Madame de Bonmont conceived of love as an abyss of delight. After that
dinner at the Madrid, glorified as it had been by the reading of the
royal letter, she had said to Joseph Lacrisse as they returned from
the Bois, while the carriage was still warm with an historic embrace:
“This will be for ever!” and these words, meaningless as they will
seem if we consider the impermanence of the elements which make up the
substance of the erotic emotions, were none the less indicative of a
proper spirituality and of a longing for the infinite which conferred a
certain distinction. “Quite!” had been the answer of Joseph Lacrisse.
Two weeks had passed since that happy night, two weeks during which
the secretary of the Departmental Committee of Young Royalists had
divided his time between the demands of his work and those of his love.
Dressed in a tailor-made costume, her face covered with a white lace
veil, the Baronne had come, at the appointed hour, to the first-floor
flat of a discreet little house in the Rue Lord-Byron. Here were three
rooms which she had herself furnished with a heart full of tenderness,
hanging them with that celestial blue which had formerly figured in her
forgotten love-affair with Raoul Marcien.
She found Joseph Lacrisse well-mannered, proud and even a little
shy. He was young and charming, but not exactly what she had wanted.
He was gloomy and seemed uneasy. With his frowning brows and thin
tightly-closed lips he would have reminded her of Rara, had she not
possessed to the full the delightful faculty of forgetting the past.
She knew that if he was anxious it was not without cause. She knew that
he was a conspirator and that it fell to his share to hoodwink the
prefect and the chief Republicans of a very populous department; and
she knew that in this enterprise he was risking his liberty and his
life for the sake of King and Church. It was precisely because he was a
conspirator that she had first loved him. But now she would have liked
him to be more cheerful and more affectionate. He welcomed her warmly
enough, however, saying:
“It is an intoxication to see you! For the last fortnight I have
positively been walking in a starry dream.” And he had added: “How
delicious you are!”
But he hardly looked at her, and at once went to the window, where he
lifted a corner of the curtain, and for ten minutes remained there
peering through the opening.
Then, without turning round, he remarked:
“I told you that we ought to have two exits, and you wouldn’t believe
me. It’s a good thing we are in front anyhow, but I can’t see properly
because of the tree.”
“The acacia?” sighed the Baronne as she slowly untied her veil.
The house stood back from the road, facing a little courtyard,
containing an acacia and a dozen spindle-trees, shut in by an
ivy-covered railing.
“Yes, the acacia, if you like.”
“What are you looking at, _mon ami_?”
“At a man stuck against the wall opposite.”
“Who is he?”
“I don’t know. I’m looking to see if he is one of my detectives. I’m
fed up. Since I’ve been in Paris I’ve had two of them at my heels all
day. It gets on one’s nerves in the end. But this time I quite thought
I’d managed to give them the slip.”
“Couldn’t you complain?”
“To whom?”
“I don’t know—to the Government.”
He made no reply, but stood for awhile still watching. Then, having
made sure that it was not one of his pursuers, his countenance cleared
and he came over to her.
“How I love you! You are lovelier than ever. You are, truly, and I
adore you. But what if they had put different men on to me this time!
It’s Dupuy who put them on my track. A tall fellow and a short one.
The tall one wore black glasses and the short one had a nose like a
parrot’s beak and little bright eyes like a bird’s that were always
glancing sideways. I knew them well. They weren’t much to be feared.
They were always after me. When I went to the Club my friends would
tell me as they came in, ‘Lacrisse, I’ve just seen your two fellows
at the door.’ I used to send them out beer and cigars. Sometimes I
would ask myself if Dupuy did not set them on me to protect me. He was
brusque and queer and irritable, but a patriot all the same. He wasn’t
a bit like the men in power to-day. With them you’ve got to be on your
guard. What if they’ve changed my detectives, the brutes!”
He went to the window again.
“No, it’s only a coachman smoking his pipe. I didn’t notice his
yellow-striped waistcoat. Fear distorts objects, that’s certain! I must
confess I was afraid—on your account, as you may imagine. You must not
be compromised through me, you who are so charming, so delicious!”
He sat beside her and took her in his arms, covering her with vehement
caresses. Presently she found that her dress was in such disorder that
modesty alone, in the absence of any other motive, would have forced
her to remove it.
“Elisabeth, tell me you love me.”
“If I did not love you, it seems to me——”
“Do you hear that heavy, regular footfall in the street?”
“No, _mon ami_.”
And it was true; plunged into a delicious oblivion she was not
listening for sounds from the outer world.
“There’s no doubt this time, it’s he, my man, the little one, the bird.
I know his step so well that I could pick it out among a thousand.”
And he returned to the window.
These alarms set his nerves on edge. Since the failure of the 28th
of February he had lost his admirable assurance and was beginning to
anticipate a long and difficult affair. Most of his companions were
growing discouraged and he himself suspicious. Everything irritated him.
