like a rat-trap. “M’sieu
Marsac,” he said, almost laughing in Marsac’s gloomy face, “here’s
a--person--”
“A _lady_, if you please,” proclaimed a loud voice, as Madame Schmid
marched in, shoving the footman unceremoniously out of the way.
Poor Marsac’s nerves were sufficiently unstrung by Uncle Maurice’s
arrival, and Madame Schmid’s seemed likely to finish him. But she was
such a good-hearted creature, and in spite of having, figuratively,
dragged Fontaine and himself around by the hair of their heads, had
washed and scrubbed for them so faithfully, that Marsac could not find
it in his heart to receive her coldly. As for Madame Schmid, Marsac’s
delightful impudence had won its way into her honest heart, and she had
come to do him a great service. Her errand not being a professional
one, she wore a gorgeous red bonnet, all flowers; a green mantle, all
spangles; a purple gown, all stripes; and, with a yellow parasol,
looked something like a bird of paradise.
“Here you are,” she cried, a broad smile on her handsome face. “Just as
impudent as ever, I warrant. If I get out of this room without being
kissed--”
Delphine, looking on in amazement, became pale at this; while Marsac
turned blue in the face.
“I perceive I am in the way,” murmured Delphine, in a scarcely audible
voice, and made for the door.
“Mademoiselle--I implore--” Marsac got this far when Delphine slammed
the door in his face.
“Is the young lady jealous?” asked Madame Schmid, delightedly.
“I am afraid not,” was Marsac’s dejected reply.
“Well, M’sieu,” began Madame Schmid, with an air of importance, “I have
come to tell you and that pretty boy Fontaine something you will like
to hear. In the first place, Madame Fleury is coming here this morning.”
“Charming! Ha! ha! Fontaine will be rapturously happy.”
“Wait a minute. Don’t laugh in that dismal manner. She is determined,
of course, to marry M. Duval; but she thinks, by coming to this
house, she can force Fontaine to give her money rather than betray
her presence to his _fiancée_. Well, I found this out,--no matter
how,--and I said this morning to Fleury--”
“To Fleury!”
“To Fleury. He is no more dead than you or I. He has been living at my
house for a month past. I said, ‘I won’t keep your secret any longer.
I’ll tell your wife that you are alive.’ Oh, he cried like a baby at
that.”
Marsac seized her hands, and could only cry breathlessly, “Go on! go
on!”
“It was this way. About a month ago Fleury came walking into my place
and asked for lodgings. I said, ‘Why, you were drowned.’ He said, ‘I
wasn’t.’ I said, ‘Your wife thinks so.’ He said, ‘I hope she will keep
on thinking so.’ I hadn’t the heart to betray the poor creature, so
I said nothing until I heard about this new move of his wife’s, but
then I determined to tell you; and I have him around the corner, in a
wine-shop, where he is crying and drinking; and you must come with me.”
Two minutes later Delphine saw, from an upper window, Madame Schmid
parading down the street, with Marsac gallantly holding the yellow
parasol over her red bonnet, and attending her as if she were a
duchess. That, then, was the woman Marsac loved!
Delphine, pale and agonised, returned to the drawing-room.
There came a rustle of draperies from the conservatory, and Claire
flitted in with Fontaine. One look at their happy faces told that Uncle
Maurice’s fortune had made no figure in their love affair.
“What do you think, Delphine,” asked Claire, with her hand still lying
in Fontaine’s,--“this foolish boy has not a fortune, after all; and he
has known it for some time, and dared not tell me. It seems that when
the report of his Uncle Maurice’s death came, some one started the
story in the newspapers about the fortune, and Auguste did not have
the nerve to contradict it. Besides, it might have been true, for he
had an Uncle Maurice in America. And this very morning Uncle Maurice
arrived in Paris, and was directed here to find Auguste. And Auguste
says the old man looks very poor and friendless, but cheery and glad
to get back to France; and dear, kind Monsieur Marsac was so good to
the old man, and made Auguste kind to him too. So he has gone to their
apartment to make ready to come and see us. I shall be just as nice to
him as I can be, and I shall make papa be the same.”
“Claire, you have the dearest heart in the world,” burst out Delphine,
generously forgetting her own misery; “and I love and respect you the
more for not caring whether Auguste has a fortune or not.”
“But with his talents,” answered Claire, proudly, “a fortune will be
his. We can live well enough on his pictures, his plays, and his
articles in the newspapers.”
