“Better kill her at once,” said Mlle. Gilberte coldly. “She would
suffer less.”
It was by a torrent of invective that M. Favoral replied. His rage,
dammed up for the past four days, finding at last an outlet, flowed
in gross insults and insane threats. He spoke of throwing out in
the street his wife and children, or starving them out, or shutting
up his daughter in a house of correction; until at last, language
failing his fury, beside himself, he left, swearing that he would
bring M. Costeclar home himself, and then they would see.
“Very well, we shall see,” said Mlle. Gilberte.
Motionless in his place, and white as a plaster cast, Maxence had
witnessed this lamentable scene. A gleam of common-sense had
enabled him to control his indignation, and to remain silent. He
had understood, that, at the first word, his father’s fury would
have turned against him; and then what might have happened? The
most frightful dramas of the criminal courts have often had no
other origin.
“No, this is no longer bearable!” he exclaimed.
Even at the time of his greatest follies, Maxence had always had
for his sister a fraternal affection. He admired her from the day
she had stood up before him to reproach him for his misconduct. He
envied her her quiet determination, her patient tenacity, and that
calm energy that never failed her.
“Have patience, my poor Gilberte,” he added: “the day is not far,
I hope, when I may commence to repay you all you have done for me.
I have not lost my time since you restored me my reason. I have
arranged with my creditors. I have found a situation, which, if
not brilliant, is at least sufficiently lucrative to enable me
before long to offer you, as well as to our mother, a peaceful
retreat.”
“But it is to-morrow,” interrupted Mme. Favoral, “to-morrow that
your father is to bring M. Costeclar. He has said so, and he will
do it.”
And so he did. About two o’clock in the afternoon M. Favoral and
his protege arrived in the Rue St. Gilles, in that famous coupe
with the two horses, which excited the wonder of the neighbors.
But Mlle. Gilberte had her plan ready. She was on the lookout;
and, as soon as she heard the carriage stop, she ran to her room,
undressed in a twinkling, and went to bed.
When her father came for her, and saw her in bed, he remained
surprised and puzzled on the threshold of the door.
“And yet I’ll make you come into the parlor!” he said in a hoarse
voice.
“Then you must carry me there as I am,” she said in a tone of
defiance; “for I shall certainly not get up.”
For the first time since his marriage, M. Favoral met in his own
house a more inflexible will than his own, and a more unyielding
obstinacy. He was baffled. He threatened his daughter with his
clinched fists, but could discover no means of making her obey.
He was compelled to surrender, to yield.
“This will be settled with the rest,” he growled, as he went out.
“I fear nothing in the world, father,” said the girl.
It was almost true, so much did the thought of Marius de Tregars
inflame her courage. Twice already she had heard from him through
the Signor Gismondo Pulei, who never tired talking of this new pupil,
to whom he had already given two lessons.
“He is the most gallant man in the world,” he said, his eye sparkling
with enthusiasm, “and the bravest, and the most generous, and the
best; and no quality that can adorn one of God’s creatures shall be
wanting in him when I have taught him the divine art. It is not
with a little contemptible gold that he means to reward my zeal.
To him I am as a second father; and it is with the confidence of a
son that he explains to me his labors and his hopes.”
Thus Mlle. Gilberte learned through the old maestro, that the
newspaper article she had read was almost exactly true, and that
M. de Tregars and M. Marcolet had become associated for the purpose
of working, in joint account, certain recent discoveries, which bid
fair to yield large profits in a near future.
“And yet it is for my sake alone that he has thus thrown himself
into the turmoil of business, and has become as eager for gain as
that M. Marcolet himself.”
And, at the height of her father’s persecutions, she felt glad of
what she had done, and of her boldness in placing her destiny in the
hands of a stranger. The memory of Marius had become her refuge,
the element of all her dreams and of all her hopes; in a word, her
life.
It was of Marius she was thinking, when her mother, surprising her
gazing into vacancy, would ask her, “What are you thinking of?” And,
at every new vexation she had to endure, her imagination decked him
with a new quality, and she clung to him with a more desperate grasp.
“How much he would grieve,” thought she, “if he knew of what
persecution I am the object!”
And very careful was she not to allow the Signor Gismondo Pulei to
suspect any thing of it, affecting, on the contrary, in his presence,
the most cheerful serenity.
And yet she was a prey to the most cruel anxiety, since she observed
a new and most incredible transformation in her father.
That man so violent and so harsh, who flattered himself never to
have been bent, who boasted never to have forgotten or forgiven any
thing, that domestic tyrant, had become quite a debonair personage.
He had referred to the expedient imagined by Mlle. Gilberte only to
laugh at it, saying that it was a good trick, and he deserved it;
for he repented bitterly, he protested, his past brutalities.
He owned that he had at heart his daughter’s marriage with M.
Costeclar; but he acknowledged that he had made use of the surest
means for making it fail. He should, he humbly confessed, have
expected every thing of time and circumstances, of M. Costeclar’s
excellent qualities, and of his beautiful, darling daughter’s
good sense.
