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An Interloper

by Frances Mary Peard · English · Gutenberg #43154 · 601,993 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: An Interloper

Author: Frances Mary Peard


        
Release date: July 8, 2013 [eBook #43154]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43154

Credits: Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN INTERLOPER ***

An Interloper
By Frances Peard
Published by Harper and Brothers, New York.
This edition dated 1894.

An Interloper, by Frances Peard.

________________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________________
AN INTERLOPER, BY FRANCES PEARD.

CHAPTER ONE.

MONSIEUR RAOUL.

Monsieur Raoul, in his carriage, was making the round of the estates.
To a certain extent, this was a frequent custom, but there were times
when it was attended by a more deliberate ceremony and purpose, and such
was the case this morning.  The carriage went slowly, as if on a tour of
inspection.  When it passed men, they gave a ready "Good-day."  Where
the white-capped women were not at work, they came smiling to their
doorways on hearing the familiar noise of wheels, sometimes holding up
their children that they, too, might look at M.  Raoul.  Evidently he
was a great personage, although you might not have guessed it.

As for the estate, to the eye it was all that could be desired.  The
land, it was true, was flat, but so rich and so highly cultivated that,
except the meadows, not a foot but appeared to grow crops.  Vineyards
caught the hot sun on ripening grapes; apple orchards surrounded
cottages; the beauty was glowing, tranquil, a little substantial.
Through the heart of the country flowed a broad river, offering
excellent fishing, and in places bordered with orderly poplars; on one
side was a high bank; the only hill was insignificant, and rose behind
the chateau.  It was possible to conceive an ugly air of desolation
abroad in winter, but in autumn, and autumn as yet untouched by decay,
there was a delightful fresh gaiety in the bounty of the land.  At one
spot where the carriage arrived in sight of the river, M.  Raoul craned
his neck forward, but made no remark.

The tour of the cottages accomplished, the carriage turned homeward.
When it reached a point where a narrow path broke away, M.  Raoul waved
his hand in that direction.

"There!" he said, determinedly.

The carriage came to a stand-still.  The driver turned doubtfully and
scratched his head.

"But, monsieur--" he remonstrated.

M.  Raoul interrupted him in a still more peremptory tone.

"There!"

"But monsieur remembers that Madame de Beaudrillart especially said--"

For the third time the one word shot out:

"There!"

Jean scratched his head again, looked round helplessly, and then stared
at the sky.  Finding no suggestion for extricating himself from the
dilemma, he ended by submitting to M.  Raoul's order, and, with a sigh
of perplexity, turned in the direction indicated.  He had lived long
enough at Poissy to have learned that it was often difficult to
reconcile opposing wills, and that, as they were strong, there was
always the risk of being crushed by them.  Moreover, he was not without
hope.  The way they had taken was scarcely wide enough for the
carriage--branches whipped their faces, and they were bumped
relentlessly over the rough ground.  Jean groaned loudly, and glanced
back at his master to see how he liked it.  But M.  Raoul showed no sign
of discomfiture; he sat erect, smiling, and now and then flourishing
something which he held tightly grasped in his hand.  Presently they
reached a grassy opening enclosed with trees.  The carriage halted, and
Jean advanced towards it, reins in hand.

"Monsieur sees for himself that we can go no farther."

M.  Raoul did not give him time to reach him.  Before Jean could realise
what he was doing, he had slipped out of the carriage on the opposite
side, and plunged into an undergrowth of bushes which clothed a steep
bank, and crept down to the river.  Jean made an ineffectual effort to
follow and stop him, but the small pony, excited by M.  Raoul's
triumphant cry, began to back and kick and show signs of bolting, so
that his driver was forced, to return to his head.  Jean was a person
slow to make up his mind, and with a strong objection to
responsibilities.  He had remarked that they generally brought one into
trouble.  If Mme. de Beaudrillart, or either of the young ladies,
madame's daughters, happened to be walking in the grounds, as was too
likely, and met the carriage and pony without a driver, it was
impossible to say what might not happen; and as it was out of the
question to keep both the carriage and M.  Raoul in view, and he had
unbounded confidence in M.  Raoul's capabilities, Jean resolved to stick
to the carriage.  But though occasionally stupid, he was not a fool, and
he recognised the need of letting some one know of M.  Raoul's vagaries.
He therefore pushed the pony as quickly as possible through the tangled
path, and when he found himself again in a wider road, set off at a fast
trot towards the chateau, hoping quickly to meet his father or another
of the gardeners.  Unfortunately, however, the first person he
encountered was the last to whom he would have desired to tell his
story.

Mlle.  Claire de Beaudrillart was the younger of the two sisters who
lived with their mother, her son and his wife, at the chateau.  Both
sisters were some years older than their brother, and Mlle.  Claire
would never again see her thirty-seventh birthday.  Not so handsome as
her mother, she was still a striking-looking woman, tall, thin, and
carrying herself well.  Like all the Beaudrillarts, she was dark; like
them, too, her chin was strongly moulded, her nose straight.  Once when
there were tableaux at Poissy, and old dresses had been drawn from a
great armoire, it might have been supposed that the very Claire of two
centuries back had stepped out of her frame in the picture-gallery.  She
was invariably exquisitely neat even in the house, and if her temper was
quick, it seldom placed her at a disadvantage.  Yet, when Jean caught
sight of her, he looked from side to side with helpless longing to
escape, and finding it impossible, an ugly, sullen expression gathered
in his face, which up to this point had only displayed embarrassment.
Mlle.  Claire detected the look in a moment, and stopped, him by a sign.

"Where have you been, Jean?"

She used the "you" contemptuously.

"Round the estate, mademoiselle."

"Alone?"

He brought out M.  Raoul's name.

"You should have said so at once.  And where is Monsieur Raoul?"

This was exactly the question which Jean would have been glad to answer
to himself; but his face only became more stolid as he replied:

"Mademoiselle must know that he has gone down to the river."

"To the river!  With Monsieur de Beaudrillart?"

He hung his head.

"With Madame Leon!  No!  With whom, then?"  As he remained silent, she
added, quickly, "You do not tell me that he is alone?"

Jean burst out with "Mademoiselle--" and stopped helplessly.

"Well?"

"Mademoiselle will comprehend that when monsieur says he _will_ go--"

She looked at him from head to foot, and said in a low voice, perfectly
modulated, yet which cut like a whip:

"I have always maintained that you, Jean Charpentier, were
untrustworthy, and now I am absolutely convinced of it.  It was your
duty not to let Monsieur Raoul out of your sight, and you have suffered
him to go alone to the river--to the river!  It is a case of gross
neglect, and I shall consult with Monsieur de Beaudrillart about your
dismissal."

The boy stood staring at her, open-mouthed, water beginning to gather in
his round eyes.  He, whose family for generations past had lived and
died at Poissy; he, whose pride was to continue in the service, and whom
the other lads regarded with envy--he to be condemned as untrustworthy,
and threatened with dismissal!  And he had done his best.  It was not
his fault if he could not carry out the impossible.  All this was slowly
heaving in his mind, when a second unwelcome personage came along the
path.

She was a young lady of some four or five and twenty, tall, fair, and
almost childlike in the soft lines of her face.  Her hair was
reddish-brown, the colour which painters love; her eyes clear, hazel,
frank, steady, and true; her mouth firm, but a little large; her throat
delicately white.  She looked healthy, and carried a hat in her hand, as
if she courted sun and air, and she was walking quickly; but on seeing
Mlle.  Claire, hesitated, fearful of interrupting.  The next moment
another impulse brought her to her side, and she, too, cried eagerly to
Jean:

"But where is Monsieur Raoul?"

He was silent, and Claire answered:

"I have told Jean that, since he is not to be trusted, I shall take care
that he is not permitted to drive Monsieur Raoul any more."

"Not to be trusted!"  The new-comer had grown pale, her eyes wandered
questioningly from one face to the other, and when she repeated her
question it was in a faltering voice.  "But where is he?"

"Apparently he has gone to the river."

"To the river!  Not alone?"

Mlle.  Claire said, frigidly:

"Yes, it is inexcusable; but you may leave me to arrange matters.  Take
the carriage to the stables, Jean, without loitering by the way, and
wait there until you are sent for.  Come, Nathalie, we will go and look
for him."

Young Mme. de Beaudrillart, who had stood motionless for a moment,
raised her hand and checked Jean as he was moving off.

"Pardon, Claire, that is not the best plan; for neither you nor I know
anything.  If you will be good enough to take charge of the carriage,
the boy shall go with me and point out exactly where he lost sight of
him.  Come, Jean, at once."  And before her sister-in-law had time to
recover from the amazement into which this unusual self-assertion had
thrown her, she had walked rapidly away, followed by the reluctant Jean.
He, too, was bewildered.  In the storm of difficulty and reproach which
he foresaw, the last person by whom he wished to find himself was Mme.
Leon.  If she were even disposed to befriend him, she would be
ineffective.  He had always been tacitly encouraged to disregard her
orders, and under other circumstances would not have hesitated to do so
now.  But something strangely imperative in her tone, something so
unexpected that it had discomfited even Mlle.  Claire, completed his
degradation, and compelled him against his will to follow.  He wept, as
much for shame as fear, as he stumbled along behind the quick, firm
steps of his young mistress, and more than once when she flung him a
question as to M.  Raoul's disappearance answered so helplessly that she
turned upon him at last with sharp impatience.

"For Heaven's sake, Jean, don't be a fool!  Show me the path, and cry
when there is nothing else to be done.  Was it here?"

"No, madame," murmured Jean, astonished into obedience; "the next."

She quickened her steps almost to a run.

"And how could you allow him to go alone?  You knew, did you not, that
he was put into your charge?"

He hesitated.

"Madame sees that when Monsieur Raoul jumped out there was the pony and
the carriage to see to; and the pony began to be wicked, as he sometimes
is.  Madame de Beaudrillart would have been very much displeased if
anything had happened to the pony, and I was going as fast as I could to
fetch some one when I met Mademoiselle Claire, who stopped me to
inquire, and would hear it all--"

"Yes, I understand," said Nathalie, curbing her anguish by an effort,
though still hastening along.  "I understand perfectly, and I do not
think you were to blame."  But under her breath Jean heard her cry, "Oh,
Raoul, Raoul!"

The boy had a sudden impulse.

"If I were madame," he said, shyly, "I should have no fear.  Monsieur
Raoul is so clever, he will find his way."

He would not have ventured to offer consolation to any other of the
family, but no one stood upon ceremony with Mme.  Leon, and his
momentary awe was subsiding.  She was no longer angry, but she did not
answer, and he made no further remark until he indicated a spot on their
right.

"It was there that Monsieur Raoul went down."

Where he pointed, the shrubs, which all along grew wildly and untrimmed,
presented a still more tangled mass of underwood, so thickly matted
together that Mme.  Leon had to thrust the branches aside with her
strong young hands, pushing them to right and left, as she plunged into
their midst, Jean clipping down after her.  A soft rush of sound, which
for some time had been in their ears, resolved itself now into the cool
flow of running water, and the ground, still densely wooded, fell
precipitously, evidently forming the high bank of the stream.  Nathalie
was active and light in movement; she scarcely hesitated, though often
forced to swing by the help of flexible branches, or to scramble, as
best she could, down sandy slopes.  At the foot of the bank ran a narrow
grassy strip, fringed with a thick growth of water-plants and broad
burdock leave beyond which raced a broad river, broken here and there by
pebbly shoals, but in other places flowing deep and strong.  The first
breath of autumn was carried in the air; it was all fresh, vigorous, and
a little keen, but the beauty passed unnoticed by Mme.  Leon.  She stood
still, and, shading her eyes with her hand, looked eagerly on either
side.  Jean clambered to a little height.  "Do you see him?" she called,
anxiously.

"No, madame.  But madame will recollect that monsieur was going that
way"--pointing to his right--"to fish.  Possibly he may be there."

She thought for a moment.

"I will take that direction, and do you ran towards the bridge.  Only
make haste, and if you find him, do not leave him again, but bring him
back at once; and call as you go."

"If it were any one but Monsieur Raoul, now," the boy said to himself as
he went off, "she would not have ventured to give an order.
Mademoiselle Claire stared finely when she found herself told to take
care of the carriage.  It was good!  Madame Leon is twenty times better
than Mademoiselle Claire, who speaks as if one were a pig; but, then,
Mademoiselle Claire is one of the old Beaudrillarts, and has the right,
while Madame Leon is bourgeoise.  There's the difference.  Nobody would
mind if she _did_ speak.  Monsieur Raoul!  Hi, Monsieur Raoul!"

Nathalie, meanwhile, was walking swiftly in the opposite direction, her
eyes devouring the bank and the unfeeling river, which gave her at all
times an unconquerable dread.  The ground was rough and broken, and she
often stumbled where the long grass hid cracks and dips.  A small
out-jutting promontory for some time hid a bend of the river from her
sight.  It was covered with thin straggling bushes, which had the
appearance of hurrying helter-skelter to dip their green branches in the
water.  It was necessary to push her way through them, and her dress
would have been torn had not an unconscious instinct led her, even at
this absorbed moment, to wrap it carefully round her, and avoid the
jagged wood-splinters.  When she had crossed these obstacles, she called
to a fisherman at work some couple of hundred feet away.  "Leon, Leon!"
she cried, breathlessly.

He turned, nodded, and began deliberately to reel his line.  Before he
had finished his wife was by his side.

"Leon--Raoul!  Have you seen Raoul!"

"I?  No.  Why should I have seen him?"

"Because he got out of the carriage and made his way down to the river--
to the river--alone!  Oh, Leon!"

"He will be all right; he has sense enough," said her husband, easily.
"What was that little imbecile Jean about?"

"Dear, I can't blame him.  What was he to do?  He has been ordered never
to leave the carriage."

"Do?  He might have done something.  It is ridiculous to suppose that he
could not have prevented it.  Who gave him those orders?"

"Your mother."

"Oh, well, of course it wouldn't do for the pony to run wild.  However,
don't worry yourself; depend upon it, it's all right."  He began to hum
an air.  "I believe, after all, I will go with you, if only to keep you
quiet.  And besides the pleasure of seeing you, I am not sorry that you
have come.  Fishing is horribly stupid work all by one's self.  I was
beginning to think I was sick of it, and from the relief I feel, I am
sure.  Stop!  Where are you going?"

"Dear Leon, I am so uneasy!  You can follow."

"Heartless woman!  But I don't let you off so quietly.  Haven't I told
you that my own society fatigues me? haven't I welcomed your coming? and
yet you have the unkindness to propose to leave me!  Come, be
reasonable.  Help me with this detestable rod, which your fingers can
manage twice as well as mine, and then we go together."

But to his amazement his wife only turned her head.

"I cannot stay, Leon; I am too anxious.  Come as quickly as you can."

He stared after her as she hastened away, his face losing some of its
easy expression.  Dark, like the De Beaudrillarts, his features were
small, and their lines rounded.  He was of medium height, and broadly
made about the shoulders; his eyes were brown, and the eyebrows
straight.  He laughed readily, yet occasionally a certain haggard look,
curiously at variance with the roundness of his cheek, crept over his
face and aged it.  Now, after a momentary hesitation, he flung his rod
and basket on the ground and ran after his wife.

"Women must always have their own way at once, of course," he said, with
a touch of petulance like a child's.  "You might have waited a minute."

"Ah, forgive me, Leon!  If it had been any other time!"

The ruffle had already passed.  He smiled gayly.

"Yes, yes, that is what you all say.  However, I will own that it is not
often you are so unreasonable."

She flung him a grateful look, and asked, with an effort:

"Have you caught many fish?"

"Only three, and those I gave to old Antoine as he went by.  No one can
be expected to fish with such a sun shining on the water.  Just look at
it!"

She looked and shuddered.  By way of saying something, she remarked:

"Claire persists that old Antoine is a vaurien."

"Probably.  From what my mother remembers, I suspect his family has been
worthless for so many generations as to deserve a reward for
consistency, if for nothing else.  Claire is dreadfully down upon poor
sinners.  Must we walk as if a mad dog were at our heels!  These bushes
scratch.  They might as well be trimmed.  Do you agree?  But you are not
attending."

"Yes, indeed, Leon, I think with you.  And with your rod--but where is
your rod?"

"Left with my basket.  Your fault--you would not wait."

She half paused.

"Oh, but I am sorry, very sorry!  Your new rod!  Will it not be hurt?"

"It is extremely probable that old Antoine will find an excellent
opportunity for exercising his hereditary inclinations."

She slipped her hand in his and repeated, regretfully: "I am very sorry!
It was so good of you to let everything go that you might come with me,
for I am terribly frightened.  Where can he have hidden himself?"

"My dear child, you are becoming fussy; and if you don't check yourself,
you will develop lines in your pretty face which I should find
unendurable.  Raoul is perfectly safe."

"Do you think so!  But--the river?"

"The river--bah!"

M. de Beaudrillart was too sweet-tempered to be annoyed with his wife
for her fears, but he was conscious of a failure in the perfect sympathy
to which he was accustomed.  When his fishing happened to be
unsuccessful, Nathalie was alert to discover the reasons for failure,
and never by awkward slip set it down to want of skill.  If such a
thought knocked at his own mind, her tender touch managed to shut the
door upon the unwelcome intruder.  No matter what other affairs occupied
her, they were laid aside to give him her undivided attention, and--what
was more--to be grateful to him for asking it.  Perhaps he chose to be
unaware of the isolated position she occupied in the household, since it
had this advantage for him, that with one other he absorbed the warm
affections which were strong enough to flow far and wide, could they
have found space.  He liked the concentration.  Now, however, he felt
she had not so much as listened; for, when he had finished his relation
of a trout which had been so ill-behaved as to get away, instead of her
usual commiseration, Nathalie did not even utter a remark.  Her eyes
were fixed painfully upon the river, which raced along--iron-grey in
colour, except where the shallows broke it into bubbles--with its fringe
of broad-leaved grasses, burdocks, and flags, a vivid green line in the
midst of a somewhat dried-up country.  He would have preferred a more
leisurely stroll, but his wife's impatience kept her a pace or two in
advance, so that he was forced to exert himself in order to keep up with
her light and swift steps.  His annoyance took refuge in silence, which
she in her anxious absorption did not notice.

Presently, however, she cried: "Oh, Leon, there is the bridge!"

"Did you expect to see it anywhere else?"

Generally she was quick to detect the smallest cloud of displeasure, but
now she said only: "He might have been on it."

Leon shrugged his shoulders.

"We must cross," she said, decidedly.  "I cannot help hoping that he has
gone off to the village."

"I could have told you so much long ago.  He has gone off to the
village, and is as safe as if he were in the chateau."

"You don't know--you only think.  And if he has found him, why has not
Jean brought him back?"

"Jean is a fool.  It is all his fault," grumbled the young master.

The bridge was a slight wooden structure, flung across the broad river
for the convenience of the Beaudrillarts.  On the other side lay the
scattered cottages of a little hamlet, the apple orchards and vineyards
already spoken of; while higher up a stone bridge spanned the river,
available, as this was not, for carts and carriages.  Beyond, you saw a
white church.  The people were poor, but could hardly be miserably so in
a part of France where both soil and climate were gracious; ignorant and
uneducated, but frugal and industrious.  Most of the families had lived
in their homes longer than the longest memories stretched back, and,
with many, service with the Beaudrillarts still remained an hereditary
custom.

Nathalie, when she reached the bridge, involuntarily slackened her
steps.  Any one who watched her closely would have seen that the hand
which grasped the rail trembled, and that her eyes fastened themselves
fearfully upon the swift-flowing river beneath.  Once she cried out, and
stopped.  "Eh?  What is it?" asked Leon, advancing, startled.

"That!"  She pointed below.

"A white stone."

"Is it really a stone?  I thought it moved."

"Foolish child!  You are in a state in which you fancy anything.  You
would shock my mother."

She did not even hear him.  She moved forward step by step, her
questioning eyes still trying to pierce the secrets of the river.
Suddenly she stopped again, lifted her head, and stood motionless, her
whole face transformed by a radiant smile.

On the opposite side of the stream the path rose very slightly, and
passed before a large walnut-tree until an angle hid it from view.
Round this corner trooped a joyous procession of some eight or ten
children of all sizes, singing and shouting, headed by a little boy of
perhaps five years old, who marched in front, blowing a shrill trumpet
with much fire and precision.  When he spied Mme.  Leon he blew yet
louder, and marched more triumphantly, but before he reached her forgot
his dignity, and began to run, crying out, "Mamma, mamma!"  She opened
her arms, and he rushed into them.

For a moment she could not speak.  The dim, shadowy terrors which the
clasp of his little hands had driven out had been fuller of anguish than
she knew.  They were gone, but they left her, strong and healthy woman
as she was, shaken and trembling.  Raoul, recovering from his attack of
sentiment, struggled to get free.  The children hung shyly back, and
Jean, who had been commanded to defend the rear, pushed forward to
speak.

"Madame, he was outside Pere Robert's, beating the rappel."

Then all the other boys and girls began to laugh and whisper.

"Tiens! he said we were his soldiers."

"We were to march I don't know where.  Oh, out of France!" with a broad
sweep of arms, expressive of immensity.

"Big Lonlon was corporal."

"And he made us call him general."

They saw regretfully that the game was over, since monsieur and madame
had appeared, and scattered like a flock of sparrows, Raoul, finding
struggling of no use, watching them gravely with a small air of dignity.
His mother's heart began to beat more steadily.

"Raoul," she remonstrated, softly, "how could you run away?"

