[Illustration: _“Why were you so extravagant about bread?” asked
Marsac, very cheerfully working away at the old screen._]
THE SPRIGHTLY
ROMANCE OF
MARSAC
BY
MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL
AUTHOR OF
“CHILDREN OF DESTINY,” “A STRANGE SAD
COMEDY,” “THROCKMORTON,”
“LITTLE JARVIS,” ETC.
Illustrated by
GUSTAVE VERBEEK
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1897
_Copyright, 1896_,
BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS.
_Dramatic and all other rights
reserved._
University Press:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.
NOTE.
“The Sprightly Romance of Marsac” obtained the first prize of $3,000
for the best novelette in the _New York Herald_ competition in 1895.
List of Illustrations
PAGE
_“Why were you so extravagant about bread?” asked Marsac, very
cheerfully, working away at the old screen_ _Frontispiece_
_Madame Schmid was plainly in a rage_ 2
_Madame Schmid grew still redder in the face and shorter of breath_ 5
_It was easy enough to see who was the master mind_ 9
_Madame Fleury entered_ 17
“_Have you ever thought of marriage as a way out of your troubles?_” 25
_Marsac, advancing to Fontaine, whispered in his ear_ 37
_Marsac, taking his hand, led him to Madame Fleury_ 39
_With a few bold strokes the bull-fighter assumed the appearance of a
hale old gentleman of sixty_ 48
_He fell over on his chair with amazement and chagrin_ 50
_The two young men tore open the box_ 53
_They hugged each other and began to dance wildly_ 56
_“Don’t speak of your fiancée in that disrespectful manner,” cried
Marsac_ 65
_He opened it without a word and took out four bottles of champagne_ 67
_I saw these two poor creatures standing in front of a pastry-shop_ 68
_Marsac received them with as much kindness and respect as if they had
been banker’s daughters_ 75
_Madame Schmid made a dash for Fontaine, whom she collared and
dragged out_ 77
_“And now about the villa,” said the old brewer_ 83
_Monsieur Duval knelt down_ 89
_Monsieur Duval, closing one eye, playfully poked him in the ribs_ 93
_The door opened, admitting Fontaine and two remarkably pretty girls_ 97
_The young people talked gaily together while sipping champagne_ 100
_“A hundred and thirty thousand francs!” cried Maurepas_ 108
_Marsac turned a double handspring over the sofa_ 110
_Marsac, seizing her around the waist, began to waltz furiously_ 113
_They crept softly out of their apartment_ 115
_As it brought Delphine’s golden head quite close to Marsac’s brown one,
she consented willingly_ 121
_“Oh, Madame Fleury!” cried Marsac, actually hanging his head_ 129
_Madame Fleury pressed a handkerchief to her eyes_ 132
_Marsac could scarcely restrain a shout of joy_ 137
_Madame Fleury began eagerly searching on the ground for the letter_ 139
_“Here,” Marsac said, tearing the paper, “is half of it for you,
Fontaine, and dear Claire”_ 143
_Monsieur Duval’s victoria, with Madame Fleury in it_ 145
_Fontaine, sunk in a deep armchair, was a picture of misery_ 149
_He was a little old man clutching a rusty travelling-bag in his
trembling hands_ 151
_“Let me assist you,” said Fontaine, trying to take the old bag_ 159
_Marsac and Delphine were now left alone_ 161
_Madame Fleury stood petrified for a moment_ 175
_“The only thing for you to do now is to trust me,” said Fontaine_ 177
_In walked one of the most weazened, cadaverous little men who ever
stepped_ 180
_Madame Fleury rushed out, dragging the unhappy Fleury after her_ 188
_Marsac with his arm around Delphine’s waist_ 194
THE SPRIGHTLY
ROMANCE OF
MARSAC
The Sprightly Romance of Marsac[1]
[1] Dramatic and all other rights reserved.
[Illustration]
Chapter I
Madame Schmid, round and red, with the spotless lappets of her
washerwoman’s cap flapping angrily, was plainly in a rage; and the
three loud whacks she gave at the garret door of 17 Rue Montignal
caused two young gentlemen on the other side of the door to quake
visibly. One of them, Fontaine, ran incontinently into a closet and
hid, while Marsac, the other, after a ghastly pretence of a joke about
Madame Schmid’s whacks sounding like the three given at the Comédie
Française before the curtain goes up, stalked with dignity to a
corridor door. But, Madame Schmid bouncing in suddenly, Marsac as
suddenly whisked out of sight.
[Illustration]
Madame Schmid was of that coarse, buxom beauty common enough in her
class. She had one year been elected queen of the washer-women, in that
picturesque festival peculiar to Paris, and it had been said that fear
of her stout arm and robust tongue had some share in her election. But
she had a good heart, along with her vile temper; and as she planted
her basket viciously on the floor, and whipped out a tremendously
long bill, her quick eye took in the poverty of the surroundings, and
she was softened in spite of herself. However, as one whistles going
through a graveyard, so Madame Schmid always stormed the more when her
excellent heart prevented her from taking stronger measures.
