“What?” he inquired.
“Oh, nothing!” she replied,--“nothing at all!”
And without ceasing to look at him with a wondering eye, but
suddenly changing her tone of voice,
“And so, sir,” she said, “my servants have been unable to keep you
from forcing yourself into my house!”
“I hope, madame,” said M. de Tregars with a polite bow, “that you
will excuse my persistence. I come for a matter which can suffer
no delay.”
She was still looking at him obstinately. “Who are you?” she asked.
“My name will not afford you any information. I am the Marquis de
Tregars.”
“Tregars!” she repeated, looking up at the ceiling, as if in search
of an inspiration. “Tregars! Never heard of it!”
And throwing herself into an arm chair,
“Well, sir, what do you wish with me, then? Speak!”
He had taken a seat near her, and kept his eyes riveted upon hers.
“I have come, madame,” he replied, “to ask you to put me in the way
to see and speak to the man whose photograph is there on the
mantlepiece.”
He expected to take her by surprise, and that by a shudder, a cry,
a gesture, she might betray her secret. Not at all.
“Are you, then, one of M. Vincent’s friends?” she asked quietly.
M. de Tregars understood, and this was subsequently confirmed, that
it was under his Christian name of Vincent alone, that the cashier
of the Mutual Credit was known in the Rue du Cirque.
“Yes, I am a friend of his,” he replied; “and if I could see him,
I could probably render him an important service.”
“Well, you are too late.”
“Why?”
“Because M. Vincent put off more than twenty-four hours since?”
“Are you sure of that?”
“As sure as a person can be who went to the railway station
yesterday with him and all his baggage.”
“You saw him leave?”
“As I see you.”
“Where was he going?”
“To Havre, to take the steamer for Brazil, which was to sail on the
same day; so that, by this time, he must be awfully seasick.”
“And you really think that it was his intention to go to Brazil?”
“He said so. It was written on his thirty-six trunks in letters
half a foot high. Besides, he showed me his ticket.”
“Have you any idea what could have induced him to expatriate himself
thus, at his age?”
“He told me he had spent all his money, and also some of other
people’s; that he was afraid of being arrested; and that he was
going yonder to be quiet, and try to make another fortune.”
Was Mme. Zelie speaking in good faith? To ask the question would
have been rather naive; but an effort might be made to find out.
Carefully concealing his own impressions, and the importance he
attached to this conversation,
“I pity you sincerely, madame,” resumed M. de Tregars; “for you must
be sorely grieved by this sudden departure.”
“Me!” she said in a voice that came from the heart. “I don’t care
a straw.”
Marquis de Tregars knew well enough the ladies of the class to which
he supposed that Mme. Zelie Cadelle must belong, not to be surprised
at this frank declaration.
“And yet,” he said, “you are indebted to him for the princely
magnificence that surrounds you here.”
“Of course.”
“He being gone, as you say, will you be able to keep up your style
of living?”
Half raising herself from her seat,
“I haven’t the slightest idea of doing so,” she exclaimed. “Never
in the whole world have I had such a stupid time as for the last
five months that I have spent in this gilded cage. What a bore,
my beloved brethren! I am yawning still at the mere thought of the
number of times I have yawned in it.”
M. de Tregars’ gesture of surprise was the more natural, that his
surprise was immense.
“You are tired being here?” he said.
“To death.”
“And you have only been here five months?”
“Dear me; yes! and by the merest chance, too, you’ll see. One day
at the beginning of last December, I was coming from--but no matter
where I was coming from. At any rate, I hadn’t a cent in my pocket,
and nothing but an old calico dress on my back; and I was going
along, not in the best of humor, as you may imagine, when I feel
that some one is following me. Without looking around, and from
the corner of my eye, I look over my shoulder, and I see a
respectable-looking old gentleman, wearing a long frock-coat.”
“M. Vincent?”
“In his own natural person, and who was walking, walking. I quietly
begin to walk slower; and, as soon as we come to a place where there
was hardly any one, he comes up alongside of me.”
Something comical must have happened at this moment, which Mme.
Zelie Cadelle said nothing about; for she was laughing most heartily,
--a frank and sonorous laughter.
“Then,” she resumed, “he begins at once to explain that I remind
him of a person whom he loved tenderly, and whom he has just had
the misfortune to lose, adding, that he would deem himself the
happiest of men if I would allow him to take care of me, and insure
me a brilliant position.”
“You see! That rascally Vincent!” said M. de Tregars, just to be
saying something.
Mme. Zelie shook her head.
“You know him,” she resumed. “He is not young; he is not handsome;
he is not funny. I did not fancy him one bit; and, if I had only
known where to find shelter for the night, I’d soon have sent him
to the old Nick,--him and his brilliant position. But, not having
enough money to buy myself a penny-loaf, it wasn’t the time to put
on any airs. So I tell him that I accept. He goes for a cab; we
get into it; and he brings me right straight here.”
Positively M. de Tregars required his entire self-control to conceal
the intensity of his curiosity.
“Was this house, then, already as it is now?” he interrogated.
“Precisely, except that there were no servants in it, except the
chambermaid Amanda, who is M. Favoral’s confidante. All the others
had been dismissed; and it was a hostler from a stable near by who
came to take care of the horses.”
“And what then?”
“Then you may imagine what I looked like in the midst of all this
magnificence, with my old shoes and my fourpenny skirt. Something
like a grease-spot on a satin dress. M. Vincent seemed delighted,
nevertheless. He had sent Amanda out to get me some under-clothing
and a ready-made wrapper; and, whilst waiting, he took me all
through the house, from the cellar to the garret, saying that
everything was at my command, and that the next day I would have a
battalion of servants to wait on me.”
It was evidently with perfect frankness that she was speaking, and
with the pleasure one feels in telling an extraordinary adventure.
But suddenly she stopped short, as if discovering that she was
forgetting herself, and going farther than was proper.
And it was only after a moment of reflection that she went on,
“It was like fairyland to me. I had never tasted the opulence of
the great, you see, and I had never had any money except that which
I earned. So, during the first days, I did nothing but run up and
down stairs, admiring everything, feeling everything with my own
hands, and looking at myself in the glass to make sure that I was
not dreaming. I rang the bell just to make the servants come up;
I spent hours trying dresses; then I’d have the horses put to the
carriage, and either ride to the bois, or go out shopping. M.
Vincent gave me as much money as I wanted; and it seemed as though I
never spent enough. I shout, I was like a mad woman.”
A cloud appeared upon Mme. Zelie’s countenance, and, changing
suddenly her tone and her manner,
“Unfortunately,” she went on, “one gets tired of every thing. At
the end of two weeks I knew the house from top to bottom, and after
a month I was sick of the whole thing; so that one night I began
dressing.
“‘Where do you want to go?’ Amanda asked me.
‘Why, to Mabille, to dance a quadrille, or two.’
‘Impossible!’
‘Why?’
‘Because M. Vincent does not wish you to go out at night.’
‘We’ll see about that!’
“The next day, I tell all this to M. Vincent; and he says that Amanda
is right; that it is not proper for a woman in my position to
frequent balls; and that, if I want to go out at night, I can stay.
Get out! I tell you what, if it hadn’t been for the fine carriage,
and all that, I would have cleared out that minute. Any way, I
became disgusted from that moment, and have been more and more ever
since; and, if M. Vincent had not himself left, I certainly would.”
“To go where?”
“Anywhere. Look here, now! do you suppose I need a man to support
me! No, thank Heaven! Little Zelie, here present, has only to
apply to any dressmaker, and she’ll be glad to give her four francs
a day to run the machine. And she’ll be free, at least; and she can
laugh and dance as much as she likes.”