She will live to bury all of us and be skipping around here until she
meets the fate of the old lady who died at the age of one hundred and
ten of a fall from a cherry-tree.”
“Well,” said Monsieur de Latour, going closer and dropping his voice
to a mysterious whisper, “perhaps--ahem!--there are certain secrets of
the heart--it’s rather embarrassing to speak of these things--but--it
is possible that I may become a candidate for Madame de Beauregard’s
hand.”
“Marry her, do you mean?” cried Eugène, falling back in his chair.
“Good Heavens! If I were in your place I would rather marry a whole
circus than my aunt. Yet she is not a bad woman; but for pure
friskiness there never was anything like her.”
“I agree with you perfectly, but I am a little frisky myself. Now, I
have a proposition to make to you. Suppose you and I go to Paris for
a week with the express purpose of having a little lark of the sort
Madame de Beauregard would like. I believe it would certainly end in
her restoring your legacy and allowance, and might--ahem!--incline her
favourably to listen to the proposition which I am contemplating making
her. If only General Granier, with that infernal leg of his, were out
of the way! But she seems never tired of listening to stories of what
he can do with that leg--shoot rabbits, play cards, and actually play
the piano with it. And he eighty years of age if he is a day! That man
and Madame de Beauregard have found the fountain of eternal youth and
friskiness.”
“But Mélanie?” asked Eugène anxiously. “She is devoted to me now; but
if I should spend such a week in Paris as you desire I am sure she
would never speak to me.”
“Oh, yes, she would! She would have the pleasure of reforming you
again, and that is a joy which a woman cannot repeat too often. No, my
dear fellow, don’t think that for a moment. Go down on your knees to
Mélanie, tell her you are sorry for what you have done, then--get up
and do it again. That’s what women all like.”
There was something enticing to Eugène in all this, and after an
hour’s urgent representation he finally consented to make the visit to
Paris with Monsieur de Latour. That night at dinner Monsieur de Latour
announced their intended excursion.
“And I promise you,” he said significantly to Madame de Beauregard,
who sat at his right, “that when we come back we shall have some tales
to tell!”
“I do hope so,” piously ejaculated Madame de Beauregard.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
VII
A MERRY WEEK IN PARIS
One week from the day that Monsieur de Latour and Eugène left for Paris
they were sitting in Monsieur de Latour’s study in the Chateau of
Montplaisir, absolute wrecks of their former selves. Monsieur de Latour
was the colour of a mustard plaster, his eyes were bloodshot, his
hand trembled, and as he lay back in an arm-chair he seemed scarcely
able to raise his head. Eugène, sitting at the other end of the room,
leaned forward, supporting his aching head upon his shaking hands. At
intervals a long, shuddering sigh burst from him, which was answered
by a loud groan from Monsieur de Latour. Presently Eugène spoke in a
scarcely audible voice:
“I wouldn’t spend such another week as the last for half a million
francs.”
“And I,” groaned Monsieur de Latour from the other end of the room,
“would give half a million francs for another head and a new stomach.”
There was a silence after this, broken by Eugène saying in a sepulchral
voice, “Oh, my head!”
To which Monsieur de Latour responded in tones of agony, “Oh, my head!”
Then there was a longer silence still.
“Do you know how much it cost?” asked Eugène.
“No,” replied Monsieur de Latour. “All I know is I used up all the
cheques in my cheque-book, and when I got to the station here I didn’t
have enough money to pay the cabman to bring us to the chateau.” And he
groaned dismally.
While they sat in gloom and miserable silence the door suddenly flew
open and in bounced Madame de Beauregard, carrying a newspaper in her
hand.
“Oh, you two darlings!” she cried, blowing a kiss to Monsieur
de Latour and throwing her arm around Eugène’s aching head, “how
delightfully you have been behaving! It has been in the newspapers for
three days past. I was so pleased that I made Monsieur Bertoux not only
make me a new will, but directed him to pay to my nephew’s credit in
bank one-half of his legacy, that is, two hundred and fifty thousand
francs, in cash.”
Eugène felt feebly in his pocket.
“Yes, I believe I did get a letter or something from Monsieur Bertoux,
but I was not in a state to understand it exactly. Here it is.”
He took the letter out and read it--a brief communication saying that
Monsieur Bertoux had, by the direction of Madame de Beauregard, placed
two hundred and fifty thousand francs to Eugène’s credit at his Paris
banker’s.
“And now,” cried Madame de Beauregard, shaking him, “aren’t you
perfectly delighted?”