The room was excessively shabby. A moth-eaten sofa, and a large but
rickety table, covered with newspapers and the implements of the
journalist’s trade, were the principal articles of furniture. The light
of a gray day shone dully in at the curtainless windows. A number of
pipes, together with a cracked mirror, ornamented the mantel, while
scattered about the room were a violin and case, an easel, and painting
materials.
Madame Schmid belonged to that large class of persons who believe that
a man who engages in any form of art is necessarily a loafer. The sight
of the painter’s tools, the violin, and especially the abundance of
pens, ink, and paper, acted on her like a red rag on a bull, and gave
her the excuse she wanted to raise a tempest. First, she exclaimed
scornfully,--
“Painters!”
Next, more scornfully still,--
“Fiddlers!”
And last, with a concentration of contempt that would have made her
fortune at any theatre in Paris,--
“Journalists!”
Then she began to bawl, in a voice like an auctioneer,--
“M’sieu Marsac! M’sieu Fontaine! Oh, I know you are somewhere about!
This is an old dodge, running away when I come with my bill! You owe
me, both of you, for seven weeks’ washing. Seven weeks have I rubbed
and scrubbed for you, and I have not seen the colour of my money yet!”
Madame Schmid stopped for a moment to take breath, and then, noticing
the door leading into the corridor, darted to it and began to tug
vigorously at the knob. But Marsac, who was holding it on the other
side, was Madame Schmid’s superior in muscle, though not in weight, and
the door resisted successfully. She then marched over to the closet
door; but Fontaine followed Marsac’s tactics, and Madame Schmid grew
still redder in the face and shorter of breath, with no better luck
than at the corridor door.
[Illustration]
At that moment a very well-dressed little man entered the room, after
an almost imperceptible knock, and, unrolling a bill about a yard long,
began,--
“Gentlemen, I have a little bill here--” and then, raising his eyes, he
said in a surprised voice, “Why, there aren’t any gentlemen here!”
“Not if gentlemen pay their bills, Monsieur Landais,” answered Madame
Schmid, sarcastically, who recognised an old acquaintance in Monsieur
Landais. Madame Schmid had had a good, obedient Alsatian husband, whom
she had talked to death some years before, and Landais and the late
lamented Schmid were from the same town.
Landais silently held out his bill, and Madame Schmid flourished hers
in his face, with an air as if Landais owed the money instead of Marsac
and Fontaine.
“Journalists are a bad lot, I can tell you,” rapidly began Madame
Schmid, who liked to have the first as well as the last word, “and a
lazy lot too. While you and I work for our living with our arms and our
legs, Monsieur Marsac and that pretty boy Fontaine do nothing but sit
in an easy-chair and write all day long. And they call that work!”
“I only wish I could sit in an easy-chair and amuse myself with a pen
all day, instead of toiling over a cutting-board,” answered the tailor,
ruefully.
“Painting and fiddling when they are not scribbling,--no wonder they
can’t pay their wash-bills. I dare say they think washing is an elegant
amusement. I’m sure I don’t know how I’ll ever get my money. Writing
them letters is a sinful waste of paper and ink.”
“And calling to see them is a sinful waste of time. That Marsac always
makes me laugh in spite of myself. The last time I saw him I put on
a very determined air,” here little Landais assumed a fierce look,
“and asked him why my bill had not been paid. He told me that he and
Monsieur Fontaine threw all their bills into a basket, and every six
months they drew one out at random and paid that bill,--and it so
happened they had never drawn my bill! It was a wretched joke, but it
made me laugh; and I assure you, the first thing I knew I was asking
the fellow if he and his chum wanted anything in the tailoring line!”
“And he chucks me under the chin, and tells me I’m so young and
handsome I’ll be getting married again; and then, like you, I turn
fool and laugh, and _pouf!_ goes my bill,” moaned Madame Schmid,
wagging her head dolefully, while Landais shook his like a Chinese
mandarin.
“Then,” said Landais, wearily, “what are we climbing up all these
stairs for?”
“God knows,” answered Madame Schmid. “But I have no more time to waste
on them, so I’ll leave my bill and go.”
“So will I,” said Landais; and they laid their bills on the rickety
table and went out, Madame Schmid clacking angrily all the way
downstairs.
The minute they disappeared, Fontaine slipped out of his closet, and
locked the door after them. He was a handsome, fair-haired fellow of
five-and-twenty, with the most winning air in the world; but it was
plain at the first glance that, with all his grace and intelligence, he
was a man to be led by his affections.
“I wish there was a drawbridge outside this door,” he muttered,
and then began to rummage about the room. “I wonder where Marsac’s
purse is,” he continued to himself. “Ah, here it is,--and only two
francs five centimes in it; and the shoemaker wants three francs for
half-soling Marsac’s shoes!” And then he began to call for Marsac,
meanwhile going through the empty form of searching through his own
pockets. In a moment Marsac entered the room.
