taking Julie’s hand he placed it within his arm.
Slowly the truth dawned upon Monsieur de Latour. He struck his forehead.
“I see it all,” he groaned. “It is a trick. You are Julie de Brésac.
Strange I never suspected it before. But that old gadabout, your aunt,
put you up to it, no doubt. Very well, all I have to say is that,
under your respected father’s will, my consent is necessary to your
marriage, and you won’t get that consent to marry my nephew.”
“Your uncle, you mean,” interposed Louis.
“Very well, very well!” cried Monsieur de Latour, walking off,
quivering with rage. “You will see how it will turn out.”
Louis followed him.
“Now, my dear nephew,” he said in a pacifying tone, “don’t let us,
with guests in the house, have a family row--these things are very bad
form. It has never been the custom of the De Latours to do such things,
and if you wish to prove yourself a genuine De Latour you must follow
the traditions of the house. Now, it isn’t necessary to say how things
really stand--I am willing to let you pose as my uncle, provided you
show me the respect which is due me. So let us agree to say nothing
about this, but I will have no interference between Mademoiselle Julie
and myself.”
Monsieur de Latour paused and reflected for a whole minute.
“Perhaps you know,” he said, “that the Comtesse de Beauregard’s consent
is necessary, as well as mine, for anyone to marry Julie.”
“I believe so, but that is very easily won. Just let me go on a
gigantic lark and the old lady will consent at once.”
“Yes, but suppose she should marry? She might marry me, you know!”
“That will make our relationship still more interesting. You would be
my nephew and at the same time you would be my uncle.”
“Don’t talk nonsense. What I mean is that I intend to checkmate you and
that head-strong girl yonder.”
“But to marry Madame de Beauregard you would have to lead a very
dissipated life, and then I should be in a position to checkmate you.
I can exert my authority as your uncle, and put a stop to your wild
career on the ground that you are squandering your fortune. I can put
you on an allowance of a thousand francs a month. How would you like
that?”
“Oh, it’s all a confounded muddle,” cried Monsieur de Latour, “but I
intend to block your game, young man, with Julie, and you see if I
don’t!”
While this turmoil was taking place in one part of the chateau a
like one was occurring in another part of it. Just as luncheon was
over General Granier’s card was brought in, and Madame de Beauregard
insisted upon the rest of the party going with her to the orangery.
There they found General Granier, who began to entertain them with
anecdotes of some of his most notorious escapades during the Second
Empire, varied with the recital of some startling indiscretions
about three months before. His stories were really amusing, and even
Mademoiselle Cheri laughed at them; but Mélanie, much scandalised,
maintained a shocked silence, and Eugène de Contiac unconsciously did
the same.
When General Granier had finished a story of having kissed a dowager
duchess in mistake for her daughter-in-law, a story which sent Madame
de Beauregard into convulsions of mirth, she suddenly looked around
and caught Eugène in the act of handing a book to Mélanie. Madame de
Beauregard seized it and read aloud the title, “Sermons and Discourses,
by Bossuet.” From screams of laughter the old lady suddenly flew into a
temper, and, giving Eugène a smart clip over the head with the book of
sermons, she cried wrathfully:
“I will teach you to be reading sermons in good company! And what’s
this?”
A sheet of paper fluttered out, which the old lady caught deftly and
read aloud:
“DEAREST MÉLANIE:
“Don’t believe for one moment that my heart or my inclinations are in
the dissipations which I sometimes follow. It is all the doing of my
intolerable old aunt and that old rip, General Granier. My darling,
as soon as my aunt is dead and I can follow my own inclinations you
will have no fault to find with me. Even without your influence,
dearest, I would wish to live a pious and God-fearing life. How much
more so when you encourage me in those religious observances of which
I am deprived! However, my old aunt can’t live forever, and when she
is gone, and we can be married, rest assured that I shall lead with
you a life of prayer and piety, with sermons for our only literature
and church-going our dissipation. My aunt has not a bad heart, and
let us unite in prayer, dear one, that she may mend her ways.
“Devotedly yours,
“EUGÈNE DE CONTIAC.”
This was a letter calculated to exasperate a much milder person
than Madame de Beauregard, and the old lady, although in general
good-tempered, as most old reprobates are, was kindled into wrath. She
sat up, whirled around in her chair, rose, and actually danced with
rage.