Fontaine’s effort at a cheerful grin when this was said was piteous to
behold. Just then the footman again entered and handed him a card. One
look was enough. “It is Madame Fleury!” he cried. “Don’t let her up.”
But he was too late. Madame Fleury walked into the drawing-room on the
heels of her messenger and said to the servant, in an authoritative
manner, “Take my card to Monsieur Duval.”
Never had the gentle Claire showed haughtiness to any human creature
before; but when face to face with Madame Fleury, she drew her slight
figure up, and in a tone of quiet disdain said, “I think, Madame, that
I--my father’s daughter--have some rights in this house; and I forbid
my servant to take your card.”
“And I think,” suavely replied Madame Fleury, “that your father,
master of his house, has some rights here too; so--” A look at the
footman finished the sentence. The man went out with the card.
Claire, with a heightened colour, turned to Delphine, saying, “Shall we
withdraw?”
“By no means,” answered Delphine, coolly; “that would indeed be a
surrender.” They both therefore stood their ground.
Fontaine, who was glad to keep out of the mêlée, had prudently kept in
the background during this; but Madame Fleury would not let him rest
there.
“Monsieur Fontaine,” she asked in her smoothest voice, “do you remember
a certain document which we both signed, referring to the 15th of May?”
“I do, to my eternal sorrow,” was Fontaine’s reply; but before he
could say anything more, Monsieur Duval bustled in, looking flurried,
nervous, but elated with the elation of a stupid old man who finds
himself an object of interest to a handsome young woman.
“Good morning, Madame,” he cried. “I am delighted to see you.”
“It is more than your daughter and niece were,” answered Madame Fleury,
smiling.
“How is this?” sternly asked Monsieur Duval, wheeling around upon the
two girls. Claire, who dearly loved her father, could not utter a word;
but Delphine was equal to the situation.
“Of course we were not delighted to see her; and, uncle--pardon me--but
a man of your age should know better--”
“Monsieur Duval,” interrupted Madame Fleury, “your age is one of your
greatest charms in my eyes.”
“And yet,” coolly continued Delphine, “Monsieur Fontaine’s youth was no
objection to him. Anything between the cradle and the grave seems to
suit this--person.”
Monsieur Duval felt called upon to say reprovingly, “Delphine!” but the
next moment he weakened and muttered, “I wish Marsac were here. He is
the only one that can manage all of you!”
“I wish he were too,” said Madame Fleury. “I was just speaking of a
valuable paper I took with me to Passy that evening I was there. By
an unfortunate oversight on my part Monsieur Marsac got hold of it,
and tore it into bits, which he afterward tried to burn up. I saved
the scraps, but I was not able to put the charred pieces together.
Therefore I gave an expert one hundred and fifty francs to restore it.
He has just returned it to me, and I have not yet had a chance to open
it; but I will do it now, and I would like Monsieur Marsac to see how
much cleverer I am than he is.”
Madame Fleury produced an envelope from her card-case, tore it open,
and then stood petrified for a moment. “Why--it is--it is--” she
stammered.
“A bill of Landais the tailor,” maliciously put in Fontaine. “That is
what he tore up.”
[Illustration]
“And what you paid one hundred and fifty francs to have restored,”
Delphine chimed in.
“Madame Fleury,” said Fontaine, determinedly, “I have put up with this
hounding of me as long as I intend to. I shall to-day report it to the
police, and ask protection.”
Instead of flying into a rage at this, Madame Fleury executed a
masterly _coup_. Pressing her handkerchief to her eyes, she almost fell
upon old Duval’s shoulder, crying, “Monsieur Duval, will you stand by
and see me so affronted?”
“No, Madame Fleury,” sturdily answered Monsieur Duval, with his arm
half round her waist. “Never mind, Madame Fleury. If he reports you
to the police, Madame Fleury, he will have to reckon with me, Madame
Fleury. I know I’m old enough to be your father, but if you’ll marry
me, Madame Fleury, you’ll find me a great improvement on that rascally
count you married first; and you may be Madame Duval any day you like.”
At this a faint shriek burst from the two girls; and Fontaine, who
had not dreamed the old man capable of such folly, couldn’t repress
an exclamation. However, he took Claire’s hand, and said to her
tenderly,--
“Well, my dear one, the only thing for you to do now is to trust me,
and become my wife at the earliest moment possible.”
[Illustration]
Claire felt at that moment as if she had but one earthly dependence;
she clung to Fontaine, and weeping said, “I will marry you whenever you
like; for I cannot, and never will, countenance my father’s marriage to
this creature.”
