Mlle. Gilberte was soon far away; and Marius de Tregars remained
motionless at the corner of the street, following her with his eyes
through the darkness.
She was walking fast, staggering over the rough pavement. Leaving
Marius, she fell back upon the earth from the height of her dreams.
The deceiving illusion had vanished, and, returned to the world of
sad reality, she was seized with anxiety.
How long had she been out? She knew not, and found it impossible
to reckon. But it was evidently getting late; for some of the shops
were already closing.
Meantime, she had reached the house. Stepping back, and looking up,
she saw that there was light in the parlor.
“Mother has returned,” she thought, trembling with apprehension.
She hurried up, nevertheless; and, just as she reached the landing,
Mme. Favoral opened the door, preparing to go down.
“At last you are restored to me!” exclaimed the poor mother, whose
sinister apprehensions were revealed by that single exclamation. “I
was going out to look for you at random,--in the streets, anywhere.”
And, drawing her daughter within the parlor, she clasped her in her
arms with convulsive tenderness, exclaiming,
“Where were you? Where do you come from? Do you know that it is
after nine o’clock?”
Such had been Mlle. Gilberte’s state of mind during the whole of
that evening, that she had not even thought of finding a pretext
to justify her absence. Now it was too late. Besides, what
explanation would have been plausible? Instead, therefore, of
answering,
“Why, dear mother,” she said with a forced smile, “has it not
happened to me twenty times to go out in the neighborhood?”
But Mme. Favoral’s confiding credulity existed no longer.
“I have been blind, Gilberte,” she interrupted; “but this time my
eyes must open to evidence. There is in your life a mystery,
something extraordinary, which I dare not try to guess.”
Mlle. Gilberte drew herself up, and, looking her mother straight in
the eyes, with her beautiful, clear glance,
“Would you suspect me of something wrong, then?” she exclaimed.
Mme. Favoral stopped her with a gesture.
“A young girl who conceals something from her mother always does
wrong,” she uttered. “It is a long while since I have had for the
first time the presentiment that you were hiding something from me.
But, when I questioned you, you succeeded in quieting my suspicions.
You have abused my confidence and my weakness.”
This reproach was the most cruel that could be addressed to Mlle.
Gilberte. The blood rushed to her face, and, in a firm voice,
“Well, yes,” said she: “I have a secret.”
“Dear me!”
“And, if I did not confide it to you, it is because it is also the
secret of another. Yes, I confess it, I have been imprudent in the
extreme; I have stepped beyond all the limits of propriety and social
custom; I have exposed myself to the worst calumnies. But never,--I
swear it,--never have I done any thing of which my conscience can
reproach me, nothing that I have to blush for, nothing that I regret,
nothing that I am not ready to do again to-morrow.”
“I said nothing, ‘tis true; but it was my duty. Alone I had to
suffer the responsibility of my acts. Having alone freely engaged
my future, I wished to bear alone the weight of my anxiety. I should
never have forgiven myself for having added this new care to all your
other sorrows.”
Mme. Favoral stood dismayed. Big tears rolled down her withered
cheeks.
“Don’t you see, then,” she stammered, “that all my past suffering is
as nothing compared to what I endure to-day? Good heavens! what have
I ever done to deserve so many trials? Am I to be spared none of the
troubles of this world? And it is through my own daughter that I am
the most cruelly stricken!”
This was more than Mlle. Gilberte could bear. Her heart was breaking
at the sight of her mother’s tears, that angel of meekness and
resignation. Throwing her arms around her neck, and kissing her on
the eyes,
“Mother,” she murmured, “adored mother, I beg of you do not weep
thus! Speak to me! What do you wish me to do?”
Gently the poor woman drew back.
“Tell me the truth,” she answered.
Was it not certain that this was the very thing she would ask; in
fact, the only thing she could ask? Ah! how much would the young
girl have preferred one of her father’s violent scenes, and
brutalities which would have exalted her energy, instead of
crushing it!
Attempting to gain time,
“Well, yes,” she answered, “I’ll tell you every thing, mother, but
not now, to-morrow, later.”
She was about to yield, however, when her father’s arrival cut
short their conversation.