He turned his dark eyes upon her.

"Because Jean was so dull, and the river was much nicer."

"But you made poor father and mother so frightened!"

Leon interposed.

"Don't scold the child, m'amie.  It was natural enough, and just what I
used to do at his age.  I believe he has my very same old trumpet.  Yes,
yes, here's the notch which I made one day when I banged Pierre's head."

He blew a blast, at which Raoul clapped his hands and struggled.  But
the mother held him fast.

"Raoul will not run away again?"

"It was all that dolt Jean's fault," Leon put in once more.  "Jean,
hasn't madame fifty times told you not to lose sight of Monsieur Raoul?
Answer!  Come, yes, or no?  But she has, for I have heard her myself,
and you are abominably careless."

"Ah, but--monsieur knows," stammered Jean, "that--that Madame de
Beaudrillart--"

"My mother?  Well?"

"Monsieur knows she said that if I let him cry I should be punished, and
Mademoiselle Claire said I was never to leave the pony, and--"

The young man burst into a laugh.

"Conflicting orders, eh, Nathalie?  Well, you should have managed
somehow.  And look here, understand from me that it is Madame Leon who
is your mistress, and that you are always to do what she tells you.  You
comprehend?"

"Yes, monsieur," said Jean, in a doubtful tone.

"Good! then now take Monsieur Raoul to the house, and find his bonne or
somebody.  We have had quite enough of this.  My fishing spoiled and
all!  Not that I was doing much good.  Come, Nathalie, the least you can
do to make up is to come back with me after my rod.  Let that baby go;
he is not the person to scold."

"Dear Leon, he is quite old enough; he must be made to understand."

He caught her arm, and pulled her playfully away.

"Understand?  Bah! you are over-precise, cherie.  Wait a year or two,
and you shall preach at him as long as you will.  Besides, I want you,
and that is enough, or ought to be.  Now, Raoul, run; I've begged you
off this time."

She looked at her husband and hesitated; then, without another word, let
go the child and went with Leon.  Jean, looking back, saw them walking
by the side of the river, and monsieur had his hand on madame's
shoulder.

"For all that!" muttered Jean, thinking uncomfortably of Mlle.  Claire.

CHAPTER TWO.

HOW POISSY WAS SAVED.

It was true, as Jean had murmured to himself, that Mme.  Leon was by
birth bourgeoise.  As for the De Beaudrillarts, all France knew that
they belonged, not only to the noblesse, but to the oldest of the
noblesse.  Their name was ancient.  The church at Nonceaux, which at one
time stood on the estate, was full of monuments of armed and curled
Barons de Beaudrillart, lying stiffly under fretted canopies; old
documents in the library of Tours carried their names centuries back,
and their beautiful chateau was an object of interest to all the
strangers who come into the neighbourhood.

It is true that, six years ago, before Baron Leon was married, and when
he was about three-and-twenty, these same strangers remarked upon the
bad state of repair into which the chateau had fallen, pointing out that
in many of the rooms, now disused and shut up, the plaster was peeling
from the ceilings and exquisite cornices, and that other parts had
reached a state of absolute ruin; but, whatever pain this decay may have
caused to the owners, it only added to the tranquil picturesque charm
which seemed to cling to the old place.  There was a lovely pitch of
roof, and the slate, worn out as it was, had gained a rich depth as
beautiful as that of a rain-cloud, making a perfect setting for the
delicate and fantastic chimneys which sprang lightly into the air.  The
chateau was of no great size, nor could it in any way compare with those
grand historic houses of which Touraine is justly proud; but whatever
architect imagined it had been imbued with the same spirit, and had
indulged in the same grace of detail.  There was no stiffness,
apparently scarcely an attempt at symmetry; yet it would have been
difficult to detect a flaw in the harmony of form and colour.  A light
lantern turret clung to one angle, a wilful little outer staircase ran
up, quite unexpectedly, to a balcony, small ferns pierced the crevices
of the grey stone, where lizards darted in and out, here and there in
spring a rosy cyclamen appeared.  The place was never without delight,
whether seen under the warm radiance of the sun, which brought out the
lizards and intensified into sharpness the rich shadow of each bit of
carving, and every golden patch of lichen on the mellow stone, or
clothed with a more restful and sympathetic charm under the soft cloudy
half-lights of a grey day.  Behind the chateau rose a low wooded hill,
in front ran a long terrace, which separated it from the flower-beds and
a broad stretch of turf.  The kitchen-garden and the pond, where frogs
kept up a turbulent croaking, were on one side.

But the decay which may add a charm to architecture becomes dreary and
unlovely in a garden.  Six years ago the turf was uncared for, the
flowers grew untrimmed; it was evident that the fortunes of the family
were at a low ebb.  So with the interior.  The greater number of rooms
were closed, and only two or three servants remained of the many who had
been there during the lifetime of the Baron Bernard.  The Baron Bernard
had been a man of sense and integrity, highly respected in the
neighbourhood--unfortunately, he was drowned in the river at a
comparatively early age, leaving a widow; one son, Leon; two daughters,
Felicie and Claire; and a well-ordered estate.

For a few years this continued, but with Leon grown up came change.  He
was a young man with the easiest of tempers, a genuine charm of face and
manner, and the most extravagant tastes.  His mother and sisters adored,
and did their best to spoil him.  They succeeded admirably.  He began to
spend money at the earliest possible age at which a man masters that
easiest of accomplishments, and he denied himself nothing.  There had
been savings daring his boyhood; he fancied the sum inexhaustible, and
looked upon it as loose cash intended to be flung away.  It was not, it
need hardly he remarked, at Poissy that the money was spent; Paris--
Paris became the one place in the world where he cared to pass his days,
with an occasional flying visit to Poissy, where his intendant was
installed with the impossible task before him of meeting increased
expenditure upon diminishing receipts.  M.  Georges seldom saw his
employer, and then was put off by good-humoured banter.  If he carried
his tale to Mme. de Beaudrillart, she invariably treated him as the one
to blame, and would only repeat that it was natural for a young man to
enjoy himself during the early years of his life.  Money must be raised
somehow.

"In that case, madame," said little M.  Georges, as firmly as he could,
"portions of the property will have to be sold.  Monsieur le baron will
consent?"

She paused, struck with dismay.

"You mean that it is absolutely necessary?"

"I mean that no other course whatever remains--except to borrow."

"Oh, no borrowing!" returned Mme. de Beaudrillart, hastily, and M.
Georges smiled covertly, aware of M.  Leon's debts in Paris.  She walked
to the window, and came back.  "If it must be," she said, reluctantly,
"you had better dispose of some of the outlying property.  But permit me
to remark, Monsieur Georges, that it appears to me that perhaps greater
experience might have prevented such a sacrifice."

Experience had, at any rate, taught poor M.  Georges the undesirability
of entering upon an argument with Mme. de Beaudrillart.  He bowed low,
and retired to write to M.  Leon, who sent him an airy letter to the
effect that in years to come it would be easy enough to buy back
whatever their misfortunes required them to part with at the present
moment.  Mme. de Beaudrillart, whenever she encountered M.  Georges,
looked at him with displeasure; the only person from whom he received
any sympathy was Mlle.  Claire, and hers scarcely reached the point of
blaming Leon.

The first piece of property sold soon carried another with it.  Rich
vineyards and mills found immediate purchasers, and changed hands
easily.  The worst of it was that Poissy was left with land which was
not so profitable, and that the rentals became quickly reduced, while M.
Leon's expend it are did not diminish in the same proportion, for if by
fits and starts he practised a little economy, it was followed by a
reaction, as if he imagined that what he had saved gave him something
more to spend.  Debts and mortgages, like venomous spiders, crept over
poor Poissy, and, once having got it in their clutches, held it tight.
They reached this point at last, that nothing remained with which to
satisfy his creditors except the chateau itself; and when the fact
forced itself upon his mind, the shock was sufficiently great to stun
even M.  Leon.

He hurried back, and sent for M.  Georges.  In the crash of disaster he
felt as if he had been purposely kept in ignorance, forgetting the
letters which had seemed to him only the tiresome forebodings of a timid
man.  His mother, who refused to blame her son, offered up the intendant
as a scapegoat.  If he were not in fault, how could matters have arrived
at their present disastrous condition?  For what was he placed there, if
not to preserve the estates!  M.  Leon winced.

"What I complain of is that the state of affairs should not have been
forced upon me," he said, running his hands through his hair.  "Good
heavens! if I had once understood, should I have been such a fool?"

Mlle.  Claire, who was very pale, looked up.

"Did not Monsieur Georges entreat you to return, or to appoint to see
him in Paris!"

"Entreat!  He should have insisted," cried Mme. de Beaudrillart.  "If
Leon had but understood the gravity of the case, or if I had but known!
But Monsieur Georges is a man who lays infinite stress on minute points,
and fails altogether to impress you with what is important."

M.  Georges was dismissed; and this was perhaps the only deliberate
harshness Leon ever committed in his life.  Then the young baron set
himself to look into his debts, and get together the total sum; it
amounted to more than two hundred thousand francs.

"There is but one thing," said Mme. de Beaudrillart; "you must marry."

But to this Leon, who had not shown himself very scrupulous, objected.
He had no inclination, he said, to marry, and he disliked the idea of
being indebted for Poissy itself to a wife.  He would go to Paris, where
it would be hard if he could not, among quick-witted advisers, find some
means of redeeming his fortunes.  He went, and, for the first time in
his life, really worked, and with feverish energy.  He ran here and
there among his old companions, who were prodigal of sympathy, but
offered little more substantial.  It seemed impossible that he should be
unable to raise money when, throughout his prosperous days, it had been
pressed upon him.  But his eyes were sufficiently opened to perceive
that the only terms by which he could free himself from present disaster
were ruinous, and would merely serve to postpone the evil day.  As the
value of his securities decreased, a more extortionate rate of interest
was demanded.  He cursed his own folly, but could see no way out of the
quagmire into which it had plunged him.  His friends reiterated Mme. de
Beaudrillart's advice.  For the sake of rank, many a girl with a large
fortune would be ready to raise his fallen fortunes; one or two were
even pointed out to him, and their dowries dangled before his eyes.  But
he remained obstinate.

When he came to Paris there had been an idea of his seeking some
appointment, by means of which, and the strictest economy at Poissy, the
interest on his debts might be scraped together.  Unfortunately, Leon's
ideas of money were large--so large that a little seemed to him as
useless as none.  If by one great coup he might gain a considerable
sum--good!  But to add franc to franc, and painfully lessen his
obligations by scarcely perceptible payments, was economy from which his
soul revolted, and which, therefore, he contrived to persuade himself
was worthless.  It might suit the sordid little nature of a bourgeois
bonhomme, but not that of the owner of Poissy.  Something larger must be
attempted, and quickly.

Before Leon's eyes there had floated for some time the possibility of
applying to an old cousin of the family, a certain M. de Cadanet.  For
various reasons, it appeared as if he were the very person to assist
him.  Rumour credited him with an immense fortune; and, at any rate,
there could be no doubt that he had made more than one successful
speculation, among them that of marrying a rich wife, who died
childless.  Rich and solitary, what better person could be found to come
to the rescue of the De Beaudrillarts?  And there was an even stronger
reason for counting upon his good-will.  In the days when he had not
found prosperity, and was struggling to stand up against more than one
hard buffet dealt by Fortune, Leon's father had given him a helping
hand.  Perhaps without him he would have been unable to keep his
footing; certainly the support was of material service, and Leon had
some excuse for thinking that now was the moment for him to return it.

But, unfortunately, the relations between the young man and the old were
already strained.  It was not only that Leon's frivolities, Leon's
extravagances, were hateful to the cautions and clear-headed speculator,
who had made his way to wealth by dint of industry and prudence, and set
those virtues beyond all others--there was a third person whose
influence was extremely damaging to the young baron, a certain Charles
Lemaire, who had married a niece of M. de Cadanet's wife.  His uncle
credited him with the qualities he loved, and there could be no doubt
that he was cautious, and, when it suited his interests, frugal.  He
had, however, as Leon knew very well to his own cost, a passion for
gambling, and at the same time extraordinary luck.  When first the two
found themselves at the same table, they were unknown to each other, and
Charles had never got over the disagreeable shock with which he realised
that the handsome young man who lost his money so easily was cousin to
the uncle to whose solitary habits he trusted for non-detection.  From
that moment he detested him, and worked to damage his character in the
eyes of M. de Cadanet.  His follies--and Heaven knows they were many--
were repeated and exaggerated.  Each idle rumour, whether well or ill
founded, reached the old man's ears.  Rash and youthful political
utterances were spoken of with sorrowful gravity.  One or two laughing
comments upon M. de Cadanet's habits became cruel ridicule.  And with
all this M.  Charles lost no opportunity of ingratiating himself.  He
understood the subtile flattery of asking advice, and of outwardly
following it.  He deferred to his uncle in every point.  And he
contrived, at last, to make himself so necessary to M. de Cadanet that
if he stayed away he was missed and blamed.

Leon made no attempt to act as a rival.  Kind-heartedness and general
good-will inclined him to look in upon the solitary old man, and he went
once or twice to his house.  But he was received with coldness and
marked displeasure, and had pleased himself too long to endure what he
disliked.  His visits ceased.  M. de Cadanet, who claimed attention,
became more incensed.  Once or twice he asked Charles where the young
fool kept himself.

"My dear uncle, how should I know?  You do not expect me to frequent his
haunts.  And it would pain me too much to repeat to you all that I hear.
It is more charitable to shut one's ears, and to hope that the world is
mistaken."

And he pressed his hand on his pocket, where reposed the notes he had
won the night before.

On his part, Leon suspected him of enmity, but would have scorned to
retaliate; and Charles based his own assurance upon knowledge of his
character, and upon the insidious manner in which he had poisoned his
uncle's mind.

Now, however, when the waters were closing over the De Beaudrillarts,
Leon felt that the moment had come for an appeal.  Surely gratitude to
the dead man who had helped him would induce M. de Cadanet to step
forward and save his son from ruin.  Leon, whose nature was buoyantly
sanguine, made up his mind to a scolding, but saw himself coming away
with the estates saved.  As he walked along the streets, sparkling with
crisp sunshine and gaiety, his spirits rose, and the fears and torments
he had been going through fell away.  He almost laughed when he thought
of a despairing letter to his mother which he had written the night
before and had with him, and he assured himself that the postscript
which must undoubtedly be added would bring joy to Poissy.

In this hopeful frame of mind he reached M. de Cadanet's house in the
Rue du Bac, a house quiet and somewhat gloomy in appearance.  Leon
entered the porte-cochere, and passed the small office of the concierge.
He went quickly up to the first-floor, and, passing through an
austerely furnished suite of rooms, was finally ushered into one smaller
than the others, where, surrounded by books and a few indifferent
pictures, M. de Cadanet sat writing, an old man, short, bent, and with a
skin like yellow ivory.

Leon came in smiling, almost radiant.  He had succeeded in persuading
his sanguine self that he had reached the end of his difficulties, and
he had profound faith in the imperturbable good-humour which seldom
failed to charm.  He advanced with outstretched hand, coldly received by
his cousin.

"I am ashamed, count, to recall how long it is since I have been to call
on you.  Do you forgive me?"

The old man drew himself up.

"I am not aware of having expected the honour of a visit from Monsieur
de Beaudrillart."

"I accept the rebuke," said Leon, smiling frankly.  "To tell the truth,
you might have seen me oftener if I had been sure of a welcome.  But I
am afraid I have deserved my disgrace."

"Of that no one, monsieur, can judge better than yourself."

"Why monsieur?" said the young man, still smiling.  "In old days you
spoke to me as Leon; and you do not forget that we are cousins."

"One does not so easily forget one's misfortunes."

"Misfortunes!" repeated Leon, colouring.  The next moment he recovered
himself sufficiently to say good-humouredly, "Pardon me, but was it
always a misfortune, count!"

The old man glanced at him with the first touch of wavering in his face.

"You need not remind me," he said.  "I should not now be listening to
you were it not for the remembrance of your father.  But you did not
come here merely to pay a visit of ceremony to a cantankerous old
mummy?"

He emphasised the words bitterly, for, according to M.  Charles, this
title had been attached to him by Leon.  Leon stared and shrugged his
shoulders, unconscious of offence, and only anxious to propitiate his
terrible relative.

"You are right," he said, looking down and speaking more hurriedly.  "I
am here because I am in great difficulties, and because I hoped that--
that the remembrance of my father would dispose you to come to the help
of his son."

"And may I ask what has plunged you into difficulties?"

"Oh, my own folly; I don't attempt to deny it--my own folly, helped on
by a dolt of an intendant.  If I had had any idea--However, I do not
excuse myself.  I have been confoundedly extravagant, and I mean to pull
up short, I assure you.  But, after all, other young men have been in
the same position, and, with a helping hand, have managed to scramble
out of it again.  I have been up here for a week seeing what I could
do--"

"At the gaming-tables!"

"No, no, I give you my word that is over.  I have been trying to
raise--"

"How much!"

"Two hundred thousand francs," said the young man, in a low voice.

"There are money-lenders enough in Paris," remarked M. de Cadanet,
dryly.

"But with the securities I can offer, their terms are ruinous.  If I
were to accept them, Poissy would have to go.  Judge for yourself
whether this would not break my mother's heart."

"I have not the honour of the acquaintance of Madame de Beaudrillart."

Leon did not answer at once.  He was framing a more direct appeal.

"The estate must right itself in time," he said, hopefully, "and if I
could induce you to take the matter into consideration, and to advance
me the money--"

He paused.  M. de Cadanet turned towards his writing-table, unlocked a
drawer, and drew out a cheque-book.

"You said, I think, two hundred thousand!" he asked, beginning to fill
it in.

"Two hundred thousand," repeated the young man, joyfully, without an
attempt to conceal the exultation with which he watched the proceeding.
All had gone more easily than his most sanguine expectations had
ventured to suggest, and he was amazed at his own folly in having
hesitated to apply to his rich cousin, whose bark, after all, was worse
than his bite.  M. de Cadanet's movements were deliberate in the
extreme.  He wrote a cheque, folded it, and sought for an envelope of
the right size.  This found, he proceeded to direct it.  Leon smiled to
himself.  "An unnecessary formality," he thought; "but I had better hold
my tongue, and let him please himself as to his way of doing."  It
seemed to him, however, that the moment had come when he might express
his gratitude, and he was beginning to stammer a few words, when M. de
Cadanet put up his hand.

"One moment, monsieur.  Allow me to explain.  Neither the honour of this
visit nor the particulars with which you have favoured me have taken me
by surprise.  I have already given the affairs of Poissy my best
consideration."

Leon nodded cheerfully.  This explained.

"And I have arrived at the conclusion that since the Beaudrillart family
has reached the point indicated by you, it must be decreed that it
should pass the remainder of its existence without a chateau.  Heaven
forbid that I should attempt to fight against fate!"

The scorn of his words stung like a lash.  Leon, bewildered and
astonished, turned white.  He murmured something which the old count
interrupted with a sudden outburst of passion.

"What, monsieur!  You squander your birthright on miserable follies, you
drag the name you profess to honour into the lowest depths, and then
come to beg--yes, monsieur, I repeat it, to beg--from those whose advice
you have scorned, and whose character you have calumniated!  No.  I give
you my word--a word which, however strange it may appear to you, has
never yet been broken--that, in whatever straits you find yourself, I
will not so much as lift my little finger to help you, nor fling a penny
to keep you from starving.  Understand that, if you had become poor by
honest misfortunes, I would have set you again on your legs.  You have
had your chance.  I would not trust mere report, though to those who
were acquainted with your habits it appeared only too probable.  Close
and searching inquiries have been made, and it is possible that I know
more of your affairs than you know yourself--certainly more than you
have permitted me to hear from you to-day."

Leon sprang to his feet.

"Enough, monsieur!" he cried.  "You have a right to refuse assistance,
but none to insult me.  If you have employed spies to search into my
private affairs, you have taken an unwarrantable liberty, upon which you
would not have ventured had you been of an age for me to retaliate.
Much of what you say is incomprehensible to me; a little more might
cause me to forget the respect due to your years."

"Spare me theatrical language, monsieur; and, as you have forced
yourself upon me, be good enough to listen to what I have to tell you.
This letter contains an order for two hundred thousand francs."

Against his will, the young man's eyes turned greedily towards it.

"Are you not inclined to add to your accomplishments by robbery and
murder?" sneered M. de Cadanet.

"If I had the chance, I should be glad to get hold of the money," said
the young man, lightly.  His anger burned out as quickly as dry straw,
and the other, who had not expected this frank answer, stared and went
on:

"When I gave myself the annoyance of looking into your affairs, I
resolved that, if you came out of the ordeal acquitted, I would apply
the earn to their settlement; if you failed, it should go to--another
person."

Leon laughed.  The count, who had not the young man's command of temper,
became furious.

"You laugh, monsieur!  Let those laugh who win."

"Exactly," said M. de Beaudrillart, coolly.  "And who wins?  The
admirable Charles?"

"Yes, monsieur!" thundered the count.  "He whom you are pleased to sneer
at as the admirable Charles, and who, if not a Beaudrillart, has shown
himself to be what is better--an honourable man.  You follow me?"

"Perfectly.  You express yourself with unmistakable clearness.  So
Monsieur Charles is to have the money!"

"And will make a worthy use of it.  He may find more follow."

"I comprehend," said Leon, still smiling.  "Under the circumstances, you
are doubtless anxious to despatch your letter to Monsieur Charles.  Can
I post it for you?"