“And even I would marry to escape living with this woman,” said
Delphine, in much agitation. “I would marry Monsieur Marsac, or commit
suicide even, rather than live in the house with her.”
Delphine was scarcely conscious of what she said, but a gleam of wicked
amusement in Madame Fleury’s eyes showed her that she had made a
dangerous slip.
Steps were heard outside in the hall as if of three or even four
persons; but when the door opened, only Marsac entered. He wore a
look of jaunty expectation, which seemed only to be increased by the
startling spectacle before him,--Madame Fleury holding on to Monsieur
Duval’s arm, the old man puffing, blowing, smiling, and frowning with
alternate spasms of rage and delight; Claire clinging to Fontaine and
in great distress; while Delphine, pale and defiant, stood alone in the
centre of the group. It was one of the most delicious moments of Madame
Fleury’s life.
When Marsac, raising his eyebrows, inquired, “What is this I see?”
Madame Fleury cut in before even Monsieur Duval could reply,--
“You see the betrothal between Monsieur Duval and me.”
Marsac’s wide, handsome mouth came open as if it were on hinges. His
enjoyment of the situation seemed intense; and Fontaine, Claire,
and Delphine were all astounded at his heartless amusement over a
catastrophe so ruinous to all of them. He only said, with a grin, after
surveying the scene for a minute or two,--
“And are you quite certain, Madame, of carrying out your plan?”
“Perfectly certain,” responded Monsieur Duval, pompously; “and she will
find her good old Duval a better husband than that rascally count she
married first and buried afterward.”
“But did she bury him?” asked Marsac, and paused to get the whole
effect of this. It was magical on Madame Fleury. She clenched her
teeth; her eyes flashed fire; but she held on stoutly to Monsieur
Duval, who grew white about the chops. Marsac, after coolly surveying
his audience, announced,--
“I have the honour of presenting to you Madame Fleury’s husband!”
With that, he threw the door open with a grand flourish, and in walked
one of the most weazened, cadaverous little men who ever stepped, and
behind him Madame Schmid’s rubicund countenance and rotund figure.
[Illustration]
Madame Fleury could not repress a cry of rage, and Monsieur Duval
dropped her arm as if it was red-hot. Fleury, who seemed not at all
abashed by his surroundings, looked calmly about. Monsieur Duval was
the first to recover his voice, and his disgusted exclamation was,--
“That creature a count!”
“I did not say he was a count,” corrected Marsac. “I merely said, by
way of making things agreeable, that Madame Fleury was a countess.”
Madame Fleury’s reply to this was one word, uttered in a tone of
concentrated hatred, “Wretch!”
“Is that all the thanks I get for restoring to you your long-lost
husband?” said Marsac in an injured voice. “Oh, the ingratitude that
is in this world!”
Fleury, meanwhile, seemed determined to assert himself. “I’m not a
count,” he said; “and that lady yonder,” indicating Madame Fleury,
“always turned up her nose at me; but I am not as insignificant as she
would have you believe. I have a standing offer from the medical school
of seventy-five francs for my skeleton as soon as I peg out.”
“I wish it were available at this moment,” cried Madame Fleury.
“There!” said Fleury, “I knew she wouldn’t be glad to see me; and I
told this gentleman so. But I don’t know that I am very glad to see
her. I haven’t had so peaceable and quiet a time since I was married as
when I was dead.”
Here Madame Schmid was bound to be heard; “I said to Fleury, said I--”
“Hold!” said old Duval, advancing, “I know this person. It is the
Baroness Schmid.”
“_Baroness_ Schmid! _Comte_ de Fleury! Oh, this is too comical!”
screamed Madame Schmid, laughing.
“Who wanted to marry Monsieur Fontaine,” continued old Duval,
determinedly.
“No, no!” cried Delphine, almost beside herself with jealousy. “She
wants to marry Monsieur Marsac.”
“_I_ want to marry that pretty boy, Fontaine!” bawled Madame Schmid,
finding her voice. “_I_ want to marry M’sieu Marsac! I want their
washing, that’s all. I’m a washerwoman.”
“Ladies and gentlemen,” implored Marsac, “all can be explained at a
future day; but the fact remains that this is Monsieur Fleury.”
Old Duval’s face was a study during this, and he began to stammer,
“I--I--don’t think we can be married, Madame.”