[Illustration]
It was easy enough to see who was the master mind there. Marsac was
not so regularly handsome as Fontaine, but his dark bright eyes and
captivating smile seemed to radiate brilliance all round him. After
the first moment of seeing these two young men together, it was not
necessary to explain their relations to each other. Fontaine could not
look at Marsac without an almost feminine expression of fondness and
tender reliance coming into his eyes; and at the bottom of his heart he
thought Marsac the most brilliant, capable, and lovable of men. Marsac,
on his part, could not look or speak to Fontaine without showing the
affection of an elder for a younger brother.
They had been schoolmates, ten years before, at a provincial college.
From the first moment of their meeting, they loved each other. Fontaine
was of the best blood of the province; but he had neither father nor
mother nor brother nor sister nor any near relative living. His was
one of those hearts which must love something, and he could not help
loving Marsac,--a tall, lithe boy, older than he, and quite able to
fight Fontaine’s battles as well as his own. Marsac, like Fontaine,
was fatherless and motherless. He was educated from a fund for the
sons of poor gentlemen, which the recipient was expected to return when
he was able. After taking all the honours in his classes, and being
graduated with the highest distinction, Marsac went to Paris along
with Fontaine, both to seek their fortunes in journalism. They soon
got work, but they made precious little money. Marsac, inspired with
but one idea, sent every franc he made back to the fund, and repaid
the sum advanced in an astonishingly short time. But it was at the
cost of getting into debt on all sides. Neither he nor his chum had
that commercial knack, that intimate knowledge of the purchasing power
of a franc, which comes naturally to young men whose lives have been
spent in a large city. Marsac was of a buoyant temper, and constantly
expected something to turn up which would relieve them of all their
embarrassments. Meanwhile, confident of the honesty of his intentions,
he met his debts, duns, and difficulties with an incomparable archness
and good-humour.
When Fontaine asked him for a franc for the shoes, his reply was,--
“A franc! Do you think I have a complete counterfeiting apparatus, that
I can produce such a sum as a franc at a moment’s notice?”
“Then,” said Fontaine, ruefully, who would willingly have given his
only pair of shoes to Marsac would he accept them, “I don’t know what I
am to do. The shoemaker said three francs or no shoes, and I have only
two francs five centimes. You have already spent enough on them to have
bought a new pair,--new vamps in December, new uppers in January, and
now in February new soles.”
“Go along with you!” cried Marsac. “Tell the shoemaker I have a bad
case of confluent small-pox, and I dare say he will be glad to let you
have the shoes for nothing. But give me that paste-pot. Our friends
Madame Schmid and Monsieur Landais have left us souvenirs which I
can put to use.” And he began deftly cutting the bills, which were on
stout paper, into square pieces to mend the screen with, which, like
everything else in the room, had holes in it.
“I am afraid the small-pox story won’t be a--judicious subterfuge,” was
Fontaine’s reply.
“What did you do with the eleven francs we had yesterday?”
“I bought four bottles of wine, a box of cigars, and two loaves of
bread with it.”
“Why were you so extravagant about bread?” asked Marsac, very
cheerfully working away at the old screen. “If you squander our
substance on luxuries like bread, we sha’n’t have anything left for
necessaries like wine and cigars. The fact is,” he continued, “when a
man enters journalism, he ought to have an education suitable to the
profession. Instead of going to the University, I should have been
taught the shoemaking and tailoring trades. How often have I heard
that no learning comes amiss in journalism! Now, if I had the most
rudimentary knowledge of cobbling, I could have mended those shoes
myself.”
“At all events,” said Fontaine, brushing his hat, “I am rather glad to
be out of the way now; for this is the very day and hour that Madame
Fleury always appears to ask for the rent.”
“There!” cried Marsac, for the first time showing impatience, “I have
been trying for two weeks to forget what day the rent is due, and had
just succeeded when you reminded me of it. I would rather see Joan of
Arc coming at me full tilt on horseback, or Charlotte Corday with her
dagger, than Madame Fleury with her bill.”
“I have heard it said that it is possible to live comfortably on a
large capital of debts, but we have not found it so,” said Fontaine,
still brushing his hat, which, however, not all the brushing in the
world could benefit.
“But the debts must be on a respectable scale,” answered Marsac,
“something like seventy or eighty thousand francs. I don’t believe,
though, that everything we owe would mount up to ten thousand francs.
I felt so humiliated the other day when one of the young fellows on
the staff--a mere reporter, while I am an editorial writer--boasted of
owing his tailor alone as much as we owe altogether. I could not help
translating hundreds into thousands, and said I owed my tailor nearly
seven thousand francs, when it is not quite seven hundred. But I saw
that the youngster respected me more from that moment, and Maurepas,
the editor-in-chief, asked me to breakfast the very next day. I was
obliged to decline on account of these infernal shoes; but I said it
was because I was sent for by the Minister of Public Instruction.”
“Marsac,” said Fontaine, after a pause, “how can you be so cheerful in
the midst of our difficulties?”
“Have you not heard, my little man, that the laughing philosopher
attained the goal of all wisdom, while the weeping philosopher stood
whimpering at the starting-post? Does a long face pay a bill? Or a sour
temper? Depend upon it, Fortune looks for the smiling faces; and so I
try to keep mine ready to welcome her.”