It was M. de Cadanet's turn to laugh--gratingly.

"Permit me to prefer a safer messenger.  My cheque is payable to
bearer."

"Then I have the honour to wish you good-day."

"Go.  And understand, once for all, that should you apply to me again,
you will not be admitted."

"Do not fear, monsieur.  The impression I take with me is not so
agreeable that I should wish to renew it."

And with this last word M. de Beaudrillart found himself outside the
room.

He went slowly down-stairs, the smile still lingering mechanically on
his lips, but something like despair in his heart.  So far as he could
see, but one way presented itself out of his troubles, and this would
only affect himself, and leave his mother, whom he loved, with added
misery in her heart.  No misfortune would touch her, he knew, so nearly
as his death, and if he had the cowardice to be ready to slip out of his
troubles by self-murder, he had not the cruelty to inflict such anguish
upon her.  Besides, another reflection, not so amiable, restrained him.
M. de Cadanet had hinted at coming gifts for M.  Charles, and the
thought had flashed upon him with the force of intuition that it was not
improbable, should the mortgages be foreclosed, for the count to get
hold of Poissy and present it to M.  Charles.  Now, without knowing all
the mischief that he had worked, Leon hated M.  Charles.  His hate was
not virulent, but it was impulsive; and although he had no proof, he
strongly suspected who had brought an exaggerated report of his follies
to M. de Cadanet's ears.  He might have retaliated, but that he would
never stoop to such a course, and he reflected with a laugh that, if
Charles was convicted of gambling, he would be ready with the excuse
that he had gone there to watch himself.  But Charles at Poissy!
Charles a successor of the De Beaudrillarts!  Leon ground his teeth, and
felt that he must remain alive while a hope of baffling such a disaster
was left.

Again he passed the little room of the concierge.  Andre, who was
something of a gourmand, was within at work upon cooking a fish, and
looked up to salute M.  Leon.  In another moment the high green gates
had closed behind the young baron, and he was walking along the street.

The sun was shining.  Paris--the Paris he loved, the Paris which had
proved herself so fatal a rival to Poissy--had never looked more
smiling; there was neither fog nor chill in the air; but everywhere
bright keen colours, people chatting, shops brightly dressed, women in
their white caps, carriages rolling along.  Gay, yet with a touch of
hardness.  For the first time in his life Leon became conscious of the
hardness.

He knew himself now to be absolutely without resource; turn which way he
would, rack ready wits as he might, no road suggested itself except,
perhaps, marriage.  And, strangely enough, as has been said, this man,
who, young as he was, had few ideals left, had this, that he shrank from
mending his broken fortunes by a marriage for money.  True, it was
common, almost universal.  True, in matters relating to his own ease and
comfort, selfishness generally became paramount.  True, this fancy
contradicted other characteristics.  The fact remained that he hated the
idea, and refused to entertain it, even in this moment of despair, when
he had entertained others which seemed worse, when he acknowledged that
M. de Cadanet had been rash in letting him see the cheque, and that if
it had been M.  Charles who had stood there between it and him--

He took an open letter from his pocket, and groaned as he closed it, so
that a woman who was passing looked round; but seeing only a handsome
young man with a cheek as round as a child's, she smiled and went on.
The letter was addressed to Mme. de Beaudrillart, at Poissy, and had
been brought with him with the hope that an added postscript might have
told of some happy turn of Fortune's wheel.  Now it must go as it stood,
messenger of ill-tidings.

"Monsieur le baron has not got far."

Leon looked hastily round; Andre the concierge was by his side.  His
first wild thought was that M. de Cadanet had relented and sent after
him, the next moment his eye fell upon a packet of letters which the man
carried, and he was seized with longing to know whether the letter
addressed to M.  Charles was among them.  His genial manner made him a
favourite with servants.

"Ah, Andre," he said; "you have there monsieur le comte's letters?"

"As monsieur le baron sees."

"Permit me to glance at them.  I wish to see whether one of which he
spoke is there."

They were in his hand even before he had finished speaking--four.  Yes;
the address to M.  Charles Lemaire stared him in the face.  The next
moment the concierge had four letters again, but one of the four was
addressed to Mme. de Beaudrillart, at Poissy.

"Thanks, Andre."  M.  Leon burst into a laugh, and tossed the man a
piece of twenty sous.  "Tell monsieur le comte--No; tell him nothing; I
will write."

That evening M. de Cadanet received a letter:

"My Cousin,--I have taken the liberty of borrowing the sum which you had
so thoughtfully prepared for Monsieur Charles.  It would have been
better for him if you had accepted my offer to post your letter; as you
declined to trust me, I had no scruple in exchanging it for another
which found itself in my hand at the exact moment.  Do not blame your
messenger, who is quite unaware of the transaction.  By my writing to
you, you will perceive that I have no intention of denying what I have
done.  It is in your power to have me arrested.  You know where to find
me, and I will remain in Paris for two days, so as to avoid the pain to
my family of a scandal at Poissy.  Permit me, however, to point out that
I have only taken the money as a loan, that it will be returned to you
by instalments, and with interest, though, I fear, slowly, and that you
may find it more advantageous to allow the matter to rest than to ruin
one who, however unworthy, is the son of the man to whom you were
certainly indebted for your prosperity."

It must be owned that this was a strange letter to write and to receive.
The answer that came back was brief:

  "Monsieur,--You have confirmed me in my judgment.  I preserve your
  letter.  For the present I hold my hand; when the time arrives I shall
  know how to act.

  "Martin de Cadanet."

CHAPTER THREE.

THE HOUSEHOLD AT POISSY.

The letter which arrived at Poissy came with all the force of a shock to
Mme. de Beaudrillart and her daughters.  It was true that they were well
aware that an evil menaced, but it appeared inconceivable that it should
have arrived.  Leon had assured them that something would turn up; he
was confident that Paris must offer a means of evading the worst, and,
indeed, in all that he had said had temporised, excused himself, and
hinted at unforeseen misfortune.  M.  Georges, indeed, had spoken more
plainly to Mlle.  Claire, but his words had been indignantly scouted by
Mme. de Beaudrillart.  Even now, when Leon had taken refuge in a letter
which might break the worst in his absence, and spare him the pain of
seeing, not reproachful looks, but tears, they refused to face the crash
as inevitable.  That the De Beaudrillart home should pass from the De
Beaudrillarts was absolutely out of the question.  That Leon's
extravagance had brought about even threat of such disaster immediately
required extenuating words, and a laying of blame on any shoulders
except his.  Of the three, Claire was the only one who permitted a tinge
of bitterness to creep, now and then, into her words.

"My poor boy!" cried Mme. de Beaudrillart, with tears in her eyes; "if
this is hard for us, what must he not have suffered?  Of course the
affair will arrange itself somehow--Heaven forbid that I should be so
faithless as to doubt it!--but the annoyance, the anxiety!  Well, it is
only another proof, if proof were wanted, of the incompetency of that
Monsieur Georges.  If Leon had not been so tender-hearted he would have
sent him away long ago."

"I wonder if it would have really made any difference?" remarked
Felicie, her eldest daughter, looking up from the altar-linen she was
embroidering.  She was near-sighted, and had to stoop very much to bring
her work within range of her eyes, but she would not be persuaded to
wear spectacles.

"We should remember, however, that Monsieur Georges constantly implored
Leon to pay a closer attention to his affairs.  I must say, I think it
is unjust to blame the poor man," said Claire, sharply.

"Then you must blame your brother, which would be far more unjust," said
her mother, with decision.  "For what is an intendant engaged?  Until
this moment, I have always been under the impression it was that he
might look after the estates, and avert the possibility of such a
humiliating position as that in which our poor Leon now finds himself."

"It is certain that Leon must have been terribly extravagant," persisted
Mlle.  Claire.

"Oh, extravagant, extravagant!--I dare say.  How can you, a woman, with
every want provided for, and with absolutely no temptation to spend
money--how can you possibly judge of the difficulties of a young man in
Paris?  A young man, too, such as Leon, impulsive, generous,
attractive."  Claire agreed.  "Yes, he is very attractive."

"And very generous," added Felicie, looking up again, and holding her
needle in the air.  "When I spoke to him the other day about the
pilgrimage, he told me we might count on him for fifty francs.  Now
Madame de Montbreuil assured me with tears that her husband would give
no more than twenty."

"Ah, and it is that generosity of his of which people take advantage,"
said his mother.  "If we knew all the truth, which you may be sure he
will never permit us to learn, I am certain we should find some
kind-hearted action at the bottom of this trouble.  He has come to the
rescue of a friend, or helped a poor struggling creature, and been
dragged in himself, poor fellow!  As for the old count, I shall never
forgive him.  He must have guessed how disagreeable it was to Leon to be
forced to apply to him for assistance; and after his indebtedness to
your father, the least, the very least he could do, was to have helped
him liberally, and to have rejoiced at the opportunity."

Mme. de Beaudrillart had a white face, an aquiline nose, and pinched
lips--the features of a shrewd woman who would hold her own.  She had
little compassion for shortcomings, and never failed to point them out--
perhaps to compensate for her blind adulation of her son.  A large
photograph of him stood on the table; she took it up, and carried it to
the window, gazing at it fondly.

"I suppose it is difficult for such a boy as Leon to avoid spending
money in a place with so many temptations as Paris," Claire remarked, in
a low tone.  She was like her mother, but her face was more sallow and
sharper.

"I don't like you to speak as if this trouble were poor Leon's fault,"
said Felicie, in her thin, gentle voice.

Claire began to laugh.

"Whose, then?  Yours or mine?  I have not spent a penny for a month, so
I cannot feel that I am responsible; and though you are disposed to be
extravagant for the Church--"

"That is only one's duty."

"As you like, ma chere.  I was going to add that you had no money to
give, so that we can hardly lay our ruin at your door.  Who is there but
Leon?"

"Our mother thinks he has met with some misfortune."

"Bah!" said Claire, under her breath.  "It is no misfortune.  I love
Leon as well as you love him, but I can see his faults.  He is no saint.
This is his doing, and his only.  He has squandered his money, and in
bad ways."

"What bad ways?" asked her sister, with wide-open eyes.  "If I were to
tell you, you would be shocked."

"You can't know!"

"Do I not?  Leon is horribly careless, and if you were to see some of
the photographs and letters he leaves scattered about his room, you
would acknowledge that I know what I am talking about."

Felicie thrust her fingers into her ears, and a flush rose in her thin
cheek.

"Hush, hush, Claire!" she cried.  "It is a sin to speak of such things!
It is a sin even to listen to you!"

"Oh, I mean to be vielle fille, and privileged," said Claire, with a
laugh.  "I could not go about the world with my eyes shut, as you do.
Do you really believe it to be rose-coloured?"

Mme. de Beaudrillart crossed the room from the window, where she had
been standing.

"What are you talking about, children?" she demanded.

"Claire says such things," murmured Felicie, resuming her work.  "It is
shocking!"

"Felicie is a baby," remarked the younger sister, contemptuously.

"Hush, hush!  I have often desired you, Claire, to be more careful in
what you repeat before your sister.  And I am surprised you can think of
anything but this anxiety of poor Leon's.  I have been turning the
matter over and over."

"Have you decided on anything?"

"I will tell you.  Of course, what he appears to dread cannot happen.
It is impossible to conceive the idea of Poissy passing from the
family."

"Impossible!"  Claire repeated the word with emphasis.

"But it is our duty to make all the sacrifices we can.  We must
economise more strictly."

"Oh, certainly, mamma," said Felicie, cheerfully.  "If you remember, in
the last address which we had from the abbe, he counselled us to cast
away superfluous luxuries.  And here is our opportunity.  It seems quite
a coincidence."

Mme. de Beaudrillart nodded, waiting for her other daughter to speak.
Claire lifted her head and glanced round the room.

"I wish the coincidence had not arrived," she said.  "I am ready to do
anything that is suggested; but I own I hardly see what we have which
can be called superfluous."  Her mother folded her thin white hands in
her lap.

"We must do with fewer servants," she said.

"I suppose so," Claire assented, doubtfully.  "Which will you dismiss?
Francois is the least necessary."

"To us, but not to Leon.  No; I have been reflecting, and I believe we
can dispense with Rose-Marie.  You are both active, and I, I thank
Heaven, not yet infirm, so that between us, with old Nanon and Jacques
Charpentier to help, we shall very well be able to manage the
house-work."

"Mamma," gasped Felicie, with anguish in her voice, "I have just
remembered the most terrible thing!"

"What, then?"

"I told you just now that Leon promised me fifty francs for our
pilgrimage."

"Well, he cannot give it," said Claire, hastily.

"But consider!  The money is already consecrated--"

"How!"

"Oh, in his own mind; and they have even told his Grandeur.  If he
withdraws the offer, will it not be sacrilege?"

"Whatever it may be," her sister declared, "I am certain you will not
see your fifty francs."

"Oh, Claire, don't say so!  It is the most terrible position!  A promise
to the Church is as sacred as a vow--it must be kept, at whatever cost;
and if Leon withdraws it, I shall never again have a moment's peace!  I
am ready to make any sacrifices, but this is too unendurable!"

It was quite true that she was shaken by the mere possibility--far more
shaken than she had been by the news the post had brought.  She began
her lament again, almost in tears: "It would be a sin."

"If Leon has not the money, how can he give it?" demanded her sister,
looking at her with pitying scorn.  She accepted the fact that Felicie,
being devote, must be allowed to go certain lengths; but she thought her
eagerness childish, and turned to her mother.  "What else can we think
of?  It is so difficult to economise when already we have cut down our
expenses to their very lowest."

"Not quite to their lowest.  We must counter-order my winter cloak and
your dresses.  Write to Tours at once, Claire."

"Your cloak!" repeated her daughter, depreciatingly.  "Is that
necessary?  You suffer so much from the cold, and the old one is so
thin!"

"It cannot be helped."  Mme. de Beaudrillart spoke with sharp
impatience.  "I am quite aware of what you say; but if Monsieur Georges
and the other men have ruined Leon, we must take our share in his
suffering."

"Poor Monsieur Georges!  I really believe he did his utmost for the
property."

"Do not talk of what you do not understand," said her mother, coldly.
"What do you know about business matters?  You might judge from the
results."

Claire, however, persisted.

"I am certain he was not dishonest."

"If he was not dishonest, he was a fool, which is as dangerous."

"Shall you write to our poor Leon to-day, mamma?" asked Felicie, turning
tear-laden eyes towards her.

"Certainly.  He will expect it.  Dear fellow, I shall tell him that we
are ready to make every possible effort, every sacrifice, and implore
him not to afflict himself, because there can be no doubt that something
will be arranged."

"But you will not say anything against the pilgrimage?"

"Felicie, you are too foolish with your pilgrimages!"  Claire was
beginning, impatiently, when Mme. de Beaudrillart stopped her.

"Do not vex your sister.  It is very certain that we want all the
prayers and the help we can have, and perhaps--" Suddenly she flung up
her hands and clasped her head.  "Oh, Leon, my poor Leon!  To lose
Poissy!"

This little action in one hitherto so confident gave her daughters a
shock; they seemed for the first time to realise the full force of the
disaster hanging over their family, and to comprehend that it was close
at hand.  Claire stood up right, her face hard and set; Felicie pushed
away her embroidery-frame, and broke into sobs.  But the next moment
Mme. de Beaudrillart's strong will reasserted itself, and she lifted her
head rigidly.

"This is weak," she said.  "Felicie, go on with your work.  Claire, send
Rose-Marie to my room, and see whether Pierre has called for the
letters.  Do not on any account allow him to leave without mine."

All that day the sisters talked together; if without much sympathy, yet
with that certain amount which a close tie of relationship must bring in
such a crisis.  Their mother remained absolutely silent.  She took up
one thing after another, and laid each down with restless unquiet; more
than once walked without apparent purpose to the window, and stood
mutely looking out.  Poissy had never been fuller of charm.  Young
spring was at work beautifying the old chateau; a sweet, clear sunlight
fell upon the delicate turret, and flung light shadows along the open
stone-work with which it was fretted.  Over a doorway was carved the
Beaudrillart escutcheon, and a slender tuft of grass waved audaciously
from a crevice above.  If, as she looked, there was agony in Mme. de
Beaudrillart's heart, she made no sign.  Only Claire noticed how tightly
her hands were locked together and her lips compressed; but even Claire,
whose feelings most resembled hers, dared not touch again upon the
subject near all their hearts, although there was more than one question
which she longed to have answered.  Visitors came, and she received them
as usual--even talking undauntedly of certain improvements which her son
contemplated making about the chateau.

"Monsieur de Beaudrillart does not, however, spend much time here?"
asked one lady, curiously.  Like others in the neighbourhood, she had
heard rumours, and her visit was in a great measure due to a desire to
know how much was true.  "Apparently he finds it dull?"

"I hope we may see more of him in the future," returned the mother,
looking at her without shrinking.

"I am glad of it; he is always so pleasant!  What can we do to keep him?
I said to my husband that his family should persuade him to marry, for
nowadays there are always plenty of girls going about with really fine
fortunes; and he need not be particular as to family," she added, with a
laugh.  "He, if any one, could afford a roturier for his father-in-law."

"I agree with you," said Mme. de Beaudrillart, calmly; "but I am afraid
that a fortune has no attraction for Leon.  He is unlike other young
men, for he was born with romantic ideas, and I, for one, cannot wish it
to be otherwise."

"She could hardly have been so cool if all we have heard is true," said
Mme. de la Ferraye to her husband, as they drove away.  "She talked of
his return, and even of improvements to the estate.  I cannot believe
the rumour.  It is incredible!"

"She is a strong woman; but it is true, for all that."

"Then what _can_ he do?  He is not the man to be chosen for any public
appointment."

"No.  He is clever enough, but his education has taught him nothing
beyond the classics, and he has no habits of industry."

Mme. de la Ferraye shrugged her pretty shoulders.

"As I told his mother, he must marry--there is nothing else for it.  Let
us find him a wife, Gaspard, though, Heaven knows, I pity the poor girl
who has that will of iron for a mother-in-law!"

"Or Leon de Beaudrillart for a husband."

"No, no; now you are too hard, and you will never get me to agree with
you.  There is something so fascinating and charming about him, that I
am convinced he would make his wife very happy."

"If she were content to keep her eyes shut."

"Well, she would be.  Trust me, Gaspard, Leon's wife, whoever she was,
would believe nothing against him."

"In that case--"

While the La Ferrayes were taking leave, Mme. de Beaudrillart stood
rigidly unbending; but as soon as they were gone she hurriedly left the
room.

"Poor mamma!" cried Felicie, her eyes filling with ready tears.

"That woman came from curiosity," Claire said, pacing up and down
indignantly; "she has heard something, and meant to worm it out of us.
It is too horrible that Leon's affairs should be the common gossip of
the country!"

"Claire," faltered her sister.

"Well?"

"Do you--do you think it even possible that we might have to--to leave
Poissy?"

"Monsieur Georges feared it long ago.  But I cannot believe it," said
Claire, clinching her hands.  "Poissy without a Beaudrillart!  No--it
will not be permitted!"

"Heaven will not interfere if Leon fails in his promises to the Church,"
sobbed Felicie.  With her the family will, not so openly apparent, took
refuge in a gentle obstinacy, which was perhaps more irritating.  "I
believe these misfortunes are sent as a chastisement for my having
listened to you, and not left the world when Pere Roget spoke to me
about it.  I am certain that I had a vocation, and then what might I not
have gained for Leon!  I wonder where we shall live?  In Tours?  Imagine
losing the Abbe Nisard as one's director!"

"Oh, be quiet, Felicie, or you will drive me mad!  How can you think,
how can you talk, of these horrible possibilities?  Something must be
done.  If only I were a man!"

"Why?" asked her sister, opening her eyes.

"Because I would work, fight, starve!"

She walked swiftly up and down the room like some caged creature.

"Leon is a man, and it doesn't seem that he can do anything."

"No, but _I_ would!" cried Claire, flinging back her head.  "If I could
only be out in the world, you would see that I should not allow myself
to be beaten!"

Felicie shuddered.

"That terrible world.  I give constant thanks that I am not forced into
it.  It is wicked of you, Claire, even to wish to be there; for what
would become of you in all its temptations?"

"I should get through them somehow, like other people, I suppose," said
the younger sister, recklessly.  "You and I are different, Felicie.  I
do not profess to be devote.  All your good little fripperies would
weary me--oh, weary me to death!  I could not ask permission from the
abbe as to every book I read, almost as to every word I spoke, nor,
though there is time enough on one's hands, Heaven knows, spend it in
collecting money from the peasants, or in working banners.  I should
hate a convent, unless--perhaps--I were Mother Superior."

"Yes, we are different," Felicie placidly agreed.  "I am happy to be
directed."

Claire looked at her with a short laugh.

"And yet, my dear, you like your own way, and generally get it."

Felicie took no notice of the criticism, merely remarking, with a sigh:

"Without Rose-Marie we shall have a great deal to do, and I only hope my
other duties will not suffer.  I shall draw up a little paper and
arrange my time.  Poor Rose-Marie!  What a grief for her!"

"For her!  A servant!  Do you understand what lies before us--us
Beaudrillarts?"

Claire's tone was tense and sharp.  Felicie sighed again and cried a
little, taking care not to drop a tear upon her work.  She had charge of
the ecclesiastical vestments of the parish, and was almost as proud of
them as of the Beaudrillart blood.

