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Other People's Money

by Emile Gaboriau · English · Gutenberg #1748 · 844,716 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Other People's Money

Author: Emile Gaboriau


        
Release date: May 1, 1999 [eBook #1748]
                Most recently updated: November 26, 2017

Language: English

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OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY

By Emile Gaboriau




PART I


I

There is not, perhaps, in all Paris, a quieter street than the Rue
St. Gilles in the Marais, within a step of the Place Royale.  No
carriages there; never a crowd.  Hardly is the silence broken by
the regulation drums of the Minims Barracks near by, by the chimes
of the Church of St. Louis, or by the joyous clamors of the pupils
of the Massin School during the hours of recreation.

At night, long before ten o’clock, and when the Boulevard
Beaumarchais is still full of life, activity, and noise, every thing
begins to close.  One by one the lights go out, and the great windows
with diminutive panes become dark.  And if, after midnight, some
belated citizen passes on his way home, he quickens his step, feeling
lonely and uneasy, and apprehensive of the reproaches of his
concierge, who is likely to ask him whence he may be coming at so
late an hour.

In such a street, every one knows each other: houses have no mystery;
families, no secrets,--a small town, where idle curiosity has always
a corner of the veil slyly raised, where gossip flourishes as rankly
as the grass on the street.

Thus on the afternoon of the 27th of April, 1872 (a Saturday), a fact
which anywhere else might have passed unnoticed was attracting
particular attention.

A man some thirty years of age, wearing the working livery of
servants of the upper class,--the long striped waistcoat with
sleeves, and the white linen apron,--was going from door to door.

“Who can the man be looking for?” wondered the idle neighbors,
closely watching his evolutions.

He was not looking for any one.  To such as he spoke to, he stated
that he had been sent by a cousin of his, an excellent cook, who,
before taking a place in the neighborhood, was anxious to have all
possible information on the subject of her prospective masters.  And
then, “Do you know M. Vincent Favoral?” he would ask.

Concierges and shop-keepers knew no one better; for it was more than
a quarter of a century before, that M. Vincent Favoral, the day after
his wedding, had come to settle in the Rue St. Gilles; and there
his two children were born,--his son M. Maxence, his daughter Mlle.
Gilberte.

He occupied the second story of the house.  No. 38,--one of those
old-fashioned dwellings, such as they build no more, since ground is
sold at twelve hundred francs the square metre; in which there is no
stinting of space.  The stairs, with wrought iron balusters, are wide
and easy, and the ceilings twelve feet high.

“Of course, we know M. Favoral,” answered every one to the servant’s
questions; “and, if there ever was an honest man, why, he is
certainly the one.  There is a man whom you could trust with your
funds, if you had any, without fear of his ever running off to
Belgium with them.”  And it was further explained, that M. Favoral
was chief cashier, and probably, also, one of the principal
stockholders, of the Mutual Credit Society, one of those admirable
financial institutions which have sprung up with the second empire,
and which had won at the bourse the first installment of their
capital, the very day that the game of the Coup d’Etat was being
played in the street.

“I know well enough the gentleman’s business,” remarked the servant;
“but what sort of a man is he?  That’s what my cousin would like to
know.”

The wine-man at No. 43, the oldest shop-keeper in the street, could
best answer.  A couple of petits-verres politely offered soon started
his tongue; and, whilst sipping his Cognac:

“M. Vincent Favoral,” he began, “is a man some fifty-two or three
years old, but who looks younger, not having a single gray hair.  He
is tall and thin, with neatly-trimmed whiskers, thin lips, and small
yellow eyes; not talkative.  It takes more ceremony to get a word
from his throat than a dollar from his pocket.  ‘Yes,’  ‘no,’
‘good-morning,’ ‘good-evening;’ that’s about the extent of his
conversation.  Summer and winter, he wears gray pantaloons, a long
frock-coat, laced shoes, and lisle-thread gloves.  ‘Pon my word, I
should say that he is still wearing the very same clothes I saw upon
his back for the first time in 1845, did I not know that he has two
full suits made every year by the concierge at No. 29, who is also a
tailor.”

“Why, he must be an old miser,” muttered the servant.

“He is above all peculiar,” continued the shop-keeper, “like most
men of figures, it seems.  His own life is ruled and regulated like
the pages of his ledger.  In the neighborhood they call him Old
Punctuality; and, when he passes through the Rue Turenne, the
merchants set their watches by him.  Rain or shine, every morning of
the year, on the stroke of nine, he appears at the door on the way
to his office.  When he returns, you may be sure it is between twenty
and twenty-five minutes past five.  At six he dines; at seven he goes
to play a game of dominoes at the Cafe Turc; at ten he comes home
and goes to bed; and, at the first stroke of eleven at the Church of
St. Louis, out goes his candle.”

“Hem!” grumbled the servant with a look of contempt, “the question
is, will my cousin be willing to live with a man who is a sort of
walking clock?”

“It isn’t always pleasant,” remarked the wine-man; “and the best
evidence is, that the son, M. Maxence, got tired of it.”

“He does not live with his parents any more?”

“He dines with them; but he has his own lodgings on the Boulevard du
Temple.  The falling-out made talk enough at the time; and some
people do say that M. Maxence is a worthless scamp, who leads a very
dissipated life; but I say that his father kept him too close.  The
boy is twenty-five, quite good looking, and has a very stylish
mistress: I have seen her. . . . I would have done just as he did.”

“And what about the daughter, Mlle. Gilberte?”

“She is not married yet, although she is past twenty, and pretty as
a rosebud.  After the war, her father tried to make her marry a
stock-broker, a stylish man who always came in a two-horse carriage;
but she refused him outright.  I should not be a bit surprised to
hear that she has some love-affair of her own.  I have noticed
lately a young gentleman about here who looks up quite suspiciously
when he goes by No. 38.”  The servant did not seem to find these
particulars very interesting.

“It’s the lady,” he said, “that my cousin would like to know most
about.”

“Naturally.  Well, you can safely tell her that she never will have
had a better mistress.  Poor Madame Favoral!  She must have had a
sweet time of it with her maniac of a husband!  But she is not young
any more; and people get accustomed to every thing, you know.  The
days when the weather is fine, I see her going by with her daughter
to the Place Royale for a walk.  That’s about their only amusement.”

“The mischief!” said the servant, laughing.  “If that is all, she
won’t ruin her husband, will she?”

“That is all,” continued the shop-keeper, “or rather, excuse me, no:
every Saturday, for many years, M. and Mme. Favoral receive a few
of their friends: M. and Mme. Desclavettes, retired dealers in
bronzes, Rue Turenne; M. Chapelain, the old lawyer from the Rue St.
Antoine, whose daughter is Mlle. Gilberte’s particular friend; M.
Desormeaux, head clerk in the Department of Justice; and three or
four others; and as this just happens to be Saturday--”

But here he stopped short, and pointing towards the street:

“Quick,” said he, “look!  Speaking of the--you know--It is twenty
minutes past five, there is M. Favoral coming home.”

It was, in fact, the cashier of the Mutual Credit Society, looking
very much indeed as the shop-keeper had described him.  Walking with
his head down, he seemed to be seeking upon the pavement the very
spot upon which he had set his foot in the morning, that he might set
it back again there in the evening.

With the same methodical step, he reached his house, walked up the
two pairs of stairs, and, taking out his pass-key, opened the door
of his apartment.

The dwelling was fit for the man; and every thing from the very hall,
betrayed his peculiarities.  There, evidently, every piece of
furniture must have its invariable place, every object its irrevocable
shelf or hook.  All around were evidences, if not exactly of poverty,
at least of small means, and of the artifices of a respectable
economy.  Cleanliness was carried to its utmost limits: every thing
shone.  Not a detail but betrayed the industrious hand of the
housekeeper, struggling to defend her furniture against the ravages
of time.  The velvet on the chairs was darned at the angles as with
the needle of a fairy.  Stitches of new worsted showed through the
faded designs on the hearth-rugs.  The curtains had been turned so
as to display their least worn side.

All the guests enumerated by the shop-keeper, and a few others
besides, were in the parlor when M. Favoral came in.  But, instead
of returning their greeting:

“Where is Maxence?” he inquired.

“I am expecting him, my dear,” said Mme. Favoral gently.

“Always behind time,” he scolded.  “It is too trifling.”

His daughter, Mlle. Gilberte, interrupted him:

“Where is my bouquet, father?” she asked.

M. Favoral stopped short, struck his forehead, and with the accent
of a man who reveals something incredible, prodigious, unheard of,

“Forgotten,” he answered, scanning the syllables: “I have for-got-ten
it.”

It was a fact.  Every Saturday, on his way home, he was in the habit
of stopping at the old woman’s shop in front of the Church of St.
Louis, and buying a bouquet for Mlle. Gilberte.  And to-day . . .

“Ah!  I catch you this time, father!” exclaimed the girl.

Meantime, Mme. Favoral, whispering to Mme. Desclavettes:

“Positively,” she said in a troubled voice, “something serious must
have happened to--my husband.  He to forget!  He to fail in one of
his habits!  It is the first time in twenty-six years.”

The appearance of Maxence at this moment prevented her from going on.
M. Favoral was about to administer a sound reprimand to his son, when
dinner was announced.

“Come,” exclaimed M. Chapelain, the old lawyer, the conciliating man
par excellence,--“come, let us to the table.”

They sat down.  But Mme. Favoral had scarcely helped the soup, when
the bell rang violently.  Almost at the same moment the servant
appeared, and announced:

“The Baron de Thaller!”

More pale than his napkin, the cashier stood up.  “The manager,” he
stammered, “the director of the Mutual Credit Society.”



II

Close upon the heels of the servant M. de Thaller came.

Tall, thin, stiff, he had a very small head, a flat face, pointed
nose, and long reddish whiskers, slightly shaded with silvery threads,
falling half-way down his chest.  Dressed in the latest style, he
wore a loose overcoat of rough material, pantaloons that spread
nearly to the tip of his boots, a wide shirt-collar turned over a
light cravat, on the bow of which shone a large diamond, and a tall
hat with rolled brims.  With a blinking glance, he made a rapid
estimate of the dining-room, the shabby furniture, and the guests
seated around the table.  Then, without even condescending to touch
his hat, with his large hand tightly fitted into a lavender glove,
in a brief and imperious tone, and with a slight accent which he
affirmed was the Alsatian accent:

“I must speak with you, Vincent,” said he to his cashier, “alone and
at once.”

M. Favoral made visible efforts to conceal his anxiety.  “You see,”
 he commenced, “we are dining with a few friends, and--”

“Do you wish me to speak in presence of everybody?” interrupted
harshly the manager of the Mutual Credit.

The cashier hesitated no longer.  Taking up a candle from the table,
he opened the door leading to the parlor, and, standing respectfully
to one side:

“Be kind enough to pass on, sir,” said he: “I follow you.”

And, at the moment of disappearing himself,

“Continue to dine without me,” said he to his guests, with a last
effort at self-control.  “I shall soon catch up with you.  This will
take but a moment.  Do not be uneasy in the least.”

They were not uneasy, but surprised, and, above all, shocked at the
manners of M. de Thaller.

“What a brute!” muttered Mme. Desclavettes.

M. Desormeaux, the head clerk at the Department of Justice, was an
old legitimist, much imbued with reactionary ideas.

“Such are our masters,” said he with a sneer, “the high barons of
financial feudality.  Ah! you are indignant at the arrogance of the
old aristocracy; well, on your knees, by Jupiter! on your face,
rather, before the golden crown on field of gules.”

No one replied: every one was trying his best to hear.

In the parlor, between M. Favoral and M. de Thaller, a discussion of
the utmost violence was evidently going on.  To seize the meaning
of it was not possible; and yet through the door, the upper panels of
which were of glass, fragments could be heard; and from time to time
such words distinctly reached the ear as dividend, stockholders,
deficit, millions, etc.

“What can it all mean? great heaven!” moaned Mme. Favoral.

Doubtless the two interlocutors, the director and the cashier, had
drawn nearer to the door of communication; for their voices, which
rose more and more, had now become quite distinct.

“It is an infamous trap!” M. Favoral was saying.  “I should have been
notified--”

“Come, come,” interrupted the other.  “Were you not fully warned? did
I ever conceal any thing from you?”

Fear, a fear vague still, and unexplained, was slowly taking
possession of the guests; and they remained motionless, their forks
in suspense, holding their breath.

“Never,” M. Favoral was repeating, stamping his foot so violently
that the partition shook,--“never, never!”

“And yet it must be,” declared M. de Thaller.  “It is the only, the
last resource.”

“And suppose I will not!”

“Your will has nothing to do with it now.  It is twenty years ago
that you might have willed, or not willed.  But listen to me, and
let us reason a little.”

Here M. de Thaller dropped his voice; and for some minutes nothing
was heard in the dining-room, except confused words, and
incomprehensible exclamations, until suddenly,

“That is ruin,” he resumed in a furious tone: “it is bankruptcy on
the last of the month.”

“Sir,” the cashier was replying,--“sir!”

“You are a forger, M. Vincent Favoral; you are a thief!”

Maxence leaped from his seat.

“I shall not permit my father to be thus insulted in his own house,”
 he exclaimed.

“Maxence,” begged Mme. Favoral, “my son!”

The old lawyer, M. Chapelain, held him by the arm; but he struggled
hard, and was about to burst into the parlor, when the door opened,
and the director of the Mutual Credit stepped out.

With a coolness quite remarkable after such a scene, he advanced
towards Mlle. Gilberte, and, in a tone of offensive protection,

“Your father is a wretch, mademoiselle,” he said; “and my duty should
be to surrender him at once into the hands of justice.  On account of
your worthy mother, however, of your father himself, above all, on
your own account, mademoiselle, I shall forbear doing so.  But let
him fly, let him disappear, and never more be heard from.”

He drew from his pocket a roll of bank-notes, and, throwing them upon
the table,

“Hand him this,” he added.  “Let him leave this very night.  The
police may have been notified.  There is a train for Brussels at
five minutes past eleven.”

And, having bowed, he withdrew, no one addressing him a single word,
so great was the astonishment of all the guests of this house,
heretofore so peaceful.

Overcome with stupor, Maxence had dropped upon his chair.  Mlle.
Gilberte alone retained some presence of mind.

“It is a shame,” she exclaimed, “for us to give up thus!  That man
is an impostor, a wretch; he lies!  Father, father!”

M. Favoral had not waited to be called, and was standing up against
the parlor-door, pale as death, and yet calm.

“Why attempt any explanations?” he said.  “The money is gone; and
appearances are against me.”

His wife had drawn near to him, and taken his hand.  “The misfortune
is immense,” she said, “but not irreparable.  We will sell everything
we have.”

“Have you not friends?  Are we not here,” insisted the others,--M.
Desclavettes, M. Desormeaux, and M. Chapelain.

Gently he pushed his wife aside, and coldly.

“All we had,” he said, “would be as a grain of sand in an ocean.
But we have no longer anything; we are ruined.”

“Ruined!” exclaimed M. Desormeaux,--“ruined!  And where are the
forty-five thousand francs I placed into your hands?”

He made no reply.

“And our hundred and twenty thousand francs?” groaned M. and Mme.
Desclavettes.

“And my sixty thousand francs?” shouted M. Chapelain, with a
blasphemous oath.

The cashier shrugged his shoulders.  “Lost,” he said, “irrevocably
lost!”

Then their rage exceeded all bounds.  Then they forgot that this
unfortunate man had been their friend for twenty years, that they
were his guests; and they commenced heaping upon him threats and
insults without name.

He did not even deign to defend himself.

“Go on,” he uttered, “go on.  When a poor dog, carried away by the
current, is drowning, men of heart cast stones at him from the bank.
Go on!”

“You should have told us that you speculated,” screamed M.
Desclavettes.

On hearing these words, he straightened himself up, and with a
gesture so terrible that the others stepped back frightened.

“What!” said he, in a tone of crushing irony, “it is this evening
only, that you discover that I speculated?  Kind friends!  Where,
then, and in whose pockets, did you suppose I was getting the
enormous interests I have been paying you for years?  Where have
you ever seen honest money, the money of labor, yield twelve or
fourteen per cent?  The money that yields thus is the money of the
gaming table, the money of the bourse.  Why did you bring me your
funds?  Because you were fully satisfied that I knew how to handle
the cards.  Ah!  If I was to tell you that I had doubled your capital,
you would not ask how I did it, nor whether I had stocked the cards.
You would virtuously pocket the money.  But I have lost: I am a
thief.  Well, so be it.  But, then, you are all my accomplices.  It
is the avidity of the dupes which induces the trickery of the
sharpers.”

Here he was interrupted by the servant coming in.  “Sir,” she
exclaimed excitedly, “O sir! the courtyard is full of police agents.
They are speaking to the concierge.  They are coming up stairs: I
hear them!”



III

According to the time and place where they are uttered, there are
words which acquire a terrible significance.  In this disordered
room, in the midst of these excited people, that word, the “police,”
 sounded like a thunderclap.

“Do not open,” Maxence ordered; “do not open, however they may ring
or knock.  Let them burst the door first.”

The very excess of her fright restored to Mme. Favoral a portion of
her energy.  Throwing herself before her husband as if to protect
him, as if to defend him,

“They are coming to arrest you, Vincent,” she exclaimed.  “They are
coming; don’t you hear them?”

He remained motionless, his feet seemingly riveted to the floor.

“That is as I expected,” he said.

And with the accent of the wretch who sees all hope vanish, and who
utterly gives up all struggle,

“Be it so,” he said.  “Let them arrest me, and let all be over at once.
I have had enough anxiety, enough unbearable alternatives.  I am tired
always to feign, to deceive, and to lie.  Let them arrest me!  Any
misfortune will be smaller in reality than the horrors of uncertainty.
I have nothing more to fear now.  For the first time in many years I
shall sleep to-night.”

He did not notice the sinister expression of his guests.  “You think
I am a thief,” he added: “well, be satisfied, justice shall be done.”

But he attributed to them sentiments which were no longer theirs.
They had forgotten their anger, and their bitter resentment for their
lost money.

The imminence of the peril awoke suddenly in their souls the
memories of the past, and that strong affection which comes from
long habit, and a constant exchange of services rendered.  Whatever
M. Favoral might have done, they only saw in him now the friend, the
host whose bread they had broken together more than a hundred times,
the man whose probity, up to this fatal night, had remained far
above suspicion.

Pale, excited, they crowded around him.

“Have you lost your mind?” spoke M. Desormeaux.  “Are you going to
wait to be arrested, thrown into prison, dragged into a criminal
court?”

He shook his head, and in a tone of idiotic obstinacy,

“Have I not told you,” he repeated, “that every thing is against me?
Let them come; let them do what they please with me.”

“And your wife,” insisted M. Chapelain, the old lawyer, “and your
children!”

“Will they be any the less dishonored if I am condemned by default?”

Wild with grief, Mme. Favoral was wringing her hands.

“Vincent,” she murmured, “in the name of Heaven spare us the
harrowing agony to have you in prison.”

Obstinately he remained silent.  His daughter, Mlle. Gilberte,
dropped upon her knees before him, and, joining her hands:

“I beseech you, father,” she begged.

He shuddered all over.  An unspeakable expression of suffering and
anguish contracted his features; and, speaking in a scarcely
intelligible voice:

“Ah! you are cruelly protracting my agony,” he stammered.  “What
do you ask of me?”

“You must fly,” declared M. Desclavettes.

“Which way?  How?  Do you not think that every precaution has been
taken, that every issue is closely watched?”

Maxence interrupted him with a gesture:

“The windows in sister’s room, father,” said he, “open upon the
courtyard of the adjoining house.”

“Yes; but here we are up two pairs of stairs.”

“No matter: I have a way.”

And turning towards his sister:

“Come, Gilberte,” went on the young man, “give me a light, and let
me have some sheets.”

They went out hurriedly.  Mme. Favoral felt a gleam of hope.

“We are saved!” she said.

“Saved!” repeated the cashier mechanically.  “Yes; for I guess
Maxence’s idea.  But we must have an understanding.  Where will you
take refuge?”

“How can I tell?”

“There is a train at five minutes past eleven,” remarked M.
Desormeaux.  “Don’t let us forget that.”

“But money will be required to leave by that train,” interrupted the
old lawyer.  “Fortunately, I have some.”

And, forgetting his hundred and sixty thousand francs lost, he took
out his pocket-book.  Mme. Favoral stopped him.  “We have more than
we need,” said she.

She took from the table, and held out to her husband, the roll of
bank notes which the director of the Mutual Credit Society had thrown
down before going.

He refused them with a gesture of rage.

“Rather starve to death!” he exclaimed.  “‘Tis he, ‘tis that wretch--”
 But he interrupted himself, and more gently:

“Put away those bank-bills,” said he to his wife, “and let Maxence
take them back to M. de Thaller to-morrow.”

The bell rang violently.

“The police!” groaned Mme. Desclavettes, who seemed on the point of
fainting away.

“I am going to negotiate,” said M. Desormeaux.  “Fly, Vincent: do
not lose a minute.”

And he ran to the front-door, whilst Mme. Favoral was hurrying her
husband towards Mlle. Gilberte’s room.

Rapidly and stoutly Maxence had fastened four sheets together by the
ends, which gave a more than sufficient length.  Then, opening the
window, he examined carefully the courtyard of the adjoining house.