Fontaine went out then, and Marsac, having finished the screen, took
off his coat, and with a needle and thread began sewing awkwardly on
it, whistling like a bird meanwhile. In the midst of it came a knock at
the door,--not a whack like Madame Schmid’s, nor a tap like Landais’s,
but a knock, delicate yet firm, polite but peremptory. Marsac turned
pale. Nevertheless he hustled on his coat, and opened the door with
his best air,--which was a very fine air, indeed,--and his landlady,
Madame Fleury, entered.
Madame Fleury was a handsome woman of about five-and-thirty, with fine
dark eyes, and a carriage full of grace and dignity; and, moreover, she
exhibited a self-poise and self-possession which a prime minister might
have envied. She was very simply dressed, as became the morning; but
the simplicity was of the kind that costs. Marsac courteously placed a
chair for her.
[Illustration]
“I am glad to find you at home, Monsieur Marsac,” were Madame Fleury’s
first words after the politest greetings had been exchanged. “I had not
seen you go in or out for a day or two, and thought perhaps you were
ill.”
“A trifle, a mere trifle,” answered Marsac, with much readiness; “a
little dinner at a ministerial house,--those fellows give one such
lots of champagne,--and I inherit gout, and it gave me a touch; so pray
excuse my slippers. As soon as Fontaine returns, I shall put on my
shoes and go for a little walk.” Then, seeing Madame Fleury’s handsome
face assume its “business expression,” he hastened to add: “How
wonderfully well you are looking! You are blooming like a rose.”
“Thank you,” answered Madame Fleury, calmly. “In a house like this,
there are certain lodgers whom I am compelled to call on occasionally,
in the way of business.”
“Do you know, Madame,” continued Marsac, who had not ceased to examine
Madame Fleury’s features as if she were a beautiful portrait or a
statue which he had never set eyes on before, “there is a picture
in the Salon this year that might be taken for you? It is called
‘Springtime,’--a young girl standing under an almond-tree in bloom.
The girl’s face--so fresh, so lovely--is simply yours.”
Madame Fleury’s discouraging reply to this was, “Business is business,
Monsieur Marsac, and must be attended to.”
Marsac kept on as if he had not heard a word. “I can’t, for the life of
me, recall the artist’s name; but I remarked aloud, ‘Madame Fleury must
have sat for this charming face;’ and a very distinguished-looking man
who stood next me said in English, ‘Then I would give a thousand pounds
to know Madame Fleury!’”
“I wish you had accepted his offer,” responded Madame Fleury, in a tone
that would have disconcerted a Talleyrand, “for never in my life would
a thousand pounds or even a thousand francs be more acceptable.”
Marsac, however, not at all abashed, exclaimed enthusiastically: “Then,
all you have to do is to offer to pose for a nymph or a goddess.
Bouguereau and all those high-priced fellows will simply be tumbling
over one another in their eagerness to paint you.”
“Monsieur Marsac,” said Madame Fleury, in a tone of velvet softness
which Marsac perfectly understood and shuddered to hear, “I am talking
business.”
“And I am talking art,” replied poor Marsac.
“If you will kindly recall the date,” continued Madame Fleury.
Marsac, taking up an almanac, began turning the leaves. “This is the
20th of February,” he mused. “Let me see--what happened on the 20th of
February? Ah, I have it! It is your twenty-fifth birthday, and you have
come to receive our felicitations.”
“Nonsense, Monsieur Marsac!” replied Madame Fleury, with the same tone
of deadly sweetness. “It is the day your rent is due; and I have come
to see if you are prepared to pay it, and also the arrears of two
months you still owe.”
Marsac merely shook his head, and for several minutes there was
unbroken silence in the room, each meanwhile closely attentive to the
other. At last Madame Fleury spoke.
“It seems to me that two young men with your talents and
character,--for I have found you both to have good characters, except
for this rent business,--and of good families, should be able to make a
better living out of journalism than you do.”
“Ah, Madame,” answered Marsac, sorrowfully, “modern journalism has but
one essential,--it requires a man to be an accomplished, ready, and
felicitous liar; and neither of us is that.”
“Then why don’t you--ahem!--try to acquire that one essential?”
“Transcendent liars, Madame Fleury, like poets, are born, not made.
And then there is a great deal in being notorious. Fontaine and I
have done everything short of felony, to bring ourselves before the
public; but we have failed. We have tried to drown ourselves in the
Seine,--with life-preservers on, of course; but the police found the
life-preservers on us, and instead of making us favourably known,
humph!--we were glad enough to hush up the affair. We have brought the
most horrible charges against each other in print, but nobody appeared
at all surprised at them; and the public, by its indifference, seemed
to take it for granted that the worst was true. The only newspaper
which took the trouble to investigate it sent a reporter here; and as
ill-luck would have it, the fellow caught us waltzing in each other’s
arms for joy because we had just got a dinner invitation,--and we
had not had anything that could be called a dinner for three weeks.
