“Miss Sarah Brandon is one of those female cosmopolitan adventurers,
whom steam brings nowadays to us from all the four quarters of the
world. Like so many others, she, also, has come to Paris to spread her
net, and catch her birds, But she is made of finer stuff than most of
them, and more clever. Her ambition soars higher; and she possesses a
real genius for intrigues. She means to have a fortune, and is willing
to pay any price for it; but she is also desirous to be respected in the
world.
“I should not be surprised if anybody told me Miss Sarah was born within
ten miles of Paris; but she calls herself an American. The fact is,
she speaks English like an Englishwoman, and knows a great deal more of
America than you know of Paris. I have heard her tell the story of
her family to a large and attentive audience; but I do not say that I
believed it.
“According to her own account, M. Brandon, her father, a thoroughbred
Yankee, was a man of great enterprise and energy, who was ten times
rich, and as often wretchedly poor again in his life, but died leaving
several millions. This Brandon, she says, was a banker and broker in New
York when the civil war broke out. He entered the army, and in less than
six months, thanks to his marvellous energy, he rose to be a general.
When peace came, he was without occupation, and did not know what on
earth to do with himself. Fortunately, his good star led him into a
region where large tracts of land happened to be for sale. He bought
them for a few thousand dollars, and soon after discovered on his
purchase the most productive oil-wells in all America. He was just about
to be another Peabody when a fearful accident suddenly ended his
life; he was burnt in an enormous fire that destroyed one of his
establishments.
“As to her mother, Miss Sarah says she lost her when she was quite
young, in a most romantic, though horrible manner”--
“What!” broke in Daniel, “has nobody taken the trouble to ascertain if
all these statements are true?”
“I am sure I do not know. This much is certain, that sometimes curious
facts leak out. For instance, I have fallen in with Americans who have
known a broker Brandon, a Gen. Brandon, a Petroleum Brandon.”
“He may have borrowed the name.”
“Certainly, especially when the original man is said to have died in
America. However, Miss Brandon has been living now for five years in
Paris. She came here accompanied by a Mrs. Brian, a relative of hers,
who is the dryest, boniest person you can imagine, but at the same time
the slyest woman I have ever seen. She also brought with her a kind
of protector, a Mr. Thomas Elgin, also a relation of hers, a most
extraordinary man, stiff like a poker, but evidently a dangerous man,
who never opens his mouth except when he eats. He is a famous hand at
small-swords, however, and snuffs his candle, nine times out of ten, at
a distance of thirty yards. This Mr. Thomas Elgin, whom the world calls
familiarly Sir Thorn, and Mrs. Brian, always stay with Miss Sarah.
“When she first arrived, Miss Sarah established herself in a house near
the Champs Elysees, which she furnished most sumptuously. Sir Thorn, who
is a jockey of the first water, had discovered a pair of gray horses for
her which made a sensation at the Bois de Boulogne, and drew everybody’s
attention to their fair owner. Heaven knows how she had managed to get
a number of letters of introduction. But certainly two or three of the
most influential members of the American colony here received her at
their houses. After that, all was made easy. Gradually she crept into
society; and now she is welcome almost everywhere, and visits, not only
at the best houses, but even in certain families which have a reputation
of being quite exclusive.
“In fine, if she has enemies, she has also fanatic partisans. If some
people say she is a wretch, others--and they are by no means the least
clever--tell you that she is an angel, only wanting wings to fly away
from this wicked world. They talk of her as of a poor little orphan-
girl, whom people slander atrociously because they envy her youth, her
beauty, her splendor.”
“Ah, is she so rich?”
“Miss Brandon spends at least twenty thousand dollars a year.”
“And no one inquires where they come from?”
“From her sainted father’s petroleum-wells, my dear fellow. Petroleum
explains everything.”
Brevan seemed to feel a kind of savage delight in seeing Daniel’s
despair, and in explaining to him most minutely how solidly, and
how skilfully Miss Sarah Brandon’s position in the world had been
established. Had he any expectation to prevent a struggle with her by
exaggerating her strength? Or rather, knowing Daniel as he did,--far
better, unfortunately, than he was known by him,--was he trying to
irritate him more and more against this formidable adversary?
At all events, he continued in that icy tone which gives to sarcasm its
greatest bitterness,--
“Besides, my dear Daniel, if you are ever introduced at Miss
Brandon’s,--and I pray you will believe me, people are not so easily
introduced there,--you will be dumfounded at first by the tone that
prevails in that house. The air is filled with a perfume of hypocrisy
which would rejoice the stiffest of Quakers. Cant rules supreme there,
putting a lock to the mouth, and a check to the eyes.”
Daniel began evidently to be utterly bewildered.
“But how, how can you reconcile that,” he said, “with the thoroughly
worldly life of Miss Brandon?”
“Oh, very easily, my dear fellow! and there you see the sublime policy
of the three rogues. To the outer world, Miss Brandon is all levity,
indiscretion, coquettishness, and even worse. She drives herself,
shortens her petticoats, and cuts down her dress-bodies atrociously. She
says she has a right to do as she pleases, according to the code of laws
which govern American young ladies. But at home she bows to the taste
and the wishes of her relative, Mrs. Brian, who displays all the extreme
prudishness of the austerest Puritan. Then she has that stiff, tall Sir
Thorn ever at her side, who never jokes. Oh! they understand each other
perfectly; the parts are carefully distributed, and”--
Daniel showed that he was utterly discouraged.
“There is no way, then, of getting hold of this woman?” he asked.
“I think not.”
“But that adventure of which you spoke some time ago?”
“Which? That with poor Kergrist?”
“How do I know which? It was a fearful story; that is all I remember.
What did I, at that time, care for Miss Brandon? Now, to be sure”--