“No one,” said he: “everybody is at dinner.  We’ll succeed.”

M. Favoral was tottering like a drunken man.  A terrible emotion
convulsed his features.  Casting a long look upon his wife and
children:

“O Lord!” he murmured, “what will become of you?”

“Fear nothing, father,” uttered Maxence.  “I am here.  Neither my
mother nor my sister will want for any thing.”

“My son!” resumed the cashier, “my children!”

Then, with a choking voice:

“I am worthy neither of your love nor your devotion, wretch that I
am!  I made you lead a miserable existence, spend a joyless youth.
I imposed upon you every trial of poverty, whilst I--And now I leave
you nothing but ruin and a dishonored name.”

“Make haste, father,” interrupted Mlle. Gilberte.  It seemed as if he
could not make up his mind.

“It is horrible to abandon you thus.  What a parting!  Ah! death
would indeed be far preferable.  What will you think of me?  I am
very guilty, certainly, but not as you think.  I have been betrayed,
and I must suffer for all.  If at least you knew the whole truth.
But will you ever know it?  We will never see each other again.”

Desperately his wife clung to him.

“Do not speak thus,” she said.  “Wherever you may find an asylum,
I will join you.  Death alone can separate us.  What do I care what
you may have done, or what the world will say?  I am your wife.  Our
children will come with me.  If necessary, we will emigrate to
America; we’ll change our name; we will work.”

The knocks on the outer door were becoming louder and louder; and M.
Desormeaux’ voice could be heard, endeavoring to gain a few moments
more.

“Come,” said Maxence, “you cannot hesitate any longer.”

And, overcoming his father’s reluctance, he fastened one end of the
sheets around his waist.

“I am going to let you down, father,” said he; “and, as soon as you
touch the ground, you must undo the knot.  Take care of the
first-story windows; beware of the concierge; and, once in the street,
don’t walk too fast.  Make for the Boulevard, where you will be sooner
lost in the crowd.”

The knocks had now become violent blows; and it was evident that the
door would soon be broken in, if M. Desormeaux did not make up his
mind to open it.

The light was put out.  With the assistance of his daughter, M.
Favoral lifted himself upon the window-sill, whilst Maxence held
the sheets with both hands.

“I beseech you, Vincent,” repeated Mme. Favoral, “write to us.  We
shall be in mortal anxiety until we hear of your safety.”

Maxence let the sheets slip slowly: in two seconds M. Favoral stood
on the pavement below.

“All right,” he said.

The young man drew the sheets back rapidly, and threw them under
the bed.  But Mlle. Gilberte remained long enough at the window to
recognize her father’s voice asking the concierge to open the door,
and to hear the heavy gate of the adjoining house closing behind
him.

“Saved!” she said.

It was none too soon.  M. Desormeaux had just been compelled to
yield; and the commissary of police was walking in.



IV

The commissaries of police of Paris, as a general thing, are no
simpletons; and, if they are ever taken in, it is because it has
suited them to be taken in.

Their modest title covers the most important, perhaps, of
magistracies, almost the only one known to the lower classes; an
enormous power, and an influence so decisive, that the most sensible
statesman of the reign of Louis Philippe ventured once to say, “Give
me twenty good commissaries of police in Paris, and I’ll undertake
to suppress any government: net profit, one hundred millions.”

Parisian above all, the commissary has had ample time to study his
ground when he was yet only a peace-officer.  The dark side of the
most brilliant lives has no mysteries for him.  He has received the
strangest confidences: he has listened to the most astounding
confessions.  He knows how low humanity can stoop, and what
aberrations there are in brains apparently the soundest.  The
work woman whom her husband beats, and the great lady whom her husband
cheats, have both come to him.  He has been sent for by the
shop-keeper whom his wife deceives, and by the millionaire who has
been blackmailed.  To his office, as to a lay confessional, all
passions fatally lead.  In his presence the dirty linen of two
millions of people is washed _en famille_.

A Paris commissary of police, who after ten years’ practice, could
retain an illusion, believe in something, or be astonished at any
thing in the world, would be but a fool.  If he is still capable
of some emotion, he is a good man.

The one who had just walked into M. Favoral’s apartment was already
past middle age, colder than ice, and yet kindly, but of that
commonplace kindliness which frightens like the executioner’s
politeness at the scaffold.

He required but a single glance of his small but clear eyes to
decipher the physiognomies of all these worthy people standing
around the disordered table.  And beckoning to the agents who
accompanied him to stop at the door,--“Monsieur Vincent Favoral?”
 he inquired.  The cashier’s guests, M. Desormeaux excepted,
seemed stricken with stupor.  Each one felt as if he had a share
of the disgrace of this police invasion.  The dupes who are
sometimes caught in clandestine “hells” have the same humiliated
attitudes.

At last, and not without an effort,

“M. Favoral is no longer here,” replied M. Chapelain, the old
lawyer.

The commissary of police started.  Whilst they were discussing with
him through the door, he had perfectly well understood that they
were only trying to gain time; and, if he had not at once burst in
the door, it was solely owing to his respect for M. Desormeaux
himself, whom he knew personally, and still more for his title of
head clerk at the Department of Justice.  But his suspicions did
not extend beyond the destruction of a few compromising papers.
Whereas, in fact:

“You have helped M. Favoral to escape, gentlemen?” said he.

No one replied.

“Silence means assent,” he added.  “Very well: which way did he get
off?”

Still no answer.  M. Desclavettes would have been glad to add
something to the forty-five thousand francs he had just lost, to be,
together with Mme. Desclavettes, a hundred miles away.

“Where is Mme. Favoral?” resumed the commissary, evidently well
informed. “Where are Mlle. Gilberte and M. Maxence Favoral?”

They continued silent.  No one in the dining-room knew what might
have taken place in the other room; and a single word might be treason.

The commissary then became impatient.

“Take up a light,” said he to one of the agents who had remained at
the door, “and follow me.  We shall see.”

And without a shadow of hesitation, for it seems to be the privilege
of police-agents to be at home everywhere, he crossed the parlor,
and reached Mlle. Gilberte’s room just as she was withdrawing from
the window.

“Ah, it is that way he escaped!” he exclaimed.

He rushed to the window, and remained long enough leaning on his
elbows to thoroughly examine the ground, and understand the situation
of the apartment.

“It’s evident,” he said at last, “this window opens on the courtyard
of the next house.”

This was said to one of his agents, who bore an unmistakable
resemblance to the servant who had been asking so many questions in
the afternoon.

“Instead of gathering so much useless information,” he added, “why
did you not post yourself as to the outlets of the house?”

He was “sold”; and yet he manifested neither spite nor anger.  He
seemed in no wise anxious to run after the fugitive.  Upon the
features of Maxence and of Mlle. Gilberte, and more still in Mme.
Favoral’s eyes, he had read that it would be useless for the present.

“Let us examine the papers, then,” said he.

“My husband’s papers are all in his study,” replied Mme. Favoral.

“Please lead me to it, madame.”

The room which M. Favoral called loftily his study was a small room
with a tile floor, white-washed walls, and meanly lighted through a
narrow transom.

It was furnished with an old desk, a small wardrobe with grated door,
a few shelves upon which were piled some bandboxes and bundles of
old newspapers, and two or three deal chairs.

“Where are the keys?” inquired the commissary of police.

“My father always carries them in his pocket, sir,” replied Maxence.

“Then let some one go for a locksmith.”  Stronger than fear,
curiosity had drawn all the guests of the cashier of the Mutual
Credit Society, M. Desormeaux, M. Chapelain, M. Desclavettes himself;
and, standing within the door-frame, they followed eagerly every
motion of the commissary, who, pending the arrival of the locksmith,
was making a flying examination of the bundles of papers left exposed
upon the desk.

After a while, and unable to hold in any longer:

“Would it be indiscreet,” timidly inquired the old bronze-merchant,
“to ask the nature of the charges against that poor Favoral?”

“Embezzlement, sir.”

“And is the amount large?”

“Had it been small, I should have said theft.  Embezzling commences
only when the sum has reached a round figure.”

Annoyed at the sardonic tone of the commissary:

“The fact is,” resumed M. Chapelain, “Favoral was our friend; and,
if we could get him out of the scrape, we would all willingly
contribute.”

“It’s a matter of ten or twelve millions, gentlemen.”  Was it
possible?  Was it even likely?  Could any one imagine so many
millions slipping through the fingers of M. de Thaller’s methodic
cashier?

“Ah, sir!” exclaimed Mme. Favoral, “if any thing could relieve my
feelings, the enormity of that sum would.  My husband was a man of
simple and modest tastes.”

The commissary shook his head.

“There are certain passions,” he interrupted, “which nothing betrays
externally.  Gambling is more terrible than fire.  After a fire, some
charred remnants are found.  What is there left after a lost game?
Fortunes may be thrown into the vortex of the bourse, without a trace
of them being left.”

The unfortunate woman was not convinced.

“I could swear, sir,” she protested, “that I knew how my husband
spent every hour of his life.”

“Do not swear, madame.”

“All our friends will tell you how parsimonious my husband was.”

“Here, madame, towards yourself and your children, I have no doubt;
for seeing is believing: but elsewhere--”

He was interrupted by the arrival of the locksmith, who, in less
than five minutes, had picked all the locks of the old desk.

But in vain did the commissary search all the drawers.  He found
only those useless papers which are made relics of by people who
have made order their religious faith,--uninteresting letters,
grocers’ and butchers’ bills running back twenty years.

“It is a waste of time to look for any thing here,” he growled.

And in fact he was about to give up his perquisitions, when a bundle
thinner than the rest attracted his attention.  He cut the thread
that bound it; and almost at once:

“I knew I was right,” he said.  And holding out a paper to Mme. Favoral:

“Read, madame, if you please.”

It was a bill.  She read thus:

   “Sold to M. Favoral an India Cashmere, fr. 8,500.
    Received payment,           FORBE & TOWLER.”

“Is it for you, madame,” asked the commissary, “that this magnificent
shawl was bought?”

Stupefied with astonishment, the poor woman still refused to admit
the evidence.

“Madame de Thaller spends a great deal,” she stammered.  “My husband
often made important purchases for her account.”

“Often, indeed!” interrupted the commissary of police; “for here
are many other receipted bills,--earrings, sixteen thousand francs;
a bracelet, three thousand francs; a parlor set, a horse, two velvet
dresses.  Here is a part, at least, if not the whole, of the ten
millions.”



V

Had the commissary received any information in advance? or was he
guided only by the scent peculiar to men of his profession, and the
habit of suspecting every thing, even that which seems most unlikely?

At any rate he expressed himself in a tone of absolute certainty.

The agents who had accompanied and assisted him in his researches
were winking at each other, and giggling stupidly.  The situation
struck them as rather pleasant.

The others, M. Desclavettes, M. Chapelain, and the worthy M.
Desormeaux himself, could have racked their brains in vain to find
terms wherein to express the immensity of their astonishments.
Vincent Favoral, their old friend, paying for cashmeres, diamonds,
and parlor sets!  Such an idea could not enter in their minds.  For
whom could such princely gifts be intended?  For a mistress, for
one of those redoubtable creatures whom fancy represents crouching
in the depths of love, like monsters at the bottom of their caves!

But how could any one imagine the methodic cashier of the Mutual
Credit Society carried away by one of those insane passions which
knew no reason?  Ruined by gambling, perhaps, but by a woman!

Could any one picture him, so homely and so plain here, Rue St.
Gilles, at the head of another establishment, and leading elsewhere
in one of the brilliant quarters of Paris, a reckless life, such as
strike terror in the bosom of quiet families?

Could any one understand the same man at once miserly-economical and
madly-prodigal, storming when his wife spent a few cents, and robbing
to supply the expenses of an adventuress, and collecting in the same
drawer the jeweler’s accounts and the butcher’s bills?

“It is the climax of absurdity,” murmured good M. Desormeaux.

Maxence fairly shook with wrath.  Mlle. Gilberte was weeping.

Mme. Favoral alone, usually so timid, boldly defended, and with her
utmost energy, the man whose name she bore.  That he might have
embezzled millions, she admitted: that he had deceived and betrayed
her so shamefully, that he had made a wretched dupe of her for so
many years, seemed to her insensate, monstrous, impossible.

And purple with shame:

“Your suspicions would vanish at once, sir,” she said to the
commissary, “if I could but explain to you our mode of life.”

Encouraged by his first discovery, he was proceeding more minutely
with his perquisitions, undoing the strings of every bundle.

“It is useless, madame,” he answered in that brief tone which made so
much impression upon M. Desclavettes.  “You can only tell me what you
know; and you know nothing.”

“Never, sir, did a man lead a more regular life than M. Favoral.”

“In appearance, you are right.  Besides, to regulate one’s disorder
is one of the peculiarities of our time.  We open credits to our
passions, and we keep account of our infamies by double entry.  We
operate with method.  We embezzle millions that we may hang diamonds
to the ears of an adventuress; but we are careful, and we keep the
receipted bills.”

“But, sir, I have already told you that I never lost sight of my
husband.”

“Of course.”

“Every morning, precisely at nine o’clock, he left home to go to M.
de Thaller’s office.”

“The whole neighborhood knows that, madame.”

“At half-past five he came home.”

“That, also, is a well-known fact.”

“After dinner he went out to play a game, but it was his only
amusement; and at eleven o’clock he was always in bed.”

“Perfectly correct.”

“Well, then, sir, where could M. Favoral have found time to abandon
himself to the excesses of which you accuse him?”

Imperceptibly the commissary of police shrugged his shoulders.

“Far from me, madame,” he uttered, “to doubt your good faith.  What
matters it, moreover, whether your husband spent in this way or in
that way the sums which he is charged with having appropriated?  But
what do your objections prove?  Simply that M. Favoral was very
skillful, and very much self-possessed.  Had he breakfasted when he
left you at nine?  No.  Pray, then, where did he breakfast?  In a
restaurant?  Which?  Why did he come home only at half-past five,
when his office actually closed at three o’clock?  Are you quite
sure that it was to the Cafe Turc that he went every evening?
Finally, why do not you say anything of the extra work which he
always had to attend to, as he pretended, once or twice a month?
Sometimes it was a loan, sometimes a liquidation, or a settlement
of dividends, which devolved upon him.  Did he come home then?  No.
He told you that he would dine out, and that it would be more
convenient for him to have a cot put up in his office; and thus
you were twenty-four or forty-eight hours without seeing him.
Surely this double existence must have weighed heavily upon him;
but he was forbidden from breaking off with you, under penalty of
being caught the very next day with his hand in the till.  It is
the respectability of his official life here which made the other
possible,--that which has absorbed such enormous sums.  The harsher
and the closer he were here, the more magnificent he could show
himself elsewhere.  His household in the Rue St. Gilles was for
him a certificate of impunity.  Seeing him so economical, every one
thought him rich.  People who seem to spend nothing are always
trusted.  Every privation which he imposed upon you increased his
reputation of austere probity, and raised him farther above
suspicion.”

Big tears were rolling down Mme. Favoral’s cheeks.

“Why not tell me the whole truth?” she stammered.

“Because I do not know it,” replied the commissary; “because these
are all mere presumptions.  I have seen so many instances of similar
calculations!”

Then regretting, perhaps, to have said so much,

“But I may be mistaken,” he added: “I do not pretend to be
infallible.”  He was just then completing a brief inventory of all
the papers found in the old desk.  There was nothing left but to
examine the drawer which was used for a cash drawer.  He found in
it in gold, notes, and small change, seven hundred and eighteen
francs.

Having counted this sum, the commissary offered it to Mme. Favoral,
saying,

“This belongs to you madame.”

But instinctively she withdrew her hand.

“Never!” she said.

The commissary went on with a gesture of kindness,--“I understand
your scruples, madame, and yet I must insist.  You may believe me
when I tell you that this little sum is fairly and legitimately
yours.  You have no personal fortune.”

The efforts of the poor woman to keep from bursting into loud sobs
were but too visible.

“I possess nothing in the world, sir,” she said in a broken voice.
“My husband alone attended to our business-affairs.  He never spoke
to me about them; and I would not have dared to question him.  Alone
he disposed of our money.  Every Sunday he handed me the amount which
he thought necessary for the expenses of the week, and I rendered him
an account of it.  When my children or myself were in need of any
thing, I told him so, and he gave me what he thought proper.  This
is Saturday: of what I received last Sunday I have five francs left:
that, is our whole fortune.”

Positively the commissary was moved.

“You see, then, madame,” he said, “that you cannot hesitate: you must
live.”

Maxence stepped forward.

“Am I not here, sir?” he said.

The commissary looked at him keenly, and in a grave tone,

“I believe indeed, sir,” he replied, “that you will not suffer your
mother and sister to want for any thing.  But resources are not
created in a day.  Yours, if I have not been deceived, are more than
limited just now.”

And as the young man blushed, and did not answer, he handed the seven
hundred francs to Mlle. Gilberte, saying,

“Take this, mademoiselle: your mother permits it.”  His work was done.
To place his seals upon M. Favoral’s study was the work of a moment.

Beckoning, then, to his agents to withdraw, and being ready to leave
himself,

“Let not the seals cause you any uneasiness, madame,” said the
commissary of police to Mme. Favoral.  “Before forty-eight hours,
some one will come to remove these papers, and restore to you the
free use of that room.”

He went out; and, as soon as the door had closed behind him,

“Well?” exclaimed M. Desormeaux;

But no one had any thing to say.  The guests of that house where
misfortune had just entered were making haste to leave.  The
catastrophe was certainly terrible and unforeseen; but did it not
reach them too?  Did they not lose among them more than three hundred
thousand francs?

Thus, after a few commonplace protestations, and some of those
promises which mean nothing, they withdrew; and, as they were going
down the stairs,

“The commissary took Vincent’s escape too easy,” remarked M.
Desormeaux.  “He must know some way to catch him again.”



VI

At last Mme. Favoral found herself alone with her children and free
to give herself up to the most frightful despair.

She dropped heavily upon a seat; and, drawing to her bosom Maxence
and Gilberte,

“O my children!” she sobbed, covering them with her kisses and her
tears,--“my children, we are most unfortunate.”

Not less distressed than herself, they strove, nevertheless, to
mitigate her anguish, to inspire her with sufficient courage to bear
this crushing trial; and kneeling at her feet, and kissing her hands,

“Are we not with you still, mother?” they kept repeating.

But she seemed not to hear them.

“It is not for myself that I weep,” she went on.  “I! what had I
still to wait or hope for in life?  Whilst you, Maxence, you, my
poor Gilberte!--If, at least, I could feel myself free from blame!
But no.  It is my weakness and my want of courage that have brought
on this catastrophe.  I shrank from the struggle.  I purchased my
domestic peace at the cost of your future in the world.  I forgot
that a mother has sacred duties towards her children.”

Mme. Favoral was at this time a woman of some forty-three years,
with delicate and mild features, a countenance overflowing with
kindness, and whose whole being exhaled, as it were, an exquisite
perfume of _noblesse_ and distinction.

Happy, she might have been beautiful still,--of that autumnal
beauty whose maturity has the splendors of the luscious fruits of
the later season.

But she had suffered so much!  The livid paleness of her complexion,
the rigid fold of her lips, the nervous shudders that shook her
frame, revealed a whole existence of bitter deceptions, of exhausting
struggles, and of proudly concealed humiliations.

And yet every thing seemed to smile upon her at the outset of life.

She was an only daughter; and her parents, wealthy silk-merchants,
had brought her up like the daughter of an archduchess desired to
marry some sovereign prince.

But at fifteen she had lost her mother.  Her father, soon tired of
his lonely fireside, commenced to seek away from home some diversion
from his sorrow.

He was a man of weak mind,--one of those marked in advance to play
the part of eternal dupes.  Having money, he found many friends.
Having once tasted the cup of facile pleasures, he yielded readily
to its intoxication.  Suppers, cards, amusements, absorbed his
time, to the utter detriment of his business.  And, eighteen months
after his wife’s death, he had already spent a large portion of his
fortune, when he fell into the hands of an adventuress, whom, without
regard for his daughter, he audaciously brought beneath his own roof.

In provincial cities, where everybody knows everybody else, such
infamies are almost impossible.  They are not quite so rare in Paris,
where one is, so to speak, lost in the crowd, and where the
restraining power of the neighbor’s opinion is lacking.

For two years the poor girl, condemned to bear this illegitimate
stepmother, endured nameless sufferings.

She had just completed her eighteenth year, when, one evening, her
father took her aside.

“I have made up my mind to marry again,” he said;  “but I wish first
to provide you with a husband.  I have looked for one, and found him.
He is not very brilliant perhaps; but he is, it seems, a good,
hard-working, economical fellow, who’ll make his way in the world.
I had dreamed of something better for you; but times are hard, trade
is dull: in short, having only a dowry of twenty thousand francs to
give you, I have no right to be very particular.  To-morrow I’ll
bring you my candidate.”

And, sure enough, the next day that excellent father introduced M.
Vincent Favoral to his daughter.

She was not pleased with him; but she could hardly have said that
she was displeased.

He was, at the age of twenty-five, which he had just reached, a man
so utterly lacking in individuality, that he could scarcely have
excited any feeling either of sympathy or affection.

Suitably dressed, he seemed timid and awkward, reserved, quite
diffident, and of mediocre intelligence.  He confessed to have
received a most imperfect education, and declared himself quite
ignorant of life.  He had scarcely any means outside his profession.
He was at this time chief accountant in a large factory of the
Faubourg St. Antoine, with a salary of four thousand Francs a year.