Our circumstances are indeed desperate. Yesterday we had some money,
and Fontaine bought two loaves of bread. I reproached him for his
extravagance in buying so much bread.”
With these words Marsac managed to cover dexterously a box of cigars on
the table, which Madame Fleury had not noticed.
“That is, indeed, poverty,” said Madame Fleury, with some feeling; and
Marsac, seeing she was a little touched, continued eagerly,--
“We have tried everything. I sent a play to a manager, and the only
notice he has taken of it has been to write me that he didn’t believe
it would draw. Of course it won’t draw, shut up in the manager’s strong
box. I never expected it to draw until it was produced. I sent it
under the name of Fontaine, as being more aristocratic than Marsac.
Fontaine, you know, has graveyards full of noble ancestors, while I,
like Napoleon, am the first of my family. Then I sent a picture, called
‘A Rough Sea,’ to the Salon, also under the name of Fontaine. One of
the judges said the thing made the whole committee ill,--it was so
realistic, I presume,--and yet they rejected it.”
Madame Fleury’s eyes softened, and with a glint of a “widow’s smile”
upon her handsome mouth, she said gently, after a moment, “Have
you--has either one of you--ever thought of--ahem!--marriage, as a way
out of your troubles?”
“Often,” answered Marsac, promptly,--“that is, for Fontaine. He was to
be the victim,--the Iphigenia, so to speak. As for myself, there are
two things I dread,--death and marriage. I must die, but I need not
marry. I have sworn I will never be taken alive.”
Madame Fleury blushed, smiled, and murmured, “More men marry than
don’t. Most of them marry without a qualm.”
“True,” answered Marsac, gravely; “and there are men who will pick up
a poisonous snake and dangle it in the air. But I am not one of them. I
have no taste for dangling poisonous snakes. I am afraid of them.”
[Illustration]
“And how stands Monsieur Fontaine on this subject?”
“He is brave to rashness. I believe him fully capable of marrying. In
fact, Fontaine seems to have a _penchant_ for Mademoiselle Claire
Duval, daughter of Duval the rich old brewer.”
“There is a niece--Mademoiselle Delphine Duval--who has just gone to
live with them,” said Madame Fleury, who liked to show her knowledge of
the acquaintances of the two young men.
“I had not heard of that. The truth is, since we pawned our evening
clothes we have not seen anything of the Duvals. However, as Fontaine
could not marry Claire until he paid his debts, and he could not pay
his debts until he married Claire, the matter seems to have settled
itself.”
Madame Fleury assumed a striking attitude in her chair, and then
began to speak, with an insinuating softness in every word and glance
and motion: “You have told me much about you and your friend; now I
will tell you something about myself, and it may result in--in--an
arrangement mutually advantageous.” Her voice sank to a mere whisper.
“As you know, I am a widow.”
“Certainly,” replied Marsac. “I knew it the very first moment I saw
you: you had such a cheerful air.”
“I have every reason to look cheerful. The late Monsieur Fleury was
nothing but a trouble to me, from the hour I married him until the day
the news was brought me that his body had been found in the river.”
“Gracious powers!” cried Marsac, in astonishment; “was not the late
Monsieur Fleury an angel?”
“No,” answered Madame Fleury; “and I don’t believe he is an angel now,
either.”
“Strange, strange!” murmured Marsac. “A departed husband not an angel!
This is a phenomenon. Allow me to make a note of it;” and taking out a
note-book, he gravely made a memorandum.
“A husband, Monsieur Marsac, is very like a lobster salad. When it is
good, it is very good, and when it is bad it is intolerable. Monsieur
Fleury was very bad. At last he sank so low that he became janitor in a
medical school. He was accused one day of stealing some valuable books
and instruments, and soon after his body was found in the Seine. It is
supposed he committed suicide, knowing himself to be guilty. I did not
see the body, and tried to avoid all associations with the affair; but,
do what I could, it became known that he had once been my husband. I
find the name of a man so unpleasantly notorious very inconvenient to
bear, and I should like to change it.”
Marsac, after listening intently to this, buried his ears in his hands
and appeared to be thinking profoundly for some minutes. “I should
think, Madame,” he said, after this pause of reflection, “that could be
accomplished. The authorities on application will permit you to change
your name.”
Something like contempt appeared in Madame Fleury’s dark eyes, and she
responded coldly, “I should also like the protection which the name of
some respectable man would give me.”
A pause, longer and more awkward, ensued. It seemed to Marsac as if he
actually felt the temperature in the room falling ten degrees every
second. For once, language failed him; and he heard himself saying, in
a quavering voice and almost without his own volition,--
“Would that I were a respectable man!”
Madame Fleury turned her dark eyes on him and drew nearer. Her
breathing quickened, and a faint pink rose in her smooth cheek, and she
said in a laughing voice, which also trembled a little,--
“You are quite respectable enough for me.”
Proposals of marriage are always embarrassing, and none the less so
when, as the Breton peasants say, “the haystack chases the cow.”
