“My child, you’re always welcome,” said Eustache Poupin, taking
Hyacinth’s hand in both his own and holding it for some moments. An
impression had come to our young man, immediately, that they were
talking about him before he appeared and that they would rather have
been left to talk at their ease. He even thought he saw in Poupin’s
face the kind of consciousness that comes from detection, or at
least interruption, in a nefarious act. With Poupin, however, it was
difficult to tell; he always looked so heated and exalted, so like
a conspirator defying the approach of justice. Hyacinth took in the
others: they were standing as if they had shuffled something on the
table out of sight, as if they had been engaged in the manufacture
of counterfeit coin. Poupin kept hold of his hand; the Frenchman’s
ardent eyes, fixed, unwinking, always expressive of the greatness of
the occasion, whatever the occasion was, had never seemed to him to
protrude so far from the head. “Ah my dear friend, _nous causions
justement de vous_,” Eustache remarked as if this were a very
extraordinary fact.
“Oh _nous causions, nous causions_——!” his wife exclaimed as if to
deprecate a loose overstatement. “One may mention a friend, I suppose,
in the way of conversation, without taking such a liberty.”
“A cat may look at a king, as your English proverb says,” added
Schinkel jocosely. He smiled so hard at his own pleasantry that his
eyes closed up and vanished—an effect which Hyacinth, who had observed
it before, thought particularly unbecoming to him, appearing as it
did to administer the last perfection to his ugliness. He would have
consulted his facial interests by cultivating blankness.
“Oh a king, a king——!” Poupin demurred, shaking his head up and down.
“That’s what it’s not good to be, _au point où nous en sommes_.”
“I just came in to wish you good-night,” said Hyacinth. “I’m afraid
it’s rather late for a call, though Schinkel doesn’t seem to think so.”
“It’s always too late, _mon très-cher_, when you come,” the Frenchman
returned. “You know if you’ve a place at our fireside.”
“I esteem it too much to disturb it,” said Hyacinth, smiling and
looking round at the three.
“We can easily sit down again; we’re a comfortable party. Put yourself
beside me.” And the Frenchman drew a chair close to the one, at the
table, that he had just quitted.
“He has had a long walk, he’s tired—he’ll certainly accept a little
glass,” Madame Poupin pronounced with decision as she moved toward the
tray containing the small gilded service of liqueurs.
“We’ll each accept one, _ma bonne_; it’s a very good occasion for a
drop of _fine_,” her husband interposed while Hyacinth seated himself
in the chair marked by his host. Schinkel resumed his place, which
was opposite; he looked across at the new visitor without speaking,
but his long face continued to flatten itself into a representation
of mirth. He had on a green coat which Hyacinth had seen before; this
was a garment of ceremony, such as our young man judged it would have
been impossible to procure in London or in any modern time. It was
eminently German and of high antiquity, and had a tall, stiff, clumsy
collar which came up to the wearer’s ears and almost concealed his
perpetual bandage. When Hyacinth had sat down Eustache Poupin remained
out of his own chair and stood beside him resting a hand on his head.
At this touch something came over Hyacinth that brought his heart into
his throat. The possibility that occurred to him, conveyed in Poupin’s
whole manner as well as in the reassuring intention of his caress
and in his wife’s instant, uneasy offer of refreshment, explained the
confusion of the circle and reminded our hero of the engagement he had
taken with himself to live up to a grand conception of the quiet when
a certain crisis in his fate should have arrived. It struck him this
crisis was in the air, very near—that he should touch it if he made
another movement: the pressure of the Frenchman’s hand, which was meant
as an attenuation, only worked as a warning. As he looked across at
Schinkel he felt dizzy and a little sick; for a moment, to his senses,
the room whirled round. His resolution to be quiet appeared only too
easy to keep; he couldn’t break it even to the extent of speaking.
He knew his voice would tremble, and this was why he made no answer
to Schinkel’s rather honeyed words, uttered after an hesitation.