The young girl did not hesitate a moment.  Any thing appeared to
her preferable to the contact of a woman whom she abhorred and
despised.

She gave her consent; and, twenty days after the first interview,
she had become Mme. Favoral.

Alas!  six weeks had not elapsed, before she knew that she had but
exchanged her wretched fate for a more wretched one still.

Not that her husband was in any way unkind to her (he dared not, as
yet); but he had revealed himself enough to enable her to judge him.
He was one of those formidably selfish men who wither every thing
around them, like those trees within the shadow of which nothing can
grow.  His coldness concealed a stupid obstinacy; his mildness, an
iron will.

If he had married, ‘twas because he thought a wife a necessary
adjunct, because he desired a home wherein to command, because, above
all, he had been seduced by the dowry of twenty thousand francs.

For the man had one passion,--money.  Under his placid countenance
revolved thoughts of the most burning covetousness.  He wished to
be rich.

Now, as he had no illusion whatever upon his own merits, as he knew
himself to be perfectly incapable of any of those daring conceptions
which lead to rapid fortune, as he was in no wise enterprising, he
conceived but one means to achieve wealth, that is, to save, to
economize, to stint himself, to pile penny upon penny.

His profession of accountant had furnished him with a number of
instances of the financial power of the penny daily saved, and
invested so as to yield its maximum of interest.

If ever his blue eye became animated, it was when he calculated what
would be at the present time the capital produced by a simple penny
placed at five per cent interest the year of the birth of our Saviour.

For him this was sublime.  He conceived nothing beyond.  One penny!
He wished, he said, he could have lived eighteen hundred years, to
follow the evolutions of that penny, to see it grow tenfold, a
hundred-fold, produce, swell, enlarge, and become, after centuries,
millions and hundreds of millions.

In spite of all, he had, during the early months of his marriage,
allowed his wife to have a young servant.  He gave her from time to
time, a five-franc-piece, and took her to the country on Sundays.

This was the honeymoon; and, as he declared himself, this life of
prodigalities could not last.

Under a futile pretext, the little servant was dismissed.  He
tightened the strings of his purse.  The Sunday excursions were
suppressed.

To mere economy succeeded the niggardly parsimony which counts the
grains of salt in the _pot-au-feu_, which weighs the soap for the
washing, and measures the evening’s allowance of candle.

Gradually the accountant took the habit of treating his young wife
like a servant, whose honesty is suspected; or like a child, whose
thoughtlessness is to be feared.  Every morning he handed her the
money for the expenses of the day; and every evening he expressed
his surprise that she had not made better use of it.  He accused her
of allowing herself to be grossly cheated, or even to be in collusion
with the dealers.  He charged her with being foolishly extravagant;
which fact, however, he added, did not surprise him much on the part
of the daughter of a man who had dissipated a large fortune.

To cap the climax, Vincent Favoral was on the worst possible terms
with his father-in-law.  Of the twenty thousand francs of his wife’s
dowry, twelve thousand only had been paid, and it was in vain that he
clamored for the balance.  The silk-merchant’s business had become
unprofitable; he was on the verge of bankruptcy.  The eight thousand
francs seemed in imminent danger.

His wife alone he held responsible for this deception.  He repeated
to her constantly that she had connived with her father to “take
him in,” to fleece him, to ruin him.

What an existence!  Certainly, had the unhappy woman known where to
find a refuge, she would have fled from that home where each of her
days was but a protracted torture.  But where could she go?  Of whom
could she beg a shelter?

She had terrible temptations at this time, when she was not yet
twenty, and they called her the beautiful Mme. Favoral.

Perhaps she would have succumbed, when she discovered that she was
about to become a mother.  One year, day for day, after her marriage,
she gave birth to a son, who received the name of Maxence.

The accountant was but indifferently pleased at the coming of this
son.  It was, above all, a cause of expense.  He had been compelled
to give some thirty francs to a nurse, and almost twice as much for
the baby’s clothes.  Then a child breaks up the regularity of one’s
habits; and he, as he affirmed, was attached to his as much as to
life itself.  And now he saw his household disturbed, the hours of
his meals altered, his own importance reduced, his authority even
ignored.

But what mattered now to his young wife the ill-humor which he no
longer took the trouble to conceal?  Mother, she defied her tyrant.

Now, at least, she had in this world a being upon whom she could
lavish all her caresses so brutally repelled.  There existed a soul
within which she reigned supreme.  What troubles would not a smile
of her son have made her forget?

With the admirable instinct of an egotist, M. Favoral understood so
well what passed in the mind of his wife, that he dared not complain
too much of what the little fellow cost.  He made up his mind bravely;
and when four years later, his daughter Gilberte was born, instead
of lamenting:

“Bash!” said he: “God blesses large families.”



VII

But already, at this time, M. Vincent Favoral’s situation had been
singularly modified.

The revolution of 1848 had just taken place.  The factory in the
Faubourg St. Antoine, where he was employed, had been compelled to
close its doors.

One evening, as he came home at the usual hour, he announced that
he had been discharged.

Mme. Favoral shuddered at the thought of what her husband might be,
without work, and deprived of his salary.

“What is to become of us?” she murmured.

He shrugged his shoulders.  Visibly he was much excited.  His cheeks
were flushed; his eyes sparkled.

“Bash!” he said: “we shan’t starve for all that.”  And, as his wife
was gazing at him in astonishment:

“Well,” he went on, “what are you looking at?  It is so: I know many a one
who affects to live on his income, and who are not as well off as
we are.”

It was, for over six years since he was married, the first time that
he spoke of his business otherwise than to groan and complain, to
accuse fate, and curse the high price of living.  The very day before,
he had declared himself ruined by the purchase of a pair of shoes
for Maxence.  The change was so sudden and so great, that she hardly
knew what to think, and wondered if grief at the loss of his situation
had not somewhat disturbed his mind.

“Such are women,” he went on with a giggle.  “Results astonish them,
because they know nothing of the means used to bring them about.  Am
I a fool, then?  Would I impose upon myself privations of all sorts,
if it were to accomplish nothing?  Parbleu!  I love fine living
too, I do, and good dinners at the restaurant, and the theatre, and
the nice little excursions in the country.  But I want to be rich.
At the price of all the comforts which I have not had, I have saved
a capital, the income of which will support us all.  Eh, eh!  That’s
the power of the little penny put out to fatten!”

As she went to bed that night, Mme. Favoral felt more happy than she
had done since her mother’s death.  She almost forgave her husband
his sordid parsimony, and the humiliations he had heaped upon her.

“Well, be it so,” she thought.  “I shall have lived miserably, I shall
have endured nameless sufferings; but my children shall be rich, their
life shall be easy and pleasant.”

The next day M. Favoral’s excitement had completely abated.
Manifestly he regretted his confidences.

“You must not think on that account that you can waste and pillage
every thing,” he declared rudely.  “Besides, I have greatly
exaggerated.”

And he started in search of a situation.

To find one was likely to be difficult.  Times of revolution are not
exactly propitious to industry.  Whilst the parties discussed in the
Chamber, there were on the street twenty thousand clerks, who, every
morning as they rose, wondered where they would dine that day.

For want of any thing better, Vincent Favoral undertook to keep
books in various places,--an hour here, an hour there, twice a week
in one house, four times in another.

In this way he earned as much and more than he did at the factory;
but the business did not suit him.

What he liked was the office from which one does not stir, the
stove-heated atmosphere, the elbow-worn desk, the leather-cushioned
chair, the black alpaca sleeves over the coat.  The idea that he
should on one and the same day have to do with five or six different
houses, and be compelled to walk an hour, to go and work another hour
at the other end of Paris, fairly irritated him.  He found himself
out of his reckoning, like a horse who has turned a mill for ten
years; if he is made to trot straight before him.

So, one morning, he gave up the whole thing, swearing that he would
rather remain idle until he could find a place suited to his taste
and his convenience; and, in the mean time, all they would have to
do would be to put a little less butter in the soup, and a little
more water in the wine.

He went out, nevertheless, and remained until dinner-time.  And he
did the same the next and the following days.

He started off the moment he had swallowed the last mouthful of his
breakfast, came home at six o’clock, dined in haste, and disappeared
again, not to return until about midnight.  He had hours of delirious
joy, and moments of frightful discouragement.  Sometimes he seemed
horribly uneasy.

“What can he be doing?” thought Mme. Favoral.

She ventured to ask him the question one morning, when he was in
fine humor.

“Well,” he answered, “am I not the master?  I am operating at the
bourse, that’s all!”

He could hardly have owned to any thing that would have frightened
the poor woman as much.

“Are you not afraid,” she objected, “to lose all we have so
painfully accumulated?  We have children--”

He did not allow her to proceed.

“Do you take me for a child?” he exclaimed; “or do I look to you
like a man so easy to be duped?  Mind to economize in your household
expenses, and don’t meddle with my business.”

And he continued.  And he must have been lucky in his operations;
for he had never been so pleasant at home.  All his ways had changed.
He had had clothes made at a first-class tailor’s, and was evidently
trying to look elegant.  He gave up his pipe, and smoked only cigars.
He got tired of giving every morning the money for the house, and
took the habit of handing it to his wife every week, on Sunday.  A
mark of vast confidence, as he observed to her.  And so, the first
time:

“Be careful,” he said, “that you don’t find yourself penniless
before Thursday.”

He became also more communicative.  Often during the dinner, he
would tell what he had heard during the day, anecdotes, gossip.
He enumerated the persons with whom he had spoken.  He named a
number of people whom he called his friends, and whose names Mme.
Favoral carefully stored away in her memory.

There was one especially, who seemed to inspire him with a profound
respect, a boundless admiration, and of whom he never tired of
talking.  He was, said he, a man of his age,--M. de Thaller, the
Baron de Thaller.

“This one,” he kept repeating, “is really mad: he is rich, he has
ideas, he’ll go far.  It would be a great piece of luck if I could
get him to do something for me!”

Until at last one day:

“Your parents were very rich once?” he asked his wife.

“I have heard it said,” she answered.

“They spent a good deal of money, did they not?  They had friends:
they gave dinner-parties.”

“Yes, they received a good deal of company.”

“You remember that time?”

“Surely I do.”

“So that if I should take a fancy to receive some one here, some
one of note, you would know how to do things properly?”

“I think so.”

He remained silent for a moment, like a man who thinks before taking
an important decision, and then:

“I wish to invite a few persons to dinner,” he said.  She could
scarcely believe her ears.  He had never received at his table any
one but a fellow-clerk at the factory, named Desclavettes, who had
just married the daughter of a dealer in bronzes, and succeeded to
his business.

“Is it possible?” exclaimed Mme. Favoral.

“So it is.  The question is now, how much would a first-class dinner
cost, the best of every thing?”

“That depends upon the number of guests.”

“Say three or four persons.”

The poor woman set herself to figuring diligently for some time;
and then timidly, for the sum seemed formidable to her:

“I think,” she began, “that with a hundred francs--”

Her husband commenced whistling.

“You’ll need that for the wines alone;” he interrupted.  “Do you
take me for a fool?  But here, don’t let us go into figures.  Do as
your parents did when they did their best; and, if it’s well, I
shall not complain of the expense.  Take a good cook, hire a waiter
who understands his business well.”

She was utterly confounded; and yet she was not at the end of her
surprises.

Soon M. Favoral declared that their table-ware was not suitable, and
that he must buy a new set.  He discovered a hundred purchases to
be made, and swore that he would make them.  He even hesitated a
moment about renewing the parlor furniture, although it was in
tolerably good condition still, and was a present from his
father-in-law.

And, having finished his inventory:

“And you,” he asked his wife: “what dress will you wear?”

“I have my black silk dress--”

He stopped her.

“Which means that you have none at all,” he said.  “Very well.  You
must go this very day and get yourself one,--a very handsome, a
magnificent one; and you’ll send it to be made to a fashionable
dressmaker.  And at the same time you had better get some little
suits for Maxence and Gilberte.  Here are a thousand francs.”

Completely bewildered:

“Who in the world are you going to invite, then?” she asked.

“The Baron and the Baroness de Thaller,” he replied with an emphasis
full of conviction.  “So try and distinguish yourself.  Our fortune
is at stake.”

That this dinner was a matter of considerable import, Mme. Favoral
could not doubt when she saw her husband’s fabulous liberality
continue without flinching for a number of days.

Ten times of an afternoon he would come home to tell his wife the
name of some dish that had been mentioned before him, or to consult
her on the subject of some exotic viand he had just noticed in some
shop-window.  Daily he brought home wines of the most fantastic
vintages,--those wines which dealers manufacture for the special
use of verdant fools, and which they sell in odd-shaped bottles
previously overlaid with secular dust and cobwebs.

He subjected to a protracted cross-examination the cook whom Mme.
Favoral had engaged, and demanded that she should enumerate the
houses where she had cooked.  He absolutely required the man who was
to wait at the table to exhibit the dress-coat he was to wear.

The great day having come, he did not stir from the house, going
and coming from the kitchen to the dining-room, uneasy, agitated,
unable to stay in one place.  He breathed only when he had seen the
table set and loaded with the new china he had purchased and the
magnificent silver he had gone to hire in person.  And when his
young wife made her appearance, looking lovely in her new dress,
and leading by the hands the two children, Maxence and Gilberte, in
their new suits:

“That’s perfect,” he exclaimed, highly delighted.  “Nothing could be
better.  Now, let our four guests come!”

They arrived a few minutes before seven, in two carriages, the
magnificence of which astonished the Rue St. Gilles.

And, the presentations over, Vincent Favoral had at last the
ineffable satisfaction to see seated at his table the Baron and
Baroness de Thaller, M. Saint Pavin, who called himself a financial
editor, and M. Jules Jottras, of the house of Jottras & Brother.

It was with an eager curiosity that Mme. Favoral observed these
people whom her husband called his friends, and whom she saw herself
for the first time.

M. de Thaller, who could not then have been much over thirty, was
already a man without any particular age.

Cold, stiff, aping evidently the English style, he expressed
himself in brief sentences, and with a strong foreign accent.
Nothing to surprise on his countenance.  He had the forehead
prominent, the eyes of a dull blue, and the nose very thin.  His
scanty hair was spread over the top of his head with labored
symmetry; and his red, thick, and carefully-trimmed whiskers seemed
to engross much of his attention.

M. Saint Pavin had not the same stiff manner.  Careless in his
dress, he lacked breeding.  He was a robust fellow, dark and bearded,
with thick lips, the eye bright and prominent, spreading upon the
table-cloth broad hands ornamented at the joints with small tufts of
hair, speaking loud, laughing noisily, eating much and drinking more.

By the side of him, M. Jules Jottras, although looking like a
fashion-plate, did not show to much advantage.  Delicate, blonde,
sallow, almost beardless, M. Jottras distinguished himself only by
a sort of unconscious impudence, a harmless cynicism, and a sort of
spasmodic giggle, that shook the eye-glasses which he wore stuck
over his nose.

But it was above all Mme. de Thaller who excited Mme. Favoral’s
apprehensions.

Dressed with a magnificence of at least questionable taste, very
much _decolletee_, wearing large diamonds at her ears, and rings on
all her fingers, the young baroness was insolently handsome, of a
beauty sensuous even to coarseness.  With hair of a bluish black,
twisted over the neck in heavy ringlets, she had skin of a pearly
whiteness, lips redder than blood, and great eyes that threw flames
from beneath their long, curved lashes.  It was the poetry of flesh;
and one could not help admiring.  Did she speak, however, or make
a gesture, all admiration vanished.  The voice was vulgar, the motion
common.  Did M. Jottras venture upon a double-entendre, she would
throw herself back upon her chair to laugh, stretching her neck, and
thrusting her throat forward.

Wholly absorbed in the care of his guests, M. Favoral remarked
nothing.  He only thought of loading the plates, and filling the
glasses, complaining that they ate and drank nothing, asking
anxiously if the cooking was not good, if the wines were bad, and
almost driving the waiter out of his wits with questions and
suggestions.

It is a fact, that neither M. de Thaller nor M. Jottras had much
appetite.  But M. Saint Pavin officiated for all; and the sole task
of keeping up with him caused M. Favoral to become visibly animated.

His cheeks were much flushed, when, having passed the champagne all
around, he raised his froth-tipped glass, exclaiming:

“I drink to the success of the business.”

“To the success of the business,” echoed the others, touching his
glass.

And a few moments later they passed into the parlor to take coffee.

This toast had caused Mme. Favoral no little uneasiness.  But she
found it impossible to ask a single question; Mme. de Thaller
dragging her almost by force to a seat by her side on the sofa,
pretending that two women always have secrets to exchange, even when
they see each other for the first time.

The young baroness was fully _au fait_ in matters of bonnets and
dresses; and it was with giddy volubility that she asked Mme.
Favoral the names of her milliner and her dressmaker, and to what
jeweler she intrusted her diamonds to be reset.

This looked so much like a joke, that the poor housekeeper of the
Rue St. Gilles could not help smiling whilst answering that she had
no dressmaker, and that, having no diamonds, she had no possible
use for the services of a jeweler.

The other declared she could not get over it.  No diamonds!  That
was a misfortune exceeding all.  And quick she seized the opportunity
charitably to enumerate the parures in her jewel-case, and laces in
her drawers, and the dresses in her wardrobes.  In the first place, it
would have been impossible for her, she swore, to live with a husband
either miserly or poor.  Hers had just presented her with a lovely
coupe, lined with yellow satin, a perfect bijou.  And she made good
use of it too; for she loved to go about.  She spent her days
shopping, or riding in the Bois.  Every evening she had the choice
of the theatre or a ball, often both.  The genre theatres were those
she preferred.  To be sure, the opera and the Italiens were more
stylish; but she could not help gaping there.

Then she wished to kiss the children; and Gilberte and Maxence had
to be brought in.  She adored children, she vowed: it was her
weakness, her passion.  She had herself a little girl, eighteen
months old, called Cesarine, to whom she was devoted; and certainly
she would have brought her, had she not feared she would have been
in the way.

All this verbiage sounded like a confused murmur to Mme. Favoral’s
ears.  “Yes, no,” she answered, hardly knowing to what she did answer.

Her head heavy with a vague apprehension, it required her utmost
attention to observe her husband and his guests.

Standing by the mantel-piece, smoking their cigars, they conversed
with considerable animation, but not loud enough to enable her to
hear all they said.  It was only when M. Saint Pavin spoke that she
understood that they were still discussing the “business;” for he
spoke of articles to publish, stocks to sell, dividends to distribute,
sure profits to reap.

They all, at any rate, seemed to agree perfectly; and at a certain
moment she saw her husband and M. de Thaller strike each other’s
hand, as people do who exchange a pledge.

Eleven o’clock struck.

M. Favoral was insisting to make his guests accept a cup of tea or
a glass of punch; but M. de Thaller declared that he had some work
to do, and that, his carriage having come, he must go.

And go he did, taking with him the baroness, followed by M. Saint
Pavin and M. Jottras.  And when, the door having closed upon them,
M. Favoral found himself alone with his wife,

“Well,” he exclaimed, swelling with gratified vanity, “what do you
think of our friends?”

“They surprised me,” she answered.

He fairly jumped at that word.

“I should like to know why?”

Then, timidly, and with infinite precautions, she commenced
explaining that M. de Thaller’s face inspired her with no confidence;
that M. Jottras had seemed to her a very impudent personage; that M.
Saint Pavin appeared low and vulgar; and that, finally, the young
baroness had given her of herself the most singular idea.

M. Favoral refused to hear more.

“It’s because you have never seen people of the best society,” he
exclaimed.

“Excuse me.  Formerly, during my mother’s life--”

“Eh!  Your mother never received but shop-keepers.”

The poor woman dropped her head.

“I beg of you, Vincent,” she insisted, “before doing any thing with
these new friends, think well, consult--”

He burst out laughing.

“Are you not afraid that they will cheat me?” he said,--“people ten
times as rich as we are.  Here, don’t let us speak of it any more,
and let us go to bed.  You’ll see what this dinner will bring us, and
whether I ever have reason to regret the money we have spent.”



VIII

When, on the morning after this dinner, which was to form an era in
her life, Mme. Favoral woke up, her husband was already up, pencil
in hand, and busy figuring.

The charm had vanished with the fumes of the champagne; and the
clouds of the worst days were gathering upon his brow.

Noticing that his wife was looking at him,

“It’s expensive work,” he said in a bluff tone, “to set a business
going; and it wouldn’t do to commence over again every day.”

To hear him speak, one would have thought that Mme. Favoral alone,
by dint of hard begging, had persuaded him into that expense which
he now seemed to regret so much.  She quietly called his attention
to the fact, reminding him that, far from urging, she had endeavored
to hold him back; repeating that she augured ill of that business
over which he was so enthusiastic, and that, if he would believe her,
he would not venture.

“Do you even know what the project is?” he interrupted rudely.

“You have not told me.”

“Very well, then: leave me in peace with your presentiments.  You
dislike my friends; and I saw very well how you treated Mme. de
Thaller.  But I am the master; and what I have decided shall be.
Besides, I have signed.  Once for all, I forbid you ever speaking
to me again on that subject.”

Whereupon, having dressed himself with much care, he started off,
saying that he was expected at breakfast by Saint Pavin, the
financial editor, and by M. Jottras, of the house of Jottras
& Brother.