The next day all was joy at Poissy.  Leon wrote briefly, merely saying
that he had managed to raise the full sum of money by a loan.  He would
thus be able to consolidate his debts, and have one creditor in place of
many.

"It is true,"--this was what he wrote--"that the loan must be repaid,
but for this purpose look forward, dear mother, to a change in all my
habits.  I am going to renounce wandering, and to spend my time at
Poissy, cease to play the fool, farm, economise, reform--Heaven knows
what admirable paths do not stretch themselves before me!  You will make
them so charming that I shall not regret Paris, and I shall be so
changed that you will forget your troublesome son, and fall in love with
a new, a whitewashed, Leon, at whom, if only the past is merciful, no
one will dare fling a stone."

"Ah, my dear one!" cried Mme. de Beaudrillart, passionately kissing the
letter.

"Tell Felicie I mean to redeem my promise, and she shall have a hundred
francs instead of fifty for her do--" If he had been going to write
dolls, he scratched out the irreverent word and substituted
"decorations.  I return to-morrow, or so I hope; but, come what may,
rejoice, dear mother, that Poissy is spared to us."

If there were one or two slightly enigmatical expressions in his letter,
the mother did not notice them; nor even to her daughters did she show
outward signs of exultation.  She announced the change to them by
saying, calmly:

"It is as I expected: Leon has arranged matters; but we must still
economise strictly."

Felicie went about with clasped hands and a radiant face, enchanted with
her hundred francs.  Claire's features seemed to have grown a little
sharper, and her voice more haughty, that was all; and so the cloud
rolled off.

Leon came home.  He looked ill; but, then, as Mme. de Beaudrillart said,
he had been sadly harassed.  She was a little disappointed that he did
not communicate more particulars of the interview with M. de Cadanet,
for on this point, although he generally talked very freely, he was
reticent.

After all, as she told herself, what did it matter?

CHAPTER FOUR.

NATHALIE.

Young M. de Beaudrillart was as good as his word.  In her wildest dreams
even his mother--whose hopes had undergone many deaths and many
resurrections--had not ventured to picture him so content to remain in
the quiet of the provinces as he proved himself.  Whatever distaste he
felt, very few outward signs betrayed it.  An easy temper came to his
help, and carried him lightly over rough places.  He applied himself to
looking into his affairs, a work which the unlucky M.  Georges had long
and vainly urged, and he showed a somewhat unexpected aptitude for
business matters.  He made no protests--beyond an occasionally wry
face--against the strict economies of the household, and, to Felicie's
unbounded delight, not only refrained from mocking her pious works, but
more than once gave her unexpected assistance.  To the women it appeared
as if golden days had begun, only Claire felt that here was the fruit of
M.  Georges' prudent counsels, and thought it hard that M.  Georges
himself should remain under undeserved obloquy.  Perhaps these few
months were the happiest Mme. de Beaudrillart had ever known.  Her
belief in her son was justified--more than justified--and she looked the
world proudly in the face.

Then Leon made another step in the path of surprises, and fell in love.
As has been already remarked, a rich marriage had seemed the easiest way
out of his difficulties, and again and again had been suggested to him,
not only by his mother, but by his boon companions.  Fortunes were
dangled temptingly before his eyes, and he would none of them.  Some
strange scruple--strange, at least, in the man--some mastering
sentiment, had rooted itself so deeply in his heart that it was not to
be disposed of.  It was the noblest thing there, and it was sighed over
and laughed at, as first one, then another, tried their hand at
eradication.  Leon would not give it up.  He declined to marry for
anything short of love, and he had persuaded himself that he should
never know what that meant, when he accidentally caught sight of a tall,
fair, innocent-faced girl, with red-brown hair, and, once seen, would
not rest until he had contrived to hear her speak and to learn her name.
Then he went home and implored his mother to make the necessary
advances.

Mme. de Beaudrillart yielded with scarcely a word, and yet the pang to
her was great.  She had been prepared for, had even urged upon her son,
a sacrifice to mammon in the shape of a wife of inferior birth and large
wealth.  If such a one had been chosen in Paris she would hardly have
sighed; but it was a different matter to be asked to accept a roturiere
at their very doors.  The wrong to the De Beaudrillarts became
infinitely more insulting, and though, as has been said, strong
common-sense led her immediately to grasp the advantage and to yield, it
was tolerably certain that she would never forgive the offender.

She spoke of it, however, to her daughters calmly one morning as they
were walking home from mass.--Felicie anxiously inquired for her
brother, who occasionally, though rarely, accompanied them, and was told
that he had driven that morning into Tours.

"To Tours?  And so early!"

"He finds himself very often in Tours of late," remarked Claire,
significantly.

"He will have been at mass at the cathedral."

"There is some one, then, whom he wishes to see?"  Claire continued.
"Does he think of marrying?"

Felicie cried out: "Claire, how you talk!"

"Your brother has different notions from other young men," said Mme. de
Beaudrillart, speaking, as her younger daughter detected, with an
effort.  "You are correct in supposing that he has an idea of marriage,
and I am sure he is right.  Good-morning, Martine.  I did not see your
eldest son at mass."

"No, madame," said the old woman, sadly; "he has come back from his
soldiering saying things which would have made his father's hair stand
on end; and though I tell him that, even if matters are as his clever
friends tell him, there's always a chance that he will find Monsieur
Abbe right after all, and then he will wish he had taken the precaution
of going to mass, he won't listen."

"That is very bad," said Mme. de Beaudrillart, gravely.  "You should not
have him at home with the others, Martine."

"Ah, madame, he is my son, and the good God gave him to me!"

"That is true; but I am afraid you are weak with him.  Well, I will
speak to Monsieur Nisard, and he will talk to Jacques."

She moved on, and Claire cried, eagerly: "Mamma, I am dying of
impatience!  Of whom is Leon thinking?"

"The young lady is Mademoiselle Bourget."

"Mademoiselle Bourget!" exclaimed Claire, stupefied.  "But--you do not
mean the daughter of Monsieur Bourget, at Tours?"

"Precisely."

"Leon!  A Beaudrillart marry a Tours bourgeoise!"

"Is the idea so new to you?" demanded her mother, coldly.  "For myself,
I am satisfied.  Poor Leon's misfortunes have brought him many trials.
With this marriage he will be able to pay off debts which otherwise
would have hung round his neck for years, and be relieved from some of
the privations which he has borne so nobly.  Reflect whether it is not
so."  Mlle.  Claire marched towards the bridge, upright and frowning.
It was Felicie who broke into gasping protestations.

"But you do not mean that terrible radical of a man who opposes all that
is good and holy in the neighbourhood!  Mamma, impossible!  Say that it
is impossible!"

"I believe that he is a radical."

"An enemy of the Church."

"That is not inconceivable.  Hush, Felicie, and submit yourself to the
inevitable.  If Leon has resolved to marry the girl, he will do it."

"Oh," moaned her daughter, "why was any one so cruel as to mention her
to him?"

Mme. de Beaudrillart was silent.  To have told Felicie that Nathalie was
Leon's own choice would have shocked her further; and while detesting
the proposed marriage more than either of her daughters, the task of
reconciling them to it caused her sharp impatience.  Nor were her
prejudices without excuse.

M.  Bourget was a retired builder, who, by dint of extreme sagacity and
small economies, had contrived to amass a large fortune.  It should be
said at once that no suspicion of dishonesty had touched his name.  It
was popularly believed that he had never been known to forego an
advantage or to condone a debt; but this reputation did him no harm in
the eyes of those who had not felt his grasp, and the town was inclined
to be proud of its shrewd citizen, the more so as he was never so happy
as when he was in the thick of battle, where it is but doing him bare
justice to allow that he seldom permitted himself to be beaten.  He
fought municipal authorities, he fought the arrondissement, he fought
deputies and bishops, with equal delight and success, until his name had
become in certain quarters a thing of terror.  Radical and republican,
it was considered extremely probable that he would put himself forward
as a candidate for the Conseil-General, and if he did, it was owned with
a shudder that he would certainly carry his election.  Perhaps, had Leon
known from the first that the girl he one day noticed on her way from
the cathedral was the daughter of old Bourget, he would have shut his
heart to her image; but by the time he made the discovery it was
installed.

The incident of their meeting was of the slightest.  A little child had
fallen down, and Nathalie, walking swiftly and firmly across the open
space in front of the great church, an old woman for her companion, ran
to pick him up.  Struck by something frank and noble in her bearing,
Leon pleased himself by stopping to assist her.  At first Nathalie,
whose thoughts were concentrated upon the child, scarcely glanced at
him, but when the small victim was found to be practically unhurt, she
looked full in his face with a smile and a frank directness which
delighted him.  He was not a bad judge of expression, and in hers he
read certain qualities which he might not have been expected to
appreciate, but which attracted him as much as if he had been a better
man.  He did not rest until he had found out all about her, and
contriving more than once to get sight of her, commissioned a friend to
make the necessary advances.

His suit was not so certain to be successful as he and Mme. de
Beaudrillart supposed.  But for one point in the old builder's
character, it might even have been violently rejected.  The point was
one which he shared with a large number of mercantile Frenchmen,
republican or not, and it consisted in an inordinate craving to see his
family become noble.  He would not follow the example of many of his
neighbours: adopt the _de_, and trust to time and custom riveting the
distinction; but he desired it for his child with an intensity which
became all the stronger because he was ashamed to admit it openly.  When
overtures reached him from Leon de Beaudrillart, he hesitated, knowing
that rumour had been unpleasantly busy with his name.  But--a De
Beaudrillart!  The temptation was irresistible.  His affection for his
daughter had woven itself into the strongest resolution of his life--a
determination that she should be received into an aristocracy which he
ran down in word and worshipped in heart.  It was the strongest and the
most difficult; the more reason for his stubborn will to carry it.

For many years it had been a bitter disappointment to him that he had no
son, but by the time his wife died all his affections and all his
ambitions had become centred in Nathalie, and he felt that if he could
but see her married as he desired, the struggles and privations of his
life would be amply repaid.  For this end, as for his other ends, he
worked shrewdly.  From the first, and while still pinching himself in
many ways, he had given her an excellent education at a convent.
Nothing so much irritated him as extravagance, but he was almost
displeased with Nathalie when she showed a shrinking from expenditure.
He himself marched about Tours in the rustiest of coats, yet the girl's
dress must be as dainty as the best milliner could produce.  His
neighbours were amazed at such inconsistencies; they did not understand
that they were part of a carefully-thought-out, well-organised
intention.  In his treatment of his daughter he was influenced not so
much, perhaps not at all, by the impulse to indulge her with which they
credited him--for her tastes were, in truth, provokingly simple--as by a
clearly-formed design to fit her for another class than that in which
she was born.

Perhaps, however, his ambitions and his methods would have been equally
in vain had it not been for the fact that Nathalie was charmingly
pretty.  She was tall, slender, with hazel eyes, and as unlike as
possible to M.  Bourget himself.  Moreover, she had the grace of
simplicity, and appeared to be indifferent to her own beauty.  This
simplicity it was which, joined to a certain sweet dignity, first
attracted Leon.

And then began M.  Bourget's struggle.  He required no enlightenment.
M. de Beaudrillart's extravagances, M. de Beaudrillart's follies, were
well known in Tours and its neighbourhood.  Over against them in the
scale had to be placed Poissy and M.  Bourget's ambition.  He knew very
well that he would have to give, not only his daughter, but a great deal
of money, and, to do him justice, he thought more of his daughter than
of his money.  But Poissy, Poissy!  Poissy for years had been the
safety-valve of his imagination, a quality the stronger for being
unsuspected.  It appeared to him that nothing which could befall
Nathalie could quench the glory of becoming merged in that ancient
family.  When, therefore, the question arose of her being mistress, it
will be perceived what a strong advocate was presented for Leon.

Moreover, sops for his better judgment were not wanting.  If Leon's
conduct had exposed him to criticism, there always remained the strange
change in his life, in his disposition, apparently in his fortunes.  At
a time when rumour had been most busy, and when misfortune appeared to
hang most threateningly over the heads of the De Beaudrillarts, rumour
had been checkmated.  Money had been forthcoming, debts had been paid,
and Leon, wrenching himself from life in Paris, had come back to work in
a way which M.  Bourget could appreciate and respect, and had saved
Poissy.  It is true that, during the time when talk had declared its
fate to be imminent, M.  Bourget had a hundred times turned over the
possibility of stepping in himself and buying up the mortgages, but it
is doubtful whether he would ever have been able to make up his mind to
such an act; for while to his little world he delighted in breathing out
all manner of ferociously republican sentiments, in heart he was an
abject adorer of the ancien regime--at all events, so far as Poissy was
concerned.  It would have given him no real pleasure to become its
owner; it is doubtful whether he would not have been the first to
consider himself a sacrilegious dispossessor of the old family.  It was
not the bare possession which he coveted; for the De Beaudrillarts to go
out and the Bourgets to come in was as unsuitable, as horrible in his
eyes, as it could have been in their own.  But for his family to become
merged in theirs, his child to be actually one of them, that--that was
indeed to satisfy the deeper subtleties of his ambition.

As he marched with short, determined steps through the streets of Tours,
M.  Bourget flung back his head, advanced an aggressive chest, swelled,
and assumed what he felt to be the grand air.  Passing in front of a
photographer's shop, it seemed like a response to behold Poissy in all
its delicate beauty looking serenely at him from out of a collection of
Touraine chateaux.

"Aha, see there!" he cried, rubbing his hands in delighted apostrophe.
"And to think that the day is come when Nathalie may, if I but say the
word, step into its walls, and hold up her head with the proudest of
them.  She shall be painted, too, and by the best painter in France, so
as to hang with the others in the picture-gallery--Nathalie de
Beaudrillart, nee Bourget, _my_ child."

The man's whole figure was transformed, his round red face, garnished
with thick iron-grey eyebrows, gleamed with pride and exultation, and at
this moment, although it pleased him to profess that the overture he had
received was still under consideration, worse sins than any which he had
heard laid to the charge of Leon de Beaudrillart would assuredly have
been condoned.

The matter, therefore, went on apace.  To the elder people the
preliminaries were the most important part, and Mme. de Beaudrillart,
although she found it a bitter draught to swallow, had long desired that
her son's romantic notions should give way to what she called reason.
Here was reason, plain, bourgeois, moneyed reason, and there was no
excuse for falling foul of it.  Such a dowry as Nathalie would bring was
sufficient to wipe off the debt to M. de Cadanet, and to replace the
owner of Poissy in his old position.  And, after all, when a man marries
a woman, Mme. de Beaudrillart argued, it is she who is raised, not he
who is dragged down.  King Cophetua's beggar-girl became a queen, and
the Bourget would be merged in the De Beaudrillarts.

She said this to her son, and he smiled.

"With all my heart, though you may find it difficult to efface my future
father-in-law."

Mme. de Beaudrillart shuddered.

"I imagine that he can be made to understand the situation."

"He would tell you that he understood it perfectly.  If you could look
into his ledger, I am convinced that you would find on one page an entry
of value received, title, position, what you like, and on the opposite
the purchase-money, so many hundred thousand francs.  But he will see
that he gets what he pays for."

"You mean he will expect to come here!"

"Is that unreasonable?"

Mme. de Beaudrillart flung back her head.

"I think so.  If he regards the matter in the light of a bargain, I do
not see where he comes in."

"I imagine his daughter will think otherwise," said Leon, caressing a
kitten which had sprung on his knee.

Mme. de Beaudrillart replied, with perhaps unintentional bitterness:

"She, at any rate, may be satisfied with what she has got."

"As to that," returned her son, a little less lazily than he had
hitherto spoken, "she has not yet consented."

His mother folded her hands on the table before her, and looked steadily
at him.

"Do me the favour, Leon, to explain."

"It is perfectly simple.  I do not think that I am repugnant to her; but
she says that she must know me better, and judge for herself before
deciding."

Mme. de Beaudrillart shut her thin lips and remained silent.  When she
spoke at last, it was to say, in a hushed voice:

"Do not repeat this to your sisters, Leon, unless you wish to degrade
your future wife in their eyes.  It is all unspeakably bourgeoise."

"It is charming, whatever it is," he replied, good-humouredly.  "The
world goes on, mother, even at Poissy.  My great-great-grandfather
stormed a castle and killed half a dozen gentlemen to gain a bride; I,
his descendant, am--"

"Bidden to a builder's back parlour to see whether you are approved of!
The first was infinitely the more respectable.  The world goes fast, as
you say, because it is easy enough to go downhill.  Even the crimes of
the present day are petty and sordid.  In old times men smote and slew;
now they cheat and steal."

With a sudden movement Leon turned on his chair and dislodged the
kitten, which sprang to the ground and mewed protestingly.  The change
which every now and then altered his face, and robbed it of its youth,
was there now, and it startled his mother.

"My Leon, what is it?  You are ill!" she exclaimed, anxiously.

"It is past," he said, with an effort.

"But what was it!"

"A spasm."

"My poor boy!  I know how it is.  You work too hard, and fret yourself
over that debt.  As if Monsieur de Cadanet would not be happy enough to
wait your convenience!  Well, there is this to be said for Mademoiselle
Bourget: although I know you are indifferent to her dowry, it will free
you from worry on that score."  While she spoke she went to a small
cupboard, unlocked it, took out a glass and bottle, each of rare design
and workmanship, and came back.  "There," she said, pouring a few drops
into a glass, and putting it to his lips, "drink.  It is an old cordial,
which agrees with the Beaudrillart blood.  You are better!"

"Well," said Leon, smiling again.  "I know that stuff of old.  It is
magical."

"For your family, yes."

"You think it would not cure Monsieur Bourget!"

"It will not have the chance," said Mme. de Beaudrillart, quietly.  She
was replacing the glass and bottle in the cupboard when a thought struck
her.  "By-the-way, Leon--"

"Yes."

"You have never given me Monsieur de Cadanet's acknowledgment of the
five hundred francs you forwarded; and as I keep all the receipts
together, I should be glad to have it."  There was a short silence.
Then Leon stretched himself, got up, and went to the window, the kitten
in his arms.

"Ah," he said, "he has not sent any."

"Not sent any!  But why?"

"Who can tell?  Monsieur de Cadanet appeared to me to be an eccentric.
Perhaps he thinks the sum too trifling.  Perhaps he is conveniently
forgetful--perhaps--oh, we need not worry.  He has received it, without
doubt."

"I do not like it," said Mme. de Beaudrillart, frowning.

"No, it is unbusinesslike, is it not?  Console yourself, mother.  When
you pay anything to Monsieur Bourget, you will have your acknowledgment
executed with every formality and the most scrupulous exactitude."

If he hoped by this counter-irritation to turn her thoughts, he
apparently succeeded.  The idea of M.  Bourget's tradesmanlike qualities
produced its desired effect as a foil to M. de Cadanet's carelessness.
But that she was not absolutely satisfied was evident from her calling
after Leon, as he left the room:

"All the same, would it not be well for me to write and ascertain
whether the money has reached him safely?  The post is not absolutely
safe, and it would be extremely annoying to find there had been any
failure in delivery."

Leon came back hurriedly.

"Mother, I must entreat you, leave the matter with me.  Do not on any
account, now or at a future time, interfere between me and Monsieur de
Cadanet.  You might do me incalculable harm."

He spoke with sharp excitement, altogether unlike himself, and Mme. de
Beaudrillart stared amazedly.  If either of her other children had
addressed her in such a tone, the offence would have been grievous; as
it was, it was Leon, and Leon, as she immediately reflected, not quite
himself, so that she contented herself with saying, stiffly:

"Calm yourself, Leon; you should be well aware that I am not likely to
act in a manner to endanger either your interests or your honour with
Monsieur de Cadanet or any other person."

He turned from her, came back, and kissed her impulsively.  But what he
said had apparently nothing to do with what had passed.

"Poor mother!  You are glad that we kept Poissy?"

"If we had lost it, I think it would have killed me."

She had never admitted so much.

"Come, courage, then!" he exclaimed; "it appears now as if it would be
tolerably safe; and with you and Nathalie--if I can win her--by my side,
one may defy even--"

"Who!" demanded his mother, anxiously.

"Oh, Monsieur Bourget, to be sure!" he cried, with a laugh, as he shut
the door.

It was true, although Mme. de Beaudrillart would not believe it, and
although M. de Bourget growled at the girl's whims, that Nathalie
hesitated whether or not she should accept M. de Beaudrillart.  For her
neither Poissy nor alliance with an ancient family offered attractions;
on the contrary, she thought of both with dread and shrinking,
foreseeing trials which might prove almost unendurable.  If the course
of wooing had been such as Mme. de Beaudrillart's etiquette exacted, and
all the advances had been made by deputy, it is very certain that
Nathalie would have rejected her honours, in spite of her terrible
father's displeasure.  But a nameless something had attracted her to
Leon on the day when they first met before the cathedral, and each of
the two interviews which followed deepened the attraction.  There was an
open, easy charm about the young man difficult to resist.  She knew that
he had been extravagant, and the knowledge caused her some disquiet, but
would not have shaken her determination; indeed, disgraceful as it would
have seemed to Mme. de Beaudrillart, when they had seen each other but
three times, she was hopelessly and irretrievably in love.

Then, one day, in an old carriage, as old as the hills, drawn by two
borrowed horses, and driven by Jean Charpentier's brother, Mme. de
Beaudrillart rolled into Tours, and solemnly demanded the hand of Mlle.
Nathalie Bourget for her son, M.  Leon de Beaudrillart.