The cashier of the Mutual Credit was quite lively that night. He
was humming a tune, a thing which did not happen to him four times
a year, and which was indicative of the most extreme satisfaction.
But he stopped short at the sight of the disturbed countenance of his
wife and daughter.
“What is the matter?” he inquired.
“Nothing,” hastily answered Mlle. Gilberte,--“nothing at all,
father.”
“Then you are crying for your amusement,” he said. “Come, be candid
for once, and confess that Maxence has been at his tricks again!”
“You are mistaken, father: I swear it!”
He asked no further questions, being in his nature not very curious,
whether because family matters were of so little consequence to him,
or because he had a vague idea that his general behavior deprived
him of all right to their confidence.
“Very well, then,” he said in a gruff tone, “let us all go to bed.
I have worked so hard to-day, that I am quite exhausted. People
who pretend that business is dull make me laugh. Never has M. de
Thaller been in the way of making so much money as now.”
When he spoke, they obeyed. So that Mlle. Gilberte was thus going
to have the whole night before her to resume possession of herself,
to pass over in her mind the events of the evening, and deliberate
coolly upon the decision she must come to; for, she could not doubt
it, Mme. Favoral would, the very next day, renew her questions.
What should she say? All? Mlle. Gilberte felt disposed to do so
by all the aspirations of her heart, by the certainty of indulgent
complicity, by the thought of finding in a sympathetic soul the echo
of her joys, of her troubles, and of her hopes.
Yes. But Mme. Favoral was still the same woman, whose firmest
resolutions vanished under the gaze of her husband. Let a pretender
come; let a struggle begin, as in the case of M. Costeclar,--would
she have strength enough to remain silent? No!
Then it would be a fearful scene with M. Favoral. He might,
perhaps, even go to M. de Tregars. What scandal! For he was a man
who spared no one; and then a new obstacle would rise between them,
more insurmountable still than the others.
Mlle. Gilberte was thinking, too, of Marius’s projects; of that
terrible game he was about to play, the issue of which was to decide
their fate. He had said enough to make her understand all its
perils, and that a single indiscretion might suffice to set at
nought the result of many months’ labor and patience. Besides, to
speak, was it not to abuse Marius’s confidence. How could she
expect another to keep a secret she had been unable to keep herself?
At last, after protracted and painful hesitation, she decided that
she was bound to silence, and that she would only vouchsafe the
vaguest explanations.
It was in vain, then, that, on the next and the following days,
Mme. Favoral tried to obtain that confession which she had seen,
as it were, rise to her daughter’s lips. To her passionate
adjurations, to her tears, to her ruses even, Mlle. Gilberte
invariably opposed equivocal answers, a story through which nothing
could be guessed, save one of those childish romances which stop
at the preface,--a schoolgirl love for a chimerical hero.
There was nothing in this very reassuring to a mother; but Mme.
Favoral knew her daughter too well to hope to conquer her invincible
obstinacy. She insisted no more, appeared convinced, but resolved
to exercise the utmost vigilance. In vain, however, did she display
all the penetration of which she was capable. The severest
attention did not reveal to her a single suspicious fact, not a
circumstance from which she could draw an induction, until, at last,
she thought that she must have been mistaken.
The fact is, that Mlle. Gilberte had not been long in feeling
herself watched; and she observed herself with a tenacious
circumspection that could hardly have been expected of her resolute
and impatient nature. She had trained herself to a sort of cheerful
carelessness, to which she strictly adhered, watching every
expression of her countenance, and avoiding carefully those hours
of vague revery in which she formerly indulged.
For two successive weeks, fearing to be betrayed by her looks, she
had the courage not to show herself at the window at the hour when
she knew Marius would pass. Moreover, she was very minutely
informed of the alternatives of the campaign undertaken by M. de
Tregars.
More enthusiastic than ever about his pupil, the Signor Gismondo
Pulei never tired of singing his praise, and with such pomp of
expression, and so curious an exuberance of gesticulation, that Mme.
Favoral was much amused; and, on the days when she was present at
her daughter’s lesson, she was the first to inquire,
“Well, how is that famous pupil?”
And, according to what Marius had told him,
“He is swimming in the purest satisfaction,” answered the candid
maestro. “Every thing succeeds miraculously well, and much beyond
his hopes.”