A shrewd woman would not have given it up so easy, and, in the end,
would probably have mastered the despot, whose intellect was far
from brilliant.  But Mme. Favoral was too proud to be shrewd; and
besides, the springs of her will had been broken by the successive
oppression of an odious stepmother and a brutal master.  Her
abdication of all was complete.  Wounded, she kept the secret of
her wound, hung her head, and said nothing.

She did not, therefore, venture a single allusion; and nearly a
week elapsed, during which the names of her late guests were not
once mentioned.

It was through a newspaper, which M. Favoral had forgotten in the
parlor, that she learned that the Baron de Thaller had just founded
a new stock company, the Mutual Credit Society, with a capital of
several millions.

Below the advertisement, which was printed in enormous letters,
came a long article, in which it was demonstrated that the new
company was, at the same time, a patriotic undertaking and an
institution of credit of the first class; that it supplied a great
public want; that it would be of inestimable benefit to industry;
that its profits were assured; and that to subscribe to its stock
was simply to draw short bills upon fortune.

Already somewhat re-assured by the reading of this article, Mme.
Favoral became quite so when she read the names of the board of
directors.  Nearly all were titled, and decorated with many foreign
orders; and the remainder were bankers, office-holders, and even
some ex-ministers.

“I must have been mistaken,” she thought, yielding unconsciously to
the influence of printed evidence.

And no objection occurred to her, when, a few days later, her
husband told her,

“I have the situation I wanted.  I am head cashier of the company
of which M. de Thaller is manager.”

That was all.  Of the nature of this society, of the advantages
which it offered him, not one word.

Only by the way in which he expressed himself did Mme. Favoral judge
that he must have been well treated; and he further confirmed her in
that opinion by granting her, of his own accord, a few additional
francs for the daily expenses of the house.

“We must,” he declared on this memorable occasion, “do honor to our
social position, whatever it may cost.”

For the first time in his life, he seemed heedful of public opinion.
He recommended his wife to be careful of her dress and of that of
the children, and re-engaged a servant.  He expressed the wish of
enlarging their circle of acquaintances, and inaugurated his Saturday
dinners, to which came assiduously, M. and Mme. Desclavettes, M.
Chapelain the attorney, the old man Desormeaux, and a few others.

As to himself he gradually settled down into those habits from
which he was nevermore to depart, and the chronometric regularity
of which had secured him the nickname of Old Punctuality, of which
he was proud.

In all other respects never did a man, to such a degree, become so
utterly indifferent to his wife and children.  His house was for him
but a mere hotel, where he slept, and took his evening meal.  He
never thought of questioning his wife as to the use of her time, and
what she did in his absence.  Provided she did not ask him for money,
and was there when he came home, he was satisfied.

Many women, at Mme. Favoral’s age, might have made a strange use of
that insulting indifference and of that absolute freedom.

If she did avail herself of it, it was solely to follow one of those
inspirations which can only spring in a mother’s heart.

The increase in the budget of the household was relatively large, but
so nicely calculated, that she had not one cent more that she could
call her own.

With the most intense sorrow, she thought that her children might
have to endure the humiliating privations which had made her own
life wretched.  They were too young yet to suffer from the paternal
parsimony; but they would grow; their desires would develop; and it
would be impossible for her to grant them the most innocent
satisfactions.

Whilst turning over and over in her mind this distressing thought,
she remembered a friend of her mother’s, who kept, in the Rue St.
Denis, a large establishment for the sale of hosiery and woollen
goods.  There, perhaps, lay the solution of the problem.  She called
to see the worthy woman, and, without even needing to confess the
whole truth to her, she obtained sundry pieces of work, ill paid
as a matter of course, but which, by dint of close application,
might be made to yield from eight to twelve francs a week.

From this time she never lost a minute, concealing her work as if
it were an evil act.

She knew her husband well enough to feel certain that he would
break out, and swear that he spent money enough to enable his wife
to live without being reduced to making a work woman of herself.

But what joy, the day when she hid way down at the bottom of a
drawer the first twenty-franc-piece she had earned, a beautiful
gold-piece, which belonged to her without contest, and which she
might spend as she pleased, without having to render any account
to any one!

And with what pride, from week to week, she saw her little treasure
swell, despite the drafts she made upon it, sometimes to buy a toy
for Maxence, sometimes to add a few ribbons or trinkets to Gilberte’s
toilet!

This was the happiest time of her life, a halt in that painful
journey through which she had been dragging herself for so many
years.  Between her two children, the hours flew light and rapid
as so many seconds.  If all the hopes of the young girl and of the
woman had withered before they had blossomed, the mother’s joys
at least should not fail her.  Because, whilst the present sufficed
to her modest ambition, the future had ceased to cause her any
uneasiness.

No reference had ever been made, between herself and her husband,
to that famous dinner-party: he never spoke to her of the Mutual
Credit Society; but now and then he allowed some words or exclamations
to escape, which she carefully recorded, and which betrayed a
prosperous state of affairs.

“That Thaller is a tough fellow!” he would exclaim, “and he has the
most infernal luck!”

And at other times,

“Two or three more operations like the one we have just successfully
wound up, and we can shut up shop!”

From all this, what could she conclude, if not that he was marching
with rapid strides towards that fortune, the object of all his
ambition?

Already in the neighborhood he had that reputation to be very rich,
which is the beginning of riches itself.  He was admired for keeping
his house with such rigid economy; for a man is always esteemed who
has money, and does not spend it.

“He is not the man ever to squander what he has,” the neighbors
repeated.

The persons whom he received on Saturdays believed him more than
comfortably off.  When M. Desclavettes and M. Chapelain had
complained to their hearts’ contents, the one of the shop, the
other of his office, they never failed to add,

“You laugh at us, because you are engaged in large operations, where
people make as much money as they like.”

They seemed to hold his financial capacities in high estimation.
They consulted him, and followed his advice.

M. Desormeaux was wont to say,

“Oh! he knows what he is about.”

And Mme. Favoral tried to persuade herself, that, in this respect
at least, her husband was a remarkable man.  She attributed his
silence and his distractions to the grave cares that filled his mind.
In the same manner that he had once announced to her that they had
enough to live on, she expected him, some fine morning, to tell her
that he was a millionaire.



IX

But the respite granted by fate to Mme. Favoral was drawing to an
end: her trials were about to return more poignant than ever,
occasioned, this time, by her children, hitherto her whole happiness
and her only consolation.

Maxence was nearly twelve.  He was a good little fellow, intelligent,
studious at times, but thoughtless in the extreme, and of a
turbulence which nothing could tame.

At the Massin School, where he had been sent, he made his teachers’
hair turn white; and not a week went by that he did not signalize
himself by some fresh misdeed.

A father like any other would have paid but slight attention to the
pranks of a schoolboy, who, after all, ranked among the first of his
class, and of whom the teachers themselves, whilst complaining, said,

“Bash!  What matters it, since the heart is sound and the mind sane?”

But M. Favoral took every thing tragically.  If Maxence was kept in,
or otherwise punished, he pretended that it reflected upon himself,
and that his son was disgracing him.

If a report came home with this remark, “execrable conduct,” he fell
into the most violent passion, and seemed to lose all control of
himself.

“At your age,” he would shout to the terrified boy, “I was working
in a factory, and earning my livelihood.  Do you suppose that I
will not tire of making sacrifices to procure you the advantages
of an education which I lacked myself?  Beware.  Havre is not far
off; and cabin-boys are always in demand there.”

If, at least, he had confined himself to these admonitions, which,
by their very exaggeration, failed in their object!  But he favored
mechanical appliances as a necessary means of sufficiently impressing
reprimands upon the minds of young people; and therefore, seizing
his cane, he would beat poor Maxence most unmercifully, the more so
that the boy, filled with pride, would have allowed himself to be
chopped to pieces rather than utter a cry, or shed a tear.

The first time that Mme. Favoral saw her son struck, she was seized
with one of those wild fits of anger which do not reason, and never
forgive.  To be beaten herself would have seemed to her less
atrocious, less humiliating.  Hitherto she had found it impossible
to love a husband such as hers: henceforth, she took him in utter
aversion: he inspired her with horror.  She looked upon her son as
a martyr for whom she could hardly ever do enough.

And so, after these harrowing scenes, she would press him to her
heart in the most passionate embrace; she would cover with her kisses
the traces of the blows; and she would strive, by the most delirious
caresses, to make him forget the paternal brutalities.  With him she
sobbed.  Like him, she would shake her clinched fists in the vacant
space; exclaiming, “Coward, tyrant, assassin!”  The little Gilberte
mingled her tears with theirs; and, pressed against each other, they
deplored their destiny, cursing the common enemy, the head of the
family.

Thus did Maxence spend his boyhood between equally fatal
exaggerations, between the revolting brutalities of his father, and
the dangerous caresses of his mother; the one depriving him of every
thing, the other refusing him nothing.

For Mme. Favoral had now found a use for her humble savings.

If the idea had never come to the cashier of the Mutual Credit
Society to put a few sous in his son’s pocket, the too weak mother
would have suggested to him the want of money in order to have the
pleasure of gratifying it.

She who had suffered so many humiliations in her life, she could not
bear the idea of her son having his pride wounded, and being unable
to indulge in those little trifling expenses which are the vanity
of schoolboys.

“Here, take this,” she would tell him on holidays, slipping a few
francs into his hands.

Unfortunately, to her present she joined the recommendation not to
allow his father to know any thing about it; forgetting that she was
thus training Maxence to dissimulate, warping his natural sense of
right, and perverting his instincts.

No, she gave; and, to repair the gaps thus made in her treasure, she
worked to the point of ruining her sight, with such eager zeal, that
the worthy shop-keeper of the Rue St. Denis asked her if she did not
employ working girls.  In truth, the only help she received was from
Gilberte, who, at the age of eight, already knew how to make herself
useful.

And this is not all.  For this son, in anticipation of growing
expenses, she stooped to expedients which formerly would have seemed
to her unworthy and disgraceful.  She robbed the household, cheating
on her own marketing.  She went so far as to confide to her servant,
and to make of the girl the accomplice of her operations.  She
applied all her ingenuity to serve to M. Favoral dinners in which
the excellence of the dressing concealed the want of solid substance.
And on Sunday, when she rendered her weekly accounts, it was without
a blush that she increased by a few centimes the price of each object,
rejoicing when she had thus scraped a dozen francs, and finding, to
justify herself to her own eyes, those sophisms which passion never
lacks.

At first Maxence was too young to wonder from what sources his mother
drew the money she lavished upon his schoolboy fancies.  She
recommended him to hide from his father: he did so, and thought it
perfectly natural.

As he grew older, he learned to discern.

The moment came when he opened his eyes upon the system under which
the paternal household was managed.  He noticed there that anxious
economy which seems to betray want, and the acrimonious discussions
which arose upon the inconsiderate use of a twenty-franc-piece.  He
saw his mother realize miracles of industry to conceal the shabbiness
of her toilets, and resort to the most skillful diplomacy when she
wished to purchase a dress for Gilberte.

And, despite all this, he had at his disposition as much money as
those of his comrades whose parents had the reputation to be the
most opulent and the most generous.

Anxious, he questioned his mother.

“Eh, what does it matter?” she answered, blushing
and confused.  “Is that any thing to worry you?”

And, as he insisted,

“Go ahead,” she said: “we are rich enough.”  But he could hardly
believe her, accustomed as he was to hear every one talk of poverty;
and, as he fixed upon her his great astonished eyes,

“Yes,” she resumed, with an imprudence which fatally was to bear its
fruits, “we are rich; and, if we live as you see, it is because it
suits your father, who wishes to amass a still greater fortune.”

This was hardly an answer; and yet Maxence asked no further question.
But he inquired here and there, with that patient shrewdness of young
people possessed with a fixed idea.

Already, at this time, M. Favoral had in the neighborhood, and ever
among his friends, the reputation to be worth at least a million.
The Mutual Credit Society had considerably developed itself: he must,
they thought, have benefitted largely by the circumstance; and the
profits must have swelled rapidly in the hands of so able a man,
and one so noted for his rigid economy.

Such is the substance of what Maxence heard; and people did not fail
to add ironically, that he need not rely upon the paternal fortune
to amuse himself.

M. Desormeaux himself, whom he had “pumped” rather cleverly, had
told him, whilst patting him amicably on the shoulder,

“If you ever need money for your frolics, young man, try and earn
it; for I’ll be hanged if it’s the old man who’ll ever supply it.”

Such answers complicated, instead of explaining, the problem which
occupied Maxence.

He observed, he watched; and at last he acquired the certainty that
the money he spent was the fruit of the joint labor of his mother
and sister.

“Ah! why not have told me so?” he exclaimed, throwing his arms
around his mother’s neck.  “Why have exposed me to the bitter regrets
which I feel at this moment?”

By this sole word the poor woman found herself amply repaid.  She
admired the _noblesse_ of her son’s feelings and the kindness of his
heart.

“Do you not understand,” she told him, shedding tears of joy, “do
you not see, that the labor which can promote her son’s pleasure is
a happiness for his mother?”

But he was dismayed at his discovery.

“No matter!” he said.  “I swear that I shall no longer scatter to
the winds, as I have been doing, the money that you give me.”

For a few weeks, indeed, he was faithful to his pledge.  But at
fifteen resolutions are not very stanch.  The impressions he had
felt wore off.  He became tired of the small privations which he had
to impose upon himself.

He soon came to take to the letter what his mother had told him, and
to prove to his own satisfaction that to deprive himself of a
pleasure was to deprive her.  He asked for ten francs one day, then
ten francs another, and gradually resumed his old habits.

He was at this time about leaving school.

“The moment has come,” said M. Favoral, “for him to select a career,
and support himself.”



X

To think of a profession, Maxence Favoral had not waited for the
paternal warnings.

Modern schoolboys are precocious: they know the strong and the weak
side of life; and, when they take their degree, they already have
but few illusions left.

And how could it be otherwise?  In the interior of the colleges is
fatally found the echo of the thoughts, and the reflex of the manners,
of the time.  Neither walls nor keepers can avail.  At the same time,
as the city mud that stains their boots, the scholars bring back on
their return from holidays their stock of observations and of facts.

And what have they seen during the day in their families, or among
their friends?

Ardent cravings, insatiable appetites for luxuries, comforts,
enjoyments, pleasures, contempt for patient labor, scorn for austere
convictions, eager longing for money, the will to become rich at any
cost, and the firm resolution to ravish fortune on the first
favorable occasion.

To be sure, they have dissembled in their presence; but their
perceptions are keen.

True, their father has told them in a grave tone, that there is
nothing respectable in this world except labor and honesty; but they
have caught that same father scarcely noticing a poor devil of an
honest man, and bowing to the earth before some clever rascal bearing
the stigma of three judgments, but worth six millions.

Conclusion?  Oh! they know very well how to conclude; for there are
none such as young people to be logical, and to deduce the utmost
consequences of a fact.

They know, the most of them, that they will have to do something or
other; but what?  And it is then, that, during the recreations,
their imagination strives to find that hitherto unknown profession
which is to give them fortune without work, and freedom at the same
time as a brilliant situation.

They discuss and criticise freely all the careers which are open to
youthful ambition.  And how they laugh, if some simple fellow
ventures upon suggesting some of those modest situations where they
earn one hundred and fifty francs a month at the start!  One hundred
and fifty francs!--why, it’s hardly as much as many a boy spends
for his cigars, and his cab-fares when he is late.

Maxence was neither better nor worse than the rest.  Like the rest
he strove to discover the ideal profession which makes a man rich,
and amuses him at the same time.

Under the pretext that he drew nicely, he spoke of becoming a painter,
calculating coolly what painting may yield, and reckoning, according
to some newspaper, the earnings of Corot or Geroine, Ziem, Bouguereau,
and some others, who are reaping at last the fruits of unceasing
efforts and crushing labors.

But, in the way of pictures, M. Vincent Favoral appreciated only the
blue vignettes of the Bank of France.

“I wish no artists in my family,” he said, in a tone that admitted
of no reply.

Maxence would willingly have become an engineer, for it’s rather
the style to be an engineer now-a-days; but the examinations for
the Polytechnic School are rather steep.  Or else a cavalry officer;
but the two years at Saint Cyr are not very gay.  Or chief clerk,
like M. Desormeaux; but he would have to begin by being supernumerary.

Finally after hesitating for a long time between law and medicine,
he made up his mind to become a lawyer, influenced above all, by
the joyous legends of the Latin quarter.

That was not exactly M. Vincent Favoral’s dream.

“That’s going to cost money again,” he growled.

The fact is, he had indulged in the fallacious hope that his son,
as soon as he left college, would enter at once some business-house,
where he would earn enough to take care of himself.

He yielded at last, however, to the persistent entreaties of his
wife, and the solicitations of his friends.

“Be it so,” he said to Maxence: “you will study law.  Only, as it
cannot suit me that you should waste your days lounging in the
billiard-rooms of the left bank, you shall at the same time work
in an attorney’s office.  Next Saturday I shall arrange with my
friend Chapelain.”

Maxence had not bargained for such an arrangement; and he came near
backing out at the prospect of a discipline which he foresaw must
be as exacting as that of the college.

Still, as he could think of nothing better, he persevered.  And,
vacations over, he was duly entered at the law-school, and settled
at a desk in M. Chapelain’s office, which was then in the Rue St.
Antoine.

The first year every thing went on tolerably.  He enjoyed as much
freedom as he cared to.  His father did not allow him one centime
for his pocket-money; but the attorney, in his capacity of an old
friend of the family, did for him what he had never done before for
an amateur clerk, and allowed him twenty francs a month.  Mme.
Favoral adding to this a few five-franc pieces, Maxence declared
himself entirely satisfied.

Unfortunately, with his lively imagination and his impetuous temper,
no one was less fit than himself for that peaceful existence, that
steady toil, the same each day, without the stimulus of difficulties
to overcome, or the satisfaction of results obtained.

Before long he became tired of it.

He had found at the law-school a number of his old schoolmates whose
parents resided in the provinces, and who, consequently, lived as
they pleased in the Latin quarter, less assiduous to the lectures
than to the Spring Brewery and the Closerie des Lilas.[*]

   [ * A noted dancing-garden. ]

He envied them their joyous life, their freedom without control,
their facile pleasures, their furnished rooms, and even the low
eating-house where they took their meals.  And, as much as possible,
he lived with them and like them.

But it is not with M. Chapelain’s twenty francs that it would have
been possible for him to keep up with fellows, who, with superb
recklessness, took on credit everything they could get, reserving
the amount of their allowance for those amusements which had to be
paid for in cash.

But was not Mme. Favoral here?

She had worked so much, the poor woman, especially since Mlle.
Gilberte had become almost a young lady; she had so much saved, so
much stinted, that her reserve, notwithstanding repeated drafts,
amounted to a good round sum.

When Maxence wanted two or three napoleons, he had but a word to
say; and he said it often.  Thus, after a while, he became an
excellent billiard-player; he kept his colored meerschaum in the
rack of a popular brewery; he took absinthe before dinner, and
spent his evenings in the laudable effort to ascertain how many mugs
of beer he could “put away.”  Gaining in audacity, he danced at
Bullier’s, dined at Foyd’s, and at last had a mistress.

So much so, that one afternoon, M. Favoral having to visit on
business the other side of the water, found himself face to face
with his son, who was coming along, a cigar in his mouth, and having
on his arm a young lady, painted in superior style, and harnessed
with a toilet calculated to make the cab-horses rear.

He returned to the Rue St. Gilles in a state of indescribable rage.

“A woman!” he exclaimed in a tone of offended modesty.  “A woman!
--he, my son!”

And when that son made his appearance, looking quite sheepish, his
first impulse was to resort to his former mode of correction.

But Maxence was now over nineteen years of age.

At the sight of the uplifted cane, he became whiter than his shirt;
and, wrenching it from his father’s hands, he broke it across his
knees, threw the pieces violently upon the floor, and sprang out
of the house.

“He shall never again set his foot here!” screamed the cashier of
the Mutual Credit, thrown beside himself by an act of resistance
which seemed to him unheard of.  “I banish him.  Let his clothes be
packed up, and taken to some hotel: I never want to see him again.”

For a long time Mme. Favoral and Gilberte fairly dragged themselves
at his feet, before he consented to recall his determination.

“He will disgrace us all!” he kept repeating, seeming unable to
understand that it was himself who had, as it were, driven Maxence
on to the fatal road which he was pursuing, forgetting that the
absurd severities of the father prepared the way for the perilous
indulgence of the mother, unwilling to own that the head of a
family has other duties besides providing food and shelter for his
wife and children, and that a father has but little right to
complain who has not known how to make himself the friend and the
adviser of his son.

At last, after the most violent recriminations, he forgave, in
appearance at least.

But the scales had dropped from his eyes.  He started in quest of
information, and discovered startling enormities.

He heard from M. Chapelain that Maxence remained whole weeks at a
time without appearing at the office.  If he had not complained
before, it was because he had yielded to the urgent entreaties of
Mme. Favoral; and he was now glad, he added, of an opportunity to
relieve his conscience by a full confession.

Thus the cashier discovered, one by one, all his son’s tricks.  He
heard that he was almost unknown at the law-school, that he spent
his days in the cafes, and that, in the evening, when he believed
him in bed and asleep, he was in fact running out to theatres and
to balls.