“_Also_, my dear Robinson, have you passed your Sunday well—have you
had an ’appy day?” Why was every one so treacherously mild? His eyes
questioned the table, but encountered only its well-wiped surface,
polished for so many years by the gustatory elbows of the Frenchman and
his wife, and the lady’s dirty pack of cards for “patience”—she had
apparently been engaged in this exercise when Schinkel came in—which
indeed gave a little the impression of startled gamblers who might have
shuffled away the stakes. Madam Poupin, diving into a cupboard, came
back with a bottle of green chartreuse, an apparition which led the
German to exclaim: “_Lieber Gott_, you Vrench, you Vrench, how well you
always arrange! What on earth would you have more?”
The hostess distributed the liquor, but our youth could take none
of it down, leaving it to the high appreciation of his friends. His
indifference to this luxury excited discussion and conjecture, the
others bandying theories and contradictions and even ineffectual
jokes about him over his head—all with a volubility that seemed to him
unnatural. For Poupin and Schinkel there was something all wrong with
a man who couldn’t smack his lips over a drop of that tap; he must
either be in love or have some still more insidious complaint. It was
true Hyacinth _was_ always in love—that was no secret to his friends;
but it had never been observed to stop his thirst. The Frenchwoman
poured scorn on this view of the case, declaring that the effect of
the tender passion was to make one enjoy one’s victual—when everything
went straight, _bien entendu_; and how could an ear be deaf to the
wily words of a person so taking?—in proof of which she deposed that
she had never eaten and drunk with such relish as at the time (oh far
away now) when she had a soft spot in her heart for her rascal of a
husband. For Madame Poupin to allude to the companion of her trials as
a rascal indicated a high degree of conviviality. Hyacinth sat staring
at the empty table with the feeling that he was somehow a detached,
irresponsible witness of the evolution of his doom. Finally he looked
up and said to his mates collectively: “What’s up and what the deuce
is the matter with you all?” He followed this inquiry by a request
they would tell him what it was they had been saying about him, since
they admitted he had been the subject of their talk. Madame Poupin
answered for them that they had simply been saying how much they loved
him, but that they wouldn’t love him any more if he became suspicious
and _grincheux_. She had been telling Mr. Schinkel’s fortune on the
cards and she would tell Hyacinth’s if he liked. There was nothing much
for Mr. Schinkel, only that he would find something some day that he
had lost, but would probably lose it again, and serve him right if he
did! He had objected that he had never had anything to lose and never
expected to have; but that was a vain remark, inasmuch as the time was
fast coming when every one would have something—though indeed it was to
be hoped Schinkel would keep it when he had got it. Eustache rebuked
his wife for her levity, reminded her that their young friend cared
nothing for old women’s tricks, and said he was sure Hyacinth had come
to talk over a very different matter: the question—he was so good as
to take an interest in it, as he had done in everything that related
to them—of the terms which M. Poupin might owe it to himself, to his
dignity, to a just though not exaggerated sentiment of his value,
to make in accepting Mr. “Crook’s” offer of the foremanship of the
establishment in Soho; an offer not yet formally enunciated but visibly
in the air and destined—it would seem at least—to arrive within a day
or two. The actual old titulary was going, late in the day, to set up
for himself. The Frenchman intimated that before accepting any such
proposal he must have the most substantial guarantees. “_Il me faudrait
des conditions très-particulières._” It was strange to Hyacinth to
hear M. Poupin talk so comfortably about these high contingencies, the
chasm by which he himself was divided from the future having suddenly
doubled its width. His host and hostess sat down on either side of him,
and Poupin gave a sketch, in somewhat sombre tints, of the situation
in Soho, enumerating certain elements of decomposition which he
perceived to be at work there and which he would not undertake to deal
with unless he should be given a completely free hand. Did Schinkel
understand—and if so what was he grinning at? Did Schinkel understand
that poor Eustache was the victim of an absurd hallucination and that
there was not the smallest chance of his being invited to assume a
lieutenancy? He had less capacity for tackling the British workman
to-day than on originally beginning to rub shoulders with him, and old
Crook had never in his life made a mistake, at least in the use of his
tools. Hyacinth’s responses were few and mechanical, and he presently
ceased to try and look as if he were entering into his host’s ideas.