“So you are planning to be pious when I am dead and buried!” she
shrieked, shaking the unlucky letter in poor Eugène’s pallid face.
“Very well, then, you and your saintly friend here can be pious on
nothing at all. You and this sanctimonious minx will unite in prayer
for me! Just let me catch you at it--that’s all I ask! Oh, if I had
but a man in my family, he should have every franc I possess! Monsieur
Bertoux,” she cried, turning to the silent advocate, who saw a good
fee staring him in the face for making another will for Madame de
Beauregard, “I desire you this minute to make another will for me!”
At this Monsieur Bertoux quietly took out some sheets of legal-looking
paper.
“Here, madame,” he said resignedly, “I always keep myself prepared, and
I knew when I arrived here yesterday and saw the situation of affairs
that I should be called upon to make a will for you before the week was
out. Will you, as usual, when you cut Monsieur de Contiac off, give
your property to found a hospital for cats and dogs?”
“Yes,” answered Madame de Beauregard promptly, “except one hundred
thousand francs to General Granier, as the last man with red blood in
him who is left alive in France. He deserves a legacy and he shall have
it, for knowing how to enjoy himself as a man should.”
General Granier bowed to the ground and said gallantly:
“I hope, madame, that I shall never come into the possession of
that legacy. I should be far more pleased if you would consider
the proposition which I have made to you at intervals for the last
forty years.” Here the general put his hand to his heart and winked
sentimentally at Madame de Beauregard.
“Marry you, you mean?” cried Madame de Beauregard. “Well, I have
been considering it for forty years, as you say. But meanwhile I
intend to punish my nephew--not that he appears to have a drop of my
blood in him--so, Monsieur Bertoux, will you please to come into the
grand saloon with me, and we will arrange this matter. And I beg to
inform you, mademoiselle,” she added to the shrinking Mélanie, “that
you may marry my nephew any time you like, and you will get a pious
husband--and I could not desire you any worse punishment, for pious
husbands are a terrible bore. I had one myself and I don’t propose to
have another of that sort.”
Madame de Beauregard marched off to the saloon, escorted by Monsieur
Bertoux and General Granier. Mademoiselle Cheri, Mélanie, and Eugène
remained in the orangery. Eugène, like most men who have just lost
a half-million francs, looked a little frightened. Not so Mélanie.
Extending her hand to him, she said with a kind of timid boldness:
“I care nothing for the fortune you have lost. It is you that I love,
and when I feel that you have perhaps secured your eternal salvation by
giving up that money, it is in my heart to render thanks for losing it.”
Eugène was scarcely then equal to rendering thanks for the loss of a
half-million francs, but he was sincerely in love with Mélanie, and her
disinterested affection touched him deeply. And he could tell her with
perfect truth, as he did, that any loss of money was trifling so long
as he retained her love.
Mademoiselle Cheri, who was the most indulgent person in the world to
lovers and children, considerately left the orangery and was walking
up and down the terrace, leaving Eugène and Mélanie practically alone
under the green shade of the orange-trees. The two stood hand in hand
and were forgetful of all the world but themselves. It seemed to them
but a few minutes that they were alone together, while it was really a
half-hour.
Their Elysian dream was rudely interrupted by Monsieur de Latour
bouncing in upon them. Monsieur de Latour had been very much tried
that day, and this last straw had brought his wrath to the boiling
pitch. So he bawled at the two young culprits:
“Well, I have just seen Madame de Beauregard, and she is having another
will made as fast as Monsieur Bertoux can write it, and so you have
lost between you by your folly five hundred thousand francs which you
could have easily retained.” And then addressing Eugène: “What do a few
escapades and a little dissipation matter with half a million francs to
be gained by it? But no, you want to thank God that you are better than
other men, and you have been rightly served by Madame de Beauregard.
All I have to say is that you are to give up immediately any idea
you may have of marrying my niece. Half an hour ago you were a very
desirable match--now you are not a match in a marriageable sense at
all. Mélanie, let go of his hand!”
For as even a dove strives to defend her nest, Mélanie only held on the
more to Eugène’s hand.
“Would you have me give him up because he strives to be good and
pleases me thereby?” she asked, trembling.
“I certainly should!” roared Monsieur de Latour.