“Ah! that’s the way, is it?” he thought.  “Ah, my wife and children
are in league against me,--me, the master.  Very well, we’ll see.”



XI

From that morning war was declared.

From that day commenced in the Rue St. Gilles one of those domestic
dramas which are still awaiting their Moliere,--a drama of
distressing vulgarity and sickening realism, but poignant,
nevertheless; for it brought into action tears, blood, and a savage
energy.

M. Favoral thought himself sure to win; for did he not have the key
of the cash, and is not the key of the cash the most formidable
weapon in an age where every thing begins and ends with money?

Nevertheless, he was filled with irritating anxieties.

He who had just discovered so many things which he did not even
suspect a few days before, he could not discover the source whence
his son drew the money which flowed like water from his prodigal
hands.

He had made sure that Maxence had no debts; and yet it could not be
with M. Chapelain’s monthly twenty francs that he fed his frolics.

Mme. Favoral and Gilberte, subjected separately to a skillful
interrogatory, had managed to keep inviolate the secret of their
mercenary labor.  The servant, shrewdly questioned, had said nothing
that could in any way cause the truth to be suspected.

Here was, then, a mystery; and M. Favoral’s constant anxiety could
be read upon his knitted brows during his brief visits to the house;
that is, during dinner.

From the manner in which he tasted his soup, it was easy to see that
he was asking himself whether that was real soup, and whether he was
not being imposed upon.  From the expression of his eyes, it was
easy to guess this question constantly present to his mind.

“They are robbing me evidently; but how do they do it?”

And he became distrustful, fussy, and suspicious, to an extent that
he had never been before.  It was with the most insulting precautions
that he examined every Sunday his wife’s accounts.  He took a look at
the grocer’s, and settled it himself every month: he had the butcher’s
bills sent to him in duplicate.  He would inquire the price of an
apple as he peeled it over his plate, and never failed to stop at the
fruiterer’s and ascertain that he had not been deceived.

But it was all in vain.

And yet he knew that Maxence always had in his pocket two or three
five-franc pieces.

“Where do you steal them?” he asked him one day.

“I save them out of my salary,” boldly answered the young man.

Exasperated, M. Favoral wished to make the whole world take an
interest in his investigations.  And one Saturday evening, as he
was talking with his friends, M. Chapelain, the worthy Desclavettes,
and old man Desormeaux, pointing to his wife and daughter:

“Those d---d women rob me,” he said, “for the benefit of my son;
and they do it so cleverly that I can’t find out how.  They have
an understanding with the shop-keepers, who are but licensed thieves;
and nothing is eaten here that they don’t make me pay double its
value.”

M. Chapelain made an ill-concealed grimace; whilst M. Desclavettes
sincerely admired a man who had courage enough to confess his
meanness.

But M. Desormeaux never minced things.

“Do you know, friend Vincent,” he said, “that it requires a strong
stomach to take dinner with a man who spends his time calculating
the cost of every mouthful that his guests swallow?”

M. Favoral turned red in the face.

“It is not the expense that I deplore,” he replied, “but the
duplicity.  I am rich enough, thank Heaven! not to begrudge a few
francs; and I would gladly give to my wife twice as much as she takes,
if she would only ask it frankly.”

But that was a lesson.

Hereafter he was careful to dissimulate, and seemed exclusively
occupied in subjecting his son to a system of his invention, the
excessive rigor of which would have upset a steadier one than he.

He demanded of him daily written attestations of his attendance both
at the law-school and at the lawyer’s office.  He marked out the
itinerary of his walks for him, and measured the time they required,
within a few minutes.  Immediately after dinner he shut him up in
his room, under lock and key, and never failed, when he came home
at ten o’clock to make sure of his presence.

He could not have taken steps better calculated to exalt still more
Mme. Favoral’s blind tenderness.

When she heard that Maxence had a mistress, she had been rudely
shocked in her most cherished feelings.  It is never without a secret
jealousy that a mother discovers that a woman has robbed her of her
son’s heart.  She had retained a certain amount of spite against him
on account of disorders, which, in her candor, she had never
suspected.  She forgave him every thing when she saw of what
treatment he was the object.

She took sides with him, believing him to be the victim of a most
unjust persecution.  In the evening, after her husband had gone out,
Gilberte and herself would take their sewing, sit in the hall outside
his room, and converse with him through the door.  Never had they
worked so hard for the shop-keeper in the Rue St. Denis.  Some weeks
they earned as much as twenty-five or thirty francs.

But Maxence’s patience was exhausted; and one morning he declared
resolutely that he would no longer attend the law-school, that he
had been mistaken in his vocation, and that there was no human power
capable to make him return to M. Chapelain’s.

“And where will you go?” exclaimed his father.  “Do you expect me
eternally to supply your wants?”

He answered that it was precisely in order to support himself, and
conquer his independence, that he had resolved to abandon a
profession, which, after two years, yielded him twenty francs a month.

“I want some business where I have a chance to get rich,” he replied.
“I would like to enter a banking-house, or some great financial
establishment.”

Mme. Favoral jumped at the idea.

“That’s a fact,” she said to her husband.  “Why couldn’t you find
a place for our son at the Mutual Credit?  There he would be under
your own eyes.  Intelligent as he is, backed by M. de Thaller and
yourself, he would soon earn a good salary.”

M. Favoral knit his brows.

“That I shall never do,” he uttered.  “I have not sufficient
confidence in my son.  I cannot expose myself to have him compromise
the consideration which I have acquired for myself.”

And, revealing to a certain extent the secret of his conduct:

“A cashier,” he added, “who like me handles immense sums cannot be
too careful of his reputation.  Confidence is a delicate thing in
these times, when there are so many cashiers constantly on the road
to Belgium.  Who knows what would be thought of me, if I was known
to have such a son as mine?”

Mme. Favoral was insisting, nevertheless, when he seemed to make up
his mind suddenly.

“Enough,” he said.  “Maxence is free.  I allow him two years to
establish himself in some position.  That delay over, good-by: he
can find board and lodging where he please.  That’s all.  I don’t
want to hear any thing more about it.”

It was with a sort of frenzy that Maxence abused that freedom; and
in less than two weeks he had dissipated three months’ earnings of
his mother and sister.

That time over, he succeeded, thanks to M. Chapelain, in finding a
place with an architect.

This was not a very brilliant opening; and the chances were, that
he might remain a clerk all his life.  But the future did not trouble
him much.  For the present, he was delighted with this inferior
position, which assured him each month one hundred and seventy-five
francs.

One hundred and seventy-five francs!  A fortune.  And so he rushed
into that life of questionable pleasures, where so many wretches have
left not only the money which they had, which is nothing, but the
money which they had not, which leads straight to the police-court.

He made friends with those shabby fellows who walk up and down in
front of the Cafe Riche, with an empty stomach, and a tooth-pick
between their teeth.  He became a regular customer at those low cafes
of the Boulevards, where plastered girls smile to the men.  He
frequented those suspicious table d’hotes where they play baccarat
after dinner on a wine-stained table-cloth, and where the police make
periodical raids.  He ate suppers in those night restaurants where
people throw the bottles at each other’s heads after drinking their
contents.

Often he remained twenty-four hours without coming to the Rue St.
Gilles; and then Mme. Favoral spent the night in the most fearful
anxiety.  Then, suddenly, at some hour when he knew his father to be
absent, he would appear, and, taking his mother to one side:

“I very much want a few louis,” he would say in a sheepish tone.

She gave them to him; and she kept giving them so long as she had
any, not, however, without observing timidly to him that Gilberte
and herself could not earn very much.

Until finally one evening, and to a last demand:

“Alas!” she answered sorrowfully, “I have nothing left, and it is
only on Monday that we are to take our work back.  Couldn’t you
wait until then?”

He could not wait: he was expected for a game.  Blind devotion begets
ferocious egotism.  He wanted his mother to go out and borrow the
money from the grocer or the butcher.  She was hesitating.  He spoke
louder.

Then Mlle. Gilberte appeared.

“Have you, then, really no heart?” she said.  “It seems to me, that,
if I were a man, I would not ask my mother and sister to work for me.”



XII

Gilberte Favoral had just completed her eighteenth year.  Rather
tall, slender, her every motion betrayed the admirable proportions
of her figure, and had that grace which results from the harmonious
blending of litheness and strength.  She did not strike at first
sight; but soon a penetrating and indefinable charm arose from her
whole person; and one knew not which to admire most,--the exquisite
perfections of her figure, the divine roundness of her neck, her
aerial carriage, or the placid ingenuousness of her attitudes.  She
could not be called beautiful, inasmuch as her features lacked
regularity; but the extreme mobility of her countenance, upon which
could be read all the emotions of her soul, had an irresistible
seduction.  Her large eyes, of velvety blue, had untold depths and
an incredible intensity of expression; the imperceptible quiver of
her rosy nostrils revealed an untamable pride; and the smile that
played upon her lips told her immense contempt for every thing mean
and small.  But her real beauty was her hair,--of a blonde so
luminous that it seemed powdered with diamond-dust; so thick and
so long, that to be able to twist and confine it, she had to cut off
heavy locks of it to the very root.

Alone, in the house, she did not tremble at her father’s voice.  The
studied despotism which had subdued Mme. Favoral had revolted her,
and her energy had become tempered under the same system of
oppression which had unnerved Maxence.

Whilst her mother and her brother lied with that quiet impudence of
the slave, whose sole weapon is duplicity, Gilberte preserved a
sullen silence.  And if complicity was imposed upon her by
circumstances, if she had to maintain a falsehood, each word cost
her such a painful effort, that her features became visibly altered.

Never, when her own interests were alone at stake, had she stooped
to an untruth.  Fearlessly, and whatever might be the result,

“That is the fact,” she would say.

Accordingly, M. Favoral could not help respecting her to a degree;
and, when he was in fine humor, he called her the Empress Gilberte.
For her alone he had some deference and some attentions.  He
moderated, when she looked at him, the brutality of his language.
He brought her a few flowers every Saturday.

He had even allowed her a professor of music; though he was wont to
declare that a woman needs but two accomplishments,--to cook and
to sew.  But she had insisted so much, that he had at last
discovered for her, in an attic of the Rue du Pas-de-la-Mule, an
old Italian master, the Signor Gismondo Pulei, a sort of unknown
genius, for whom thirty francs a month were a fortune, and who
conceived a sort of religious fanaticism for his pupil.

Though he had always refused to write a note, he consented, for her
sake, to fix the melodies that buzzed in his cracked brain; and some
of them proved to be admirable.  He dreamed to compose for her an
opera that would transmit to the most remote generations the name
of Gismondo Pulei.

“The Signora Gilberte is the very goddess of music,” he said to M.
Favoral, with transports of enthusiasm, which intensified still his
frightful accent.

The cashier of the Mutual Credit Society shrugged his shoulders,
answering that there is no harmony for a man who spends his days
listening to the exciting music of golden coins.  In spite of which
his vanity seemed highly gratified, when on Saturday evenings, after
dinner, Mlle. Gilberte sat at the piano, and Mme. Desclavettes,
suppressing a yawn, would exclaim,

“What remarkable talent the dear child has!”

The young girl had, then, a positive influence; and it was to her
entreaties alone, and not to those of his wife, that he had several
times forgiven Maxence.  He would have done much more for her, had
she wished it; but she would have been compelled to ask, to insist,
to beg.

“And it’s humiliating,” she used to say.

Sometimes Mme. Favoral scolded her gently, saying that her father
would certainly not refuse her one of those pretty toilets which are
the ambition and the joy of young girls.

But she:

“It is much less mortification to me to wear these rags than to meet
with a refusal,” she replied.  “I am satisfied with my dresses.”

With such a character, surrounded, however, by a meek resignation,
and an unalterable _sang-froid_, she inspired a certain respect to
both her mother and her brother, who admired in her an energy of
which they felt themselves incapable.

And when she appeared, and commenced reproaching him in an indignant
tone of voice, with the baseness of his conduct, and his insatiate
demands, Maxence was almost stunned.

“I did not know,” he commenced, turning as red as fire.

She crushed him with a look of mingled contempt and pity; and, in
an accent of haughty irony:

“Indeed,” she said, “you do not know whence the money comes that
you extort from our mother!”

And holding up her hand, still remarkably handsome, though slightly
deformed by the constant handling of the needle; the fourth finger
of the right hand bent by the thread, and the fore-finger of the
left tattooed and lacerated by the needle:

“Indeed,” she repeated, “you do not know that my mother and myself,
we spend all our days, and the greater part of our nights, working?”

Hanging his head, he said nothing.

“If it were for myself alone,” she continued, “I would not speak to
you thus.  But look at our mother!  See her poor eyes, red and weak
from her ceaseless labor!  If I have said nothing until now, it is
because I did not as yet despair of your heart; because I hoped that
you would recover some feeling of decency.  But no, nothing.  With
time, your last scruples seem to have vanished.  Once you begged
humbly; now you demand rudely.  How soon will you resort to blows?”

“Gilberte!” stammered the poor fellow, “Gilberte!”

She interrupted him:

“Money!” she went on, “always, and without time, you must have money;
no matter whence it comes, nor what it costs.  If, at least, you
had to justify your expenses, the excuse of some great passion, or
of some object, were it absurd, ardently pursued!  But I defy you
to confess upon what degrading pleasures you lavish our humble
economies.  I defy you to tell us what you mean to do with the sum
that you demand to-night,--that sum for which you would have our
mother stoop to beg the assistance of a shop-keeper, to whom we
would be compelled to reveal the secret of our shame.”

Touched by the frightful humiliation of her son:

“He is so unhappy!” stammered Mme. Favoral.

“He unhappy!” she exclaimed.  “What, then, shall
we say of us? and, above all, what shall you say of yourself, mother?
Unhappy!--he, a man, who has liberty and strength, who may undertake
every thing, attempt any thing, dare any thing.  Ah, I wish I were
a man!  I!  I would be a man as there are some, as I know some; and
I would have avenged you, O beloved mother! long, long ago, from
father; and I would have begun to repay you all the good you have
done me.”

Mme. Favoral was sobbing.

“I beg of you,” she murmured, “spare him.”

“Be it so,” said the young girl.  “But you must allow me to tell him
that it is not for his sake that I devote my youth to a mercenary
labor.  It is for you, adored mother, that you may have the joy to
give him what he asks, since it is your only joy.”

Maxence shuddered under the breath of that superb indignation.  That
frightful humiliation, he felt that he deserved it only too much.
He understood the justice of these cruel reproaches.  And, as his
heart had not yet spoiled with the contact of his boon companions,
as he was weak, rather than wicked, as the sentiments which are the
honor and pride of a man were not dead within him.

“Ah! you are a brave sister, Gilberte,” he exclaimed; “and what you
have just done is well.  You have been harsh, but not as much as I
deserve.  Thanks for your courage, which will give me back mine.
Yes, it is a shame for me to have thus cowardly abused you both.”

And, raising his mother’s hand to his lips:
“Forgive, mother,” he continued, his eyes overflowing with tears;
“forgive him who swears to you to redeem his past, and to become
your support, instead of being a crushing burden--”

He was interrupted by the noise of steps on the stairs, and the
shrill sound of a whistle.

“My husband!” exclaimed Mme. Favoral,--“your father, my children!”

“Well,” said Mlle. Gilberte coldly.

“Don’t you hear that he is whistling? and do you forget that it is
a proof that he is furious?  What new trial threatens us again?”



XIII

Mme. Favoral spoke from experience.  She had learned, to her cost,
that the whistle of her husband, more surely than the shriek of the
stormy petrel, announces the storm.--And she had that evening more
reasons than usual to fear.  Breaking from all his habits, M. Favoral
had not come home to dinner, and had sent one of the clerks of the
Mutual Credit Society to say that they should not wait for him.

Soon his latch-key grated in the lock; the door swung open; he came
in; and, seeing his son:

“Well, I am glad to find you here,” he exclaimed with a giggle, which
with him was the utmost expression of anger.

Mme. Favoral shuddered.  Still under the impression of the scene
which had just taken place, his heart heavy, and his eyes full of
tears, Maxence did not answer.

“It is doubtless a wager,” resumed the father, “and you wish to know
how far my patience may go.”

“I do not understand you,” stammered the young man.

“The money that you used to get, I know not where, doubtless fails
you now, or at least is no longer sufficient, and you go on making
debts right and left--at the tailor’s, the shirt maker’s, the
jeweler’s.  Of course, it’s simple enough.  We earn nothing; but
we wish to dress in the latest style, to wear a gold chain across
our vest, and then we make dupes.”

“I have never made any dupes, father.”

“Bah!  And what, then, do you call all these people who came this
very day to present me their bills?  For they did dare to come to
my office!  They had agreed to come together, expecting thus to
intimidate me more easily.  I told them that you were of age, and
that your business was none of mine.  Hearing this, they became
insolent, and commenced speaking so loud, that their voices could
be heard in the adjoining rooms.  At that very moment, the manager,
M. de Thaller, happened to be passing through the hall.  Hearing
the noise of a discussion, he thought that I was having some
difficulty with some of our stockholders, and he came in, as he
had a right to.  Then I was compelled to confess everything.”

He became excited at the sound of his words, like a horse at the
jingle of his bells.  And, more and more beside himself:

“That is just what your creditors wished,” he pursued.  “They
thought I would be afraid of a row, and that I would ‘come down.’
It is a system of blackmailing, like any other.  An account is
opened to some young rascal; and, when the amount is reasonably
large, they take it to the family, saying, ‘Money, or I make row.’
Do you think it is to you, who are penniless, that they give credit?
It’s on my pocket that they were drawing,--on my pocket, because
they believed me rich.  They sold you at exorbitant prices every
thing they wished; and they relied on me to pay for trousers at
ninety francs, shirts at forty francs, and watches at six hundred
francs.”

Contrary to his habit, Maxence did not offer any denial.

“I expect to pay all I owe,” he said.

“You!”

“I give my word I will!”

“And with what, pray?”

“With my salary.”

“You have a salary, then?”

Maxence blushed.

“I have what I earn at my employer’s.”

“What employer?”

“The architect in whose office M. Chapelain helped me to find a
place.”

With a threatening gesture, M. Favoral interrupted him.

“Spare me your lies,” he uttered.  “I am better posted than you
suppose.  I know, that, over a month ago, your employer, tired of
your idleness, dismissed you in disgrace.”

Disgrace was superfluous.  The fact was, that Maxence, returning
to work after an absence of five days, had found another in his
place.

“I shall find another place,” he said.

M. Favoral shrugged his shoulders with a movement of rage.

“And in the mean time,” he said, “I shall have to pay.  Do you know
what your creditors threaten to do?--to commence a suit against me.
They would lose it, of course, they know it; but they hope that I
would yield before a scandal.  And this is not all: they talk of
entering a criminal complaint.  They pretend that you have
audaciously swindled them; that the articles you purchased of them
were not at all for your own use, but that you sold them as fast as
you got them, at any price you could obtain, to raise ready money.
The jeweler has proofs, he says, that you went straight from his
shop to the pawnbroker’s, and pledged a watch and chain which he
had just sold you.  It is a police matter.  They said all that in
presence of my superior officer--in presence of M. de Thaller.  I
had to get the janitor to put them out.  But, after they had left,
M. de Thaller gave me to understand that he wished me very much to
settle everything.  And he is right.  My consideration could not
resist another such scene.  What confidence can be placed in a
cashier whose son behaves in this manner?  How can a key of a safe
containing millions be left with a man whose son would have been
dragged into the police-courts?  In a word, I am at your mercy.
In a word, my honor, my position, my fortune, rest upon you.  As
often as it may please you to make debts, you can make them, and
I shall be compelled to pay.”

Gathering all his courage:

“You have been sometimes very harsh with me, father,” commenced
Maxence; “and yet I will not try to justify my conduct.  I swear to
you, that hereafter you shall have nothing to fear from me.”

“I fear nothing,” uttered M. Favoral with a sinister smile.  “I
know the means of placing myself beyond the reach of your follies
--and I shall use them.”

“I assure you, father, that I have taken a firm resolution.”

“Oh! you may dispense with your periodical repentance.”

Mlle. Gilberte stepped forward.

“I’ll stand warrant,” she said, “for Maxence’s resolutions.”

Her father did not permit her to proceed.

“Enough,” he interrupted somewhat harshly.  “Mind your own business,
Gilberte!  I have to speak to you too.”

“To me, father?”

“Yes.”

He walked up and down three or four times through the parlor, as if
to calm his irritation.  Then planting himself straight before his
daughter, his arms folded across his breast:

“You are eighteen years of age,” he said; “that is to say, it is
time to think of your marriage.  An excellent match offers itself.”

She shuddered, stepped back, and, redder than a peony:

“A match!” she repeated in a tone of immense surprise.

“Yes, and which suits me.”

“But I do not wish to marry, father.”

“All young girls say the same thing; and, as soon as a pretender
offers himself, they are delighted.  Mine is a fellow of twenty-six,
quite good looking, amiable, witty, and who has had the greatest
success in society.”

“Father, I assure you that I do not wish to leave mother.”

“Of course not.  He is an intelligent, hard-working man, destined,
everybody says, to make an immense fortune.  Although he is rich
already, for he holds a controlling interest in a stock-broker’s
firm, he works as hard as any poor devil.  I would not be surprised
to hear that he makes half a million of francs a year.  His wife
will have her carriage, her box at the opera, diamonds, and dresses
as handsome as Mlle. de Thaller’s.”