The hopelessness of her situation was plain to Madame Fleury. She
prepared to depart from the house she had intended to preside over. She
gave a glance of speechless contempt around the circle, including every
member of it, and ending at Fontaine, who had taken no part in the
_dénouement_, but had watched it in amazed but delighted silence.
“Monsieur Duval,” she said in a hard voice, “I am truly sorry I cannot
marry you. As for Monsieur Fontaine I would only have married him for
lack of something better. The indignation of the two young ladies
against me seemed wholly devised to marry themselves off. Mademoiselle
Claire at once announced her willingness to marry Monsieur Fontaine;
while Mademoiselle Delphine took occasion to say that she would marry
Monsieur Marsac or commit suicide,--each a terrible alternative. For
Monsieur Marsac, I can say that he has concocted and conducted the most
extraordinary fraud ever perpetrated upon you. I am firmly convinced
there never was an Uncle Maurice, and the story of his death and his
fortune was a pure invention of Marsac’s, from beginning to end.”
“The story of his death, I grant you, I was mistaken about,” blandly
responded Marsac; “but as to there being an Uncle Maurice--”
Marsac stepped to the door, opened it, and Uncle Maurice, evidently
bubbling over with delight, entered, still holding on to the seedy old
bag.
“Allow me,” said Marsac, with a low bow, “to present to you all, ladies
and gentlemen, Monsieur Maurice Fontaine, late of New York, and from
henceforth from Paris.”
Madame Fleury seemed literally stunned by the sight of the little old
man, who, without noticing the sensation made by his appearance, went
all round the circle, shaking hands, not forgetting Madame Fleury, who
gave him her hand like a woman in a nightmare, and then he asked,--
“Where is my little niece?”
Claire ran up to him, looked smilingly into his face and said, “Here I
am, Uncle Maurice!”
The old man’s gratification was touching. He kissed her cheek, he
patted her hair and stroked her hand again and again; but he never let
go of his bag. Monsieur Duval gazed mechanically at Uncle Maurice,
while Delphine’s cordiality was second only to Claire’s.
“Ah,” cried Uncle Maurice, beginning and shaking hands all round for
the second time, “you can’t imagine how kindly I was received by these
two fine fellows. They didn’t mind my shabby clothes; they treated me
nobly. I sha’n’t forget it, my lads.”
Madame Fleury at this found her tongue. “He doesn’t look as if his
acquaintance would be much of an acquisition to his family,” she said
scornfully.
“Eh?” asked Uncle Maurice, and he seemed stung by her remark. “Well,”
he continued with an unexpected twinkle in his eyes, “that’s as may be.
I have in this bag a million francs’ worth of United States government
bonds,--a part of what I made in that noble country. I intended some
of it for my nephew, provided he received me kindly. I am proud and
happy to say he did so, when he thought I hadn’t a decent coat to
my back; so I’ll give him--let me see--I might as well do the thing
handsomely--half a million francs, so he can get married.” He opened
the bag and took out a parcel. “Monsieur Duval, you are a man of
affairs; you know what these are.”
The sight of the securities seemed to wake Monsieur Duval up. He
examined the parcel carefully, while Fontaine brokenly expressed his
thanks, and Claire kissed the old man with tears in her eyes.
“And, Auguste,” she cried generously, “Monsieur Marsac must share in
our good fortune; you know he has shared everything with you.”
“Indeed he shall,” replied Fontaine, clasping Marsac’s hand.
“Perhaps you don’t know,” said Madame Fleury to Uncle Maurice, stopping
in a somewhat precipitate flight toward the door, “that it was that
Marsac who started the story of your giving Fontaine a fortune.”
“Did you then--ha! ha!” Uncle Maurice seemed tickled at the idea.
“Yes,” replied Marsac, modestly; “when it was reported that you were
dead, I determined to give Fontaine every franc of your fortune; and I
gave you, sir, a very good character besides. I endowed you with every
virtue of a man and a gentleman; and it seems I was clairvoyant.”
Uncle Maurice laughed excessively at this, and handing a smaller roll
out of the old bag to Marsac, he said: “Well, I would like to have you
for a nephew too, for you were no less kind than my nephew, and with
less obligation; so there is a hundred thousand francs for you,--a mere
nest-egg. A fellow as clever as you can always make his way in the
world.”
[Illustration]
Marsac was overwhelmed by the old man’s generosity; and the silence, as
he stood grasping Uncle Maurice’s hand, was only broken by the slamming
of the door as Madame Fleury rushed out, dragging the unhappy Fleury
after her. As Monsieur Duval watched her exit, he said slowly,--
“Perhaps it is better, after all, that I am not in Fleury’s shoes.”