Eugène, not to be less courageous than Mélanie, replied firmly:
“Mademoiselle, although I cannot ask you now to share my poverty, rest
assured that I am yours forever.”
“Ah, Eugène,” said Mélanie timidly, “perhaps by waiting-- My uncle
cannot really mean to separate us, knowing how much we love each other.”
“But I _shall_ separate you!” shouted Monsieur de Latour, “and you will
see, young man, whether I do or not.”
At this Louis’s voice was heard over Monsieur de Latour’s shoulder.
“My dear nephew,” he said, “what kind of language is this that you are
using? I am simply shocked at you. Would you part two young hearts that
beat only for each other?”
“Certainly I would,” angrily responded Monsieur de Latour, wheeling
around on Louis.
“Luckily,” remarked Louis coolly, “it is not in your power. Under the
articles of my adoption of you as a nephew you cannot do anything of
this character without my consent, and I don’t intend to allow you
to separate Mademoiselle Mélanie and Monsieur de Contiac.” And then
he briefly explained that he had adopted Monsieur de Latour instead
of Monsieur de Latour adopting him. Turning to Monsieur de Latour,
Louis continued: “The fact is, Victor, you have no experience with the
master passion. The love of two young hearts cannot be treated like
the boiling soap in a couple of vats. You are dealing with an unknown
quantity when you try to control the emotions of the soul. It is
fortunate that you are enough under my authority to prevent you from
interfering either with Mademoiselle Mélanie’s love-affair or with the
tender attachment which I feel for Mademoiselle Julie and which she
does me the honour to accept.”
“Do you mean to say, you upstart--?” thundered Monsieur de Latour.
“Come, come, Victor, that kind of language is totally unsuited to our
relationship. Remember, you are my nephew.”
“The devil I am! It’s the most arrant nonsense I ever heard in my life.”
“Will you go and ask Monsieur Bertoux what he thinks of it?”
“Oh, I know it’s all legal, but it’s simply maddening!
However”--addressing Mélanie and Eugène in a menacing manner--“don’t
you two young hypocrites take this gentleman too seriously about this
adoption business. First let us see how it will work.”
“I,” said Louis, with much dignity, “advise you, mademoiselle, and
you, Monsieur de Contiac, to take it with the utmost seriousness, as I
mean to enforce all the rights of my position. And among other things,
I apologise for the behaviour of my nephew. You are our joint guests,
and I beg you will forget everything that has been said. My nephew has
not yet learned the lesson of self-control, but I hope to teach it to
him. We shall all have until five o’clock to compose ourselves, and by
that time I hope my nephew will have arrived at a better frame of mind.
Come, Victor,” and with that he seized Monsieur de Latour by the arm
and dragged him off, spluttering:
“It’s maddening, simply maddening!”
Monsieur de Latour, shaking himself free, retired to his own room to
ponder over the topsy-turvy condition of affairs. The more he pondered
the more puzzling the situation seemed to him. Julie, he realised,
was out of his reach, and the vision of a young and pretty girl as
his partner for the rest of his life seemed less attractive when he
reflected upon the complications that Julie’s youth and inexperience
had brought upon him. His association with Madame de Beauregard, and
with the persons of high-sounding names to whom she had introduced him,
including even the semi-royal duke during that alarming experience in
the auto-car, had fostered extremely his natural taste for aristocratic
society, and it really seemed to him as if he were throwing himself
away if he should marry Mademoiselle Cheri.
Just at that moment he glanced out of his window and saw a superb
carriage with a ducal crest upon it turning into the court-yard, and
from it descended the semi-royal duke. Madame de Beauregard appeared in
person on the terrace to greet her visitor. He was a portly, red-faced
old gentleman, apparently of the same vintage as Madame de Beauregard
herself.
Monsieur de Latour, watching the scene from his window, felt his chest
swell at the thought of entertaining such distinguished guests. It is
true that the duke had been upon the auto-car expedition, but Monsieur
de Latour had been so frightened on that occasion as they whizzed and
banged along that he really remembered very little about the duke.
The conversation of Madame de Beauregard and the duke floated up to
Monsieur de Latour’s window, and he could not forbear listening to the
clear, gay voices on the terrace.
Madame de Beauregard, who treated dukes and costermongers alike,
received this particular duke with great familiarity, and began to pour
out to him the story of her grievances against Eugène de Contiac and
modern men in general, at which the duke chuckled in a semi-royal way.
