Since the evening spent at the Savarins', Graham had seen no more of
Isaura. He had avoided all chance of seeing her; in fact, the jealousy
with which he had viewed her manner towards Rameau, and the angry amaze
with which he had heard her proclaim her friendship for Madame de
Grantmesnil, served to strengthen the grave and secret reasons which made
him desire to keep his heart yet free and his hand yet unpledged. But
alas! the heart was enslaved already. It was under the most fatal of all
spells,--first love conceived at first sight. He was wretched; and in
his wretchedness his resolves became involuntarily weakened. He found
himself making excuses for the beloved. What cause had he, after all,
for that jealousy of the young poet which had so offended him; and if in
her youth and inexperience Isaura had made her dearest friend of a great
writer by whose genius she might be dazzled, and of whose opinions she
might scarcely be aware, was it a crime that necessitated her eternal
banishment from the reverence which belongs to all manly love? Certainly
he found no satisfactory answers to such self-questionings. And then
those grave reasons known only to himself, and never to be confided to
another--why he should yet reserve his hand unpledged--were not so
imperative as to admit of no compromise. They might entail a sacrifice,
and not a small one to a man of Graham's views and ambition. But what is
love if it can think any sacrifice, short of duty and honour, too great
to offer up unknown uncomprehended, to the one beloved? Still, while
thus softened in his feelings towards Isaura, he became, perhaps in
consequence of such softening, more and more restlessly impatient to
fulfil the object for which he had come to Paris, the great step towards
which was the discovery of the undiscoverable Louise Duval.
He had written more than once to M. Renard since the interview with that
functionary already recorded, demanding whether Renard had not made some
progress in the research on which he was employed, and had received short
unsatisfactory replies preaching patience and implying hope.
The plain truth, however, was that M. Renard had taken no further pains
in the matter. He considered it utter waste of time and thought to
attempt a discovery to which the traces were so faint and so obsolete.
If the discovery were effected, it must be by one of those chances which
occur without labour or forethought of our own. He trusted only to such
a chance in continuing the charge he had undertaken. But during the last
day or two Graham had become yet more impatient than before, and
peremptorily requested another visit from this dilatory confidant.
In that visit, finding himself pressed hard, and though naturally
willing, if possible, to retain a client unusually generous, yet being on
the whole an honest member of his profession, and feeling it to be
somewhat unfair to accept large remuneration for doing nothing, M. Renard
said frankly, "Monsieur, this affair is beyond me; the keenest agent of
our police could make nothing of it. Unless you can tell me more than
you have done, I am utterly without a clew. I resign, therefore, the
task with which you honoured me, willing to resume it again if you can
give me information that could render me of use."
"What sort of information?"
"At least the names of some of the lady's relations who may yet be
living."
"But it strikes me that, if I could get at that piece of knowledge, I
should not require the services of the police. The relations would tell
me what had become of Louise Duval quite as readily as they would tell a
police agent."
"Quite true, Monsieur. It would really be picking your pockets if I did
not at once retire from your service. Nay, Monsieur, pardon me, no
further payments; I have already accepted too much. Your most obedient
servant."
Graham, left alone, fell into a very gloomy revery. He could not but be
sensible of the difficulties in the way of the object which had brought
him to Paris, with somewhat sanguine expectations of success founded on a
belief in the omniscience of the Parisian police, which is only to be
justified when they have to deal with a murderess or a political
incendiary. But the name of Louise Duval is about as common in France as
that of Mary Smith in England; and the English reader may judge what
would be the likely result of inquiring through the ablest of our
detectives after some Mary Smith of whom you could give little more
information than that she was the daughter of a drawing-master who had
died twenty years ago, that it was about fifteen years since anything had
been heard of her, that you could not say if through marriage or for
other causes she had changed her name or not, and you had reasons for
declining resort to public advertisements. In the course of inquiry so
instituted, the probability would be that you might hear of a great many
Mary Smiths, in the pursuit of whom your employee would lose all sight
and scent of the one Mary Smith for whom the chase was instituted.
In the midst of Graham's despairing reflections his laquais announced M.
Frederic Lemercier.
"_Cher_ Grarm-Varn. A thousand pardons if I disturb you at this late
hour of the evening; but you remember the request you made me when you
first arrived in Paris this season?"
"Of course I do,--in case you should ever chance in your wide round of
acquaintance to fall in with a Madame or Mademoiselle Duval of about the
age of forty, or a year or so less, to let me know; and you did fall in
with two ladies of that name, but they were not the right one, not the
person whom my friend begged me to discover; both much too young."
"_Eh bien, mon cher_. If you will come with me to the _bal champetre_ in
the Champs Elysees to-night, I can show you a third Madame Duval,--her
Christian name is Louise, too, of the age you mention,--though she does
her best to look younger, and is still very handsome. You said your
Duval was handsome. It was only last evening that I met this lady at a
_soiree_ given by Mademoiselle Julie Caumartin, _coryphee distinguee_, in
love with young Rameau."
"In love with young Rameau? I am very glad to hear it. He returns the
love?"
"I suppose so. He seems very proud of it. But apropos of Madame Duval,
she has been long absent from Paris, just returned, and looking out for
conquests. She says she has a great penchant for the English; promises
me to be at this ball. Come."
"Hearty thanks, my dear Lemercier. I am at your service."