A quarter of an hour later a footman in a red coat opened the door of a
flat on a first floor in the Rue Taitbout in answer to Mme. Mauperin's
ring.
"Good-morning, Georges. Is my son in?"
"Yes, madame, monsieur is there."
Mme. Mauperin had smiled on her son's domestic, and as she walked along
she smiled on the rooms, on the furniture, and on everything she saw.
When she entered the study her son was writing and smoking at the same
time.
"Well, I never!" he exclaimed, taking his cigar out of his mouth and
leaning his head against the back of his chair for his mother to kiss
him. "It's you, is it, mamma?" he went on, continuing to smoke. "You
didn't say a word about coming to Paris to-day. What brings you here?"
"Oh, I had some shopping and some visits to pay--you know I am always
behind. How comfortable you are here!"
"Ah, yes, to be sure, you hadn't seen my new arrangements."
"Dear me, how well you do arrange everything! There's no one like you,
really. It isn't damp here is it, are you quite sure?" and Mme. Mauperin
put her hand against the wall. "Tell Georges to air the room always when
you are away, won't you?"
"Yes, yes, mother," said Henri in a bored way, as one answers a child.
"Oh, why do you have those? I don't like your having such things." Mme.
Mauperin had just caught sight of two swords above the bookcase. "The
very sight of them! When one thinks--" and Mme. Mauperin closed her eyes
for an instant and sat down. "You don't know how your dreadful bachelor
life makes us poor mothers tremble. If you were married, it seems to me
that I should not be so worried about you. I do wish you were married,
Henri!"
"I do, too, I can assure you."
"Really? Come, now--mothers, you know--well, secrets ought not to be
kept from them. I am so afraid, when I look at you, handsome as you are,
and so distinguished and clever and fascinating. You are just the sort
of man that any one would fall in love with, and I'm so afraid----"
"Of what?"
"Lest you should have some reason for not----"
"For not marrying, you mean, don't you? A chain--is that what you
mean?"
Mme. Mauperin nodded and Henri burst out laughing.
"Oh, my dear mamma, if I had one, make your mind easy, it should be a
polished one. A man who has any respect for himself would not wear any
other."
"Well, then, tell me about Mlle. Herbault. It was your fault that it all
came to nothing."
"Mlle. Herbault? The introduction at the Opéra with father? Oh, no, it
wasn't that. Yes, yes, I remember, the dinner at Mme. Marquisat's,
wasn't it--the last one? That was a trap you laid for me. I must say you
are sweetly innocent! I was announced: '_Môssieu Henri Mauperin_,' in
that grand, important sort of way which being interpreted meant:
'_Behold the future husband!_' I found all the candles in the
drawing-room lighted up. The mistress of the house, whom I had seen just
twice in my life, overpowered me with her smiles; her son, whom I did
not know at all, shook hands with me. There was a lady with her daughter
in the room, they neither of them appeared to see me. My place at dinner
was next the young person, of course; a provincial family, their money
placed in farms, simple tastes, etc. I discovered all that before the
soup was finished. The mother, on the other side of the table, was
keeping watch over us; an impossible sort of mother, in such a get-up! I
asked the daughter whether she had seen the 'Prophet' at the Opéra.
'Yes, it was superb--and then there was that wonderful effect in the
third act. Oh, yes, that effect, that wonderful effect.' She hadn't seen
it any more than I had. A fibber to begin with. I entertained myself
with keeping her to the subject, and that made her crabby. We went back
to the drawing-room and then the hostess began: 'What a pretty dress!'
she said to me. 'Did you notice it? Would you believe that Emmeline has
had that dress five years. I can remember it. She is so careful--so
orderly!' 'All right,' I thought to myself, 'a lot of miserly wretches
who mean to take me in.'"
"Do you really think so? And yet, from what we were told about them----"
"A woman who makes her dresses last five years! That speaks for itself,
that's quite enough. I can picture the dowry hoarded up in a stocking.
The money would be in land at two and a half per cent; repairs, taxes,
lawsuits, farmers who don't pay their rent, a father-in-law who makes
over to you unsalable property. No, no, I'm not quite young enough. I
want to get married, but I mean to marry well. Leave me to manage it,
and you'll see. You can make your mind easy; I'm not the sort to be
taken in with: '_She has such beautiful hair and she is so devoted to
her mother!_' You see, mamma, I've thought a great deal about marriage,
although you may not imagine I have. The most difficult thing to get in
this world, the thing we pay the most dearly for, snatch from each
other, fight for, the thing we only obtain by force of genius or by
luck, by meanness, privations, by wild efforts, perseverance,
resolution, energy, audacity or work, is money--isn't that so? Now money
means happiness and the honour of being rich, it means enjoyment, and it
brings with it the respect and esteem of the million. Well, I have
discovered that there is a way of getting it, straightforwardly and
promptly, without any fatigue, without difficulty and without genius,
quite simply, naturally, quickly and honourably; and this way is by
marriage. Another thing I have discovered is that there is no need to be
remarkably handsome nor astonishingly intelligent in order to make a
rich marriage; the only thing necessary is to will it, to will it
coolly, calmly and with all one's force of will-power, to stake all
one's chances on that card; in fact to look upon getting married as
one's object in life, one's future career. I see that in playing that
game it is no more difficult to make an extraordinary marriage than an
ordinary one, to get a dowry of fifty thousand pounds than one of five
thousand; it is merely a question of cool-headedness and luck; the stake
is the same in both cases. In our times when a good tenor can marry an
income of thirty thousand pounds arithmetic becomes a thing of the past.
All this is what I have wanted to explain to you, and I am sure you will
understand me."
Henri Mauperin took his mother's hand in his as he spoke. She was fairly
aghast with surprise, admiration, and a sentiment very near akin to
respect.
"Don't you worry yourself," continued her son. "I shall marry
well--better even perhaps than you dream of."
As soon as his mother had gone Henri took up his pen and, continuing the
article he had commenced for the _Revue économique_, wrote: "The
trajectory of humanity is a spiral and not a circle----"