“Eh!  What do I care for such things?”

“It’s understood.  I’ll present him to you on Saturday.”

But Mlle. Gilberte was not one of those young girls who allow
themselves, through weakness or timidity, to become engaged, and so
far engaged, that later, they can no longer withdraw.  A discussion
being unavoidable, she preferred to have it out at once.

“A presentation is absolutely useless, father,” she declared
resolutely.

“Because?”

“I have told you that I did not wish to marry.”

“But if it is my will?”

“I am ready to obey you in every thing except that.”

“In that as in every thing else,” interrupted the cashier of the
Mutual Credit in a thundering voice.

And, casting upon his wife and children a glance full of defiance
and threats:

“In that, as in every thing else,” he repeated, “because I am the
master; and I shall prove it.  Yes, I will prove it; for I am tired
to see my family leagued against my authority.”

And out he went, slamming the door so violently, that the partitions
shook.

“You are wrong to resist your father thus,” murmured the weak Mme.
Favoral.

The fact is, that the poor woman could not understand why her
daughter refused the only means at her command to break off with
her miserable existence.

“Let him present you this young man,” she said.  “You might like
him.”

“I am sure I shall not like him.”

She said this in such a tone, that the light suddenly flashed upon
Mme. Favoral’s mind.

“Heavens!” she murmured.  “Gilberte, my darling child, have you then
a secret which your mother does not know?”



XIV

Yes, Mlle. Gilberte had her secret--a very simple one, though,
chaste, like herself, and one of those which, as the old women say,
must cause the angels to rejoice.

The spring of that year having been unusually mild, Mme. Favoral
and her daughter had taken the habit of going daily to breathe the
fresh air in the Place Royale.  They took their work with them,
crotchet or knitting; so that this salutary exercise did not in any
way diminish the earnings of the week.  It was during these walks
that Mlle. Gilberte had at last noticed a young man, unknown to her,
whom she met every day at the same place.

Tall and robust, he had a grand look, notwithstanding his modest
clothes, the exquisite neatness of which betrayed a sort of
respectable poverty.  He wore his full beard; and his proud and
intelligent features were lighted up by a pair of large black eyes,
of those eyes whose straight and clear look disconcerts hypocrites
and knaves.

He never failed, as he passed by Mlle. Gilberte, to look down, or
turn his head slightly away; and in spite of this, in spite of the
expression of respect which she had detected upon his face, she
could not help blushing.

“Which is absurd,” she thought; “for after all, what on earth do I
care for that young man?”

The infallible instinct, which is the experience of inexperienced
young girls, told her that it was not chance alone that brought
this stranger in her way.  But she wished to make sure of it.  She
managed so well, that each day of the following week, the hour of
their walk was changed.  Sometimes they went out at noon, sometimes
after four o’clock.

But, whatever the hour, Mlle. Gilberte, as she turned the corner of
the Rue des Minimes, noticed her unknown admirer under the arcades,
looking in some shop-window, and watching out of the corner of his
eye.  As soon as she appeared, he left his post, and hurried fast
enough to meet her at the gate of the Place.

“It is a persecution,” thought Mlle. Gilberte.

How, then, had she not spoken of it to her mother?  Why had she not
said any thing to her the day, when, happening, to look out of the
window, she saw her “persecutor” passing before the house, or,
evidently looking in her direction?

“Am I losing my mind?” she thought, seriously irritated against
herself.  “I will not think of him any more.”

And yet she was thinking of him, when one afternoon, as her mother
and herself were working, sitting upon a bench, she saw the stranger
come and sit down not far from them.  He was accompanied by an
elderly man with long white mustaches, and wearing the rosette
of the Legion of Honor.

“This is an insolence,” thought the young girl, whilst seeking a
pretext to ask her mother to change their seats.

But already had the young man and his elderly friend seated
themselves, and so arranged their chairs, that Mlle. Gilberte could
not miss a word of what they were about to say.  It was the young
man who spoke first.

“You know me as well as I know myself, my dear count,” he commenced
--“you who were my poor father’s best friend, you who dandled me
upon your knees when I was a child, and who has never lost sight of
me.”

“Which is to say, my boy, that I answer for you as for myself,” put
in the old man.  “But go on.”

“I am twenty-six years old.  My name is Yves-Marius-Genost de Tregars.
My family, which is one of the oldest of Brittany, is allied to all
the great families.”

“Perfectly exact,” remarked the old gentleman.

“Unfortunately, my fortune is not on a par with my nobility.  When
my mother died, in 1856, my father, who worshiped her, could no
longer bear, in the intensity of his grief, to remain at the Chateau
de Tregars where he had spent his whole life.  He came to Paris,
which he could well afford, since we were rich then, but
unfortunately, made acquaintances who soon inoculated him with the
fever of the age.  They proved to him that he was mad to keep lands
which barely yielded him forty thousand francs a year, and which he
could easily sell for two millions; which amount, invested merely
at five per cent, would yield him an income of one hundred thousand
francs.  He therefore sold every thing, except our patrimonial
homestead on the road from Quimper to Audierne, and rushed into
speculations.  He was rather lucky at first.  But he was too honest
and too loyal to be lucky long.  An operation in which he became
interested early in 1869 turned out badly.  His associates became
rich; but he, I know not how, was ruined, and came near being
compromised.  He died of grief a month later.”

The old soldier was nodding his assent.

“Very well, my boy,” he said.  “But you are too modest; and there’s
a circumstance which you neglect.  You had a right, when your father
became involved in these troubles, to claim and retain your mother’s
fortune; that is, some thirty thousand francs a year.  Not only you
did not do so; but you gave up every thing to his creditors.  You
sold the domain of Tregars, except the old castle and its park, and
paid over the proceeds to them; so that, if your father did die
ruined, at least he did not owe a cent.  And yet you knew, as well
as myself, that your father had been deceived and swindled by a lot
of scoundrels who drive their carriages now, and who, perhaps, if
the courts were applied to, might still be made to disgorge their
ill-gotten plunder.”

Her head bent upon her tapestry, Mlle. Gilberte seemed to be working
with incomparable zeal.  The truth is, she knew not how to conceal
the blushes on her cheeks, and the trembling of her hands.  She had
something like a cloud before her eyes; and she drove her needle at
random.  She scarcely preserved enough presence of mind to reply to
Mme. Favoral, who, not noticing any thing, spoke to her from time to
time.

Indeed, the meaning of this scene was too clear to escape her.

“They have had an understanding,” she thought, “and it is for me
alone that they are speaking.”

Meantime, Marius de Tregars was going on:

“I should lie, my old friend, were I to say that I was indifferent
to our ruin.  Philosopher though one may be, it is not without some
pangs that one passes from a sumptuous hotel to a gloomy garret.
But what grieved me most of all was that I saw myself compelled
to give up the labors which had been the joy of my life, and upon
which I had founded the most magnificent hopes.  A positive vocation,
stimulated further by the accidents of my education, had led me to
the study of physical sciences.  For several years, I had applied all
I have of intelligence and energy to certain investigations in
electricity.  To convert electricity into an incomparable
motive-power which would supersede steam,--such was the object I
pursued without pause.  Already, as you know, although quite young,
I had obtained results which had attracted some attention in the
scientific world.  I thought I could see the last of a problem, the
solution of which would change the face of the globe.  Ruin was the
death of my hopes, the total loss of the fruits of my labors; for
my experiments were costly, and it required money, much money, to
purchase the products which were indispensable to me, and to
construct the machines which I contrived.

“And I was about being compelled to earn my daily bread.

“I was on the verge of despair, when I met a man whom I had formerly
seen at my father’s, and who had seemed to take some interest in my
researches, a speculator named Marcolet.  But it is not at the bourse
that he operates.  Industry is the field of his labors.  Ever on the
lookout for those obstinate inventors who are starving to death in
their garrets, he appears to them at the hour of supreme crisis: he
pities them, encourages them, consoles them, helps them, and almost
always succeeds in becoming the owner of their discovery.  Sometimes
he makes a mistake; and then all he has to do is to put a few
thousand francs to the debit of profit or loss.  But, if he has
judged right, then he counts his profits by hundreds of thousands;
and how many patents does he work thus!  Of how many inventions does
he reap the results which are a fortune, and the inventors of
which have no shoes to wear!  Every thing is good to him; and he
defends with the same avidity a cough-sirup, the formula of
which he has purchased of some poor devil of a druggist, and an
improvement to the steam-engine, the patent for which has been sold
to him by an engineer of genius.  And yet Marcolet is not a bad man.
Seeing my situation, he offered me a certain yearly sum to undertake
some studies of industrial chemistry which he indicated to me.  I
accepted; and the very next day I hired a small basement in the Rue
des Tournelles, where I set up my laboratory, and went to work at
once.  That was a year ago.  Marcolet must be satisfied.  I have
already found for him a new shade for dyeing silk, the cost price
of which is almost nothing.  As to me, I have lived with the
strictest economy, devoting all my surplus earnings to the
prosecution of the problem, the solution of which would give me
both glory and fortune.”

Palpitating with inexpressible emotion, Mlle. Gilberte was listening
to this young man, unknown to her a few moments since, and whose
whole history she now knew as well as if she had always lived near
him; for it never occurred to her to suspect his sincerity.

No voice had ever vibrated to her ear like this voice, whose grave
sonorousness stirred within her strange sensations, and legions of
thoughts which she had never suspected.  She was surprised at the
accent of simplicity with which he spoke of the illustriousness of
his family, of his past opulence, of his obscure labors, and of his
exalted hopes.

She admired the superb disregard for money which beamed forth in his
every word.  Here was then one man, at least, who despised that
money before which she had hitherto seen all the people she knew
prostrated in abject worship.

After a pause of a few moments, Marius de Tregars, still addressing
himself apparently to his aged companion, went on:

“I repeat it, because it is the truth, my old friend, this life of
labor and privation, so new to me, was not a burden.  Calm, silence,
the constant exercise of all the faculties of the intellect, have
charms which the vulgar can never suspect.  I was happy to think,
that, if I was ruined, it was through an act of my own will.  I found
a positive pleasure in the fact that I, the Marquis de Tregars, who
had had a hundred thousand a year--I must the next moment go out in
person to the baker’s and the green-grocer’s to purchase my supplies
for the day.  I was proud to think that it was to my labor alone, to
the work for which I was paid by Marcolet, that I owed the means of
prosecuting my task.  And, from the summits where I was carried on
the wings of science, I took pity on your modern existence, on that
ridiculous and tragical medley of passions, interests, and cravings;
that struggle without truce or mercy, whose law is, woe to the weak,
in which whosoever falls is trampled under feet.

“Sometimes, however, like a fire that has been smouldering under
the ashes, the flame of youthful passions blazed up within me.  I
had hours of madness, of discouragement, of distress, during which
solitude was loathsome to me.  But I had the faith which raises
mountains--faith in myself and my work.  And soon, tranquilized, I
would go to sleep in the purple of hope, beholding in the vista of
the distant future the triumphal arches erected to my success.

“Such was my situation, when, one afternoon in the month of February
last, after an experiment upon which I had founded great hopes, and
which had just miserably failed, I came here to breathe a little
fresh air.

“It was a beautiful spring day, warm and sunny.  The sparrows were
chirping on the branches, swelled with sap: bands of children were
running along the alleys, filling the air with their joyous screams.

“I was sitting upon a bench, ruminating over the causes of my failure,
when two ladies passed by me; one somewhat aged, the other quite
young.  They were walking so rapidly, that I hardly had time to
see them.

“But the young lady’s step, the noble simplicity of her carriage,
had struck me so much, that I rose to follow her with the intention
of passing her, and then walking back to have a good view of her
face.  I did so; and I was fairly dazzled.  At the moment when my
eyes met hers, a voice rose within me, crying that it was all over
now, and that my destiny was fixed.”

“I remember, my dear boy,” remarked the old soldier in a tone of
friendly raillery; “for you came to see me that night, and I had
not seen you for months before.”

Marius proceeded without heeding the remark.

“And yet you know that I am not the man to yield to first impression.
I struggled: with determined energy I strove to drive off that
radiant image which I carried within my soul, which left me no more,
which haunted me in the midst of my studies.

“Vain efforts.  My thoughts obeyed me no longer--my will escaped
my control.  It was indeed one of those passions that fill the whole
being, overpower all, and which make of life an ineffable felicity
or a nameless torture, according that they are reciprocated, or not.
How many days I spent there, waiting and watching for her of whom I
had thus had a glimpse, and who ignored my very existence!  And what
insane palpitations, when, after hours of consuming anxiety, I saw
at the corner of the street the undulating folds of her dress!  I
saw her thus often, and always with the same elderly person, her
mother.  They had adopted in this square a particular bench, where
they sat daily, working at their sewing with an assiduity and zeal
which made me think that they lived upon the product of their labor.”

Here he was suddenly interrupted by his companion.  The old gentleman
feared that Mme. Favoral’s attention might at last be attracted by
too direct allusions.

“Take care, boy!” he whispered, not so low, however, but what
Gilberte overheard him.

But it would have required much more than this to draw Mme. Favoral
from her sad thoughts.  She had just finished her band of tapestry;
and, grieving to lose a moment:

“It is perhaps time to go home,” she said to her daughter.  “I have
nothing more to do.”

Mlle. Gilberte drew from her basket a piece of canvas, and, handing
it to her mother:

“Here is enough to go on with, mamma,” she said in a troubled voice.
“Let us stay a little while longer.”

And, Mme. Favoral having resumed her work, Marius proceeded:

“The thought that she whom I loved was poor delighted me.  Was not
this similarity of positions a link between us?  I felt a childish
joy to think that I would work for her and for her mother, and that
they would be indebted to me for their ease and comfort in life.

“But I am not one of those dreamers who confide their destiny to the
wings of a chimera.  Before undertaking any thing, I resolved to
inform myself.  Alas! at the first words that I heard, all my fine
dreams took wings.  I heard that she was rich, very rich.  I was
told that her father was one of those men whose rigid probity
surrounds itself with austere and harsh forms.  He owed his fortune,
I was assured, to his sole labor, but also to prodigies of economy
and the most severe privations.  He professed a worship, they said,
for that gold that had cost him so much; and he would never give the
hand of his daughter to a man who had no money.  This last comment
was useless.  Above my actions, my thoughts, my hopes, higher than
all, soars my pride.  Instantly I saw an abyss opening between me
and her whom I love more than my life, but less than my dignity.
When a man’s name is Genost de Tregars, he must support his wife,
were it by breaking stones.  And the thought that I owed my fortune
to the woman I married would make me execrate her.

“You must remember, my old friend, that I told you all this at the
time.  You thought, too, that it was singularly impertinent, on my
part, thus to flare up in advance, because, certainly a millionaire
does not give his daughter to a ruined nobleman in the pay of
Marcolet, the patent-broker, to a poor devil of an inventor, who is
building the castles of his future upon the solution of a problem
which has been given up by the most brilliant minds.

“It was then that I determined upon an extreme resolution, a
foolish one, no doubt, and yet to which you, the Count de Villegre,
my father’s old friend, you have consented to lend yourself.

“I thought that I would address myself to her, to her alone, and
that she would at least know what great, what immense love she had
inspired.  I thought I would go to her and tell her, ‘This is who
I am, and what I am.  For mercy’s sake, grant me a respite of three
years.  To a love such as mine there is nothing impossible.  In
three years I shall be dead, or rich enough to ask your hand.  From
this day forth, I give up my task for work of more immediate profit.
The arts of industry have treasures for successful inventors.  If
you could only read in my soul, you would not refuse me the delay I
am asking.  Forgive me!  One word, for mercy’s sake, only one!  It
is my sentence that I am awaiting.’”

Mlle. Gilberte’s thoughts were in too great a state of confusion
to permit her to think of being offended at this extraordinary
proceeding.  She rose, quivering, and addressing herself to Mme.
Favoral:

“Come, mother,” she said, “come: I feel that I have taken cold.
I must go home and think.  To-morrow, yes, to-morrow, we will come
again.”

Deep as Mme. Favoral was plunged in her meditations, and a thousand
miles as she was from the actual situation, it was impossible that
she should not notice the intense excitement under which her daughter
labored, the alteration of her features, and the incoherence of her
words.

“What is the matter?” she asked, somewhat alarmed.  “What are you
saying?”

“I feel unwell,” answered her daughter in a scarcely audible voice,
“quite unwell.  Come, let us go home.”

As soon as they reached home, Mlle. Gilberte took refuge in her own
room.  She was in haste to be alone, to recover her self-possession,
to collect her thoughts, more scattered than dry leaves by a storm
wind.

It was a momentous event which had just suddenly fallen in her life
so monotonous and so calm--an inconceivable, startling event, the
consequences of which were to weigh heavily upon her entire future.

Staggering still, she was asking herself if she was not the victim
of an hallucination, and if really there was a man who had dared to
conceive and execute the audacious project of coming thus under the
eyes of her mother, of declaring his love, and of asking her in
return a solemn engagement.  But what stupefied her more still, what
confused her, was that she had actually endured such an attempt.

Under what despotic influence had she, then, fallen?  To what
undefinable sentiments had she obeyed?  And if she had only
tolerated!  But she had done more: she had actually encouraged.
By detaining her mother when she wished to go home (and she had
detained her), had she not said to this unknown?--“Go on, I allow
it: I am listening.”

And he had gone on.  And she, at the moment of returning home, she
had engaged herself formally to reflect, and to return the next day
at a stated hour to give an answer.  In a word, she had made an
appointment with him.

It was enough to make her die of shame.  And, as if she had needed
the sound of her own words to convince herself of the reality of the
fact, she kept repeating loud,

“I have made an appointment--I, Gilberte, with a man whom my parents
do not know, and of whose name I was still ignorant yesterday.”

And yet she could not take upon herself to be indignant at the
imprudent boldness of her conduct.  The bitterness of the reproaches
which she was addressing to herself was not sincere.  She felt it so
well, that at last:

“Such hypocrisy is unworthy of me,” she exclaimed, “since now,
still, and without the excuse of being taken by surprise, I would
not act otherwise.”

The fact is, the more she pondered, the less she could succeed in
discovering even the shadow of any offensive intention in all that
Marius de Tregars had said.  By the choice of his confidant, an old
man, a friend of his family, a man of the highest respectability,
he had done all in his power to make his step excusable.  It was
impossible to doubt his sincerity, to suspect the fairness of
his intentions.

Mlle. Gilberte, better than almost any other young girl, could
understand the extreme measure resorted to by M. de Tregars.  By her
own pride she could understand his.  No more than he, in his place,
would she have been willing to expose herself to a certain refusal.
What was there, then, so extraordinary in the fact of his coming
directly to her, in his exposing to her frankly and loyally his
situation, his projects, and his hopes?

“Good heavens!” she thought, horrified at the sentiments which she
discovered in the deep recesses of her soul, “good heavens!  I
hardly know myself any more.  Here I am actually approving what he
has done!”

Well, yes, she did approve him, attracted, fascinated, by the very
strangeness of the situation.  Nothing seemed to her more admirable
than the conduct of Marius de Tregars sacrificing his fortune and
his most legitimate aspirations to the honor of his name, and
condemning himself to work for his living.

“That one,” she thought, “is a man; and his wife will have just
cause to be proud of him.”

Involuntarily she compared him to the only men she knew: to M.
Favoral, whose miserly parsimony had made his whole family wretched;
to Maxence, who did not blush to feed his disorders with the fruits
of his mother’s and his sister’s labor.

How different was Marius!  If he was poor, it was of his own will.
Had she not seen what confidence he had in himself.  She shared it
fully.  She felt certain that, within the required delay, he would
conquer that indispensable fortune.  Then he might present himself
boldly.  He would take her, away from the miserable surroundings
among which she seemed fated to live: she would become the
Marchioness de Tregars.

“Why, then, not answer, Yes!” thought she, with the harrowing
emotions of the gambler who is about to stake his all upon one card.
And what a game for Mlle. Gilberte, and what a stake!

Suppose she had been mistaken.  Suppose that Marius should be one
of those villains who make of seduction a science.  Would she still
be her own mistress, after answering?  Did she know to what hazards
such an engagement would expose her?  Was she not about rushing
blindfolded towards those deceiving perils where a young girl
leaves her reputation, even when she saves her honor?

She thought, for a moment, of consulting her mother.  But she knew
Mme. Favoral’s shrinking timidity, and that she was as incapable
of giving any advice as to make her will prevail.  She would be
frightened; she would approve all; and, at the first alarm, she
would confess all.

“Am I, then, so weak and so foolish,” she thought, “that I cannot
take a determination which affects me personally?”

She could not close her eyes all night; but in the morning her
resolution was settled.

And toward one o’clock:

“Are we not going out mother?” she said.

Mme. Favoral was hesitating.

“These early spring days are treacherous,” she objected: “you
caught cold yesterday.”

“My dress was too thin.  To-day I have taken my precautions.”

They started, taking their work with them, and came to occupy their
accustomed seats.

Before they had even passed the gates, Mlle. Gilberte had recognized
Marius de Tregars and the Count de Villegre, walking in one of the
side alleys.  Soon, as on the day before, they took two chairs, and
settled themselves within hearing.