Marsac felt himself suddenly grow hot, and as suddenly grow cold. He
sat quite near Madame Fleury, her half-laughing and brightly burning
eyes fixed on him. Every detail of her elegant and correct morning
costume, her well-shod feet, her handsome figure, was abnormally
present to him. But he found it impossible to raise his eyes to her
face. The only clear idea in his mind was a frantic fury towards
the women of the present day, who, he foresaw, would make these bad
quarters of an hour, such as he was undergoing, common enough to men in
the future.
As for Madame Fleury, Marsac’s embarrassment was not lost on her; and
although a new woman, she was still a woman, and womanly pride impelled
her to control the slight tremor of her nerves, and say in a voice,
studiedly cold, “It is a mere matter of business and of convenience
with me.”
This gave Marsac, as he thought, a loophole of escape, and he said
hurriedly, “I, Madame, in my innocence, have regarded marriage as a
matter of sentiment.”
Imagine his chagrin, though, when Madame Fleury, smiling and blushing
like a girl, replied, “Well, Monsieur Marsac, if you will have it so--”
Marsac saw in a moment the pit he had dug for himself, but he preferred
to play the part of a poltroon to stepping into it. He turned and
fidgeted in his chair; he looked out of the window, down at the street,
hoping to see Fontaine returning, and every moment the situation grew
more appalling. Presently he managed to say,--
“Until he is forty, a man is too young to marry; and after he is forty,
he is too old.”
Madame Fleury surveyed him all over, with a cool contempt which seemed
to leave blisters on his body. Then a brilliant idea came to him. He
glanced at Madame Fleury, and saw as well as felt the rage rising in
her heart against him. He tried to speak calmly and naturally, but his
words were jerked out of him with stammering and stuttering,--
“You are very, very g-g-good, Madame; and I feel more pleased--no, no,
I mean honoured--than I can explain--express, that is. But you know how
Fontaine and I have lived together since our boyhood. We have nobody
but each other; we have shared everything as brothers. Now, d-d-do you
think it quite fair that I should, like a pig, accept this dazzling
offer without giving Fontaine a chance?”
It was blunderingly enough spoken, but it served. Marsac saw, in a
moment, that Madame Fleury would much rather after that have killed him
than married him; and when she spoke, her cold dignity made him feel
like a mouse under an exhausted air-receiver.
“I don’t know but that you are right, after all, and Monsieur Fontaine
is really the superior man, and consequently better suited to me.”
The door at that moment flew wide open, and Fontaine rushed in,--his
coat a mass of mud and rags, and his trousers slit from the knee to
the hip; and he did not have Marsac’s shoes. Without observing Madame
Fleury, who sat a little to one side, he burst out,--
“It’s no good, Marsac; the shoemaker said three francs or no shoes.”
Then seeing Madame Fleury, he stopped, overwhelmed with embarrassment.
Not so the lady, who quietly remarked to Marsac,--
“This accounts for the story of the cabinet dinner, and the gout, and
so on;” and she added, with an air of the finest sarcasm, “I see no
earthly reason why you, Monsieur Marsac, should not succeed brilliantly
in journalism.”
Marsac was quite disposed to let Fontaine take his part of the
situation then, and said not a word; but Fontaine exclaimed,--
“I know what you have come for, Madame Fleury. It is the rent.”
“Then you show very superior intelligence to Monsieur Marsac, as I had
the greatest difficulty in making him understand what I came for,”
responded Madame Fleury.
“I am awfully sorry,” kept on Fontaine, “but we haven’t a sou except
this,”--holding out two francs,--“and I had an accident on the way, and
ruined my only coat and trousers, and Marsac has no shoes, and I don’t
know what we shall do.” Fontaine stopped, half crying.
“I can suggest something,” said Madame Fleury, showing an amazing
calmness. “Not to go over the same ground twice, I have determined to
change my name and condition; and--” Here she paused for effect, and
Marsac came unexpectedly to her assistance.
“Fontaine,” said he, solemnly, “I have been a true friend to you. As
soon as Madame Fleury mentioned this, I offered her your hand.”
Fontaine looked at Marsac, supposing either he himself or his friend
had gone crazy; but Marsac’s cool demeanour proved that he at least was
sane. Fontaine, with his mouth open, but dumb with astonishment, gazed
first at Marsac and then at Madame Fleury.
“He is speechless with happiness,” cried Marsac. “I knew he would be
delighted. You see, marrying runs in Fontaine’s family. His father and
mother were married, and his grandparents on both sides were married;
and even his great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers were married.
Isn’t that so, Fontaine?”
Fontaine, still dazed, mumbled, “I don’t know.”
“Fie, you bad man!” replied Marsac, laughing. “Pray, Madame Fleury,
don’t believe that. I know what I am talking about, and I assure you
that all these people in Fontaine’s family were married.”
Madame Fleury then rose majestically. “Gentlemen, this matter must be
settled at once. You have your choice,--a marriage, or an eviction
within twenty-four hours, and all the arrears of rent paid.”