More than of all his violence, Mme. Favoral was terrified at this
affected good nature.
“Dear me!” she sighed, “what does it all mean?”
But the cashier of the Mutual Credit was not preparing any new
surprise to his family. If the means were different, it was still
the same object that he was pursuing with the tenacity of an insect.
When severity had failed, he hoped to succeed by gentleness, that’s
all. Only this assumption of hypocritical meekness was too new
to him to deceive any one. At every moment the mask fell off, the
claws showed, and his voice trembled with ill-suppressed rage in
the midst of his most honeyed phrases.
Moreover, he entertained the strangest illusions. Because for
forty-eight hours he had acted the part of a good-natured man,
because one Sunday he had taken his wife and daughter out riding in
the Bois de Vincennes, because he had given Maxence a hundred-franc
note, he imagined that it was all over, that the past was obliterated,
forgotten, and forgiven.
And, drawing Gilberte upon his knees,
“Well, daughter,” he said, “you see that I don’t importune you any
more, and I leave you quite free. I am more reasonable than you are.”
But on the other hand, and according to an expression which escaped
him later, he tried to turn the enemy.
He did every thing in his power to spread in the neighborhood the
rumor of Mlle. Gilberte’s marriage with a financier of colossal
wealth,--that elegant young man who came in a coupe with two horses.
Mme. Favoral could not enter a shop without being covertly
complimented upon having found such a magnificent establishment for
her daughter.
Loud, indeed, must have been the gossip; for its echo reached even
the inattentive ears of the Signor Gismondo Pulei.
One day, suddenly interrupting his lesson,--“You are going to be
married, signora?” he inquired.
Mlle. Gilberte started.
What the old Italian had heard, he would surely ere long repeat to
Marius. It was therefore urgent to undeceive him.
“It is true,” she replied, “that something has been said about a
marriage, dear maestro.”
“Ah, ah!”
“Only my father had not consulted me. That marriage will never
take place: I swear it.”
She expressed herself in a tone of such ardent conviction, that the
old gentleman was quite astonished, little dreaming that it was not
to him that this energetic denial was addressed.
“My destiny is irrevocably fixed,” added Mlle. Gilberte. “When I
marry, I will consult the inspirations of my heart only.”
In the mean time, it was a veritable conspiracy against her. M.
Favoral had succeeded in interesting in the success of his designs
his habitual guests, not M. and Mme. Desclavettes, who had been
seduced from the first, but M. Chapelain and old Desormeaux himself.
So that they all vied with each other in their efforts to bring the
“dear child” to reason, and to enlighten her with their counsels.
“Father must have a still more considerable interest in this alliance
than he has allowed us to think,” she remarked to her brother.
Maxence was also absolutely of the same opinion.
“And then,” he added, “our father must be terribly rich; for, do not
deceive yourself, it isn’t solely for your pretty blue eyes that
this Costeclar persists in coming here twice a week to pocket a new
mortification. What enormous dowry can he be hoping for? I am
going to speak to him myself, and try to find out what he is after.”
But Mlle. Gilberte had but slight confidence in her brother’s
diplomacy.
“I beg of you,” she said, “don’t meddle with that business!”
“Yes, yes, I will! Fear nothing, I’ll be prudent.”
Having taken his resolution, Maxence placed himself on the lookout;
and the very next day, as M. Costeclar was stepping out of his
carriage at the door, he walked straight up to him.
“I wish to speak to you, sir,” he said. Self-possessed as he was,
the brilliant financier succeeded but poorly in concealing a surprise
that looked very much like fright.
“I am going in to call on your parents, sir,” he replied; “and whilst
waiting for your father, with whom I have an appointment, I shall be
at your command.”
“No, no!” interrupted Maxence. “What I have to say must be heard by
you alone. Come along this way, and we shall not be interrupted.”
And he led M. Costeclar away as far as the Place Royal. Once there,
“You are very anxious to marry my sister, sir,” he commenced.
During their short walk M. Costeclar had recovered himself. He had
resumed all his impertinent assurance. Looking at Maxence from head
to foot with any thing but a friendly look,
“It is my dearest and my most ardent wish, sir,” he replied.
“Very well. But you must have noticed the very slight success, to
use no harsher word, of your assiduities.”
“Alas!”
“And, perhaps, you will judge, like myself, that it would be the act
of a gentleman to withdraw in presence of such positive repugnance?”
An ugly smile was wandering upon M. Costeclar’s pale lips.
“Is it at the request of your sister, sir, that you make me this
communication?”
“No, sir.”
“Are you aware whether your sister has some inclination that may be
an obstacle to the realization of my hopes?”
“Sir!”
“Excuse me! What I say has nothing to offend. It might very well
be that your sister, before I had the honor of being introduced to
her, had already fixed her choice.”
He spoke so loud, that Maxence looked sharply around to see whether
there was not some one within hearing. He saw no one but a young
man, who seemed quite absorbed reading a newspaper.
“But, sir,” he resumed, “what would you answer, if I, the brother
of the young lady whom you wish to marry against her wishes,--I
called upon you to cease your assiduities?”