“A great deal better,” remarked Uncle Maurice, solemnly; “she’s too
much for you, Monsieur Duval.”
This great truth seemed to strike the old brewer with much force; the
more so when Madame Schmid said, pointing after Fleury’s departing
figure: “That man weighed near two hundred pounds when he married that
woman, and I believe he has lost not less than a pound a day since that
time; and you see what he is now. Well, I must be going. M’sieu Marsac,
when you and that pretty young lady”--pointing to Delphine--“are
married, please to give me your washing. The same to you, M’sieu
Fontaine, and your young lady.”
Marsac was so embarrassed by this speech that he remained perfectly
silent; but Fontaine escorted Madame Schmid to the door with profuse
thanks.
Old Duval still seemed dazed about the dead and the living Uncle
Maurice. At every mention of the suppositious Uncle Maurice the real
one would shake with merriment.
“So Monsieur Marsac made up the yarn,” said Monsieur Duval, dubiously.
“The noble romance, you mean,” replied Marsac. “My invention of Uncle
Maurice ranks with Orestes, with Pantagruel, with Don Quixote, with all
those splendid creations of the imagination that are as real to us as
you, sir, are,” to Uncle Maurice. “I endowed you with every virtue, and
I find, happily, that I have only done you justice.” Marsac folded his
arms, and assumed a look of triumphant virtue.
“What a clever fellow! what a very clever fellow!” chuckled Uncle
Maurice, delightedly.
“And I also invented two other rich uncles and an aged and decrepit
aunt,--all of whom were to make Fontaine their heir,” added Marsac; at
which Uncle Maurice nearly went into convulsions of enjoyment.
“I used to think,” said Monsieur Duval, “that Monsieur Marsac with his
plays and his paint-pots and his writing and his fiddling was a great
fool, but I have changed my opinion.”
“A thousand thanks,” replied Marsac, with dignity,--“not only for
myself, but for all the other fools who write or paint or fiddle, and
thereby add to the gaiety of nations.”
“Well, well, well,” said Monsieur Duval, hastily, “let us sit down and
talk things over.”
So he and Uncle Maurice and Fontaine and Claire formed a group and
sat down. Delphine, who had taken but little part in the proceedings,
but whose heart had swelled at Marsac’s triumph, walked toward the
embrasure of a window. Marsac followed her. The curtain fell behind
them, and they were as much alone as if in another room. Outside the
window the fountains plashed in the May air; the day was all blue and
gold. The trees in the Luxembourg gardens rustled softly; it was a day
for making love.
Presently Marsac spoke timidly: “Mademoiselle, I recall some words
of that she-devil, Madame Fleury. She said you had declared you would
commit suicide, or--or--marry me, if--Tell me, what did you mean?”
“Just what I said,” answered Delphine, with a beautiful blush.
“Did you mean that either fate was equally dreadful?”
“No.”
“Or, perhaps, that--I have a second thought, but I am afraid to mention
it.”
“Second thoughts are always best,” demurely replied Delphine.
And then there was a scene that would have broken the heart of a
Platonist. A few murmured words, a hand-clasp--and Delphine lay in
Marsac’s arms. A bird was singing in a tree outside the window, and a
bird also sang in their two happy hearts.
So deep was their ecstasy that they did not hear steps approach, nor
the curtain softly drawn, and they were wakened from their dream in
Paradise by a shout of laughter. Fontaine and Claire, Uncle Maurice
and Monsieur Duval, were laughing uproariously, and gazing at the two
apostles of platonic love, the relentless enemies of matrimony,--Marsac
with his arm round Delphine’s waist, and his handsome head almost
touching her bright hair. Old Duval grunted out one word,--
“Plato!”
“Let Plato go to the devil!” cried Marsac. “If ever I meet the old
scoundrel on the other side of the Styx, I promise to kick him all over
the lower regions for having deprived me for one hour of the sweet
knowledge of Delphine’s love.”
“Hurrah!” cried Uncle Maurice. “To perdition with the rascal Plato!”
“He is there already, I hope,” shouted Fontaine, dancing in his
delight. “Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! Marsac loves and is beloved!”
“And I can tell you one thing,” interrupted Monsieur Duval, with
ponderous solemnity, “that Marsac is not such a fool after all!”
[Illustration]
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