To her son, even, his mother never related the details of that
interview.  M.  Bourget, not so reticent, repeated over and over again
with glee the speeches he had made, the answers he had received.  While
he took care to preserve to himself the honours of the encounter, he
delighted in accentuating Mme. de Beaudrillart's pride, that those who
listened to him might not fail to understand what sort of family this
was into which Nathalie was about to marry.  It was true that some of
her fine sarcasms, her scarcely-veiled contempt, were as little felt by
him as the sting of a gnat upon the hide of a rhinoceros; but he was
acute enough to understand that she wished to humiliate him as a revenge
for the humiliation she was enduring herself, and appreciated the desire
as fitting on the part of the owners of Poissy.  She had said to him:

"I cannot attempt to conceal from you, Monsieur Bourget, that my son's
choice has caused me profound astonishment.  With his person and his
position, he might have married into any of the great families of
France, and I am certain you are too sensible a man to take offence when
I say that such a marriage would have appeared to me far more
appropriate."

"Perhaps Monsieur de Beaudrillart reflects that when one marries one
must live," remarked M.  Bourget, dryly.

But so far was he from taking offence that he repeated the speech with
real enjoyment to a small lawyer of his acquaintance, a red republican
like himself.

"And you endured such insolence!" cried M.  Leroux, bounding on his
chair.

"Endured?  I can tell you that I admired it.  I did not let her see it,
it is true, for one must keep such people in their places; but, after
all, she is right, for a De Beaudrillart may marry where he pleases."
And M.  Bourget, radiant with delight, brought his hand heavily down on
the table, and leaned forward to give his words more effect: "He marries
my daughter."

It was the crowning point of his life.  No other moment in his career--
and he had had his triumphs--had caused him such unmitigated
satisfaction.  Tours rang with the news, the very walls seemed to
whisper it in his ears as he walked along the narrow streets, and he
never failed to pass by the photographer's, and to fling a glance of
recognition at Poissy--Poissy, with its delicate grace, its exquisite
lines--as who should say, "Tiens, ma belle, thou and I are no longer
strangers; we belong to each other."

With M.  Bourget in this amiable mood, all went smoothly.

Leon, who was well aware of the accepted opinion of his father-in-law
and his rigid economies, was amazed by the liberality of his proposals.
He had expected carpings, opposition, cutting down, and he found, to his
astonishment, that M.  Bourget's principal care was that the estate
should pass unencumbered to Nathalie's children.  One day he said,
frankly:

"See here, Monsieur de Beaudrillart,"--he never called his future
son-in-law by any other name--"I am perfectly aware that you have
committed innumerable follies, and that it has even been touch and go
whether you could keep Poissy.  At one time, unless rumour lies even
more than is usual with her, I might have got possession of it myself.
But that, I at once admit, would not have suited me.  Poissy without the
De Beaudrillarts would be like a body without a soul; you two have to
keep together, if you are to hold your position in the world; and now
that Nathalie is to become one of you, it is my business to see that you
_do_ keep together.  You comprehend!  For what is past I care nothing; I
put no inquiries, it is over.  It is what is to come which is my affair.
There must be no more follies, no more extravagances.  My part of the
bargain is to see that when you start you stand on your legs.  Well and
good.  I accept it.  I will give my daughter a sum which should be
sufficient to set you free from every entanglement--for hampered you
must be, and heavily--and enable you with care to regain your proper
position; and I tell you, without hesitation, that I do this because I
have always resolved that Nathalie should marry above her station.  What
will you?  It is perhaps a folly, a weakness, but--it pleases me.  I
wish to see her where I have no inclination to be myself, and, like
other things in this world, what we want we must pay for.  There,
Monsieur de Beaudrillart, you have the situation, and my motive."

Leon had listened to this harangue with an inscrutable face.  When M.
Bourget paused--rather scant of breath--he looked up and said,
pleasantly:

"Mine is simpler.  I love Nathalie."

CHAPTER FIVE.

A WHIM.

Romance, which gives itself the airs of unfettered liberty, has
nevertheless its laws, and it was contrary to these laws that Leon
should have been in love with the girl who brought him such a fortune as
put him at once beyond the reach of embarrassment.  No one, not even his
mother, believed it; if she had, it is doubtful whether she could have
put up with Nathalie at all.  She assured herself that the marriage
belonged to the new developments of prudence in Leon, a praiseworthy
continuation of his efforts to redeem the estate; and while she
appreciated the sacrifice he had made, she never ceased to pity him for
having been obliged to make it.  Nothing which he could say or do
succeeded in convincing her or his sisters as to what had been his real
motive--perhaps no one in the world credited it except Nathalie herself.

It was true, however, that he really loved her, and with the easy
carelessness of his nature managed to turn his back upon the past, to
stop his ears when he heard it calling after him, and to forget that it
has hands as well as voices.  He had acknowledged to his father-in-law
that there was a debt on the estate of two hundred thousand francs.  M.
Bourget closed his eyes and pursed his mouth.

"And this you propose to pay--how?"

"By instalments.  My creditor does not press me."

"He must be a fool or a relation, then," announced the ex-builder, with
a loud laugh.  "Perhaps both.  Well, Monsieur de Beaudrillart, pressed
or not, we must get that stone off your neck, I suppose you have not
sent much by way of repayment."

"Five hundred francs."  Leon spoke in a low voice.

"Ta ta!  It will take a good many five hundred francs to repay two
hundred thousand," mocked M.  Bourget.

The young man was silent.

"Well, I have said that it should be done, and I will be as good as my
word.  No one has ever been able to say that I was worse.  This sum
absolutely clears Poissy!"

"Absolutely."

"And there is but one debtor?"

"But one."

"Excuse me, Monsieur de Beaudrillart, but I am a man of business.  Some
sort of bond, I imagine, exists?  I should be glad to have a sight of
it."

To M.  Bourget's stupefaction, Leon sprang to his feet in a rage.

"Monsieur, you doubt my word!  You insult me!  Do you suppose that I
will submit to dictation from any man, least of all from you!  I have
told you the position of affairs, and if you do not choose to believe
me, let there be an end of everything."

"Softly, softly," said M.  Bourget--to tell the truth, as much alarmed
as amazed--"it appears to me that if I am going to pay, the suggestion
was not unreasonable.  Since, however, it offends you so mortally,
Monsieur de Beaudrillart, we will say no more about it."  He added, with
a great sigh, "I suppose you fine gentlemen do not carry out your
affairs so methodically as we.  The wonder to me is not that you so
often come to grief as that you ever escape shipwreck.  To object to the
existence of a bond!  However, as you will, as you will!"

Leon did not at once recover his usual good temper.  He looked pale and
sat staring moodily at the ground.  But, strange to say, what in one of
his own class would have excited M.  Bourget's anger and suspicion, here
rather afforded him satisfaction than otherwise.  The De Beaudrillarts
were of another race, these outbursts of pride belonged to their
history, their traditions, and, though he would have died sooner than
betray it, M.  Bourget's feeling towards them comprised something of the
abject loyalty with which the working bee regards his queen.  He
promised himself that Nathalie's money should be as safely secured as
the law permitted, but he, to whom the outgoing of a piece of ten sous
was a matter of consideration, by some curious contradiction gloried in
the carelessness which would disperse a fortune with as little heed as
if money were to be had for the picking up.  Glancing at Leon he said,
tentatively:

"One may not even ask the name of the creditor?"

"I cannot give it," Leon answered, shortly.

"At any rate, when the money is paid you will show me the receipt?"

"Impossible."

M.  Bourget judged it necessary to make a show of displeasure.  He
frowned heavily.

"Allow me to say, Monsieur le baron, that you demand more confidence
than you display."

"Yes, that is true," said Leon, lightly, once more.  "But if I give you
my word of honour that the money will be sent to the creditor, you will
be satisfied, will you not?"

M.  Bourget was satisfied, whether he suffered himself to appear so or
not.  The word of a De Beaudrillart had gained an enormous value in his
eyes.  Yet Leon's next remark was sufficiently startling.

"If you are so good as to clear Poissy of debt when Nathalie enters it
as my wife, may I ask you to pay the sum into my banker's, so that I may
take it out in the form most convenient."

"A cheque would tell tales," muttered M.  Bourget to himself.
"Decidedly, there is a mystery somewhere.  However, when one is drawn
into an old family such as the De Beaudrillarts, one must accept
mysteries.  The money will be paid.  He gave me his word.  For the rest,
I shall see that Nathalie is safe."

It will be perceived that anxiety for the marriage had brought M.
Bourget to the point of swallowing a great deal, but as regarded the
payment of the debt, Mme. de Beaudrillart also had her anxieties.  As
soon as Leon and his wife were settled at Poissy, she sounded her son on
the subject, one day, immediately after the late breakfast, when
Nathalie had left the room to fetch her hat, and Felicie and Claire
obeyed a hint from their mother and followed.

"Until now," said Mme. de Beaudrillart, "I have not spoken of the
necessary business, but there is one point which should be settled at
once."

He laughed, and kissed her on each cheek.

"Only one!  What luck!"

"Well, only one that presses: your debt to Monsieur de Cadanet."

"Ah!"  He made a step towards the window, but came back.  "That is
paid."

"Already!"

"The day after our wedding."

She looked at him admiringly.  "Ah, you are a man of honour!  Monsieur
de Cadanet cannot say that you have lost so much as a day.  He must have
congratulated you?"

"He is not a man of words."

"Perhaps not; but a few on such an occasion would have done him no harm.
Do you mean to say that no felicitations came with his acknowledgment?"

"Not one."

"The bear!  I really think from what you have told me he must have
changed very much--"

"Don't blame him, mother.  His money saved Poissy," said Leon, quickly.

"Certainly.  You need not tell me that.  But what harm has it done him!
Principal and interest have both been repaid in full, and I do not
forget his indebtedness to your father.  Say what you will, he has been
very boorish.  And, Leon, though you did not give me his former
acknowledgment, it is quite necessary that this last should be placed in
safe keeping."

He was silent, and she looked at him uneasily.  His short, abrupt
sentences, so different from his usual gay chatter, some change in his
face, disturbed her.  She felt it her duty to press the point.

"It should be put into the iron safe with the other deeds.  Come, Leon,
do not delay; let us see to it at once."

"I am going out with Nathalie."

Mme. de Beaudrillart frowned.  "Nathalie!  Surely Nathalie can wait!
You jest."

"No, mother, but you don't understand that I am indisposed for
business."

"If you have no better excuse, I must ask you to fetch the paper at
once."  His allusion to his wife had angered her.

"I have my own boxes."

"They are not sufficiently secure for the acknowledgment of such a sum.
Consider.  One day you may have to reckon with Monsieur de Cadanet's
heirs, who may not be so obliging as Monsieur de Cadanet."

Consider!  As if this knowledge had not weighed upon him ever since that
autumn day.  Not once had he ventured to Paris.  Now at last he was
safe, and why not satisfy his mother?  He turned to her gaily.

"Study a woman if you want to learn persistence.  Well, mother, wait for
me, and if Nathalie comes, ask her to stroll towards the river, while
you and I make a pilgrimage to the strong-box."

If Mme. de Beaudrillart hoped to have feasted her eyes upon the paper,
she was mistaken.  What her son brought and deposited in the safe was a
long blank envelope, securely scaled.  She suggested in vain that
something on the cover should mark its contents.

"Unnecessary.  You and I are both likely to remember."

"As to remembering, yes.  But it seems foolish.  What possible objection
can you have?"

"A whim."

Mme. de Beaudrillart remarked that a whim was unmethodical.

"Oh, I admit it.  But as Monsieur Bourget is not likely ever to rummage
among these papers--"

"Heaven forbid!"

"Let us be unmethodical in peace.  Besides, I have my reasons, and--
Nathalie is waiting.  Don't you find her enchanting?"

"I think she has good sense."

"And Claire and Felicie?  She is so anxious, poor child, to love you
all."

"In good time," said Mme. de Beaudrillart, coldly.  "She has a great
deal to learn, and we must expect some mistakes, but perhaps by-and-by
she may take her position, and forget her little bourgeoise ways and
small economics."

He flushed.  "We have had to adopt small economies ourselves, for that
matter, mother."

"Yes.  Because they were necessary.  With her it is because they are
natural.  Still, as I said, she has good sense, and I do not despair."

"She is charming," murmured the young man, under his breath.  He was
fully aware that prejudices against his wife existed in the house, but
troubled himself very little about them.  In time, no doubt, they would
all shake in together.  Meanwhile, he was quite able to shut his eyes to
disagreeables which did not actually affect him.  Winter was over, and
heaven and earth had leaped into the radiance of spring.  Poissy, with
its delicate colours, its fretted carvings, smiled at its owners through
a veil of fairy-like green.  The debt was paid, husband and wife
wandered together by the river which ran full after heavy rains, care
had vanished, and the sun shone out again.

Nathalie, too, was happy, in spite of having many things to endure for
Leon's sake.  It cannot be said that they came upon her unexpectedly,
for she had always dreaded Poissy, and all the De Beaudrillarts, except
Leon, as deeply as her father desired them.  Weighed against Leon, she
decided that they were as nothing, but this was before she had tried
them, and with Love sitting heavily in one balance, it is next to
impossible fairly to adjust the opposite weights.

She had a noble character, and this meant a strong will, but Mme. de
Beaudrillart and her daughters--Claire, at any rate--had wills of iron.
How much and how little to yield became a perpetually fretting problem.
At first she carried her doubts to her husband, until she found that he
could give her nothing more satisfying than a laugh and a shrug.

"Dear, I know it, I know it, but what will you!  My mother has always
been accustomed to rule.  I often tell her she should have lived a
century or two earlier than these degenerate days; and as for Claire and
Felicie, they are exactly the same, only she has never allowed them the
opportunity to develop, so they are obliged to try their hands on other
people.  Take my advice, and let them have their way.  It will not hurt
us, and it will teach you to bless Heaven for having bestowed upon you a
husband whom you can twist round your little finger."

She shook her head.

"You know I don't want to twist you round my finger."

"But I am quite willing.  Why not spend your energies that way, if my
mother will not consent to leave you any other department in which to
exercise them."

They were standing together in one of the deep windows of the chateau,
looking out upon a stately terrace, and a garden brilliant, as the
Poissy garden had not been for many years, with the rich colouring of
summer flowers.  Her hand was in his, and she was silent while he
talked.  But presently she gave a deep sigh, of which he demanded an
explanation.  She smiled, and said:

"It is only wonder."

"Wonder at what!"

"At myself, at you, that we should be here together, and that I should
be your wife.  I did not think so much about it at the time, but now it
seems as if I should never understand how either your mother or my
father consented.  She has a horror of parvenues, and he--he--"

"Of the idle rich.  But you are not so cruel as to call me idle!"

"No."  She looked at him reflectively.  "He said that once you were, but
that you had changed.  What changed you, Leon?"

"Years and necessity," he replied, after a momentary pause.  "So my
father told me.  And I am sure that was what made him approve, for he
thought it showed great strength of character.  He did indeed, and it
made me so proud."  Leon winced.  Naturally it was galling to M. de
Beaudrillart to hear of the approval of M.  Bourget.  She went on, her
head with its wealth of red-brown hair resting against his shoulder, her
eyes fixed on the big scarlet pomegranate which flamed on the terrace.

"But--there is one thing I want to say."

"And while you stay like this I am perfectly content to listen all day
long."

"Ah, but you must be serious."

"I am.  Look at me."

She looked, and he kissed her.  "Now, go on.  That is only the
preamble."

"It is rather distracting when one wants to collect one's ideas," said
Nathalie, smiling, but shaking her head.  "However, what I want to say
is that I hope you will let me help you in what you have to do."

"You are helping me now--to perfection."

"You know that is not what I mean.  For one thing, I am really an
excellent house-keeper, for my father was very strict in his accounts,
and never permitted waste."

"Poor little economist!" said the young man, lightly smoothing her head.
"My Nathalie, are you aware that the colour of your hair is simply
adorable?"

"Now you are not attending."

"I am, indeed I am.  Let me see; where were wet.  Your father never
permitted waste.  No.  I can imagine Monsieur Bourget rather a severe
taskmaster."

"But it was exceedingly useful, and I was glad of it when I knew we were
to marry, for I said to myself that if I were not a grand lady, at least
I should know how to help you.  No, no, Leon, listen!  I can keep
accounts--only try me, you will not find me ten sous out by the end of
the month.  And,"--she hesitated slightly--"if she would allow it, I am
certain I could spare Madame de Beaudrillart a great deal of trouble.
May I ask her?"

"Ask what you like and who you like, so long as you remember that you
belong first of all to me," he said, gaily.

"I hope that they will grow to endure me in time," she went on.  "Of
course, I mustn't be unreasonable and expect everything to come all at
once, but--by-and-by.  Do you know that it is your sister, Mademoiselle
Felicie--"

"Good heavens, Nathalie, don't call her mademoiselle, as if you were her
maid!"

She corrected herself shyly.  "Felicie, then.  It is Felicie whom I
dread the most."

"I should have fancied that Claire might have been especially alarming."

"Yes, only I understand her.  It is what I expected.  But Mad--Felicie
is so good and so devout, no nun could be more so, always working for
the Church, and she seemed so shocked when I said my father thought
ladies--religious ladies, you know--often made the poor pay towards
things which they did not understand."

"Did you actually tell Felicie that!"

"Yes, I did.  Was I wrong?" she asked, anxiously.  "But, Leon, it is
true, it is indeed!  I can recollect a number of cases in which the poor
peasants fancied the most terrible things would happen unless they paid
money to avert them.  You see, they are so ignorant, there is nothing
they will not believe if only you can frighten them.  Of course, Felicie
does not know this, and perhaps I should not have told her!"

"Oh, as to that, it doesn't matter; it may do her good," he said,
amused.  "Only of all things to say to Felicie!  Did you also inform her
you thought they should be educated!  She will put you down as a
heretic.  I must tell Claire."  Nathalie looked distressed.

"If you say that in such a tone, I am afraid that it was an
impertinence.  Leon, indeed I did not dream of such a thing, only when
she asked me whether I had ever collected money for banners, and whether
I did not think it a great privilege to help the Church, I could not
answer in any other way, and yet tell the truth.  Could I?  No, don't
smile, because it is serious, and there is no one here of whom I can
venture to ask anything but you."

"Ah, don't make me your conscience, cherie!  Or only do so when you
think your own means to be hard upon you.  Why trouble your pretty head
in the matter!  But if you must, I will let you into a very important
secret: simply that if you fret yourself whenever you say something to
displease my mother or my two sisters, you may just say good-bye at once
to your peace of mind forever.  It is impossible to avoid it, even for
you, angel as you are!  They and you will always regard things from a
totally different point of view."

Her eyes turned gravely on his.

"For a time--don't say always, Leon.  I am prepared for that at first,
but certainly I can learn what they like if--"

"If?"

"If you will help me."

"Then you will be different, and I don't want you to be different.  Let
them go their way; you and I can be all in all to each other, if you
remain your own dear self--the Nathalie I adore.  I wish for nothing
more."

How could she resist the sweet charm of such words!  While he spoke life
seemed easy, and happiness eternal.  Full of good-will to all men, she
never doubted that time would win her the hearts of the women who loved
Leon.  She had a strong and noble quality of justice in her character,
which gave her the power of judging calmly, and even enabled her to look
at herself from the unsympathetic point of view of another person.  With
a fine intellect and a courageous nature, she did not fear difficulties
although she realised them.  Before she had been a week at Poissy she
had gathered enough to know that a hard task lay before her, and as time
went on acknowledged that she must face them alone, except for the
almost passionate prayers she sent up.  She did not lose heart.  But she
was impulsive, and, worse, impatient of all that seemed to her small and
petty.  Bourgeoise though she might be, her education had been
excellent, and had given her a far broader outlook than was possessed by
either the Poissy demoiselles or their mother.  She read English and
German books, sometimes even thought she might find in them a safe
subject for discussion.  In spite of herself, Claire was not unwilling
to listen, but Felicie was shocked out of measure.

"Why do you wish to read those unsafe writings?" she would ask.  "Do you
know, Nathalie, that if people hear of it they will imagine you to be a
Protestant or an unbeliever."

"But I am neither.  I read because it interests one to know what is
thought in other countries."

"That cannot be right," said Felicie, decidedly.  "It is flinging away
safeguards."

"How?"

"Because here you can ask your priest whether a book is allowable."

Nathalie looked at her bending short-sightedly over her frame, wistful
wonder in her own eyes.

"Do you mean that you always ask the priest before you read!"

"Always, always!" exclaimed Felicie.  "If not, it is very certain that
one might be led into a sin.  Do not you?"

"I have never been accustomed to such restrictions," said Mme.  Leon in
a low voice.  "Perhaps your priest is a great reader?"

"He reads his breviary," her sister-in-law answered, reproachfully.

Claire, who felt with anger that Felicie was making herself ridiculous,
struck in sharply:

"I do not agree with Felicie, but I think there should be limits, and I
cannot say I see the use of staffing your head with all that foreign
literature.  It has never been our custom."

"But do you not like to know what others think?"

"That is of small consequence," said Claire, superbly.

"It is far better to do something useful," announced her sister,
threading her needle.

"One may do more useful work than embroider vestments, however," Claire
returned.  She despised Felicie's narrow interests, and if Nathalie had
been one of her own rank, Claire would have warmly taken her side in the
matter of books.  As it was, Nathalie was too shy to fight the battle of
the uses of self-improvement, but a life without new books or
newspapers, which appeared to rest under the same ban, looked so empty
to her that she consulted her husband.