“Here,” cried Madame de Beauregard, snapping her bright old eyes, “I am
the guest of Monsieur de Latour, a soap-boiling man, but I like him.
There is not half as much difference as the world thinks between you
people, with sixteen quarterings, and a soap-boiler after he is washed
and combed and well dressed. And this old soap-boiler has some spirit
in him--I suppose he might be considered quite a desperate character in
these milk-and-water days. But he isn’t a patch on you, my dear duke,
for example, nor on General Granier, and when you are dead there will
be no more men left alive.”
The semi-royal duke grinned, and remarked that he had no intention of
dying yet awhile.
“Nor have I!” cried Madame de Beauregard. “I expect to spend the
season of 1940 at Dinard. Do you remember, my dear duke, the season
of 1860 at Deauville? Oh, they were days then when one lived! We had
no rheumatism, we had all our own teeth, and we could go the pace by
night as well as by day.”
“My dear madame,” replied the duke, who really had quite a gentlemanly
air when he chose, “you are to-day as young in feelings, in energy and
in looks as you were in 1860.”
“Oh, you old rogue!” cried Madame de Beauregard, playfully prodding the
duke with her fan, “how can you tell such taradiddles? Well, I can’t
say that you are as young as you were in 1860, but I will say that you
have more life in you than ten young men of to-day.”
Monsieur de Latour, watching and listening from his bedroom window,
turned pale. The idea of such language and such prodding applied to any
man with a ducal title was bad enough, but to a duke who figured in the
Almanach de Gotha!
“There is something in blood, after all,” thought Monsieur de Latour,
watching Madame de Beauregard’s ease and sprightliness; “but I believe
that woman would chuck an archbishop under the chin, and tweak a
cardinal’s ear, if she wanted to.”
The duke, however, who had known Madame de Beauregard for fifty years,
settled himself quite comfortably to hear the present generation abused
and his own lauded.
“The fact is, madame,” he said, “the young people of the present day
are too correct by half.”
“Quite right you are,” replied Madame de Beauregard with emphasis.
“Now, there is my nephew, Eugène de Contiac. You know my troubles with
that young man. Well, now he is behaving worse than ever. He is in love
with the soap-boiler’s niece, who is a shade more pious than Eugène.
The minx actually tells him that she will marry him without a franc if
he continues pious, and won’t look at him if he doesn’t, even if I give
him half a million francs. However, my mind is made up that no godly
young man shall get any of my money. In 1860 there weren’t any pious
young men, were there, duke?”
Madame de Beauregard rattled on in her shrill, high-pitched voice for
the benefit of everybody within half a mile, and Monsieur de Latour,
who could not help hearing, listened to the names of princes, kings,
and even emperors handled in the most familiar manner, and getting the
general impression that in 1860 Madame de Beauregard and the semi-royal
duke were engaged in one long, loud, and uproarious romp with half the
royal personages in Europe. This was not without its effect on the
retired soap-boiler, and his mind returned to the half-formed scheme of
marrying the old lady herself. The duke paid a long visit, and by the
time he went away the purple dusk was falling.
In spite of the exciting occurrences of the day the whole party met
at dinner with outward composure and even gaiety. Monsieur de Latour,
however, was considerably annoyed by the tone of paternal authority
which Louis adopted toward him, and by the gibes of Madame de
Beauregard at the situation which had been reversed.
“So it was that little baggage Julie who did it all?” the old lady
chuckled, indicating Julie, who sat at the table and looked as innocent
as the cat that had eaten the canary. “To tell you the truth, Monsieur
de Latour, I don’t believe she made the mistake in the name through
inadvertence. I think that she meant to put you in Monsieur Louis de
Latour’s power.”
“But it is preposterous!” burst out Monsieur de Latour.
“If you think so,” replied Louis coolly, “try to break the arrangement
and see where you are.”
And then everybody at the table laughed, and Monsieur de Latour,
boiling and spluttering with rage, yet had to control himself and smile
a ghastly smile.
And so the old lady had countenanced the trick his ward had played upon
him! But he still held on to the three hundred thousand francs, and
there would be no question of Julie and Louis marrying without it. It
seemed to Monsieur de Latour that he had Louis in quite as much of a
hole as Louis had him.