Never had the young girl’s heart beat with such violence.  It is
easy enough to take a resolution; but it is not always quite so easy
to execute it, and she was asking herself if she would have strength
enough to articulate a word.  At last, gathering her whole courage:

“You don’t believe in dreams, do you mother?” she asked.

Upon this subject, as well as upon many others, Mme. Favoral had no
particular opinion.

“Why do you ask the question?” said she.

“Because I have had such a strange one.”

“Oh!”

“It seemed to me that suddenly a young man, whom I did not know,
stood before me.  He would have been most happy, said he to me, to
ask my hand, but he dared not, being very poor.  And he begged me
to wait three years, during which he would make his fortune.”

Mme. Favoral smiled.

“Why it’s quite a romance,” said she.

“But it wasn’t a romance in my dream,” interrupted Mlle. Gilberte.
“This young man spoke in a tone of such profound conviction, that
it was impossible for me, as it were, to doubt him.  I thought to
myself that he would be incapable of such an odious villainy as to
abuse the confiding credulity of a poor girl.”

“And what did you answer him?”

Moving her seat almost imperceptibly, Mlle. Gilberte could, from
the corner of her eye, have a glimpse of M. de Tregars.  Evidently
he was not missing a single one of the words which she was addressing
to her mother.  He was whiter than a sheet; and his face betrayed the
most intense anxiety.

This gave her the energy to curb the last revolts of her conscience.

“To answer was painful,” she uttered; “and yet I--dared to answer
him.  I said to him, ‘I believe you, and I have faith in you.
Loyally and faithfully I shall await your success; but until then
we must be strangers to one another.  To resort to ruse, deceit,
and falsehood would be unworthy of us.  You surely would not expose
to a suspicion her who is to be your wife.’”

“Very well,” approved Mme. Favoral; “only I did not know you were
so romantic.”

She was laughing, the good lady, but not loud enough to prevent
Gilberte from hearing M. de Tregars’ answer.

“Count de Villegre,” said he, “my old friend, receive the oath which
I take to devote my life to her who has not doubted me.  It is to-day
the 4th of May, 1870--on the 4th of May, 1873, I shall have
succeeded: I feel it, I will it, it must be!”



XV

It was done: Gilberte Favoral had just irrevocably disposed of
herself.  Prosperous or wretched, her destiny henceforth was linked
with another.  She had set the wheel in motion; and she could no
longer hope to control its direction, any more than the will can
pretend to alter the course of the ivory ball upon the surface of
the roulette-table.  At the outset of this great storm of passion
which had suddenly surrounded her, she felt an immense surprise,
mingled with unexplained apprehensions and vague terrors.

Around her, apparently, nothing was changed.  Father, mother,
brother, friends, gravitated mechanically in their accustomed orbits.
The same daily facts repeated themselves monotonous and regular as
the tick-tack of the clock.

And yet an event had occurred more prodigious for her than the moving
of a mountain.

Often during the weeks that followed, she would repeat to herself,
“Is it true, is it possible even?”

Or else she would run to a mirror to make sure once more that nothing
upon her face or in her eyes betrayed the secret that palpitated
within her.

The singularity of the situation was, moreover, well calculated to
trouble and confound her mind.

Mastered by circumstances, she had in utter disregard of all accepted
ideas, and of the commonest propriety, listened to the passionate
promises of a stranger, and pledged her life to him.  And, the pact
concluded and solemnly sworn, they had parted without knowing when
propitious circumstances might bring them together again.

“Certainly,” thought she, “before God, M. de Tregars is my betrothed
husband; and yet we have never exchanged a word.  Were we to meet in
society, we should be compelled to meet as strangers: if he passes by
me in the street, he has no right to bow to me.  I know not where he
is, what becomes of him, nor what he is doing.”

And in fact she had not seen him again: he had given no sign of life,
so faithfully did he conform to her expressed wish.  And perhaps
secretly, and without acknowledging it to herself, had she wished him
less scrupulous.  Perhaps she would not have been very angry to see
him sometimes gliding along at her passage under the old Arcades of
the Rue des Vosges.

But, whilst suffering from this separation, she conceived for the
character of Marius the highest esteem; for she felt sure that he
must suffer as much and more than she from the restraint which he
imposed upon himself.

Thus he was ever present to her thoughts.  She never tired of
turning over in her mind all he had said of his past life: she
tried to remember his words, and the very tone of his voice.

And by living constantly thus with the memory of Marius de Tregars,
she made herself familiar with him, deceived to that extent, by
the illusion of absence, that she actually persuaded herself that
she knew him better and better every day.

Already nearly a month had elapsed, when one afternoon, as she
arrived on the Place Royal; she recognized him, standing near that
same bench where they had so strangely exchanged their pledges.

He saw her coming too: she knew it by his looks.  But, when she
had arrived within a few steps of him, he walked off rapidly,
leaving on the bench a folded newspaper.

Mme. Favoral wished to call him back and return it; but Mlle.
Gilberte persuaded her not to.

“Never mind, mother,” said she, “it isn’t worth while; and, besides,
the gentleman is too far now.”

But while getting out her embroidery, with that dexterity which never
fails even the most naive girls, she slipped the newspaper in her
work-basket.

Was she not certain that it had been left there for her?

As soon as she had returned home, she locked herself up in her own
room, and, after searching for some time through the columns, she
read at last:

“One of the richest and most intelligent manufacturers in Paris,
M. Marcolet, has just purchased in Grenelle the vast grounds
belonging to the Lacoche estate.  He proposes to build upon them
a manufacture of chemical products, the management of which is to
be placed in the hands of M. de T--.

“Although still quite young, M. de T----  is already well known in
connection with his remarkable studies on electricity.  He was,
perhaps, on the eve of solving the much controverted problem of
electricity as a motive-power, when his father’s ruin compelled him
to suspend his labors.  He now seeks to earn by his personal industry
the means of prosecuting his costly experiments.

“He is not the first to tread this path.  Is it not to the invention
of the machine bearing his name, that the engineer Giffard owes the
fortune which enables him to continue to seek the means of steering
balloons?  Why should not M. de T--, who has as much skill and energy,
have as much luck?”

“Ah! he does not forget me,” thought Mlle. Gilberte, moved to tears
by this article, which, after all, was but a mere puff, written by
Marcolet himself, without the knowledge of M. de Tregars.

She was still under that impression, thinking that Marius was already
at work, when her father announced to her that he had discovered a
husband, and enjoined her to find him to her liking, as he, the
master, thought it proper that she should.

Hence the energy of her refusal.

But hence also, the imprudent vivacity which had enlightened Mme.
Favoral, and which made her say:

“You hide something from me, Gilberte?”

Never had the young girl been so cruelly embarrassed as she was at
this moment by this sudden and unforeseen perspicacity.

Would she confide to her mother?

She felt, indeed, no repugnance to do so, certain as she was, in
advance, of the inexhaustible indulgence of the poor woman; and,
besides, she would have been delighted to have some one at last
with whom she could speak of Marius.

But she knew that her father was not the man to give up a project
conceived by himself.  She knew that he would return to the charge
obstinately, without peace, and without truce.  Now, as she was
determined to resist with a no less implacable obstinacy, she
foresaw terrible struggles, all sorts of violence and persecutions.

Informed of the truth, would Mme. Favoral have strength enough to
resist these daily storms?  Would not a time come, when, called upon
by her husband to explain the refusals of her daughter, threatened,
terrified, she would confess all?

At one glance Mlle. Gilberte estimated the danger; and, drawing from
necessity an audacity which was very foreign to her nature:

“You are mistaken, dear mother,” said she, “I have concealed nothing
from you.”

Not quite convinced, Mme. Favoral shook her head.

“Then,” said she, “you will yield.”

“Never!”

“Then there must be some reason you do not tell me.”

“None, except that I do not wish to leave you.  Have you ever
thought what would be your existence if I were no longer here?  Have
you ever asked yourself what would become of you, between my father,
whose despotism will grow heavier with age, and my brother?”

Always prompt to defend her son:

“Maxence is not bad,” she interrupted: “he will know how to
compensate me for the sorrows he has inflicted upon me.”

The young girl made a gesture of doubt:

“I wish it, dear mother,” said she, “with all my heart; but I dare
not hope for it.  His repentance to-night was great and sincere; but
will he remember it to-morrow?  Besides, don’t you know that father
has fully resolved to separate himself from Maxence?  Think of
yourself alone here with father.”

Mme. Favoral shuddered at the mere idea.

“I would not suffer very long,” she murmured.  Mlle. Gilberte
kissed her.

“It is because I wish you to live to be happy that I refuse to
marry,” she exclaimed.  “Must you not have your share of happiness
in this world?  Let me manage.  Who knows what compensations the
future may have in store for you?  Besides, this person whom father
has selected for me does not suit me.  A stock-jobber, who would
think of nothing but money,--who would examine my house-accounts
as papa does yours, or else who would load me with cashmeres and
diamonds, like Mme. de Thaller, to make of me a sign for his shop?
No, no!  I want no such man.  So, mother dear, be brave, take sides
boldly with your daughter, and we shall soon be rid of this would-be
husband.”

“Your father will bring him to you: he said he would.”

“Well, he is a man of courage, if he returns three times.”

At this moment the parlor-door opened suddenly.

“What are you plotting here again?” cried the irritated voice of
the master.  “And you, Mme. Favoral, why don’t you go to bed?”

The poor slave obeyed, without saying a word.  And, whilst making
her way to her room:

“There is trouble ahead,” thought Mlle. Gilberte.  “But bash!  If I
do have to suffer some, it won’t be great harm, after all.  Surely
Marius does not complain, though he gives up for me his dearest
hopes, becomes the salaried employe of M. Marcolet, and thinks of
nothing but making money,--he so proud and so disinterested!”

Mlle. Gilberte’s anticipations were but too soon realized.  When M.
Favoral made his appearance the next morning, he had the sombre brow
and contracted lips of a man who has spent the night ruminating a
plan from which he does not mean to swerve.

Instead of going to his office, as usual, without saying a word to
any one, he called his wife and children to the parlor; and, after
having carefully bolted all the doors, he turned to Maxence.

“I want you,” he commenced, “to give me a list of your creditors.
See that you forget none; and let it be ready as soon as possible.”

But Maxence was no longer the same man.  After the terrible and
well-deserved reproaches of his sister, a salutary revolution had
taken place in him.  During the preceding night, he had reflected
over his conduct for the past four years; and he had been dismayed
and terrified.  His impression was like that of the drunkard, who,
having become sober, remembers the ridiculous or degrading acts
which he has committed under the influence of alcohol, and, confused
and humiliated, swears never more to drink.

Thus Maxence had sworn to himself to change his mode of life,
promising that it would be no drunkard’s oath, either.  And his
attitude and his looks showed the pride of great resolutions.

Instead of lowering his eyes before the irritated glance of M.
Favoral, and stammering excuses and vague promises:

“It is useless, father,” he replied, “to give you the list you ask
for.  I am old enough to bear the responsibility of my acts.  I
shall repair my follies: what I owe, I shall pay.  This very day I
shall see my creditors, and make arrangements with them.”

“Very well, Maxence,” exclaimed Mme. Favoral, delighted.

But there was no pacifying the cashier of the Mutual Credit.

“Those are fine-sounding words,” he said with a sneer; “but I doubt
if the tailors and the shirt-makers will take them in payment.
That’s why I want that list.”

“Still--”

“It’s I who shall pay.  I do not mean to have another such scene
as that of yesterday in my office.  It must not be said that my
son is a sharper and a cheat at the very moment when I find for my
daughter a most unhoped-for match.”

And, turning to Mlle. Gilberte:

“For I suppose you have got over your foolish ideas,” he uttered.

The young girl shook her head.

“My ideas are the same as they were last night.”

“Ah, ah!”

“And so, father, I beg of you, do not insist.  Why wrangle and
quarrel?  You must know me well enough to know, that, whatever may
happen, I shall never yield.”

Indeed, M. Favoral was well aware of his daughter’s firmness; for
he had already been compelled on several occasions, as he expressed
it himself, “to strike his flag” before her.  But he could not
believe that she would resist when he took certain means of
enforcing his will.

“I have pledged my word,” he said.

“But I have not pledged mine, father.”

He was becoming excited: his cheeks were flushed; and his little
eyes sparkled.

“And suppose I were to tell you,” he resumed, doing at least to his
daughter the honor of controlling his anger: “suppose I were to
tell you that I would derive from this marriage immense, positive,
and immediate advantages?”

“Oh!” she interrupted with a look of disgust, “oh, for mercy’s sake!”

“Suppose I were to tell you that I have a powerful interest in it;
that it is indispensable to the success of vast combinations?”

Mlle. Gilberte looked straight at him.

“I would answer you,” she exclaimed, “that it does not suit me to
be made use of as an earnest to your combinations.  Ah! it’s an
operation, is it? an enterprise, a big speculation? and you throw
in your daughter in the bargain as a bonus.  Well, no!  You can
tell your partner that the thing has fallen through.”

M. Favoral’s anger was growing with each word.

“I’ll see if I can’t make you yield,” he said.

“You may crush me, perhaps.  Make me yield, never!”

“Well, we shall see.  You will see--Maxence and you--whether there
are no means by which a father can compel his rebellious children to
submit to his authority.”

And, feeling that he was no longer master of himself, he left,
swearing loud enough to shake the plaster from the stair-walls.

Maxence shook with indignation.

“Never,” he uttered, “never until now, had I understood the infamy
of my conduct.  With a father such as ours, Gilberte, I should be
your protector.  And now I am debarred even of the right to
interfere.  But never mind, I have the will; and all will soon be
repaired.”

Left alone, a few moments after, Mlle. Gilberte was congratulating
herself upon her firmness.

“I am sure,” she thought, “Marius would approve, if he knew.”

She had not long to wait for her reward.  The bell rang: it was her
old professor, the Signor Gismondo Pulei, who came to give her his
daily lesson.

The liveliest joy beamed upon his face, more shriveled than an
apple at Easter; and the most magnificent anticipations sparkled in
his eyes.

“I knew it, signora!” he exclaimed from the threshold: “I knew that
angels bring good luck.  As every thing succeeds to you, so must
every thing succeed to those who come near you.”

She could not help smiling at the appropriateness of the compliment.

“Something fortunate has happened to you, dear master?” she asked.

“That is to say, I am on the high-road to fortune and glory,” he
replied.  “My fame is extending; pupils dispute the privilege of
my lesson.”

Mlle. Gilberte knew too well the thoroughly Italian exaggeration of
the worthy maestro to be surprised.

“This morning,” he went on, “visited by inspiration, I had risen
early, and I was working with marvelous facility, when there was a
knock at my door.  I do not remember such an occurrence since the
blessed day when your worthy father called for me.  Surprised, I
nevertheless said, ‘Come in;’ when there appeared a tall and robust
young man, proud and intelligent-looking.”

The young girl started.

“Marius!” cried a voice within her.

“This young man,” continued the old Italian, “had heard me spoken
of, and came to apply for lessons.  I questioned him; and from the
first words I discovered that his education had been frightfully
neglected, that he was ignorant of the most vulgar notions of the
divine art, and that he scarcely knew the difference between a
sharp and a quaver.  It was really the A, B, C, which he wished me
to teach him.  Laborious task, ungrateful labor!  But he manifested
so much shame at his ignorance, and so much desire to be instructed,
that I felt moved in his favor.  Then his countenance was most
winning, his voice of a superior tone; and finally he offered me
sixty francs a month.  In short, he is now my pupil.”

As well as she could, Mlle. Gilberte was hiding her blushes behind
a music-book.

“We remained over two hours talking,” said the good and simple
maestro, “and I believe that he has excellent dispositions.
Unfortunately, he can only take two lessons a week.  Although a
nobleman, he works; and, when he took off his glove to hand me a
month in advance, I noticed that one of his hands was blackened,
as if burnt by some acid.  But never mind, signora, sixty francs,
together with what your father gives me, it’s a fortune.  The end
of my career will be spared the privations of its beginning.  This
young man will help making me known.  The morning has been dark;
but the sunset will be glorious.”

The young girl could no longer have any doubts: M. de Tregars had
found the means of hearing from her, and letting her hear from him.

The impression she felt contributed no little to give her the
patience to endure the obstinate persecution of her father, who,
twice a day, never failed to repeat to her:

“Get ready to properly receive my protege on Saturday.  I have not
invited him to dinner: he will only spend the evening with us.”

And he mistook for a disposition to yield the cold tone in which
she answered:

“I beg you to believe that this introduction is wholly unnecessary.”

Thus, the famous day having come, he told his usual Saturday guests,
M. and Mme. Desclavettes, M. Chapelain, and old man Desormeaux:

“Eh, eh!  I guess you are going to see a future son-in-law!”

At nine o’clock, just as they had passed into the parlor, the sound
of carriage-wheels startled the Rue St. Gilles.

“There he is!” exclaimed the cashier of the Mutual Credit.

And, throwing open a window:

“Come, Gilberte,” he added, “come and see his carriage and horses.”

She never stirred; but M. Desclavettes and M. Chapelain ran.  It was
night, unfortunately; and of the whole equipage nothing was visible
but the two lanterns that shone like stars.  Almost at the same time
the parlor-door flew open; and the servant, who had been properly
trained in advance, announced:

“Monsieur Costeclar.”

Leaning toward Mme. Favoral, who was seated by her side on the sofa,

“A nice-looking man, isn’t he?  a really nice-looking man,” whispered
Mme. Desclavettes.

And indeed he really thought so himself.  Gesture, attitude, smile,
every thing in M. Costeclar, betrayed the satisfaction of self, and
the assurance of a man accustomed to success.  His head, which was
very small, had but little hair left; but it was artistically drawn
towards the temples, parted in the middle, and cut short around
the forehead.  His leaden complexion, his pale lips, and his dull
eye, did not certainly betray a very rich blood; he had a great long
nose, sharp and curved like a sickle; and his beard, of undecided
color, trimmed in the Victor Emmanuel style, did the greatest honor
to the barber who cultivated it.  Even when seen for the first time,
one might fancy that he recognized him, so exactly was he like three
or four hundred others who are seen daily in the neighborhood of
the Cafe Riche, who are met everywhere where people run who pretend
to amuse themselves,--at the bourse or in the bois; at the first
representations, where they are just enough hidden to be perfectly
well seen at the back of boxes filled with young ladies with
astonishing chignons; at the races; in carriages, where they drink
champagne to the health of the winner.

He had on this occasion hoisted his best looks, and the full dress
_de rigueur_--dress-coat with wide sleeves, shirt cut low in the neck,
and open vest, fastened below the waist by a single button.

“Quite the man of the world,” again remarked Mme. Desclavettes.

M. Favoral rushed toward him; and the latter, hastening, met him
half way, and, taking both his hands into his--“I cannot tell you,
dear friend,” he commenced, “how deeply I feel the honor you do me
in receiving me in the midst of your charming family and your
respectable friends.”

And he bowed all around during this speech, which he delivered in
the condescending tone of a lord visiting his inferiors.

“Let me introduce you to my wife,” interrupted the cashier.  And,
leading him towards Mme. Favoral--“Monsieur Costeclar, my dear,”
 said he: “the friend of whom we have spoken so often.”

M. Costeclar bowed, rounding his shoulders, bending his lean form
in a half-circle, and letting his arms hang forward.

“I am too much the friend of our dear Favoral, madame,” he uttered,
“not to have heard of you long since, nor to know your merits, and
the fact that he owes to you that peaceful happiness which he enjoys,
and which we all envy him.”

Standing by the mantel-piece, the usual Saturday evening guests
followed with the liveliest interest the evolutions of the pretender.
Two of them, M. Chapelain and old Desormeaux, were perfectly able
to appreciate him at his just value; but, in affirming that he made
half a million a year, M. Favoral had, as it were, thrown over his
shoulders that famous ducal cloak which concealed all deformities.

Without waiting for his wife’s answer, M. Favoral brought his
protege in front of Mlle. Gilberte.

“Dear daughter,” said he, “Monsieur Costeclar, the friend of whom
I have spoken.”

M. Costeclar bowed still lower, and rounded off his shoulders again;
but the young lady looked at him from head to foot with such a
freezing glance, that his tongue remained as if paralyzed in his
mouth, and he could only stammer out:

“Mademoiselle! the honor, the humblest of your admirers.”

Fortunately Maxence was standing three steps off--he fell back in
good order upon him, and seizing his hand, which he shook vigorously:

“I hope, my dear sir, that we shall soon be quite intimate friends.
Your excellent father, whose special concern you are, has often
spoken to me of you.  Events, so he has confided to me, have not
hitherto responded to your expectations.  At your age, this is not
a very grave matter.  People, now-a-days, do not always find at the
first attempt the road that leads to fortune.  You will find yours.
From this time forth I place at your command my influence and my
experience; and, if you will consent to take me for your guide--”

Maxence had withdrawn his hand.

“I am very much obliged to you, sir,” he answered coldly; “but I am
content with my lot, and I believe myself old enough to walk alone.”

Almost any one would have lost countenance.  But M. Costeclar was
so little put out, that it seemed as though he had expected just
such a reception.  He turned upon his heels, and advanced towards
M. Favoral’s friends with a smile so engaging as to make it evident
that he was anxious to conquer their suffrages.

This was at the beginning of the month of June, 1870.  No one as
yet could foresee the frightful disasters which were to mark the
end of that fatal year.  And yet there was everywhere in France
that indefinable anxiety which precedes great social convulsions.
The plebiscitum had not succeeded in restoring confidence.  Every
day the most alarming rumors were put in circulation and it was with
a sort of passion that people went in quest of news.