Fontaine, who was gradually returning to his senses, said, “But,
Madame, it is impossible. Marsac has no shoes; I have no clothes--”
“If you do not choose to accept my proposition, Monsieur Fontaine,”
coolly interrupted Madame Fleury, “you will be put into the street
within twenty-four hours; and when you reach the street, you will be
arrested for non-payment of rent.”
“And if I go into the street without any coat or trousers, I shall
certainly be arrested,” answered Fontaine, desperately.
Madame Fleury shook her head, as if the whole affair were nothing to
her.
[Illustration]
Marsac, advancing to Fontaine, whispered in his ear, “Promise her.
Promising isn’t marrying, you know. You promise her.”
“No, _you_ do it.”
“I can’t. She won’t have me. You do it. I have known several men who
have escaped with their lives from widows.”
Fontaine, thus urged by Marsac, whom he had never resisted in his
life, looked helplessly from his friend to his landlady, and from his
landlady back to his friend. After all, promising was not marrying, and
it was worth a good deal to get her out of the room.
Madame Fleury brought matters to a crisis by asking, smiling, “Which
shall it be, gentlemen,--an engagement or an eviction?”
Fontaine could not bring himself to say the word, but he submitted
silently when Marsac, taking his hand, led him to Madame Fleury, and
placing their hands together said, with something dangerously near a
wink,--
“Take the lovely hand held out to you. Quaff the cup of happiness
held to your lips. Madame Fleury, you will exchange for your present
name one of the most distinguished names among the great families
of France,”--which was true enough as far as Fontaine’s name was
concerned.
[Illustration]
Madame Fleury, whose principle it was to get through quickly with an
awkward business, asked Marsac to sit down and write out a little
agreement, to be signed by Fontaine and herself. “And it might be as
well,” she added, “to name the date of the fulfilment of this promise.
Let me see,--this is the 20th of February.”
She paused and reflected. Marsac, who had seated himself at the table,
reflected too; and then after a moment he said,--
“The 31st of April.”
“There is no 31st of April,” replied Madame Fleury.
“The first of April would seem appropriate,” kept on Marsac, very
gravely.
“Don’t trouble yourself to be sarcastic, Monsieur Marsac,” replied
Madame Fleury, with cutting emphasis. “It would do admirably if I were
marrying you, but otherwise, not.”
“The twenty-ninth of February, then.”
“This is not leap year.”
“Oh, I thought it was.”
Madame Fleury did not condescend to notice this fling; and Marsac,
writing very slowly, proceeded to draw up an informal agreement to
marry, between Marie Fleury and Auguste Fontaine.
Fontaine had dropped limp upon a chair, and sat with his head buried
in his arms, the picture of misery. But awkward and humiliating as it
was, he had not the smallest doubt that Marsac, whom he thought capable
of meeting any emergency, would eventually get him out of the scrape.
When Madame Fleury had signed the paper, Marsac called Fontaine, who
remained motionless, without lifting his head.
“That’s his way of showing he is pleased,” explained Marsac in the most
serious manner. “I told you he would be delighted, and I know at this
moment he is revelling in rapture; only he has rather a singular manner
of showing it.”
“He has, indeed,” said Madame Fleury; “but I am vain enough to think
that it is merely the suddenness of the affair which has somewhat
disconcerted him.”
Fontaine, almost dragged out of his chair by Marsac, sullenly signed
the paper; and after taking possession of it, and recommending him to
act in good faith with her, Madame Fleury departed, with the air of a
person who has made a successful stroke of business.
As soon as she was gone, Fontaine with a loud groan threw himself on
the sofa. Even Marsac began to be somewhat frightened at the turn of
affairs. He thought it not unlikely that the prospect of marrying a
handsome young man far above her in social position might be really in
Madame Fleury’s mind. But he would not mention his fears to Fontaine;
and as soon as Madame Fleury was safely out of hearing, Marsac
contrived to raise a burst of rather hollow and hysterical laughter.
“To think she should imagine that she could trap us in any such way as
that! Ha! ha!”
Fontaine’s reply, from the depths of the sofa, was something between
a groan and a howl, and he moaned, “You know, Marsac, I love Claire
Duval; and this devilish Madame Fleury has my written promise--”
“A bagatelle!” cried Marsac, still keeping up the pretence of laughter.
“Do you suppose I would have let you get into such a trap if I could
not have got you out?”
This gave some comfort to Fontaine, who had sublime faith in Marsac’s
powers as well as his friendship. But in spite of all his efforts,
Marsac pretty soon had to give up the hilarious view of the situation.
Fontaine lay on the sofa, groaning, kicking, and occasionally sighing
out the name of Claire Duval. Marsac looked out of the window at a
prospect made up chiefly of chimney-pots and a fine small rain that
began to fall, and for the first time realised their truly desperate
situation. After half an hour of silence on his part, and complainings
on Fontaine’s, a shadow of his old spirit came back to Marsac.
“If one of us only had a rich relation we could murder! But I don’t
believe any two fellows in the world have so few near relations as we.”