The visit of the semi-royal duke made a great impression upon Monsieur
de Latour, and he began to consider seriously how he might contrive to
marry Madame de Beauregard. He concluded that the best and only way was
to enter upon a series of larks of the wildest description, and began
to turn over in his mind plans to that effect.
As a preliminary Monsieur de Latour invited the whole party, including
Monsieur Bertoux, to remain for the rest of the month at the chateau,
and in this Louis cordially concurred, and they all accepted. Madame
de Beauregard knew everybody worth knowing at Dinard, and the old
lady, in spite of her peculiarities, was much sought after as a person
of great consequence. The terrace of the chateau was gay with guests
every afternoon at tea time. Mademoiselle Cheri and Mélanie were very
well pleased at the opportunity of seeing a phase of society hitherto
unknown in their secluded and provincial lives, but Mademoiselle Cheri,
unlike Monsieur de Latour, was not in the least overawed by it.
Duchesses, princesses, and countesses, with the gentlemen in their
train, came every afternoon, on Madame de Beauregard’s invitation,
to the terrace, for the old lady’s idea of life was one long,
unintermittent frolic. But Monsieur de Latour was so dazzled by the
names of the people, to say nothing of their equipages and servants,
that his head was completely turned. To be the head of the house of De
Latour had seemed to him, the month before, the acme of distinction,
but now he longed to be the Comte de Beauregard, a title which he would
acquire if he succeeded in marrying Madame de Beauregard.
The only serious rival he had was General Granier, with his extremely
interesting leg and his repertoire of escapades, and his large
assortment of delightfully scandalous stories. Monsieur de Latour could
in no way pretend to rival him in these particulars. How tame and
correct seemed his life at Brionville! He grew positively ashamed of
its tameness and correctness, and longed to prove that he had in him
the making of a dreadfully dissipated character.
Moreover, he was checked at every turn by Louis, who, with the coolest
assumption and most ineffable impudence, undertook to treat him like
a schoolboy. It was in vain that he threatened Louis with the loss
of the prospective three hundred thousand francs and the promise of
withholding consent from Louis’s marriage to Julie. Louis snapped his
fingers at the three hundred thousand francs, which he declared to be
a mere trifle compared with Julie’s love. And as for the question of
Monsieur de Latour’s consent--ah, there was a complication indeed!
Louis had studied carefully the legal aspects of his adoption of
Monsieur de Latour instead of Monsieur de Latour’s adoption of him,
and the threat of attempting to enforce them and compelling Monsieur
de Latour to appear in court as his adopted nephew made the old
gentleman extremely uncomfortable. Louis absolutely undertook to cut
down Monsieur de Latour’s allowance of champagne at dinner and cigars
afterward, tried to force him to go to bed at ten o’clock, and urged
him to lead as correct a life as that of Eugène de Contiac.
Monsieur de Latour, turning these things over in his mind, determined
to make a break for liberty, not only for his own satisfaction but as a
means of recommending himself to Madame de Beauregard, and he thought:
“If I can get that milksop of a nephew of hers to come with me and make
a man of him, the Comtesse de Beauregard will be sure to look upon me
with an eye of favour, and perhaps, as he and Mélanie are determined to
be married some time or other, I can secure for him the half-million
francs which Madame de Beauregard promises to give him, provided he
turns from good to gay. And after all, what Eugène said in that unlucky
letter about being as pious as he pleased after Madame de Beauregard is
dead and gone is perfectly true, and Mélanie can have that happiness to
which every woman aspires--that of reforming a man.”
Filled with these notions Monsieur de Latour, one morning about a
fortnight after the arrival of his guests at the chateau, carried
off to his bedroom Eugène de Contiac, and, after double-locking the
door, seated himself for a confidential interview. Eugène himself had
drooped somewhat in spirits, as a man will who has just lost half
a million francs. He had begun to consider if there were not some
means by which he could get his legacy, have his allowance restored,
and still keep on terms with Mélanie, having a fixed determination
to become pious again as soon as he dared to be. Monsieur de Latour,
surmising what was passing in Eugène’s mind, unfolded a plan to him.
“My dear fellow,” said he, confidentially, “I think you made a mistake
in throwing away that half-million francs. It doesn’t seem impossible
that you should have your legacy and your allowance restored and marry
my niece, for she certainly fancies you--God knows why! Now, Madame de
Beauregard can’t live forever.”