“Mme. de Thaller cannot have correctly repeated my words to you,
else you would not utter that word ‘slander.’”
“She has repeated them to me without the least change.”
“Then she cannot have told you the importance of the proofs I have
in my hands.”
But the Baron persisted, as Mlle. Cesarine would have said, to “do
it up in the tender style.”
“There is scarcely a family,” he resumed, “in which there is not
some one of those painful secrets which they try to withhold from
the wickedness of the world. There is one in mine. Yes, it is
true, that before our marriage, my wife had had a child, whom
poverty had compelled her to abandon. We have since done everything
that was humanly possible to find that child, but without success.
It is a great misfortune, which has weighed upon our life; but it is
not a crime. If, however, you deem it your interest to divulge our
secret, and to disgrace a woman, you are free to do so: I cannot
prevent you. But I declare it to you, that fact is the only thing
real in your accusations. You say that your father has been duped
and defrauded. From whom did you get such an idea?
“From Marcolet, doubtless, a man without character, who has become
my mortal enemy since the day when he tried a sharp game on me, and
came out second best. Or from Costeclar, perhaps, who does not
forgive me for having refused him my daughter’s hand, and who hates
me because I know that he committed forgery once, and that he would
be in prison but for your father’s extreme indulgence. Well,
Costeclar and Marcolet have deceived you. If the Marquis de Tregars
ruined himself, it is because he undertook a business that he knew
nothing about, and speculated right and left. It does not take
long to sink a fortune, even without the assistance of thieves.
“As to pretend that I have benefitted by the embezzlements of my
cashier that is simply stupid; and there can be no one to suggest
such a thing, except Jottras and Saint Pavin, two scoundrels whom
I have had ten times the opportunity to send to prison and who were
the accomplices of Favoral. Besides, the matter is in the hands of
justice; and I shall prove in the broad daylight of the court-room,
as I have already done in the office of the examining judge, that,
to save the Mutual Credit, I have sacrificed more than half my
private fortune.”
Tired of this speech, the evident object of which was to lead him
to discuss, and to betray himself,
“Conclude, sir,” M. de Tregars interrupted harshly. Still in the
same placid tone,
“To conclude is easy enough,” replied the baron. “My wife has told
me that you were about to marry the daughter of my old cashier,--a
very handsome girl, but without a sou. She ought to have a dowry.”
“Sir!”
“Let us show our hands. I am in a critical position: you know it,
and you are trying to take advantage of it. Very well: we can still
come to an understanding. What would you say, if I were to give to
Mlle. Gilberte the dowry I intended for my daughter?”
All M. de Tregars’ blood rushed to his face.
“Ah, not another word!” he exclaimed with a gesture of unprecedented
violence. But, controlling himself almost at once,
“I demand,” he added, “my father’s fortune. I demand that you
should restore to the Mutual Credit Company the twelve millions
which have been abstracted.”
“And if not?”
“Then I shall apply to the courts.”
They remained for a moment face to face, looking into each other’s
eyes. Then,
“What have you decided?” asked M. de Tregars.
Without perhaps, suspecting that his offer was a new insult,
“I will go as far as fifteen hundred thousand francs,” replied M.
de Thaller, “and I pay cash.”
“Is that your last word?”
“It is.”
“If I enter a complaint, with the proofs in my hands,
you are lost.”
“We’ll see about that.”
To insist further would have been puerile.
“Very well, we’ll see, then,” said M. de Tregars. But as he
walked out and got into his cab, which had been waiting for him at
the door, he could not help wondering what gave the Baron de
Thaller so much assurance, and whether he was not mistaken in his
conjectures.
It was nearly eight o’clock, and Maxence, Mme. Favoral and Mlle.
Gilberte must have been waiting for him with a feverish impatience;
but he had eaten nothing since morning, and he stopped in front of
one of the restaurants of the Boulevard.
He had just ordered his dinner, when a gentleman of a certain age,
but active and vigorous still, of military bearing, wearing a
mustache, and a tan-colored ribbon at his buttonhole, came to take
a seat at the adjoining table.
In less than fifteen minutes M. de Tregars had despatched a bowl
of soup and a slice of beef, and was hastening out, when his foot
struck his neighbor’s foot, without his being able to understand
how it had happened.
Though fully convinced that it was not his fault, he hastened to
excuse himself. But the other began to talk angrily, and so loud,
that everybody turned around.
Vexed as he was, Marius renewed his apologies.
But the other, like those cowards who think they have found a
greater coward than themselves, was pouring forth a torrent of
the grossest insults.
M. de Tregars was lifting his hand to administer a well-deserved
correction, when suddenly the scene in the grand parlor of the
Thaller mansion came back vividly to his mind. He saw again, as
in the glass, the ill-looking man listening, with an anxious look,
to Mme. de Thaller’s propositions, and afterwards sitting down to
write.
“That’s it!” he exclaimed, a multitude of circumstances occurring
to his mind, which had escaped him at the moment.
And, without further reflection, seizing his adversary by the
throat, he threw him over on the table, holding him down with his
knee.
“I am sure he must have the letter about him,” he said to the
people who surrounded him.
And in fact he did take from the side-pocket of the villain a letter,
which he unfolded, and commenced reading aloud,
“I am waiting for you, my dear major, come quick, for the thing is
pressing,--a troublesome gentleman who is to be made to keep quiet.
It will be for you the matter of a sword-thrust, and for us the
occasion to divide a round amount.”
“And, that’s why he picked a quarrel with me,” added M. de Tregars.
Two waiters had taken hold of the villain, who was struggling
furiously, and wanted to surrender him to the police.
“What’s the use?” said Marius. “I have his letter: that’s enough.
The police will find him when they want him.”
And, getting back into his cab,
“Rue St. Gilles,” he ordered, “and lively, if possible.”