Now, M. Costeclar was a wonderfully well-posted man.  He had,
doubtless, on his way, stopped on the Boulevard des Italiens, that
blessed ground where nightly the street-brokers labor for the
financial prosperity of the country.  He had gone through the Passage
de l’Opera, which is, as is well known, the best market for the most
correct and the most reliable news.  Therefore he might safely be
believed.

Placing his back to the chimney, he had taken the lead in the
conversation; and he was talking, talking, talking.  Being a “bull,”
 he took a favorable view of every thing.  He believed in the
eternity of the second empire.  He sang the praise of the new
cabinet: he was ready to pour out his blood for Emile Ollivier.
True, some people complained that business was dull and slow; but
those people, he thought, were merely “bears.”  Business had never
been so brilliant.  At no time had prosperity been greater.  Capital
was abundant.  The institutions of credit were flourishing.
Securities were rising.  Everybody’s pockets were full to bursting.
And the others listened in astonishment to this inexhaustible
prattle, this “gab,” more filled with gold spangles than Dantzig
cordial, with which the commercial travelers of the bourse catch
their customers.

Suddenly:

“But you must excuse me,” he said, rushing towards the other end of
the parlor.

Mme. Favoral had just left the room to order tea to be brought in;
and, the seat by Mlle. Gilberte being vacant, M. Costeclar occupied
it promptly.

“He understands his business,” growled M. Desormeaux.

“Surely,” said M. Desclavettes, “if I had some funds to dispose of
just now.”

“I would be most happy to have him for my son-in-law,” declared M.
Favoral.

He was doing his best.  Somewhat intimidated by Mlle. Gilberte’s
first look, he had now fully recovered his wits.

He commenced by sketching his own portrait.

He had just turned thirty, and had experienced the strong and the
weak side of life.  He had had “successes,” but had tired of them.
Having gauged the emptiness of what is called pleasure, he only
wished now to find a partner for life, whose graces and virtues
would secure his domestic happiness.

He could not help noticing the absent look of the young girl; but
he had, thought he, other means of compelling her attention.  And
he went on, saying that he felt himself cast of the metal of which
model husbands are made.  His plans were all made in advance.  His
wife would be free to do as she pleased.  She would have her own
carriage and horses, her box at the Italiens and at the Opera, and
an open account at Worth’s and Van Klopen’s.  As to diamonds, he
would take care of that.  He meant that his wife’s display of
wealth should be noticed; and even spoken of in the newspapers.

Was this the terms of a bargain that he was offering?

If so, it was so coarsely, that Mlle. Gilberte, ignorant of life as
she was, wondered in what world it might be that he had met with so
many “successes.”  And, somewhat indignantly:

“Unfortunately,” she said, “the bourse is perfidious; and the man
who drives his own carriage to-day, to-morrow may have no shoes to
wear.”

M. Costeclar nodded with a smile.

“Exactly so,” said he.  “A marriage protects one against such
reverses.

“Every man in active business, when he marries, settles upon his
wife reasonable fortune.  I expect to settle six hundred thousand
francs upon mine.”

“So that, if you were to meet with an--accident?”

“We should enjoy our thirty thousand a year under the very nose of
the creditors.”

Blushing with shame, Mlle. Gilberte rose.

“But then,” said she, “it isn’t a wife that you are looking for: it
is an accomplice.”

He was spared the embarrassment of an answer, by the servant, who
came in, bringing in tea.  He accepted a cup; and after two or
three anecdotes, judging that he had done enough for a first visit,
he withdrew, and a moment later they heard his carriage driving off
at full gallop.



XVI

It was not without mature thought that M. Costeclar had determined
to withdraw, despite M. Favoral’s pressing overtures.  However
infatuated he might be with his own merits, he had been compelled
to surrender to evidence, and to acknowledge that he had not exactly
succeeded with Mlle. Gilberte.  But he also knew that he had the
head of the house on his side; and he flattered himself that he
had produced an excellent impression upon the guests of the house.

“Therefore,” had he said to himself, “if I leave first, they will
sing my praise, lecture the young person, and make her listen to
reason.”

He was not far from being right.  Mme. Desclavettes had been
completely subjugated by the grand manners of this pretender; and
M. Desclavettes did not hesitate to affirm that he had rarely met
any one who pleased him more.

The others, M. Chapelain and old Desormeaux, did not, doubtless,
share this optimism; but M. Costeclar’s annual half-million
obscured singularly their clear-sightedness.

They thought perhaps, they had discovered in him some alarming
features; but they had full and entire confidence in their friend
Favoral’s prudent sagacity.

The particular and methodic cashier of the Mutual Credit was not
apt to be enthusiastic; and, if he opened the doors of his house to
a young man, if he was so anxious to have him for his son-in-law,
he must evidently have taken ample information.

Finally there are certain family matters from which sensible people
keep away as they would from the plague; and, on the question of
marriage especially, he is a bold man who would take side for or
against.

Thus Mme. Desclavettes was the only one to raise her voice.  Taking
Mlle. Gilberte’s hands within hers:

“Let me scold you, my dear,” said she, “for having received thus a
poor young man who was only trying to please you.”

Excepting her mother, too weak to take her defence, and her brother,
who was debarred from interfering, the young girl understood readily,
that, in that parlor, every one, overtly or tacitly, was against her.
The idea came to her mind to repeat there boldly what she had already
told her father that she was resolved not to marry, and that she
would not marry, not being one of those weak girls, without energy,
whom they dress in white, and drag to church against their will.

Such a bold declaration would be in keeping with her character.
But she feared a terrible, and perhaps degrading scene.  The most
intimate friends of the family were ignorant of its most painful
sores.  In presence of his friends, M. Favoral dissembled, speaking
in a mild voice, and assuming a kindly smile.  Should she suddenly
reveal the truth?

“It is childish of you to run the risk of discouraging a clever
fellow who makes half a million a year,” continued the wife of the
old bronze-merchant, to whom such conduct seemed an abominable crime
of _lese-money_.  Mlle. Gilberte had withdrawn her hands.

“You did not hear what he said, madame.”

“I beg your pardon: I was quite near, and involuntarily--”

“You have heard his--propositions?”

“Perfectly.  He was promising you a carriage, a box at the opera,
diamonds, freedom.  Isn’t that the dream of all young ladies?”

“It is not mine, madame!”

“Dear me!  What better can you wish?  You must not expect more from
a husband than he can possibly give.”

“That is not what I shall expect of him.”

In a tone of paternal indulgence, which his looks belied:

“She is mad,” suggested M. Favoral.

Tears of indignation filled Mlle. Gilberte’s eyes.

“Mme. Desclavettes,” she exclaimed, “forgets something.  She forgets
that this gentleman dared to tell me that he proposed to settle upon
the woman he marries a large fortune, of which his creditors would
thus be cheated in case of his failure in business.”

She thought, in her simplicity, that a cry of indignation would rise
at these words.  Instead of which:

“Well, isn’t it perfectly natural?” said M. Desclavettes.

“It seems to me more than natural,” insisted Mme. Desclavettes,
“that a man should be anxious to preserve from ruin his wife and
children.”

“Of course,” put in M. Favoral.

Stepping resolutely toward her father:

“Have you, then, taken such precautions yourself?” demanded Mlle.
Gilberte.

“No,” answered the cashier of the Mutual Credit.  And, after a
moment of hesitation:

“But I am running no risks,” he added.  “In business, and when a
man may be ruined by a mere rise or fall in stocks, he would be
insane indeed who did not secure bread for his family, and, above
all, means for himself, wherewith to commence again.  The Baron de
Thaller did not act otherwise; and, should he meet with a disaster,
Mme. de Thaller would still have a handsome fortune.”

M. Desormeaux was, perhaps, the only one not to admit freely that
theory, and not to accept that ever-decisive reason, “Others do it.”

But he was a philosopher, and thought it silly not to be of his time.
He therefore contented himself with saying:

“Hum!  M. de Thaller’s creditors might not think that mode of
proceeding entirely regular.”

“Then they might sue,” said M. Chapelain, laughing.  “People can
always sue; only when the papers are well drawn--”

Mlle. Gilberte stood dismayed.  She thought of Marius de Tregars
giving up his mother’s fortune to pay his father’s debts.

“What would he say,” thought she, “should he hear such opinions!”

The cashier of the Mutual Credit resumed:

“Surely I blame every species of fraud.  But I pretend, and I
maintain, that a man who has worked twenty years to give a handsome
dowry to his daughter has the right to demand of his son-in-law
certain conservative measures to guarantee the money, which, after
all, is his own, and which is to benefit no one but his own family.”

This declaration closed the evening.  It was getting late.  The
Saturday guests put on their overcoats; and, as they were walking
home,

“Can you understand that little Gilberte?” said Mme. Desclavettes.
“I’d like to see a daughter of mine have such fancies!  But her
poor mother is so weak!”

“Yes; but friend Favoral is firm enough for both,” interrupted M.
Desormeaux; “and it is more than probable that at this very moment
he is correcting his daughter of the sin of sloth.”

Well, not at all.  Extremely angry as M. Favoral must have been,
neither that evening, nor the next day, did he make the remotest
allusion to what had taken place.

The following Monday only, before leaving for his office, casting
upon his wife and daughter one of his ugliest looks:

“M. Costeclar owes us a visit,” said he; “and it is possible that
he may call in my absence.  I wish him to be admitted; and I forbid
you to go out, so that you can have no pretext to refuse him the
door.  I presume there will not be found in my house any one bold
enough to ill receive a man whom I like, and whom I have selected
for my son-in-law.”

But was it probable, was it even possible, that M. Costeclar could
venture upon such a step after Mlle. Gilberte’s treatment of him on
the previous Saturday evening?

“No, a thousand times no!” affirmed Maxence to his mother and sister.
“So you may rest easy.”

Indeed they tried to be, until that very afternoon the sound of
rapidly-rolling wheels attracted Mme. Favoral to the window.  A
coupe, drawn by two gray horses, had just stopped at the door.

“It must be he,” she said to her daughter.

Mlle. Gilberte had turned slightly pale.

“There is no help for it, mother,” she said: “You must receive him.”

“And you?”

“I shall remain in my room.”

“Do you suppose he won’t ask for you?”

“You will answer that I am unwell.  He will understand.”

“But your father, unhappy child, your father?”

“I do not acknowledge to my father the right of disposing of my
person against my wishes.  I detest that man to whom he wishes to
marry me.  Would you like to see me his wife, to know me given up
to the most intolerable torture?  No, there is no violence in the
world that will ever wring my consent from me.  So, mother dear,
do what I ask you.  My father can say what he pleases: I take the
whole responsibility upon myself.”

There was no time to argue: the bell rang.  Mlle. Gilberte had
barely time to escape through one of the doors of the parlor,
whilst M. Costeclar was entering at the other.

If he did have enough perspicacity to guess what had just taken
place, he did not in any way show it.  He sat down; and it was
only after conversing for a few moments upon indifferent subjects,
that he asked how Mlle. Gilberte was.

“She is somewhat--unwell,” stammered Mme. Favoral.

He did not appear surprised; only,

“Our dear Favoral,” he said, “will be still more pained than I am
when he hears of this mishap.”

Better than any other mother, Mme. Favoral must have understood and
approved Mlle. Gilberte’s invincible repugnance.  To her also, when
she was young, her father had come one day, and said, “I have
discovered a husband for you.”  She had accepted him blindly.  Bruised
and wounded by daily outrages, she had sought refuge in marriage as
in a haven of safety.

And since, hardly a day had elapsed that she had not thought it
would have been better for her to have died rather then to have
riveted to her neck those fetters that death alone can remove.  She
thought, therefore, that her daughter was perfectly right.  And yet
twenty years of slavery had so weakened the springs of her energy,
that under the glance of Costeclar, threatening her with her
husband’s name, she felt embarrassed, and could scarcely stammer
some timid excuses.  And she allowed him to prolong his visit, and
consequently her torment, for over an half an hour; then, when he
had gone,

“He and your father understand each other,” said she to her daughter,
“that is but too evident.  What is the use of struggling?”

A fugitive blush colored the pale cheeks of Mlle. Gilberte.  For
the past forty-eight hours she had been exhausting herself, seeking
an issue to an impossible situation; and she had accustomed her mind
to the worst eventualities.

“Do you wish me, then, to desert the paternal roof?” she exclaimed.

Mme. Favoral almost dropped on the floor.

“You would run away,” she stammered, “you!”

“Rather than become that man’s wife, yes!”

“And where would you go, unfortunate child?  what would you do?”

“I can earn my living.”

Mme. Favoral shook her head sadly.  The same suspicions were reviving
within her that she had felt once before.

“Gilberte,” she said in a beseeching tone, “am I, then, no longer
your best friend?  and will you not tell me from what sources you
draw your courage and your resolution?”

And, as her daughter said nothing:

“God alone knows what may happen!” sighed the poor woman.

Nothing happened, but what could have been easily foreseen.  When
M. Favoral came home to dinner, he was whistling a perfect storm
on the stairs.  He abstained at first from all recrimination; but
towards the end of the meal, with the most sarcastic look he could
assume:

“It seems,” he said to his daughter, “that you were unwell this
afternoon?”

Bravely, and without flinching, she sustained his look; and, in a
firm voice:

“I shall always be indisposed,” she replied, “when M. Costeclar
calls.  You hear me, don’t you, father--always!”

But the cashier of the Credit Mutual was not one of those men whose
wrath finds vent in mere sarcasms.  Rising suddenly to his feet:

“By the holy heavens!” he screamed forth, “you are wrong to trifle
thus with my will; for, all of you here, I shall crush you as I do
this glass.”

And, with a frenzied gesture, he dashed the glass he held in his
hand against the wall, where it broke in a thousand pieces.
Trembling like a leaf, Mme. Favoral staggered upon her chair.



XVII

“Better kill her at once,” said Mlle. Gilberte coldly.  “She would
suffer less.”

It was by a torrent of invective that M. Favoral replied.  His rage,
dammed up for the past four days, finding at last an outlet, flowed
in gross insults and insane threats.  He spoke of throwing out in
the street his wife and children, or starving them out, or shutting
up his daughter in a house of correction; until at last, language
failing his fury, beside himself, he left, swearing that he would
bring M. Costeclar home himself, and then they would see.

“Very well, we shall see,” said Mlle. Gilberte.

Motionless in his place, and white as a plaster cast, Maxence had
witnessed this lamentable scene.  A gleam of common-sense had
enabled him to control his indignation, and to remain silent.  He
had understood, that, at the first word, his father’s fury would
have turned against him; and then what might have happened?  The
most frightful dramas of the criminal courts have often had no
other origin.

“No, this is no longer bearable!” he exclaimed.

Even at the time of his greatest follies, Maxence had always had
for his sister a fraternal affection.  He admired her from the day
she had stood up before him to reproach him for his misconduct.  He
envied her her quiet determination, her patient tenacity, and that
calm energy that never failed her.

“Have patience, my poor Gilberte,” he added: “the day is not far,
I hope, when I may commence to repay you all you have done for me.
I have not lost my time since you restored me my reason.  I have
arranged with my creditors.  I have found a situation, which, if
not brilliant, is at least sufficiently lucrative to enable me
before long to offer you, as well as to our mother, a peaceful
retreat.”

“But it is to-morrow,” interrupted Mme. Favoral, “to-morrow that
your father is to bring M. Costeclar.  He has said so, and he will
do it.”

And so he did.  About two o’clock in the afternoon M. Favoral and
his protege arrived in the Rue St. Gilles, in that famous coupe
with the two horses, which excited the wonder of the neighbors.

But Mlle. Gilberte had her plan ready.  She was on the lookout;
and, as soon as she heard the carriage stop, she ran to her room,
undressed in a twinkling, and went to bed.

When her father came for her, and saw her in bed, he remained
surprised and puzzled on the threshold of the door.

“And yet I’ll make you come into the parlor!” he said in a hoarse
voice.

“Then you must carry me there as I am,” she said in a tone of
defiance; “for I shall certainly not get up.”

For the first time since his marriage, M. Favoral met in his own
house a more inflexible will than his own, and a more unyielding
obstinacy.  He was baffled.  He threatened his daughter with his
clinched fists, but could discover no means of making her obey.
He was compelled to surrender, to yield.

“This will be settled with the rest,” he growled, as he went out.

“I fear nothing in the world, father,” said the girl.

It was almost true, so much did the thought of Marius de Tregars
inflame her courage.  Twice already she had heard from him through
the Signor Gismondo Pulei, who never tired talking of this new pupil,
to whom he had already given two lessons.

“He is the most gallant man in the world,” he said, his eye sparkling
with enthusiasm, “and the bravest, and the most generous, and the
best; and no quality that can adorn one of God’s creatures shall be
wanting in him when I have taught him the divine art.  It is not
with a little contemptible gold that he means to reward my zeal.
To him I am as a second father; and it is with the confidence of a
son that he explains to me his labors and his hopes.”

Thus Mlle. Gilberte learned through the old maestro, that the
newspaper article she had read was almost exactly true, and that
M. de Tregars and M. Marcolet had become associated for the purpose
of working, in joint account, certain recent discoveries, which bid
fair to yield large profits in a near future.

“And yet it is for my sake alone that he has thus thrown himself
into the turmoil of business, and has become as eager for gain as
that M. Marcolet himself.”

And, at the height of her father’s persecutions, she felt glad of
what she had done, and of her boldness in placing her destiny in the
hands of a stranger.  The memory of Marius had become her refuge,
the element of all her dreams and of all her hopes; in a word, her
life.

It was of Marius she was thinking, when her mother, surprising her
gazing into vacancy, would ask her, “What are you thinking of?”  And,
at every new vexation she had to endure, her imagination decked him
with a new quality, and she clung to him with a more desperate grasp.

“How much he would grieve,” thought she, “if he knew of what
persecution I am the object!”

And very careful was she not to allow the Signor Gismondo Pulei to
suspect any thing of it, affecting, on the contrary, in his presence,
the most cheerful serenity.

And yet she was a prey to the most cruel anxiety, since she observed
a new and most incredible transformation in her father.

That man so violent and so harsh, who flattered himself never to
have been bent, who boasted never to have forgotten or forgiven any
thing, that domestic tyrant, had become quite a debonair personage.
He had referred to the expedient imagined by Mlle. Gilberte only to
laugh at it, saying that it was a good trick, and he deserved it;
for he repented bitterly, he protested, his past brutalities.

He owned that he had at heart his daughter’s marriage with M.
Costeclar; but he acknowledged that he had made use of the surest
means for making it fail.  He should, he humbly confessed, have
expected every thing of time and circumstances, of M. Costeclar’s
excellent qualities, and of his beautiful, darling daughter’s
good sense.

More than of all his violence, Mme. Favoral was terrified at this
affected good nature.

“Dear me!” she sighed, “what does it all mean?”

But the cashier of the Mutual Credit was not preparing any new
surprise to his family.  If the means were different, it was still
the same object that he was pursuing with the tenacity of an insect.
When severity had failed, he hoped to succeed by gentleness, that’s
all.  Only this assumption of hypocritical meekness was too new
to him to deceive any one.  At every moment the mask fell off, the
claws showed, and his voice trembled with ill-suppressed rage in
the midst of his most honeyed phrases.

Moreover, he entertained the strangest illusions.  Because for
forty-eight hours he had acted the part of a good-natured man,
because one Sunday he had taken his wife and daughter out riding in
the Bois de Vincennes, because he had given Maxence a hundred-franc
note, he imagined that it was all over, that the past was obliterated,
forgotten, and forgiven.

And, drawing Gilberte upon his knees,

“Well, daughter,” he said, “you see that I don’t importune you any
more, and I leave you quite free.  I am more reasonable than you are.”

But on the other hand, and according to an expression which escaped
him later, he tried to turn the enemy.

He did every thing in his power to spread in the neighborhood the
rumor of Mlle. Gilberte’s marriage with a financier of colossal
wealth,--that elegant young man who came in a coupe with two horses.
Mme. Favoral could not enter a shop without being covertly
complimented upon having found such a magnificent establishment for
her daughter.

Loud, indeed, must have been the gossip; for its echo reached even
the inattentive ears of the Signor Gismondo Pulei.

One day, suddenly interrupting his lesson,--“You are going to be
married, signora?” he inquired.

Mlle. Gilberte started.

What the old Italian had heard, he would surely ere long repeat to
Marius.  It was therefore urgent to undeceive him.

“It is true,” she replied, “that something has been said about a
marriage, dear maestro.”

“Ah, ah!”

“Only my father had not consulted me.  That marriage will never
take place: I swear it.”

She expressed herself in a tone of such ardent conviction, that the
old gentleman was quite astonished, little dreaming that it was not
to him that this energetic denial was addressed.

“My destiny is irrevocably fixed,” added Mlle. Gilberte.  “When I
marry, I will consult the inspirations of my heart only.”

In the mean time, it was a veritable conspiracy against her.  M.
Favoral had succeeded in interesting in the success of his designs
his habitual guests, not M. and Mme. Desclavettes, who had been
seduced from the first, but M. Chapelain and old Desormeaux himself.
So that they all vied with each other in their efforts to bring the
“dear child” to reason, and to enlighten her with their counsels.

“Father must have a still more considerable intere

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