Eugène shook his head dolefully.
“If you had my head!” he replied.
Madame de Beauregard shrieked with laughter at this.
“And how about your head, monsieur?” she asked of Monsieur de Latour.
“It feels about the size of the Eiffel Tower,” gasped Monsieur de
Latour.
This delighted the old lady still more.
“Now,” she cried, “I will tell you what the newspapers say. It is all
about your visit to the races. They say that the two of you went out,
escorting nineteen ballet-girls, and before you left you had paid for
one hundred and twenty-seven bottles of champagne, and that two of the
young ladies--he! he!--gave you, monsieur, a footbath in champagne--ha!
ha!”
“They took off my shoes and stockings, and before they got through I
was wet to my shirt with champagne.”
“Why, that almost makes me fall in love with you! And then the police
came along----”
“I wish they had come before,” murmured Eugène sadly.
“--and tried to arrest you, and the ballet-girls smuggled you and
Eugène out of the way, and you jumped into a twenty-thousand-franc
racing machine----”
“It cost me thirty thousand francs before I got through with it,”
interjected Monsieur de Latour.
“--and ran it into a ditch, and smashed the machine all to bits, and
you fought the police----”
“Look at the back of my neck!” said Monsieur de Latour, displaying a
number of bumps and bruises.
“--and got yourselves arrested, and by some sort of hocus-pocus----”
“It was ten thousand francs’ worth of hocus-pocus,” said Eugène in a
tired voice.
“--managed to go free. And you sat up all the next night playing cards
and losing money----”
“We did that for six nights,” replied Monsieur de Latour, “and we
weren’t playing cards all the time. I lost twelve thousand francs on a
bet that more flies would alight on my lump of sugar than on another
man’s. But we played cards, too.”
“In short,” cackled the old lady, “you must have had a most delightful
week.”
This remark was received in melancholy silence. After a pause Monsieur
de Latour said wearily:
“It seems to me about ten weeks since we left this place for Paris.”
“And remember,” cried Madame de Beauregard, chucking Monsieur de Latour
under the chin, “that’s the kind of a life you will be expected to lead
all the time if I conclude to marry you.”
At which Monsieur de Latour shook his head in a manner which did not
indicate unmitigated joy at the prospect.
“And,” continued Madame de Beauregard merrily, “you have succeeded
in making General Granier insanely jealous. He hasn’t money to go
the pace as you do--in fact, he never had. He makes no secret of his
determination to run you out of the field, because Granier, poor angel,
really wants to marry me.”
Monsieur de Latour at that moment would have run out of the field
without any assistance whatever from General Granier.
Madame de Beauregard remained half an hour longer in the company of her
host and her nephew, getting the particulars of what she called their
charming week in Paris out of the two unfortunates. Every detail of
agony they gave delighted her more and more. Their encounters with the
police, their sleepless nights and exciting days, their expeditions,
their falls into gutters and being dragged out again, their encounters
with cabmen and chauffeurs, ballet-dancers and the like, gave her
exquisite pleasure, and when she skipped out it was with the assurance
to Monsieur de Latour that she really felt herself falling in love with
him, and was afraid to stay longer for fear she should kiss him against
his will.
As she left the room a servant appeared with a message from Louis,
which was delivered with much hesitation. It was a request that
Monsieur de Latour should wait upon him in the saloon.
“Go to the devil!” was Monsieur de Latour’s response.
In a few minutes Louis appeared, and going up to the great chair where
Monsieur de Latour, as limp as a rag, lay, said to him in a voice of
stern reproof:
“My dear Victor, your conduct in Paris is known to me, and I have not
language strong enough to condemn it. What do you suppose my feelings
are, as your uncle, when I hear of these outrageous performances,
dragging the name of De Latour into the newspapers, and misconducting
yourself in general?”
Monsieur de Latour felt very ill and disinclined to exert himself, but
the tone of admonition on Louis’s part roused the old gentleman to a
pitch of great anger.
“Come, now, young man,” he bawled, “you may stop this tomfoolery.
Whatever I have done, I don’t choose to be corrected by a youngster
like yourself.”
“Remember,” replied Louis in a voice of awful warning, “I am your
uncle.”
“The devil you are! Well, uncle or no uncle, I propose to do as I like,
and if I please to have a little lark in Paris----”
“A little lark!” Louis threw his hands up.
“--in conjunction with my young friend, De Contiac, here, who, I must
say, incited me to most of the gaieties in which we indulged, I shall
do it without any reference to you or anybody else.”