His advice, as usual, was to please herself.  "Order what you want, and
ask no one."

"But if it displeases your mother!" said Nathalie, timidly.  "Then keep
them in your own room.  There they cannot be suspected of imperilling
Felicie's soul."

She followed this counsel, though to her frank disposition even an
appearance of concealment was hateful.  And as it was known that
newspapers and periodicals came to the house, she was constantly subject
to remarks showing the disapproval in which such reading was held.
Claire, it is true, looked at the parcels with envy, and would have
given much to borrow them.  It was not horror of them which withheld
her, but dislike to be indebted even for so much to her sister-in-law,
and invincible distrust of any one connected with M.  Bourget of Tours.

CHAPTER SIX.

THE BLISS OF MONSIEUR BOURGET.

M.  Bourget of Tours, meanwhile, should have been a happy man, for he
had all but reached the very summit of his desires.  His daughter was
installed at Poissy, and twenty times a day he turned in the direction
of the chateau, as a fire-worshipper turns towards the sun, to offer a
silent and rapturous homage, partly to past generations of
Beaudrillarts, and partly to his own sagacious industry which had
achieved this triumph.  To his acquaintances he made no effort to
conceal his elation.  Conversation could not be carried on for five
minutes without a dexterous twist bringing it round to Poissy.  The very
name in his mouth became larger and more substantial.  To his cronies,
those especially who had daughters, he grew insupportable, or only to be
endured from fear of offending a man who was a powerful enemy, and had
obtained great influence in town matters.  His short, square, vigorous
figure, attired in a light-coloured alpaca coat, and surmounted by a
round grizzled head, red-faced and bull-necked, might be seen advancing
towards the cafe where he daily took his coffee--just flavoured with
absinthe--with an indescribable air of majesty, which excited the
mockery of those who dared to laugh, but was not without its
awe-inspiring influence upon others.  Always his walk led him in the
direction of the photographer's, and always he stood for a few moments
to gaze upon Poissy, but by some singular hesitation, out of keeping, as
it seemed, with the pride which he made no attempt to conceal, he had
never allowed himself to buy a copy of the object of his worship.

Outside the cafe, woe betide the acquaintance whom M.  Bourget signalled
to sit with him at one of the small tables where he took his usual
refreshment!  It was necessary that he should hear everything connected
with the past, present, or future history of Poissy; its rooms had to be
described in detail, the great question of who was to be trusted with
the necessary repairs must be discussed, and the point whether they
should begin with the hall or the chapel.  He invited opinions, but if
the opinions differed from his own he grew heated, brought down his fist
upon the little table, and declared that only a fool could hold such
ridiculous theories.  One of his first victims was the little lawyer, M.
Leroux, who, being miserably poor, endured like a peppery martyr, with
the hope that for the sake of a good listener M.  Bourget would be moved
to the unusual generosity of paying for both portions of coffee.  For
this end he promised himself that, let his temper incite him as it
might, nothing should induce him to contradict the formidable new
aristocrat.  He manfully endured a double-dose of Poissy, and choked
down certain strong expressions which rose to the tip of his tongue when
he heard M.  Bourget excusing his son-in-law's political opinions.

"After all, it is natural that if a man is born to such ideas, they
should stick to him," he said, paternally.  "You and I, Leroux, are shot
into the world, and left to pick up what we can; we have no traditions
to offend, and no rights to relinquish.  With my son-in-law it is
different.  He arrives.  Behind him stretch a long line of
Beaudrillarts, crying out, `Thou art of the race, thou; and the race
must continue.  We give thee Poissy for thy life; guard it, and pass it
on.'  That puts him in another position from us, hein?"

"Altogether," agreed the lawyer, sourly.  He would have liked to have
darted Leon's extravagances at M.  Bourget, and inquired where then had
been his duty to his ancestors; but he feared.

"Besides, one must remember," said the ex-builder, pouring an exactly
measured spoonful of absinthe into his cup, and replacing the bottle
before him, without apparently noticing M.  Leroux's clink of his own
spoon, "one must remember that the De Beaudrillarts have earned their
repose.  In their day, and when you and I did not exist, they gave and
received a pretty number of hard knocks."

"Pray, did Monsieur de Beaudrillart then exist!" demanded the lawyer,
with an irrepressible sneer; for he was stung by the distance of the
absinthe bottle, and objected to such distinctions.

"His representatives.  His former representatives," repeated M.
Bourget, imperturbably, with a grand air which embraced the ancient
family.  "No, I do not blame the young man for thinking differently from
you and me.  If he had an inclination to stand for the Chamber, I should
even give him my vote."

"Yes," said Leroux, eyeing his cup, and reflecting whether he could
venture on a second with the hope that M.  Bourget would pay.  As the
waiter passed at this moment he decided to risk the outlay, and to
humour his neighbour.  "Well, and I have no doubt you would be right."

"If I did it, certainly it would be right," M.  Bourget returned,
superbly; "for you know very well that I do not act without reason."

"No, no.  Never to change one's opinions would be to pass through life
like a machine."

"What!" cried M.  Bourget, with a snort resembling that of an angry
bull.

"I remarked merely that, from time to time, one must accommodate one's
ideas," the lawyer hastened to explain.  "I should do so myself."

"Accommodate one's ideas!  Pray, monsieur, to what do you allude!"

"Peste!" cried M.  Leroux, losing patience, "have you not just remarked
that were Monsieur de Beaudrillart to stand for the Chamber you would
vote for him!  I presume that means a change of opinion."

"Then you are an imbecile!" thundered M.  Bourget.  "I have never
changed my opinions by a jot, and I should despise myself if I did so.
Because I consider that Monsieur de Beaudrillart, the owner of Poissy,
and the descendant of a long line of ancestors, has a right to be heard
in the councils of his country, no one who had not the most mediocre
intelligence would conclude that I had embraced his politics.  Go,
monsieur," he continued, standing up, and leaning on the table with the
points of his fingers.  "You are ridiculous!"

If M.  Leroux had dared, it would have given him extreme pleasure to
have committed M.  Bourget, his son-in-law, and Poissy, which by this
time he detested, to the hottest place that could have been provided for
them.  But, although the coffee represented only a lost hope, M.
Bourget was now and then able to throw him a few minor law cases which
he could not afford to imperil, and he hastened to attempt to pacify his
irritated sensibilities.

"Pardon, monsieur; certainly I should have understood you better.  Now
that you have explained, I see exactly what you meant to express, and
what I might have known.  Certainly that is a very different thing from
changing your opinions."

("Devil take me if it is!" he muttered, under his breath.)

M.  Bourget still glared at him.

"I am glad you have come to your senses," he said, surlily.

"Poissy is, of coarse, an ornament of our neighbourhood."  The lawyer
managed to get out the words without grimacing.

"_The_ ornament, _the_ ornament, monsieur."

"_The_ ornament, I should say."

"And the De Beaudrillarts among our most ancient families."

"Oh, con--Certainly, Monsieur Bourget, certainly.  The most ancient."

"Precisely.  Are you aware that you have not paid for your coffee?"

The lawyer rummaged his pockets.  "I am not certain that I have enough
change with me."

"Ah, that is inconvenient," remarked M.  Bourget, carelessly.  "Never
mind.  Antoine will trust you.  And I will give you a word of advice.
Always take a little, a very little, absinthe with your coffee.  It is
more wholesome.  What were we talking about?  Oh, it was Poissy, was it
not?"

But M.  Leroux could endure no more.

"Excuse me, Monsieur Bourget, I am already late for an appointment.  I
must not lose time any longer, even over such an interesting subject."

"Well, look in, and I will show you my suggestions for the north wing,"
the ex-builder called after him.  "Ah, ha, there is Flechier; he might
have an idea.  Flechier!"

The individual addressed, on the other side of the street, only
quickened his steps, with a wave of his hand.

"Ah, my friend, it is you!  Grieved that I can't stop.  Business.
Another day.  Au revoir."

"What has come to the world, then, that every one is so confoundedly
busy to-day?" grumbled M.  Bourget.  "I should have said I knew most of
the affairs that are going on in Tours.  I must go and inquire.  The
house is not so agreeable, now there is no one but old Fanchon to give
one a word of welcome.  However, Nathalie is a good girl, and deserves
the good-fortune I have found for her.  Madame Leon de Beaudrillart--or
should it be Madame la baronne?  No, certainly.  There are baronesses in
plenty, but not so many Beaudrillarts.  Madame Leon de Beaudrillart, nee
Bourget.  Ah, it is magnificent!"

So far--it was a month after the marriage--M.  Bourget had abstained
from going to Poissy.  What withheld him is difficult to conjecture.
Was it a certain shyness, strangely at variance with his brusque,
sometimes brutal, bearing?  This man, who had fought down opposition,
and made himself terrible to his foes--this man, who cared little what
he said himself, and laughed his great laugh when he heard what was said
of him--was it possible that the bare idea of finding himself received
on an equality at Poissy, which after all he had so largely benefited,
made him tremble like any young girl presented to royalty?  Whatever it
was, and he gave no hint of his sensations to a living soul, the fact
remained that while Mme. de Beaudrillart shivered at the idea of an
invasion in which he would march round Poissy as if he were its
purchaser, he had not yet so much as set foot within its walls.  His
daughter and Leon had come in two or three times to see him, and it had
given him exquisite pleasure to perceive them driving along the street
in the charming carriage which had been his wedding present to Nathalie.
The first time that he saw them he happened to be standing at his own
door, and the blood rushed to his face so violently that, all unused to
the sensation, he imagined himself ill, and put his hand out to support
himself.  His greeting, however, was as brusque as ever, and neither
Nathalie nor Leon had the smallest suspicion of his emotion.  The second
time he found fault with Leon for putting up the ponies at a small inn
instead of at the principal hotel.

"Not suitable," he grumbled.

"Decidedly, Nathalie, your father means you to spend your money," said
her husband, laughingly, as they drove home again, "yet he does not
afford himself too much luxury."

"He has never begrudged me anything," she said, with compunction, "and
it made me feel more than ever ashamed to-day to see him in his bare,
uncomfortable room, lonely and cold-looking, and to feel that I--I--"

She did not finish, for Leon put his head near hers and whispered:

"He should be satisfied to be your father."

She smiled, and let him murmur caressing nothings, but said, presently:

"Leon, I think my father would like to come to Poissy."

"Well, why not?  Of course.  Why didn't you ask him?  Now that I think
of it, I believe he has never been there since our engagement.  Why, it
is disgraceful!  Certainly he must come.  You should have fixed a day."

She laughed a little shyly.  "Perhaps I should, but, to tell you the
truth, I was afraid, until you had spoken to Madame de Beaudrillart and
your sisters.  Are you sure they would not object?"

He turned away his head with a momentary hesitation.  Then, "My sisters
have nothing to say to it," he said, impatiently.  "As for my mother,
certainly she will not object."

"But will she make it pleasant for him?  You understand, Leon, that she
thinks we--my father and I--are different--not of her class.  With you
near, it matters very little to me, but for my father I should feel it
another matter, and I could not endure slights for him.  That was why I
said nothing to-day, though I am sure he expected it."

"We will drive in to-morrow, and carry him off."

To this she did not answer, perhaps aware that her husband had said a
little more than he meant.  She only remarked:

"Will you ask your mother?"

"Certainly, or--why not you?"

"I think you might explain rather more fully--what I have just said,"
she added, with difficulty.  "Unless it is to be what he would like, I
would rather he did not come--rather, even, that he thought me
ungrateful."

"Oh, you will see!  My mother has a good heart; all will go well," said
Leon, confidently.  He took an opportunity of saying to Mme. de
Beaudrillart, "Mother, don't you think that Monsieur Bourget should be
asked here one day?"

"Certainly, Leon, if you desire it.  It is what I expected."

"Nathalie had a sort of notion that you might not like it, and that it
would not be very agreeable for him?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"The reverse, I imagine!  But what would you have me do?  I cannot
transform Poissy into Monsieur Bourget's back parlour, or provide him
with the sort of companions with whom he would feel at ease."

"All that I ask," said Leon, a little hotly, "is that he should be
treated here as my wife's father."

"My dear Leon, you need not insist on the relationship.  We are all
aware of it, and, indeed, I think myself that it is only proper he
should come."

"My sisters can show him the place.  He is immensely proud of Poissy,
and anxious that anything in the way of repair should be done at once."

Mme. de Beaudrillart bit her lip.

"I hope you do not attend to his suggestions."

"Oh, indeed I do," said Leon, with a laugh.  "I think them extremely
valuable."

"Ah, he was a builder, was he not?"

"Certainly," her son said, imperturbably, "and, luckily for us, a most
successful builder.  Why, mother, you must be aware of the name he has
in Tours for shrewdness and good sense?"

"Yes, I know too well," said Mme. de Beaudrillart, impatiently, "and I
am sorry to displease you, Leon, for I am certain you acted for the
best; but I would rather, far rather, you had Monsieur de Cadanet for
your creditor than this Monsieur Bourget for your father-in-law."

"Ah, mother, but I could not part with my Nathalie.  However, it is
settled, is it not?  Monsieur Bourget will come, and you will be
charming to him for my sake?"

And he departed, whistling, to assure his wife that everything was
satisfactorily arranged, and that she might take the first opportunity
of inviting her father.

Nathalie drove in for him one morning, in order to bring him out for the
second breakfast, and though she was glad, it must be owned she rather
dreaded the time they would spend together, lest he should ask questions
which she might have difficulty in parrying.  She need not have feared.
M.  Bourget rode on the crest of exultation.  He sat upright in the
carriage, looking round him, at Nathalie, at the pretty pair of grey
ponies, at the rug laid across his knees, with pride like that of a
child's.  Every now and then he broke off what he was saying to remark
in a tone of profound satisfaction, "Ah, ha, this goes well!  This is
something like!"  To please him she called at one or two of the
principal shops, and, drawn up there, when his acquaintances passed, he
saluted them with the air of an emperor.  All the way out to the chateau
he plied her with questions about Poissy, more than once mentioning
facts in its history which it displeased him to find she did not know.

"I thought you had had a proper education--certainly it cost me enough,"
he grumbled; "and here you don't even know what has happened in your own
family."

"No, it is disgraceful!" she agreed, laughing.  "I must set to work at
once.  There are sure to be books about it in the library.  But, I
assure you, father, I try to keep up a habit of reading."

"Ah, well, that's all very well, that's as your husband pleases; but
certainly you're no business to be ignorant about what so nearly
concerns you.  I tell you what, Nathalie, it's the way of all others to
vex madame.  A fine woman, that!  She looks a De Beaudrillart to her
fingers' ends."

The meeting and the breakfast passed off fairly.  Leon was there, and
his good-humoured charm of manner succeeded in warding off one or two
dangerous subjects.  Claire studied M.  Bourget as if he were a specimen
of some strange species, with scarcely-veiled impertinences, which set
his daughter's cheeks burning.  Felicie, on the other hand, sat mute,
her eyes on her plate.  M.  Bourget, who had for some time regarded her
in silence, at last touched Mme. de Beaudrillart's arm.

"The poor young lady!" he said, sympathetically.  "How long has it been
so with her?"

"How?" demanded Mme. de Beaudrillart, amazed.

"That she has lost her hearing?  I see she has cotton-wool in her ears.
I once tried it myself, but I don't like it; it heats the ear.  Can she
talk on her fingers?"

"Felicie!" cried her mother, sharply.  Claire interposed.

"It's a curious kind of intermittent deafness, monsieur, which only
seizes her at times.  By-and-by, probably, it will have departed as
quickly as it came, but I am afraid you must resign yourself to her
being stone-deaf while you are here."

"When you know us better, Monsieur Bourget, you will find that we have
many peculiarities," said Leon, pleasantly.

"Do you like this wine?  It has been brought out especially in your
honour."

"Ah," said his father-in-law, eagerly; "it is old?"

"Very old."

M.  Bourget looked at his glass with admiration.  To tell the truth, he
preferred the sourer vintage to which he was accustomed, but it gave him
deep delight to be drinking ancient wine from the cellars of Poissy.

"Nathalie," said Leon again, "we must show your father your room--"

"And the north wing.  That should be the first to be repaired,"
announced M.  Bourget, loudly.  Claire lifted her eyebrows.

"Is Poissy, then, to be taken in hand at once?"

"Certainly.  I hope so," said the ex-builder, in the same strong voice.
"As it is, I am afraid there will be difficulties; but if it had been
left another winter--well, certainly, it would have been very bad.  And
the plaster-work in this room, how it has suffered!  Still, there is a
man I know very clever at such jobs, and if the baron will put it into
his hands I can answer that he will make a good job of it, and not be
unreasonable."

Mme. de Beaudrillart rose, abruptly.

"Monsieur Bourget will, I am sure, excuse me, if I leave him to the care
of my son and Madame Leon.  There will be coffee later in the
drawing-room.  Come, Claire!"

"No, mamma, I remain."  She added in a slightly lowered tone, "Some one
must protect our poor Poissy."

Felicie, with downcast eyes, rose to follow her mother, when a shout in
her ear made her start violently.

"Try syringing, mademoiselle.  That did me a great deal of good."  He
added, to Nathalie, "You should look after your sister.  I can see she
wants rousing and fresh air, and eats no more than a fly.  Now, Monsieur
de Beaudrillart, I am at your service."

He was completely in his element when going over the chateau, with the
eye of a lynx for whatever was wanting, and an absolute horror for the
tiny plants which, thrusting their rootlets between the stones, added so
much grace to the walls.  Where they were within reach he dragged them
ruthlessly out, in spite of Claire's remonstrances.

"Oh yes, mademoiselle, very pretty, and all the rest of it, no doubt;
but do you know what they effect, these little mischief-makers?  It is
they that loosen the stones, and bring the walls of Poissy rattling
about the ears of those that come after you.  And it is those others of
whom we have to think," he announced loudly, proceeding to demolish a
small tuft of harts-tongue, by prodding it with the point of his stick.
"For myself, I have no doubt that the whole building should be scraped.
However, at any rate, Monsieur de Beaudrillart, you will set about what
is necessary at once."

Leon, catching sight of his sister's face, felt his own momentary
irritation subside.  Besides, were not Nathalie's eyes imploring him?

"Certainly," he said, quietly.  "You have, no doubt, the right, Monsieur
Bourget, to speak."

"Ah, and I know what I am talking about, too.  See here, monsieur,
Poissy is as dear to me as to you."

"Really?  You do us too much honour."

"Not at all.  But I think of the future, which you young people are too
apt to forget, and I want to see matters put straight.  Now that you can
afford it, that must be your business.  Show me the land that was sold
last year."

Somewhat to his dismay, Leon found that his father-in-law was perfectly
acquainted with all his enforced sales, and the value of the property
parted with.  His remarks were shrewd.  "You had no reason to blame
Monsieur Georges, who was an honest man;" and at another time, "You set
store on your wine.  In your place I should have preferred to keep the
vineyard," or "Ah, Paris ate up this farm.  She swallows without
difficulty, our fine Paris!"  Leon, who was not easily abashed, felt as
if there were something terrible in the square ungainly figure, marching
from point to point, and seeing everything.  Had Claire not been there,
Nathalie would have attempted a diversion; as it was she remained
silent, hoping, for her husband's sake, that the ordeal once over would
not be repeated.  At last M.  Bourget stood still.

"Now for the chateau," he said.

Here, except where his sharp eyes espied falling plaster or a stain of
wet, the awe of Poissy was upon him, and placed him at a disadvantage.
It was soon evident, however, that the simplicity of the furniture
shocked his sense of what was fitting, and in Nathalie's own room he
gave this feeling a voice.

"Hum, ha, oh, very nice, very nice; but couldn't you have had a little
more gold about?"

"You know I was never very fond of gold," she said, with a smile.

"If you didn't like it in our house, you couldn't have any objection
here.  It seems to me that you want cheering up a bit.  Your curtains,
now.  Wouldn't tapestry be richer than chintz?"

"Oh, my curtains are charming!" she said, brightly.  "Admit that nothing
could be prettier than the whole effect!  But you must come into the
salon; that room will delight you."

In the salon sat Mme. de Beaudrillart, very upright, and with more state
than was ordinary.  The coffee was brought in an antique silver service.
M.  Bourget looked at his cup with admiration, and choked down his
desire to ask for a teaspoonful of absinthe.  Leon had vanished to avoid
hearing possible sharp speeches, and nothing could have been more frigid
and uncomfortable than the conversation when the guest again descanted
upon the work of repair which should be speedily undertaken at Poissy.

"My son must do what he thinks best, monsieur," announced Mme. de
Beaudrillart, with her grandest air; "at any rate, he is more likely to
know what is needed than a stranger.  For myself, I think the less done
the better."

M.  Bourget stared at her, set down his cup, jumped up, and marched to
the window.  There he stood, the delicate lines about him contrasting
strangely with the sturdy squareness of his figure.

"Then, madame, permit me to say that you must be ignorant of the
principles of building.  You see that wall!"  He waved a thick hand in
its direction.

"Well, monsieur?" returned Mme. de Beaudrillart, glancing languidly.

"It already bulges, and in another twenty years it will be down, unless
something is done.  Perhaps you do not believe me."

"Oh, monsieur, on the contrary," put in Claire.  "We know that you are
an undisputed authority in such matters."

If he perceived the taunt, he disregarded it.  He had made his point,
and it appeared to him impossible that it should be ignored.  "Well,
then?" he said, inquiringly.

"All this takes money."

"True enough."  He rubbed his hands.  "But now that you have money?"