“You’ve some news—you’ve some news about me,” he brought out abruptly
to Schinkel. “You don’t like it, you don’t like to have to give it to
me, and you came to ask our friends here if they wouldn’t help you out
with it. But I don’t think they’ll assist you particularly, poor dears!
Why do you mind? You oughtn’t to mind more than I do. That isn’t the
way.”
“_Qu’est-ce qu’il dit—qu’est-ce qu’il dit, le pauvre chéri?_” Madame
Poupin demanded eagerly; while Schinkel looked very hard at her husband
and as to ask for wise direction.
“My dear child, _vous vous faites des idées_!” the latter exclaimed,
again laying his hand on his young friend all soothingly.
But Hyacinth pushed away his chair and got up. “If you’ve anything to
tell me it’s cruel of you to let me see it as you’ve done and yet not
satisfy me.”
“Why should I have anything to tell you?” Schinkel almost whined.
“I don’t know that—yet I believe you have. I make out things, I guess
things quickly. That’s my nature at all times, and I do it much more
now.”
“You do it indeed; it’s very wonderful,” Schinkel feebly conceded.
“Mr. Schinkel, will you do me the pleasure to go away—I don’t care
where: out of this house?” Madame Poupin broke out in French.
“Yes, that will be the best thing, and I’ll go with you,” said Hyacinth.
“If you’d retire, my child, I think it would be a service that you’d
render us,” Poupin returned, appealing to him as with indulgence for
his temper. “Won’t you do us the justice to believe you may leave your
interests in our hands?”
Hyacinth earnestly debated; it was now perfectly clear to him that
Schinkel had some sort of message for him, and his curiosity as to
what it might be had become nearly intolerable. “I’m surprised at your
weakness,” he observed as sternly as he could manage it to Poupin.
The Frenchman stared at him and then fell on his neck. “You’re sublime,
my young friend—you’re truly sublime!”
“Will you be so good as to tell me what you’re going to do with that
young man?” demanded Madame Poupin with a glare at Schinkel.
“It’s none of your business, my poor lady,” Hyacinth replied,
disengaging himself from her husband. “Schinkel, I wish you’d just walk
away with me.”
“_Calmons-nous, entendons-nous, expliquons-nous!_ The situation’s very
simple,” Poupin went on.
“I’ll go with you if it will give you pleasure,” said Schinkel very
obligingly to Hyacinth.
“Then you’ll give me that letter, the sealed one, first!” Madame
Poupin, erecting herself, declared to the German.
“My wife, you’re _bien sotte_!” Poupin groaned, lifting his hands and
shoulders and turning away.
“I may be anything you like, but I won’t be a party—no, God help me,
not to that!” the good woman protested, planted before Schinkel as to
prevent his moving.
“If you’ve a letter for me you ought to give it to me, hang you!” said
Hyacinth to Schinkel. “You’ve no right to give it to any one else.”
“I’ll bring it to you in your house, my good friend,” Schinkel replied
with a vain, public wink which seemed to urge how Madame Poupin must be
considered.
“Oh in his house—_I_’ll go to his house!” this lady cried. “I regard
you, I’ve always regarded you, as my child,” she continued to Hyacinth,
“and if this isn’t an occasion for a mother——!”
“It’s you who are making it an occasion. I don’t know what you’re
talking about,” said Hyacinth. He had been questioning Schinkel’s face
and believed he found in it a queer, convulsed but honest appeal to
depend on him. “I’ve disturbed you and I think I had better go away.”
Poupin had turned round again; he seized the young man’s arm eagerly,
as to prevent his retiring without taking in his false position. “How
can you care when you know everything’s changed?”
“What do you mean—everything’s changed?”
“Your opinions, your sympathies, your whole attitude. I don’t approve
of it—_je le constate_. You’ve withdrawn your confidence from the
people; you’ve said things on this spot, where you stand now, that have
given pain to my wife and me.”