At this poor Eugène raised his pallid face from his hands, in which it
had sunk, and said in a sepulchral voice:
“_I_ incited you to gaieties?”
“Well, well,” answered Monsieur de Latour testily, “it doesn’t make any
difference--we incited each other.”
“I wish I could believe you,” said Louis, “but I am sure that you
were chiefly responsible. As a result of your improper conduct, your
niece, Mademoiselle Mélanie, is in the very deepest distress, chiefly
on account of Monsieur de Contiac’s share in your performances, and
she demands an interview, a final one, with Monsieur de Contiac. She
awaits you,” continued Louis, turning to Eugène, “in the saloon with
Mademoiselle Cheri.”
Eugène tried to rise from his chair, but sank back exhausted.
“I can’t move,” he said. “I thought I would never reach the chateau
alive. I believe three days more of the racket would have killed me.”
“Then,” promptly said Louis, “Mademoiselle Mélanie and Mademoiselle
Cheri will no doubt come to you here when they know the circumstances.”
At this poor Eugène absolutely burst into tears, while Louis, ringing
the bell, directed the servant to request Mademoiselle Cheri and
Mademoiselle Mélanie to do him the favour of coming to Monsieur de
Latour’s study. While awaiting them Louis improved the occasion by
lecturing Monsieur de Latour on the impropriety of his conduct, a
proceeding which lashed Monsieur de Latour to fury.
In a few minutes Mademoiselle Cheri appeared with Mélanie. The poor
girl was dissolved in tears, and it was a pitiable sight as she sank
into a chair near Eugène, both of them weeping bitterly. Between her
sobs Mélanie could only say, “All is over between us--all is over
between us.”
“But he has two hundred and fifty thousand francs, mademoiselle,” put
in Louis, whose goodness of heart made him wish to befriend the unhappy
lovers. “Monsieur Bertoux, who secretly sympathises with you, induced
Madame de Beauregard to let him deposit the money to your credit in
bank. The old lady was so pleased with your indiscretions, monsieur,
and so confident you would never reform, that she directed Monsieur
Bertoux to do it, so you may reform and have the two hundred and fifty
thousand francs as well.”
“He will never reform,” wailed Mélanie, “and we must part. O Eugène,
how could you be guilty of such wickedness?”
For answer Eugène could only sob and point his finger at Monsieur de
Latour. The presence of Mademoiselle Cheri was peculiarly unpleasant to
Monsieur de Latour at that moment. She was entirely too outspoken, and
she proceeded on the spot to treat Monsieur de Latour to what ladies
call giving a man a piece of their minds.
“Monsieur,” she said severely, “no one can approve of your conduct in
Paris. I thought I knew the extent to which folly would lead you, but
I never dreamed of anything like your preposterous behaviour during
the past week. You have brought great distress upon your niece and
mortification upon all your friends.”
This was too much for Monsieur de Latour. It was bad enough to be
hectored over by Louis, but by Séline Cheri, a soap-boiler’s daughter!
He struggled to his feet.
“Mademoiselle,” he replied in a tone of equal severity, “I think I
understand the animus from which you speak. You have perhaps observed
that the Comtesse de Beauregard looks upon me with an eye of favour,
and you probably disapprove of it.”
“Quite so,” answered Mademoiselle Cheri frankly.
“Ah! Perhaps you recall the time, mademoiselle, when I was an aspirant
for your own hand.”
“Yes,” replied Mademoiselle Cheri, “and I will say to you, now that we
are both old enough to speak frankly, that but for the obligation I
felt to take care of my father in his declining years, I might have
married you, Victor de Latour. You were then a worthy and estimable
citizen, a good man and an excellent soap-boiler. If you had continued
as such the time might have come when both of us, remembering our early
association and feeling the need of friendship and companionship in our
old age, would have married; but it is impossible now.”
“Thank you, mademoiselle,” replied Monsieur de Latour in a rage. “The
pain of my rejection is very much mitigated by the fact that I have not
made you an offer.”
“I know it,” calmly answered Mademoiselle Cheri. “We are speaking
plainly, as plain people like ourselves do speak, and your
fine-gentleman airs sit ridiculously on you, Victor.”
This further enraged Monsieur de Latour so much that he whirled around
and plumped himself down into a chair, almost turning his back upon
Mademoiselle Cheri, who remained placid though disapproving.
A long and painful silence ensued, which became so intolerable to
Monsieur de Latour that he suddenly jumped up and rushed out of the
room and into the saloon. As he opened the door General Granier arose.