There was a sort of rustle in the room; no one answered.  Nathalie
flushed crimson.  To her relief a servant entered with a message from
Leon.

"Monsieur le baron regrets exceedingly that he has been called away on
business, and cannot himself have the pleasure of driving Monsieur
Bourget back to Tours, but the coachman awaits orders."

"I will drive my father myself," said Nathalie, quickly.  "Shall we
start at once, father?"  It was too much for her strength; but pride,
different from the pride of the Beaudrillarts, though quite as intense,
insisted upon clinging to him at this juncture.  When they were in the
carriage, he looked at his hand.

"Damme!" he said; "so that is how great folks shake hands, is it?"

"How?" asked his daughter, trying to smile.

"With two fingers, to be sure.  You must learn that trick, my girl."

CHAPTER SEVEN.

VINE-SNAILS.

Nathalie trusted, and her husband took for granted, that friendlier
relations would spring up between her and her mother and sisters in law;
but as the months rolled on, there was little apparent change.  As much
as possible she was ignored, at the best was treated with the ceremony
due to a stranger.  The hope with which she had begun her married life
faded, and she gave up some illusions, but kept the sweetest of all,
faith in her husband, although she had dropped the idea that he could
help her in her other relationships, and perhaps at last realised this
weakness in him: that he hated to face or to share disagreeables.
Gradually her life took a threefold character: that with the family,
that with her husband, and that in which she was alone.  What she had to
bear she endured grandly and silently, never complaining to Leon, or
even asking his advice.  She loved him passionately, and--which was
stranger--he still loved her.

M.  Bourget's visit to Poissy had not been repeated.  Fear lest his
shrewd intelligence, once roused, should see too much, kept his daughter
from suggesting his coming, although she felt with a pang that he
expected an invitation.  She often, however, drove to Tours, for she
perceived that it gave him extreme pleasure to see the carriage appear,
and sometimes to seat himself by her side while she invented errands
which took them through the streets.  On some pretext or another Leon
always excused himself from accompanying her.  If he were obliged to
meet M.  Bourget he showed perfect kindness and cordiality, but the
common little figure and self-satisfied arrogance of the ex-builder was
as distasteful to him as to the rest of his family, and he easily
contented himself with the reflection that Nathalie would do all that
was right and proper.  M.  Bourget never failed to ask for him, or to
show a little disappointment that he had not accompanied his wife.

"Well, and Monsieur de Beaudrillart!" he would say.

"There were some trees which had to be marked for cutting, and he has
gone off to see about it," Nathalie answered, in a low tone.  Once her
father scrutinised her sharply and unexpectedly.

"He does not tire of you, this fine gentleman, eh?"

"Father!"  The blood rushed into her face; she turned upon him in blank
amazement, which completely reassured him.

"Ah, all goes well, I see," he said--"with you, at any rate.  And the
north wing?"

"That, too," she answered eagerly.  "Leon has done exactly what you told
him, and they have put props where you thought it necessary."

"Ah, your little Monsieur de Beaudrillart, he has good sense, say what
they will," said M.  Bourget, gratified.  "But I should like to see
Fauvel's work.  He can do well enough when he takes pains, and if he
knows that I am at his heels; but you can't trust him altogether, and it
would not in the least surprise me if he tried to take in Monsieur de
Beaudrillart--not in the least.  I shall show him that he has me to
reckon with.  I tell you what, Nathalie, you're on the upper shelf now,
and I don't wish to push myself where I'm not wanted--"

She laid her hand on his reproachfully.  "Leon and I were not sure you'd
like to come out, but if only you would!"

"Ah, you've talked about it, have you?  Well, I should; because, you
see, I can't bear the notion that what is being done at Poissy shouldn't
be the best.  Peste, if you only knew how I lie awake at night and think
of that wall!  And Fauvel is very well, but they're all alike, for if
you don't keep both eyes open, and have a third at the back of your
head, they'll scamp their work, and that won't do for Poissy."

He went on, autocratically: "I'm not sure that anybody there thinks
enough of the place."

The wonder what they would have said had they heard him made Nathalie
laugh and answer, gayly:

"If you lived there you would be quite sure!"

He shook his head in doubt.  "Now, I'll tell you what I'll do.  I'll
walk out some day just when Fauvel isn't expecting me, and have a good
look round.  If he's put any bad work in, it will have to come out, I
can tell him.  Then if those fat ponies of yours have nothing else to
do--" He broke off and looked scrutinisingly at her again.  "They take
you with them when they go and pay visits or that sort of thing, don't
they!"  She coloured.

"Oh, I can go wherever I like.  I think most often it is Felicie who
comes with me, because she so often has to arrange with other ladies or
to call at farm-houses."

"Felicie?  That's the poor deaf young lady, isn't it?"

"She is not always deaf," she said in a low voice, looking down.

"Well, it's an affliction, anyway.  Why, what does she do at the
houses?"

"She collects."

"Collects, eh?"

"For the Church."

M.  Bourget gave a contemptuous grunt.  "Oh, that nonsense!  Better stay
at home and look after the maids.  Well, as I was saying, I'll walk out
some day, and if they can spare you, you shall drive me back.  Fauvel
will learn that I am there."

"It will be very kind of you, dear father, and most useful to Leon."

"Useful, yes; I rather flatter myself I am useful if I ain't
ornamental," said the ex-builder, standing up and sticking his thumbs
into his waistcoat, and swelling.  "Poissy without money and tumbling to
pieces was a sorry sight, but Poissy with a good stock of francs at her
back--ah, ha, there's a Poissy for you!  That's hotter than the
ornamental.  Besides, you can do all that.  And that reminds me that
I've a little something to say to Madame de Beaudrillart about you."

"About me?"  She looked at him nervously.

"Yes, yes, never mind.  I know what I'm talking of.  You leave me alone,
and do what you're told.  That's all.  Whatever happens, nobody now can
make you anything but a De Beaudrillart.  Of Poissy."  And by his action
he added, unmistakably, the words, "_My_ daughter."

Told of M.  Bourget's intentions, Leon laughed.

"Oh, he'll do well enough!" he exclaimed, "and you can smooth over
anything that wants smoothing.  I'll tell Felicie that if she carries on
that absurd farce of stuffing her ears with wool, I'll refuse to
subscribe to her next pilgrimage.  That'll frighten her.  I dare say
Fauvel will be the better for not having everything his own way."

"And, Leon--"

"Well?"

"You'll be here yourself, won't you?"

"Oh, of course!"  But though he spoke confidently, it was remarkable how
frequently he was obliged during the next mornings to go off to some
distant point.  It was on one of these mornings that M.  Bourget
arrived.

The second breakfast was over, and he sturdily refused the offers of
hospitality which Mme. de Beaudrillart pressed upon him with ceremonious
care.

"No, no, madame," he said.  "I'm here on business, and, with your leave,
I'll go and see about it at once."

"But, unfortunately, monsieur, my son is not here to conduct you."

M.  Bourget stared, the awe of his first visit having considerably
lessened.

"Much obliged, madame, but I require no conducting.  Fauvel and I have
done a good deal of work together before now, and I don't think he'll
try to palm off anything discreditable upon me.  I mean to see, though,
and perhaps one of the young ladies would like to come, too.
Mademoiselle Felicie looks as if she wanted fresh air, poor thing!  I
dare say it's a trial to her to be so hard of hearing."

"Sometimes it's more a trial to hear at all, Monsieur Bourget," said
Claire, gazing at the ceiling.  She burst out when they were alone:
"Heavens! are we to have that odious man inflicted upon us whenever he
chooses to think that Poissy requires his superintendence?  And Leon has
no doubt gone away on purpose?  If he presents us with a father-in-law
in the shape of a builder--or a mason?  Which was it?"--"Oh, a builder.
Fauvel is the mason."

"--He might at least share the labours of entertaining him."

"One could endure the builder," said Felicie, creeping with her small
steps towards the window, "if he were not such a terrible freethinker.
Abbe Nisard says you can never be certain what he will not say."

"If he says anything to you it will be shouted," laughed Claire.  "To
have brought that great voice on your head is serious."

"The whole affair, the whole connection, is serious," said Mme. de
Beaudrillart gravely.  "Nathalie is not without good points, but such a
father!  What can one expect!"

"He talks as if Poissy belonged to him.  By-and-by, you will see he will
suggest something preposterous."

Mme. de Beaudrillart smiled.

"He may suggest," she said, calmly.

And, unfortunately, one of M.  Bourget's chief objects in coming to
Poissy was to make a suggestion.

His interview with Fauvel was less satisfactory than he would have
desired.  Both were men of vigorous ideas, and, although M.  Bourget was
the stronger, and usually had his way, there were times when Fauvel took
refuge in argument, in which he developed an annoying aptitude.  He was
in favour of one way of securing the wall, and M.  Bourget of another;
each hammered at the other's reasons for a good half-hour, and what
chiefly irritated M.  Bourget was Fauvel's habit of referring to work
which he had executed for a certain retired chemist at Tours.  That any
comparison should be made between this petty undertaking and that of
restoring the stability of Poissy exasperated him almost beyond bounds,
and would have driven him to condemn a better plan.  He carried his
point at last by dint of sheer browbeating; but it had heated his blood,
and he marched away mopping his forehead, and inveighing against
Fauvel's pigheadedness, until Nathalie had some difficulty in soothing
him.

"I think I understand what you mean, father, and I will ask Leon to see
that it is carried out."  He faced round upon her angrily.

"You will do nothing of the sort.  What!  Aren't these women turning up
their noses at you because you are a builder's daughter?  You will
forget that, if you please, and become a fine lady as quickly as
possible: Now that I have made you a De Beaudrillart, I expect you to
hold up your head with the best of them."

She was thunderstruck, the more so because she had not imagined that he
had taken in her position in the house, or the petty thrusts with which
Claire had attempted to wound both him and her.  But she answered with
spirit:

"You are mistaken.  They will not respect me the more for pretending to
be what I am not."

M.  Bourget did not hear her; he had caught sight of a young girl with a
merry face who was crossing the court-yard, singing, a dish covered with
vine-leaves in her hand.  The sun struck down on her bright hair
escaping under her cap; she had a pretty blue skirt and a large apron.

"What has she got?" asked the ex-builder, quickening his steps.  "Here,
Toinette, Jeanne, what you will, I want you!"

"Stop, Rose-Marie," Nathalie called, wonderingly.  The girl came towards
them, smiling more broadly, and showing her white teeth.

"What have you got there?" demanded M.  Bourget.  "But I'll wager I
know."  He lifted a leaf.  "Ah, ha, as I thought!  Vine-snails, and fine
ones, too; I never saw finer."

"Freshly picked, monsieur."

"Yes, yes, plain enough.  Freshly picked, and beauties!  There, there,
that will do, my girl," he said with a sigh and a wave of dismissal.

"Would you not like some to take back with you?" asked his daughter,
innocently.

"Ah, but it wouldn't do, it wouldn't do," M.  Bourget declared, shaking
his head.  "As if every soul in the chateau would not know that Madame
Leon's father had bought vine-snails!"

"And then!"  Her voice was scornful.  Her father looked at her.

"I begin to understand," he remarked, frowning.  "It appears to me that
you have already forgotten what, Heaven knows, I preached enough about
before your marriage: that Madame Leon de Beaudrillart is not the same
person as Mademoiselle Bourget, and that to effect the necessary change
you must forget a great deal.  For instance, you should forget that I
ever ate vine-snails."

She sighed, and tears gathered in her eyes.

"It is unlucky, father, for I do not think I forget easily enough.  And
why should I?  Leon is kinder than to ask it.  Listen.  I love him
dearly, but I cannot live a life of pretence, for everything in me cries
out against it, and they must take me as I am."

"And it was not a bad bargain," said M.  Bourget, rubbing his hands with
complacency.  "You may be certain there was a very fair equivalent on
either side.  Monsieur de Beaudrillart does not complain?"

The young wife began to smile in spite of herself.

"No, no!"

"Good.  But, see here, my girl, it is I you have to think of.  I mean
you to be a Beaudrillart, and a Beaudrillart you must become.  Keep your
eyes open.  You are sharp enough to pick up what is what, and to take
your position with the best of them.  I've heard nonsense enough from
Fauvel to-day, so don't vex me by talking any more."

"But--"

"No buts," said M.  Bourget, peremptorily.  "The subject is finished--
arranged; and I shall expect all to go as I desire.  Now let me see the
picture-gallery."

The picture-gallery at Poissy is short, though beautifully proportioned
to the rest of the house; it is rather a long room consecrated to the
past than a gallery at all.  It has an exquisite ceiling, and delightful
deep windows from which you look over the trees--of no great height--to
the rich and smiling country beyond.  The room is by no means crowded
with portraits, and, except for the interest to their descendants, the
pictures are of little value.  The last is dated about eighty years ago,
and is chiefly noticeable as the likeness of a Baron de Beaudrillart who
escaped the horrors of the revolution.

Round this room M.  Bourget marched, regarding each painting as
thoughtfully as if he were studying for the reputation of a critic.
Nathalie did not accompany him.  She threw open one of the windows, and
leaned out, amusing herself with dropping little pellets of moss upon
the turf beneath, where a few pigeons had collected, and were sunning
themselves with an air of great enjoyment.  Every now and then her
father called to her with a question as to the history of one of the
portraits, and it displeased him when she was not able to give a full
account of the personage's life and death.  It mattered little if she
assured him that no more was known in the family; he was always of
opinion that such ignorance showed a blamable want of interest.  He
looked long at the last pictured baron.  What he said was:

"If they had guillotined him, it might have been no such great matter;
but imagine if those rascals had touched Poissy!  Now I have finished.
Are you going to drive me back to Tours?"

"At any time you like; but you will have some coffee first?"

"Yes, since one may as well save one's pocket," said M.  Bourget with a
sigh, thinking of the absinthe.  "Besides, I have to see madame."

Nathalie wondered anxiously why this was said.  She had not long to
wait, for when he had gulped down the portion of black coffee, served in
a tiny Sevres cup of finest quality, and set it with an unsatisfied air
upon the table to his left, he opened his subject.

"You may tell Monsieur de Beaudrillart, madame, that I have put Fauvel
upon the right tack at last."

"I imagine, monsieur, that Fauvel will not venture to change any plan of
which my son has already approved?"

"Ah, Monsieur de Beaudrillart knows nothing about it--how should he?  I
do," added M.  Bourget, simply.  "As for Fauvel, he understands a few
things, but not all.  However, that is settled, and I shall sleep better
to-night for knowing that it has been seen to.  There was something
else, madame, I wished to speak about.  I asked my daughter to take me
to the picture-gallery."

"Are you thinking of insisting also upon the portraits being cleaned,
monsieur!" asked Claire, with a laugh.

"Not my business," said M.  Bourget imperturbably.  "But it's a pity
they should stop short as they do.  Eighty years ago the last!  One
would not have it said that the De Beaudrillarts had come to an end."

"Of late years, monsieur, their fortunes have diminished."

"Precisely, madame, precisely.  But now that matters have improved--in
fact, madame, the long and short of the business is that I should wish
to have Madame Leon painted, and placed in the gallery with the other De
Beaudrillarts."

There was a pause such as follows a crash, an earthquake, or any other
horrible and unexpected convulsion.  Nathalie cried out, "Oh no!" but
her father turned his back upon her, and hands on knees gazed squarely
at Mme. de Beaudrillart.  She stared back at him as if she had failed to
comprehend his proposal.

"Madame Leon!  In the picture-gallery!"

"Precisely, madame.  Painted by the best artist in France."

"Monsieur, I do not think you understand what you suggest.  Those are
our ancestors, the old De Beaudrillarts."

"Exactly why I wish to see her among them."

He leaned back, and faced her, the image of dogged resolution.

"But--monsieur, it is impossible!"

"And why, madame!"

"Because--because it is altogether unsuitable."  She would have liked to
have said "preposterous."

M.  Bourget frowned.

"Madame, when Fauvel objected to what I desired to see done, he had his
reasons for objecting.  They weren't worth much, it is true, but--they
existed.  Perhaps you would also favour me with your reasons?"

Mme. de Beaudrillart folded her hands and looked at the floor.  How was
it possible to say to this man, "You yourself are the reason?"  But he
forestalled her.

"I understand, madame.  You wish to express to me that Madame Leon
cannot boast of Ancient birth, and that I made my money by trade.  All
that is perfectly true.  At the same time, I wish to point out that,
however it was made, the money has not been unacceptable.  Moreover,
whatever my daughter was born, she is now a Beaudrillart."

Mme. de Beaudrillart remained absolutely silent.  It was Nathalie who
spoke with an attempt at gaiety.

"It appears to me that I might be allowed a word, and I don't think
anything would be so irksome to me as having my portrait painted.
Besides--eighty years!  The gap is too great.  It is very kind of you,
father, but do not think more about it."

M.  Bourget rose.

"On the contrary, it will be carried out."

Mme. de Beaudrillart also rose.

"Not for the gallery, monsieur."

"For the gallery, and the gallery alone, madame."

He tried to speak quietly, but his face was very red, and he drew his
breath in short gasps.  His opponent, with her air of superb calm, and
her dignified manner, impressed him in spite of himself.  When poor
Nathalie had got him away, and they were together in the carriage, he
muttered:

"Was there ever such a ridiculous woman!  For all that, there is what
you must aim at.  There's an air for you, a presence!  You don't catch
me here again in a hurry; but if I were you, my girl, I'd practise that
way she has of looking as if you were the dust under her feet.  It was
just as much as I could do to hold my own against it, I can tell you.
All looking.  She hadn't a word to say.  And she'll have to give in."

"As a particular favour, don't press it, dear father.  You can see how
disagreeable it would be for me."

"Aha, but you must learn to look, too, now you are one of them.  No.  I
am resolved, and I shall write to Monsieur de Beaudrillart."

Nathalie promised herself to be first in the field with her husband, but
how to keep the peace between these clashing wills?  Leon only laughed
when he heard of the dilemma.

"Oh, we will find a way out of it!  Your father is absolutely right, my
Nathalie; that face of yours is worthy of the best painter and the best
place.  But my mother, dear woman, has her little prejudices about the
gallery."

"And I would not be there for worlds!" she cried, shuddering.  "Without
you, and to be left to the mercy of those old Beaudrillarts?  No, Leon,
do not ask it!"

"Leave it to me.  It would be so charming to have your portrait, and you
would endure a little to please me, oh!"

"Ah, much!" she said, frankly, putting her hand on his.  "But your
mother is right, for if any one is to be there, it should be you--you
who belong to them, and whom they would have nothing against."

He caught away his hand with a sharp movement, unlike himself.

"Against!  What do you mean?"

"They would scout me as an interloper; that is all that I mean," she
said, surprised.  "Dear, I was not suggesting that I had committed a
crime, or done anything to make them utterly ashamed of me."

"No," he returned, with an uneasy laugh.  "And if we could know their
histories, I dare say we should find that it was you who might be
ashamed of their company."

"And it's well my father doesn't hear you!"  Nathalie cried, merrily.
"He would not put up with a word against the Beaudrillarts."

He did not, as usual, retort with a jest, and, indeed, for the rest of
the day was silent and almost moody.  His mother, always on the lookout
for such signs, decided that his marriage began to bore him; and though
the mood wore off, preserved the impression in her mind, and
strengthened it, as soon as she could, with another of the same
tendency.  Nathalie, who had hoped that time would bring kinder feeling
towards her, found that it only seemed to push them further apart; as
much as possible her presence was ignored, the servants were tacitly
shown that her wishes might be disregarded, and so far as any real
authority in the house was concerned, she was a mere cipher.  Yet she
was not unhappy.  She had come from a home where she had been thrown
chiefly on her own resources, and this, if a harsh, is often a wholesome
training.  The hours she spent alone passed contentedly enough,
sweetened, too, by those others when she and Leon were together, walking
over the estate, seeing to planting, thinning, cutting down, settling
which bits of the property he would buy back, watching the vintage,
strolling by the side of the river.  She never loved the river.  An
unconquerable dread had seized her ever since she heard the story of the
death by drowning of Leon's father, the Baron Bernard; but as Leon had a
fancy for fishing, she kept her repugnance out of his sight.  Neither
Mme. de Beaudrillart nor her youngest daughter would consent to take
advantage of the carriage.  Felicie, however, was glad to be spared the
long tramps which were formerly necessary before she could reach the
outlying districts where her charitable errands carried her, and more
than once had been driven in to some function in the cathedral at Tours,
with the express understanding that she should not be called upon to
encounter M.  Bourget.

"Your father and I think so differently on all subjects!" she explained.

For the picture a compromise had been arrived at, owing to the fortunate
circumstance that--to M.  Bourget's untold wrath--the painter whom Leon
had chosen was too fully occupied to come to Poissy.  M.  Bourget, while
storming at the artist's stupidity, had suggested that her husband
should take his wife to Paris, so that she might be painted there.  Leon
turned it off.  He said he had a fancy that the picture should be done
at Poissy, and the sentiment was too completely after M.  Bourget's own
heart for him to resist.  He only grumbled at the delay as a personal
wrong done to him by the painter.

"Isn't my money as good as another man's, and better!" he demanded,
wrathfully.  "I'd like to know what the fellow means by declining to
come?"

"Perhaps there are other Poissys in the world," remarked Leroux, with
malice, "and other families as important as the Beaudrillarts."

M.  Bourget stared at him.

"Now you are an ass, Leroux.  Damme, if you don't talk better sense when
you have a case, it's no wonder if you are unlucky.  But you don't
understand."