Fontaine by this time was sitting up on the sofa, his head in his
hands. Presently he said, with gloomy indifference,--
“I had an uncle, an American,--Uncle Maurice,--who has not been
in France for twenty-five years; and the last we heard of him, he
was living on fifteen cents a day in New York. Then we heard in a
roundabout way that he was dead; but he had nothing to leave anybody.”
“Very likely,” sighed Marsac. “An American and his money are soon
parted.”
The next moment, Fontaine believed that the last and greatest of
misfortunes had befallen his friend; for Marsac, leaping up, began to
charge about the room, shouting at the top of his lungs.
“Hurrah! Hurrah! Your Uncle Maurice has died, and has left you a
fortune! Huzza! What a glorious idea! Huzza for Uncle Maurice!”
Fontaine, stunned at first, went up to Marsac, who was capering wildly
about, and in a voice tremulous with apprehension, and himself deadly
pale, said, “My dear, kind Marsac, be quiet, pray. You have taken our
misfortunes too much to heart, and they have unbalanced you. Sit down
awhile; I have some money,”--the poor lad had not a sou but the two
francs,--“quite enough for several days.”
It was piteous to see his weak pretences. He rattled the two francs
in his pocket and tried to smile. Marsac, seeing the dreadful thought
in Fontaine’s mind, stopped his whooping, and seizing Fontaine in his
arms, cried out,--
“You honest little simpleton! Of course Uncle Maurice hasn’t just
died and left you a fortune; but let the world think so, and see if
our fortunes are not made! How would a paragraph like this sound in
the papers: ‘We are happy to announce that Monsieur Auguste Fontaine,
the brilliant young journalist, has inherited a fortune of’--let me
see, it’s as easy to give you two million francs as one million--‘from
his lately deceased uncle, Monsieur Maurice Fontaine of New York,
the celebrated’--wine-importer, I should say; that’s a good decent
business. I can work the paragraph up more; tell about your Uncle
Maurice going against the traditions of his family in entering trade,
and all that sort of thing. Trust me to get it up!”
Fontaine was so delighted at finding Marsac was not crazy after all,
that he could do nothing but hug him and say, “Marsac, I was so
frightened when you began to talk so; and you may kill all my uncles
and aunts, if you can find any to kill. But will--will this dazzling
story be believed about Uncle What’s-his-name?”
“My dear fellow,” replied Marsac, in high good-humour, “don’t you know
there is a large section of the human race that goes about actually
begging to be humbugged? Did you ever know a wildly improbable
story started yet that wasn’t readily believed? And the more it is
contradicted, the more it is believed. At any rate, it can’t do us any
harm; nothing can harm us in our present straits.”
“Well, if people should believe in Uncle Maurice,” began Fontaine,
anxiously; but Marsac cut him short.
“Believe in Uncle Maurice! Why, I believe in him, and I created him
myself,--that is, _our_ Uncle Maurice. Dear kind old chap! I feel as if
I had just shaken hands with him.”
“But,” persisted Fontaine, “if Madame Fleury should believe in him and
the fortune, wouldn’t it be that much more difficult for me to escape
from her?”
[Illustration]
“We should be in that much better condition to fight her. No, my boy,
don’t refuse a fortune of two million francs even on paper. Why,”
continued Marsac, producing from a corner his palette, brushes, and
an unfinished portrait of a Spanish bull-fighter, “look! I will make
you a portrait of Uncle Maurice;” and with a few bold strokes the
bull-fighter assumed the appearance of a hale old gentleman of sixty,
in a black coat and a white tie. “But there is no time to lose,”
cried he, throwing down his palette and brushes. “It ought to be in
the afternoon papers. There is the clock on the church-tower striking
eleven,--I shall have time yet before they go to press. Give me your
shoes--” Fontaine kicked them off, and Marsac put them on. “And your
hat is better than mine--” Fontaine ran and fetched the hat. “Let me
see; the paragraph ought to be written out.” Marsac seated himself at
the table, and Fontaine hung over him, while he rapidly wrote half
a page, and then, rising and going out, cried: “Keep up your heart,
old boy! You are not married yet; you are a long way off from being
Monsieur Fleury!”
Left alone, Fontaine remained silent and overwhelmed at the various and
startling incidents which had befallen him that morning. “How little
one knows,” he thought, “what an hour may bring forth! It is now eleven
o’clock: since ten o’clock, I have become engaged to be married; I have
found a long-lost uncle; he has died, and left me two million francs.”
A slight sound caused him to raise his head, and he saw a letter pushed
under the door. He ran forward and opened it, and then literally fell
over on his chair with amazement and chagrin. The letter ran,--
MY DEAR NEPHEW AUGUSTE,--The report which reached my family that I was
dead was erroneous. I am very much alive, and think of soon revisiting
my native land. I have had a hard struggle, and I may not meet with
a very flattering reception from my family, of whom you are my only
really near relative; but I feel quite able to take care of myself. I
may appear at any moment; and, until we meet, I am
Your affectionate uncle,
MAURICE FONTAINE.
Fontaine rallied enough to run to the window to call Marsac back. But
it was too late. Marsac, with the slip of white paper in his hand, was
just turning the corner.
[Illustration]