“I will think it over. I will see. Perhaps something might be done with
that young man whom the count mentioned, that M. Wilkie Gordon. If I
thought he was really anxious for Miss Brandon’s hand”--
“I have heard it said, and I am sure it is so, the young man is one of
those idiots whom vanity renders insane, and who do not know what to do
in order to make themselves notorious. Miss Brandon being very famous,
he would marry her, just as he would pay a hundred thousand dollars for
a famous racer.”
“And how do you account for Miss Brandon’s refusal?”
“By the character of the man, whom I know very well, and whom she knows
as well. She is quite aware that, three months after the wedding, he
would decamp, and in less than a year she would be divorced. Then there
is another thing: Wilkie is only twenty-five years old; and you know a
fellow at that age is likely to live a good deal longer than a lover who
is beyond the sixties.”
The way in which he said this lent to his words a terrible significance;
and Daniel, turning pale, stammered out,--
“Great God! Do you think Miss Brandon could”--
“Could do anything, most assuredly,--except, perhaps, get into trouble
with the police. I have heard her say that only fools employ poison or
the dagger.”
A strange smile passed over his lips; and he added in a tone of horrible
irony,--
“It is true there are other means, less prompt, perhaps, but much safer,
by which people may be removed when they become inconvenient.
“What means? The same, no doubt, which she had employed to get rid
of poor Kergrist, and that unlucky Malgat, the cashier of the Mutual
Discount Society. Purely moral means, based upon her thorough knowledge
of the character of her victims, and her own infernal power over them.”
But Daniel tried in vain to obtain more light from his friend. Brevan
answered evasively; perhaps because he did not dare to speak out freely,
and reveal his real thoughts; or because it lay in his plans to
be content with having added this horrible fear to all the other
apprehensions of his friend.
His embarrassment, just now unmistakable, had entirely disappeared, as
if he had come to a final decision after long hesitation. He who had
first advised all kinds of concessions now suggested the most energetic
resistance, and seemed to be confident of success.
When he at last left Daniel, he had made him promise to keep him hour
by hour informed of all that might happen, and, above all, to try every
means in his power to unmask Miss Brandon.
“How he hates her!” said Daniel to himself when he was alone,--“how he
hates her!”
But this very hatred, which had already troubled him the night before,
now disturbed him more and more, and kept him from coming to any
decision. The more he reflected, the more it seemed to him that Maxime
had allowed himself to be carried away beyond what was probable, or
even possible. The last accusation, especially, seemed to him perfectly
monstrous.
A young and beautiful woman, consumed by ambition and covetousness,
might possibly play a comedy of pure love while she was disgusted in her
heart. She might catch by vile tricks a foolish old man, and make him
marry her, openly and avowedly selling her beauty and her youth. Such
things happen, and are excused by the morality of our day. The same
wicked, heartless woman might speculate upon becoming speedily a widow,
and thus regaining her liberty, together with a large fortune. This also
happens, however horrible it may appear. But that she should marry a
poor old fool, with the preconceived purpose of hastening his end by a
deliberate crime, there was a depth in that wickedness which terrified
Daniel’s imagination.
Deeply ensconced in his chair, he was losing himself in conjectures,
forgetting how time passed, and how his work was waiting for him, even
the invitation to dinner which the count had given to him, and the
prospect of being introduced that very evening to Miss Brandon. Night
came; and then only his concierge, who came in to see what had become of
him all day long, aroused him from his torpor.
“Ah, I am losing my senses!” he exclaimed, rising suddenly. “And
Henrietta, who has been waiting for me--what must she think of me?”
Miss Ville-Handry, at that very moment, had reached that degree of
anxiety which becomes well-nigh intolerable. After having waited for
Daniel all the evening of the day before, and after having spent a
sleepless night, she had surely expected him to-day, counting the
seconds by the beating of her heart, and starting at the noise of every
carriage in the street. In her despair, knowing hardly what she was
doing, she was thinking of running herself to University Street, to
Daniel’s house, when the door opened.
In the same indifferent tone in which he announced friends and enemies,
the servant said,--
“M. Daniel Champcey.”