He put a bold face on it with his companions, and his nature was not
sufficiently sensitive for him to suffer under slight; still, he was not
pleased with Nathalie's position.  When she drove into the town, it was
simply, and without a vestige of parade, when M.  Bourget considered
that a greater ceremony might have been observed.  He would have liked
rattle and cracking of whips, with every one looking round, and asking,
"Who is that?"  He questioned her closely, and found that she spent her
time in her own room, or with her husband, and he got no hint of her
sitting with her mother-in-law, or being admitted into pleasant
companionship.  He could not comprehend it.  That the De Beaudrillarts
should have no dealings with M.  Bourget might be, and there was
something really pathetic in the way in which he effaced himself, and
kept away from Poissy when he was longing to be satisfied as to Fauvel's
work; but Nathalie was now a De Beaudrillart herself, and to humiliate
her was, in his eyes, to humiliate the family.  He still talked bigly,
to be sure, to Leroux and his other companions, but in his heart there
was a vexed dissatisfaction which poisoned his triumph until the late
winter came.  Then it broke out again, irrepressible and unbounded.  For
on a cold February day, when snow lay thick in the Place de
l'Archeveche, and crumpled itself into the niches round the western
porches, where no statues have replaced those broken effigies which once
gazed down, M.  Bourget was making his way sombrely back to his house,
when he became aware of a messenger from Poissy standing at the door.
The messenger brought good news--news which made M.  Bourget come out
again radiant, and present him with a whole piece of twenty sous.

"That," he announced magnificently, so that the passers-by might
hear--"that is for you to drink the health of the young Baron de
Beaudrillart."

CHAPTER EIGHT.

IN THE RUE DU BAC.

The years that came and went at Poissy after the birth of this baby son
were slowly drawing away the life of M. de Cadanet in that little Paris
hotel, which yet to his shrunk interests seemed large and hollow.  Even
when Leon saw him he was small and bent, with his skin colourless; by
this time he had grown absolutely dwarfish, wizened, elfish-looking, the
extraordinary brightness of his eyes, shining out of their hollow caves,
giving him a strange and weird appearance.  His body had become
extremely frail, but his will showed no symptoms of weakening, and one
or two valets who had presumed on his apparent feebleness found
themselves speedily undeceived and dismissed.  Old friends had dropped
off, smitten by death or illness; newspapers and politics absorbed his
chief attention, but the absorption was gloomy, for to the old--
recalling what seem better days--hope is difficult, and pessimism
natural.

M.  Charles had succeeded in his determination to make himself necessary
to the old count, and it must be admitted that the task was difficult.
It required to be carried out with the greatest care and circumspection,
since M. de Cadanet was suspicious of the smallest premonitory shadow of
coercion.  More than once, more than half a dozen times, Charles's fate
had trembled in the balance, and given him some bad half-hours of
disquiet.  If he could have made a confidante of his wife, things might
have been easier for him; as it was, he cursed his stars that even with
her it was necessary to play a part, for she was an honest dull woman,
who would have blurted out to M. de Cadanet what her husband most wished
to conceal.

It has been said that the furniture and surroundings were austere.  They
did not become less so when their owner grew older and weaker.  He had
always despised luxuries rather than begrudged them; he despised them
still.  Had he ever derived personal pleasure from them, he might have
been more merciful towards Leon, and the fabulous sums M.  Charles
reported him to have paid for his cigars; but such expenditure,
especially personal expenditure, appeared to him a miserable weakness.

Of Leon he never spoke, though M.  Charles would have given a good deal
to have known what had happened.  Without being aware of the exact state
of affairs, he was aware of this much: The Poissy estates were--if not
hopelessly--deeply embarrassed.  Probably in order to make a desperate
appeal to his cousin, M. de Beaudrillart had presented himself one day
at the hotel, and had an interview.  This much he had gathered from the
servant.  Since that day Leon had, to his knowledge, never reappeared in
Paris; but from inquiries he had made, it seemed, was living quietly at
Poissy, engaged in the ordinary life of a country gentleman.  This,
moreover, was five or six years ago.

There might, of course, be one simple explanation.  M. de Cadanet might
have relented under the pressure of a personal interview, and advanced
the large necessary sum of money, extorting at the same time a promise
from the young man to give up his Paris extravagances and betake himself
to the provinces and economy.  But Charles was tolerably certain that
this had not happened.  To begin with, he thought that his uncle, as he
chose to call him, would have told him what he had done, for he was in
the habit of speaking pretty frankly to him about Leon.  And in the next
place there was another point which might almost be taken as proof
against the possibility of such an advance.  Charles himself had
received a gift of one hundred thousand francs, and some six months
later another gift of the same sum, with the intimation that they
represented an abandoned idea.  What this idea might have been he never
ventured to ask, but he made many shrewd, guesses, and the guess which
seemed the most probable pointed to Leon de Beaudrillart.  Why there was
that space of months between the gifts he could not think; putting that
aside, he felt convinced that M. de Cadanet's generosity would not have
carried him to the length of providing for two relatives in so lavish a
fashion.

In spite of his conviction that he had benefited by Leon's disgrace,
Charles did not hate him the less.  Possibly it was because he knew that
Leon was aware of his true character; and although he had not accused
him to M. de Cadanet, there was an unpleasant feeling of insecurity in
the knowledge.  But that was not all, because as M. de Cadanet grew
weaker, and the chances of M. de Beaudrillart ever seeing him again
became infinitesimal, he lost nothing of his distrust and dislike.
Perhaps from something the old count had once let drop, he had not been
without hope of becoming master of Poissy--a hope which had ended in
disappointment.  Perhaps there still lurked in his mind a fear that when
the will was read, Leon might be remembered.  Whatever it was, one thing
was certain--that his hate had not diminished.

It need not be said that he had grown extremely tired of dancing
attendance at the house in the Rue du Bac.  The hours spent in the
severely-furnished room, reading to or writing for M. de Cadanet, who
exacted all his attention, and never fell asleep, were irksome to the
last degree.  He received few thanks, but often a gift accompanied by a
dozen cynical words.  The cynicism did not affect him, the gift it was
which enabled him to endure the attendance.  As often as possible he
sent his wife.  She was a kindly unimaginative woman; luckily for her
own happiness, of very slow perception; and attaching herself readily by
little surface roots to those who came in her way.  She had liked her
aunt and she liked M. de Cadanet, although he treated her with scant
civility; as he grew weaker, she was at the house a great deal, and
applied herself diligently to feeding him with beef tea, which he
detested, and with such small pieces of news as she considered
sufficiently unexciting.

M. de Cadanet sat in a straight-backed chair, wrapped in a wadded
dressing-gown, for, although the weather was hot, he was now always
cold, and young Mme.  Lemaire had for the last twenty minutes been
engaged in presenting him with such scraps of news from _Le Temps_ as
she thought suitable.  In the midst he said, with a sudden yawn which
would have disconcerted a more sensitive person:

"Amelie, is one permitted to ask how old you are!"

Mme.  Lemaire laid the newspaper calmly in her lap, and considered,
before answering honestly:

"I was seven-and-twenty last April."

"Heavens!  Only that I sometimes when I listen to you I think I hear my
grandmother."

"Yes?  I never saw her, of course, but I dare say she was an excellent
woman," said Amelie, taking up her work, since her uncle now seemed
disposed for a little conversation.

"Oh, excellent!" he muttered, with a little laugh.  "She killed the
count, my grandfather."

"Killed him! oh, impossible!  You don't really mean it!"

"She bored him to death," returned M. de Cadanet, letting his chin sink
feebly on his chest.

"Poor man!  Now, do you know, I am afraid you are tired.  If you were to
let me ring for an egg beaten up with a little sherry?  No?  Then shall
I go on reading?"

"No.  Unless--"

"What, mon oncle?"

"Is there anything about--about Poissy in the paper?"

"Oh, let me see."  She immediately busied herself.  "Poissy--Poissy--"

"Do you know the name?"

"No, I think not.  I cannot remember it."

"Your husband has not mentioned it?"

"Never.  Has anything happened there?  Perhaps you would like us to make
inquiries?"

"No.  Be quiet.  Nothing has happened since--since--a child was born."

"Ah, there is a child."  Her voice had changed; she looked down, and a
sigh escaped her.

"Certainly.  And a boy."

Silence followed.  She said presently, wistfully, "I suppose, then, they
are very happy?"

"Perhaps.  I do not know, and I do not care, but--in old days I knew
Poissy."

He spoke slowly and with difficulty, his voice dropping until it was
scarcely audible, and after these last words he relapsed into silence.
Amelie again laid down the paper, and took up her work--a little blouse
for an orphan in whom she was interested; she was extremely charitable,
and as Charles did not give her much money, and always talked of his
poverty, she consoled herself by working for her poor.  Her nature was
singularly placid, and she was fairly happy; indeed, she would have
declared she wanted nothing, except perhaps a little more money for her
orphans.  A really kind heart gave her an interest in the sick man, and
she did not suffer from his sharp speeches because she did not discover
their edge.  Now she sat and thought tranquilly of fat little Marie, how
fast she outgrew her frocks, and what was to be done for another when
this was worn out.  A thin white streak of sunshine, penetrating through
the outer blinds, just struck her pale brown hair, wreathed in a large
coil at the back of her head, and stole across the table to M. de
Cadanet's hand, which lay upon a book.  The hand was very thin and
parchment-like; every now and then it twitched slightly, and his head
sank lower.  Amelie, who had more than once glanced in his direction,
became at last uneasy at the profound stillness; she laid down her work,
and half rose, resting her fingers on the table.  It was possible that
he might be asleep, but sleep was unusual with him, and the least
movement generally enough to disturb him.  As he did not stir she moved
towards him noiselessly, until she was close, but his face was so sunk
that she was obliged to drop on her knees to gain a sight of it.  Then
she uttered a cry, for it was drawn and distorted.

It did not require the verdict of the doctor, hurriedly sent for, to
tell them that M. de Cadanet had had a stroke.  He was carried to the
adjoining bedroom, helpless and speechless.  Mme.  Lemaire despatched a
messenger to her husband, and made her own arrangements to remain in the
house and to obtain a nurse.  Charles did not arrive until late, and
fully approved her purpose.  He had no affection for his wife, but was
never wanting in civility.

"Certainly, my dear Amelie; and permit me to say you have shown your
usual excellent sense.  It would never do to leave the poor old man
alone.  What does the doctor say?"

"He says that it is impossible as yet to form an opinion, but he hopes
that he will recover in a measure.  Oh, I do trust so!  It was so
startlingly sudden."

"He does not suffer," said her husband, carelessly, "and if he revives,
what sort of a life will it be?  I am sure that if I were he I should
prefer to die."

"I am not so sure," Amelie said, walking about the room and placing the
chairs in order.  "But certainly he is terribly lonely with no one but
us.  Is there really no one?"

"No one."

"Who lives at Poissy?"

Charles turned quickly upon her.

"Poissy!  What do you know of Poissy?"

"Oh, nothing.  Only, our uncle spoke of it just before his attack.  I
really think it was the last thing he said."

"Now, remember, Amelie, this may be of great importance, and I should be
glad to know exactly what were his words."  It enraged him that she
still went on with her arranging, but he was afraid of displaying the
anxiety he felt.

"Let me see.  I think he began with asking whether there was anything
about Poissy in the paper."

"In the paper!"  The young man caught up _Le Temps_ and devoured the
columns.  "But there is not, of course.  Go on, Amelie.  What next?"

"I believe he wanted to know if I knew the name--if you had ever
mentioned it to me.  You never have, my friend, and so I told him."

"Yes?"

"Then he remarked--I don't know why--that a boy had been born there.
And that must have been all he said, except that he had known Poissy in
old days."

"Confound it! what did he mean?" muttered her husband, standing chin in
hand.

"Oh, I suppose it is some place where he was when he was young, and that
it just came across his mind at that moment.  Unless you think there is
some one there whom he wishes to see?  What a pity he did not say more!"

"If he does come to his senses, let me advise you not to make any
suggestions of that sort," said Charles, controlling himself with
difficulty.  "The owner of Poissy is an extravagant good-for-nothing,
who has mortally offended your uncle, and the probable result of
mentioning his name would be to bring on a most dangerous excitement."

"Then I will not, of course, because nothing could be so bad for him.
But I am very sorry.  It would be so much happier for him, poor dear! if
there were some one besides ourselves in whom he could take an interest,
especially if there was a child."

To this her husband made no answer.  His wife's personal opinions were
profoundly indifferent to him, and so long as she was impressed with the
danger of exciting M. de Cadanet, she might utter as many futile
aspirations as she pleased.  But what she had told him gave him
uneasiness--more from a vague dread of Leon de Beaudrillart than from a
well-grounded fear.  He had a fancy that M. de Cadanet's thoughts turned
sometimes with yearning in that direction, and he had with great care
avoided ever mentioning the birth of a son at Poissy.  How the old man
had discovered this event he could not conceive.  Most alarming of all
was the fact that he had not only known but had kept silence, since it
pointed to possible other reticences; and Charles had all the schemer's
distrust for the unknown.  He believed, however, that if M. de Cadanet
died in his present condition, he was certain to come into so much of
his property as he could will away; if he recovered, and his brain still
worked with painful ideas of this child at Poissy--grandson of the man
who had befriended him--it was impossible to be sure that some foolish
sentiment, some insane impulse of gratitude, might not prove strong
enough to upset his former dispositions.  The lust of gambling had
increased upon the young man, debts had swollen, creditors pressed.
Between him and things he loved best in the world a brazen gate was
slowly shutting, and he knew that it wanted but the clink of M. de
Cadanet's money for the barrier to roll swiftly back, and fling open a
garden of delight.  Now, that, added to his other anxieties, there came
this new doubt as to the disposition of the wealth which he had been,
counting on as his own, he cursed fate freely, and went about the house
with an injured air.

To watch life and death fighting is not a pretty sight.  With M. de
Cadanet, life slowly got the better; but its wounds and its weaknesses
were many, and the old count, rent with the strife, and agonised with
the pricks of returning circulation, was a sorry spectacle.  He was well
nursed, for Amelie was in her element, and gave him her whole attention,
always more delightful to a patient than the intelligence which he may
wish for in health.  She made no demands upon his brain, and his
medicine and food were ready at exactly the right hour.  Moreover, she
was really quick in understanding his imperfect speech.  Every day she
brought her husband a pleased report that there was a growing
improvement.  Charles had not the face to frown except behind her back.
He said once, sharply:

"All this is very fine; say what you like, but he will never be himself
again."

"Oh, why not?" exclaimed his wife, appealingly.  He controlled himself
to answer.

"They never are after such an attack, which, of course, weakens the
brain."

"Well, he knows everything, I am sure," she persisted.  Charles was
going out of the room, and returned, anxiety in his face.

"What does he talk about?"

"He likes to hear what the doctor has said."

"He has never alluded to--to Poissy?"

She exclaimed at the idea.

"Oh, he has not come to thinking about things of that sort."

"All the better," said her husband, drawing a long breath.  "Mind you
turn him off from it if he begins; but let me hear what he says.  You're
the only person that can understand the gibberish."

("That is one bit of luck," he added, under his breath.)

"Oh, he is getting on," she called after him, consolingly.  Charles
inquired daily, but M. de Cadanet never made allusion to Poissy.  To lie
and watch the flies on the ceiling, the sunshine travelling round from
shadow to shadow; to frown with pain or impatience; to listen to the
ticking of the gilt clock on the mantel-piece, or the muffled rattle of
a carriage; stung by these new prickings to try to move the leg and arm
to which force was slowly, slowly creeping back--this was M. de
Cadanet's daily life.  No one could understand him except Mme.  Lemaire;
they pretended to sometimes, in order not to annoy him; but the pretence
only irritated him the more.  By little and little, however, words
shaped themselves more rightly.

By--and--by he was lifted into a great chair, and wheeled from one part
of the room to the other; and this move accomplished, Mme.  Lemaire
thought that she might return home.  Charles had agreed to her remaining
in the Rue du Bac with an amiability which she considered remarkable.
He did not care for her enough to miss her, and preferred having some
one on the spot to report upon anything out of the usual course.  He
would therefore willingly have consented to her absence, but the
Orphanage had an outbreak of measles, and her placid good sense told her
that she was no longer absolutely necessary to M. de Cadanet.  The
nurse, therefore, had full charge by night, and Mme.  Lemaire and the
concierge Andre, a quiet man, whom the count said he preferred to women
about him, shared the day between them.

Unperceptive as she was, Amelie could not but allow that her husband was
in a very bad temper.  He showed it chiefly by silence, which she had
the discretion not to break, and by absence from the house, which, he
said, was owing to business.  He had not the audacity to tell her, and
she was the last woman to whom it would have occurred--simply, perhaps,
because ideas did not seem ever to spring spontaneously in her
unimaginative mind, but required to be planted there--that it was M. de
Cadanet's recovery, to which undoubtedly her excellent nursing had
contributed, which had brought about the gloom.  He took care to inform
the world that the recovery was very partial, and that the seizure had
seriously affected the old count's mind; but, in point of fact, M. de
Cadanet's intellect was as keen as ever--painfully so, indeed, because
it kept him perfectly conscious of his sad condition, and caused
miserable fits of depression.

These fits of depression were treated indifferently by the nurse, but
they always distressed Mme.  Lemaire, who would not have realised a
silent trouble, but felt great compassion for one of which she saw the
outward signs.  She did her best to produce a cheerful atmosphere, and
when he complained of the desolation of old age, cast about for
something comforting.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Is there not any one, now, dear uncle, that you would like to come and
see you?"

"My friends are where I ought to be--in the grave."

"Oh, don't say that.  Your time isn't come.  Why, you're getting better
every day.  Next week we shall move into the other room--think of that
for an event!"

The old man groaned, and Amelie, at her wits' end, ventured on the
subject against which her husband had warned her.

"You want some one young and lively to cheer you up, that is what I
think.  The Poissy you were talking about--is there no one there?"

M. de Cadanet uttered a short "No!" but she persisted.

"If they were to bring the child?  A little boy, is it not?  A house
always seems to grow happier when there is a child in it.  You have
never seen him!"

"Never.  And never shall."

"What a pity!"

"His father," said M. de Cadanet, presently, "behaved abominably."

"Dear, dear, what a pity!" repeated Amelie, holding up her work that she
might judge of the effect.  "Perhaps he has grown better now that there
is a child."

"One must see to believe that."

"That is what I thought."

"Monsieur de Beaudrillart will never come here!" exclaimed the old
count, with all his usual sharpness.  Something called her out of the
room, and when she came back he had evidently been pondering on the
subject, for he said, "You are right as to one thing; for the child is
Baron Bernard's grandson."

"Oh!" said Amelie, opening her eyes.  "And who is the Baron Bernard?"

M. de Cadanet uttered an impatient exclamation.

"Oh, you--you know nothing!  Can you give your husband a message?"

"To be sure I can."

"Then tell him that next week--when I shall be stronger--I wish to speak
to him about Leon de Beaudrillart.  Do not forget."

CHAPTER NINE.

A BURNED PAPER.

Mme.  Lemaire stood in the window of M. de Cadanet's sitting-room,
looking out.  The day before he had been wheeled into it, and with the
fretfulness of an invalid had declared it was very strange that those
who could walk about and see so much had nothing entertaining to tell
him.  Amelie had accepted the reproach cheerfully, and betaken herself
to one of the long windows, with its lace and ugly red moreen curtains,
hoping to find materials for his distraction.

But the materials were few, or she did not know how to make the best of
them.  He did not in the least care to hear of a grey sister, with snowy
collar and flapping cap, walking with her school; nor, though it made a
pretty picture, of the balcony opposite, on which a girl in a black
dress stood with her arm on a railing looking down at the busy street
below.  At last he desired her, irritably, to say no more, and was
silent.

The room in which they were was not M. de Cadanet's study, for that
looked into the court-yard, and this into the street.  It had been
chosen because it was sunnier and more cheerful.  But the cheerfulness
being a failure, he presently insisted upon being wheeled into the
study.  There, with the stove lit, though it was very warm, he seemed to
revive, and Mme.  Lemaire left him in charge of Andre, with many
instructions as to food and rest.  Charles was burning with impatience
as to the conversation which lay before him, and of which the subject
was to be Leon de Beaudrillart, but the doctor had forbidden any talk
that threatened excitement, until a few more days had passed, and the
count was stronger.

When Amelie arrived at the house the next morning, she found her uncle
in bed and very much weaker.  It seemed that he had insisted upon Andre
fetching a tin box from the library, which, when it was unlocked, turned
out to contain a bundle of papers.  These M. de Cadanet had studied for
a long time, afterwards replacing them with marked agitation.  He had
evidently felt extreme fatigue in consequence, and the doctor spoke with
gravity to Mme.  Lemaire, declaring that the access of weakness was a
very discouraging sign.  The old count himself said very little, but
towards evening remarked:

"Tell your husband I wish to speak to him to-morrow afternoon."  And
when Amelie attempted a remonstrance, he added, peremptorily: "I wish
it;" and the doctor, to whom she appealed the next morning, only
replied:

"It may, of course, be injurious--all emotion is likely to be
injurious--but I cannot take it upon me to prevent Monsieur de Cadanet
from giving what are, possibly, important directions.  His condition is
too critical."

Charles himself, who had been on thorns, disliked the prospect.  If M.
de Cadanet was at last dying, he was of opinion that matters had better
remain as they were, without further allusions to Leon.  Andre, clos

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