“If we didn’t love you we should say you had madly betrayed us!”—she
quickly took her husband’s idea.
“Oh I shall never madly betray you,” Hyacinth rather languidly smiled.
“You’ll never hand us over—of course you think so. But you’ve no right
to act for the people when you’ve ceased to believe in the people. _Il
faut être conséquent, nom de Dieu!_” Poupin went on.
“You’ll give up all thoughts of acting for me—_je ne permets pas ça_!”
grandly added his wife.
“The thing’s probably not of importance—only a little word of
consideration,” Schinkel suggested soothingly.
“We repudiate you, we deny you, we denounce you!” shouted Poupin with
magnificent heat.
“My poor friends, it’s you who have broken down, not I,” said Hyacinth.
“I’m much obliged to you for your solicitude, but the inconsequence is
yours. At all events good-night.”
He turned away from them and was leaving the room when Madame Poupin
threw herself upon him as her husband had done a moment before, but in
silence and with an extraordinary force of passion and distress. Being
stout and powerful she quickly got the better of him and pressed him to
her ample bosom in a long, dumb embrace.
“I don’t know what you want me to do,” he said as soon as he could
speak. “It’s for me to judge of my convictions.”
“We want you to do nothing, because we _know_ you’ve changed,” Poupin
insisted. “Doesn’t it stick out of you, in every glance of your eye
and every breath of your lips? It’s only for that, because that alters
everything.”
“Does it alter my sacred vow? There are some things in which one can’t
change. I didn’t promise to believe; I promised to obey.”
“We want you to be sincere—that’s the great thing,” Poupin all
edifyingly urged. “I’ll go to see them—I’ll make them understand.”
“Ah you should have done that before!” his poor wife flashed.
“I don’t know who you’re talking about, but I’ll allow no one to meddle
in my affairs.” Hyacinth spoke now with vehemence; the scene was cruel
to his nerves, which were not in a condition to bear it.
“When it’s a case of Hoffendahl it’s no good to meddle,” Schinkel
gravely contributed.
“And pray who’s Hoffendahl and what authority has _he_ got?” demanded
Madame Poupin, who had caught his meaning. “Who has put him over us
all, and is there nothing to do but to lie down in the dust before
him? Let him attend to his little affairs himself and not put them off
on innocent children, no matter whether the poor dears are with us or
against us.”
This protest went so far that Poupin clearly felt bound to recover a
dignity. “He has no authority but what we give him; but you know how we
respect him and that he’s one of the pure, _ma bonne_. Hyacinth can do
exactly as he likes; he knows that as well as we do. He knows there’s
not a feather’s weight of compulsion; he knows that for my part I long
ago ceased to expect anything of him.”
“Certainly there’s no compulsion,” said Schinkel. “It’s to take or to
leave. Only _they_ keep the books.”
Hyacinth stood there before the three with his eyes on the floor.
“Of course I can do as I like, and what I like is what I _shall_ do.
Besides, what are we talking about with such sudden passion?” he asked,
looking up. “I’ve no summons, I’ve no sign, I’ve no order. When the
call reaches me it will be time to discuss it. Let it come or not come:
it’s not my affair.”
“_Ganz gewiss_, it’s not your affair,” said Schinkel.
“I can’t think why M. Paul has never done anything, all this time,
knowing that everything’s different now!” Madame Poupin threw in.
“Yes, my dear boy, I don’t understand our friend,” her husband
remarked, watching Hyacinth with suspicious, contentious eyes.
“It’s none of his business any more than ours; it’s none of any one’s
business!” Schinkel earnestly opined.
“Muniment walks straight; the best thing you can do is to imitate him,”
said Hyacinth, trying to pass Poupin, who had placed himself before the
door.
“Promise me only this—not to do anything till I’ve seen you first,” the
Frenchman almost piteously begged.
“My poor old friend, you’re very weak.” And Hyacinth opened the door in
spite of him and passed out.
“Ah well, if you _are_ with us that’s all I want to know!” the young
man heard him call from the top of the stairs in a different voice, a
tone of sudden, extravagant fortitude.