Instead of his usual gay and cordial greeting, General Granier bowed
stiffly and said:
“I am calling upon Madame de Beauregard.”
Monsieur de Latour was in no state to remember the amenities of social
life. He fell, rather than sank, into a chair, and stretching his
legs out, ran his hands through his already rumpled hair, and then,
forgetting General Granier’s presence, said to himself:
“My head is very bad, and my stomach is worse, but those ballet-girls
were pretty.”
“You appear to plume yourself,” said General Granier stiffly, “upon
your performances in Paris last week. Let me tell you, my dear sir,
they were not a patch upon what I used to do in the year ’60.”
“Oh, nonsense!” answered Monsieur de Latour. “You never had such a week
in your life as I have had.”
“Do you mean to impugn my word, monsieur?” asked General Granier,
advancing and putting his right hand into his trousers pocket, and at
the same time lifting up his right leg, which was a habit of his.
“Come, now,” said Monsieur de Latour, shying off, “I don’t like you
to lift that leg up that way at me. It’s a gun, and I know it, and it
might be loaded.”
“I always keep it loaded,” snapped General Granier, “and if you wish to
know just how effective it is, observe that flower-pot across the room.”
He whirled around on his left leg, and lifting his right one at an
angle of forty-five degrees, clicked the trigger in his pocket. The
next instant the flower-pot tumbled over, smashed into bits.
“There, now,” cried Monsieur de Latour, edging away, “I knew you were
going to do something of the kind. I think you ought to be reported to
the police for carrying that thing loaded all the time, and I am not
sure it is not my duty to report you.”
General Granier, twirling his mustache, backed out of the door.
“Monsieur de Latour,” he said, “I don’t understand at all your
language to me this morning. I shall write you and ask a categorical
explanation. Good morning!” And he disappeared.
Monsieur de Latour, lying back in his chair in much agitation, turned
over in his mind the meaning of General Granier’s remarks. But while
meditating a drowsiness overcame him. He had not slept for a week, and
in a few minutes his loud snores, which resembled the trumpeting of an
elephant, resounded through the great room.
Monsieur de Latour slept peacefully. The morning grew to high noon,
high noon to afternoon, and Monsieur de Latour had just begun to make
up the arrears of sleep he had lost in Paris. He was roused by a knock
at the door, and a footman entered with a note. Monsieur de Latour,
more asleep than awake, drowsily opened it, but at the first word he
sat bolt upright and became thoroughly alert. It was from General
Granier, and ran thus:
“MONSIEUR VICTOR LOUIS DE LATOUR:
“I demand an explanation of your language to me this morning, and
if the explanation is not forthcoming I shall insist upon that
satisfaction which one gentleman accords another. I am, sir, etc.,
“AUGUSTE GRANIER.”
“Now, what the devil does that mean?” said Monsieur de Latour, reading
the note over.
“It means,” cried Julie’s voice from behind his shoulder, “that General
Granier wants you to fight him.”
Monsieur de Latour glanced up. Julie had entered noiselessly, and
holding up her dainty skirts, was peering over his shoulder and reading
the note in his hand.
“He will be very much disappointed, then,” replied Monsieur de Latour
promptly. “I haven’t the slightest notion of fighting him or anybody
else. I am a peaceable, law-abiding citizen, and I don’t propose to
shed the blood of a fellow-citizen, or let anybody shed mine, if I can
help it. So I shall immediately write General Granier.”
“Won’t you let me write it for you?” asked Julie artlessly, apparently
in entire unconsciousness of the awful consequences which the note
might involve.
“No!” thundered Monsieur de Latour, “you have written enough notes for
me. I shall write this myself.”
Julie ran and fetched pen and ink, put them on the table, and Monsieur
de Latour drew his chair up to it and attempted to write, but it was
impossible. That week in Paris had upset his hand as much as it had his
head and his stomach. He could not form a single letter.
“There,” he cried, throwing down the pen, “you will have to write it
for me, but be sure you don’t make any mistakes.”
“I shall take the greatest care,” sweetly replied Julie.
Then she wrote, Monsieur de Latour dictating slowly:
“GENERAL AUGUSTE GRANIER,
“MONSIEUR:
“I have received your letter, which I do not comprehend in the
least; but I beg you will understand one point distinctly, and it
is this--that I will not fight you, and this resolution will hold
in any event. All arrangements between us must conform to that
understanding. In this I am acting according to my conscience. I
shall be glad to hear from you further, and meanwhile I am, etc.,
“VICTOR LOUIS DE LATOUR.”
“Now,” said Monsieur de Latour to Julie, “make me a copy of that
document and be very exact.”
“I will,” responded Julie with her usual promptness.
And with many nibblings at the end of her pen, crossings out and
interlineations, she finally succeeded in producing two fair copies of
the letter exactly alike.
“And now let me read it,” said Monsieur de Latour.
His vision was blurred, however, and his head muddled by the events of
the past week in Paris, and the letter appeared to him exactly what he
desired.
“Very well,” he said with an accent of relief, “you may send it off,
and I am going to bed. It is three o’clock, and I don’t wish to be
disturbed until ten o’clock to-morrow morning.”
Before retiring to his room, however, Monsieur de Latour had Julie
address and seal the letter to General Granier, and gave it himself to
the footman. Ten minutes afterward he was snoring peacefully in his
bedroom, every shade drawn, the room as dark as night, and he, as he
said, with the arrears of six sleepless nights to make up.
* * * * *
In another room in the chateau was poor Eugène de Contiac, but there
was no sleep for him. In addition to his mental perturbation, he
became violently ill, and had to pay dearly for the champagne and
cigars of the week in Paris. Louis de Latour, with old Suzette to
assist him, stood by and administered well-known remedies, consoling
and encouraging the unfortunate Eugène. At intervals of an hour or
two Madame de Beauregard would flounce in, cackling with rapture, and
declare to Eugène that his physical condition showed that he had spent
exactly such a week in Paris as a man should spend.
Eugène kept old Suzette trotting to Mélanie’s room, to ask how the dear
girl stood the recent developments in his conduct, and after every
inquiry old Suzette came back with a doleful tale of Mademoiselle
Mélanie weeping and wringing her hands and declaring that she and
Eugène must part forever. At this Eugène wept copiously, which very
much increased his mental and physical agony. There was no sleep for
him that night. He lay awake, groaning and sighing, and telling Louis,
as long as he would listen, that such a week in Paris was dear at any
price. Even if that price were two hundred and fifty thousand francs.
The next morning at nine o’clock Monsieur de Latour was still
slumbering peacefully when a tremendous rap was heard at his door. He
mumbled a sleepy “Come in,” and Louis entered. Monsieur de Latour had
not adopted the modern fashions in men’s attire for the night, and
still clung to a huge cambric nightgown and a nightcap with a tassel
at the top of it. It was this figure, sitting up in bed, which greeted
Louis.
“My dear Victor,” said Louis sternly, “see what further trouble you
have been getting yourself into! Here is a letter which I have just
taken the liberty of opening and reading.”
“Opening and reading my letters!” roared Monsieur de Latour.
“Certainly. After this I shall not only insist upon reading such
letters of yours as come, but those that you write as well. My dear
boy, you are not to be trusted--that is the state of the case.”
Louis, throwing open the shutters and letting in the morning sun,
handed the open letter to Monsieur de Latour to read. But again his
shaking hand and uncertain vision prevented him, and Louis had to read
the letter to him. It was from a representative of General Granier and
read thus:
“MONSIEUR VICTOR LOUIS DE LATOUR:
“I am directed by my friend, General Granier, to inform you that
he has received your letter of the twentieth of August containing
your challenge; and I beg to say that I shall be glad to meet any
appointment that you may make with a friend of yours to arrange the
details of the meeting. Believe me, sir, with sentiments of the
highest respect, Very truly yours,
“JEAN LE GALLIAN.”
“But I didn’t send him any challenge!” cried Monsieur de Latour. “Here
is an exact copy of the note I sent General Granier.”
He drew from under his pillow the fair copy which Julie had made him
and handed it to Louis, who read it aloud carefully. When he came to
the part in which Monsieur de Latour had instructed Julie to write “I
will not fight,” that young person had fallen into her usual mistake.
One word was left out, only a little word, but it was “not,” and it
made Monsieur de Latour say “I will fight you, and this resolution will
hold in any event.”
Monsieur de Latour fell back on his pillows.
“I know what she will say,” he said, with the calmness of despair;
“that ‘it was only one word, and such a little one!’ Great God!”
“There is no way out of it,” said Louis meditatively, “and besides
that, as a member of the house of De Latour you must live up to our
traditions. You must fight.”
Monsieur de Latour remained silent for a full minute.
“But I sha’n’t fight!” he announced. “I have made up my mind not to,
and I am not easily changed.”