And now she made an unfortunate remark:
“Don’t forget, _mon ami_, that I’ve got you an invitation to dinner
to-morrow at my brother’s. It will be an opportunity of meeting.”
His irritation burst forth:
“Your brother Wallstein! Ah, yes, let’s talk of him! He’s a true
Jew if you like. This week Henri Léon told him about an interesting
undertaking, a propagandist newspaper which must be distributed
gratuitously in large quantities throughout the country and in the
manufacturing centres. He pretended not to understand what Léon was
driving at and gave him advice—good advice! Does your brother imagine
for a moment that it is his advice that we want?”
Elisabeth was an anti-Semite. She felt that she could not with decency
defend her brother Wallstein, of Vienna, of whom she was exceedingly
fond. She remained silent.
Lacrisse began to play with a small revolver which lay upon the table.
“If they attempt to arrest me here——” he said.
A fit of rage seized him. He cried out against the Jews, Protestants,
Freemasons, Freethinkers, Parliamentarians, Republicans and Ministers.
He would like to flog them in public, and bathe them in vitriol. He
waxed eloquent and broke into the pious language of the _Croix_.
“The Jews and Freemasons are ruining France, ruining us, eating us up.
But patience! Wait until after the Rennes trial, and then you will see
how we will bleed them, split them up, smoke their hams, singe their
hides and hang their heads in the pork-butchers’ shops! Everything is
ready. The movement will break out simultaneously in Rennes and in
Paris. The Dreyfusards will be trampled in the streets. Loubet will be
roasted in the flames of the Élysée, and none too soon either.”
Madame de Bonmont conceived of love as an abyss of delight. She did not
hold it sufficient unto the day to forget the world once only in this
room of sky-blue hangings. She sought to lead her lover back to gentler
thoughts. So she said:
“What beautiful eyelashes you have!”
And she covered his eyelids with tiny kisses.
When she languidly opened her eyes again, languishing and recalling
to her happy mind the infinity that had filled it for a moment, she
noticed that Joseph was anxious and seemed far away from her, although
she still held him with one of her soft, beautiful, supple arms. With a
voice tender as a sigh, she asked him:
“What is the matter, _mon ami_? We were so happy just now.”
“Of course we were,” replied Joseph Lacrisse. “But I’ve just remembered
three telegrams in cipher which have to be sent off before night. It
is a complicated matter, and a dangerous one. We really thought for a
moment that Dupuy had intercepted our telegrams on February 22nd. There
was enough in them to jug the lot of us.”
“But he did not intercept them, _mon ami_?”
“We must suppose not, as we were not molested. But I have my reasons
for believing that for the last fortnight the Government have had an
eye on us, and until this wretched Republic is done for I shan’t have a
moment’s peace.”
Tender and radiant, she put her arms about his neck, like a scented
garland of flowers, and gazing at him with her moist sapphire eyes she
said, with a smile upon her fresh, ardent mouth:
“Do not be anxious, _mon ami_. Do not worry so. I am sure you will
succeed. Their Republic is done for. How could it resist you? The
people have had enough of Parliamentarians. They don’t want any more
of them, I’m certain. Nor of the Freemasons, and Freethinkers, and all
those horrible godless people who have neither religion nor country.
For one’s country and one’s religion are the same thing, aren’t they?
There is a wonderful spiritual impulse abroad. On Sunday, at Mass, the
churches are full. And not only of women, as the Republicans would have
us believe. There are gentlemen and officers. Believe me _mon ami_, you
will succeed. Besides, I will burn candles for you in St. Anthony’s
chapel.”
“Yes, we shall make a move early in September,” he replied, grave and
thoughtful. “The public frame of mind is favourable. We have the good
wishes and encouragement of the people. Oh, it is not sympathy we lack.”
She imprudently inquired what they did lack.
“What we lack, or at any rate might lack, if things were not settled
quickly, is the sinews of war—money, deuce take it! We get a good deal,
of course, but we shall need so much. Three ladies in the best set gave
us three hundred thousand francs. Monseigneur was much impressed by a
generosity so truly French. Do you not think that there is something
charming, exquisite, fragrant of the old France, the old aristocratic
society, in the offering of these women to royalty?”
Madame de Bonmont, dressing in front of the glass, did not appear to
have heard the question.
He explained his meaning:
“But they are trickling, trickling away, the three hundred thousand
francs presented by those white hands. Monseigneur told us, with
chivalrous grace: ‘Spend the money to the last sou.’ If some dainty
little hand were to bring us another hundred thousand francs, how we
should bless it! It would have helped to save France. There is still a
place to be filled among the amazons of the cheque, in the squadron of
fair Leaguers. I can safely promise to the fourth donor an autograph
letter from the Prince and, what is more, a place at Court next winter.”
But the Baronne, feeling that he was trying to bleed her, received a
painful impression. This was not the first time, but she could not get
used to it. Besides, she did not see that it would be in any way useful
to give her money for the restoration of the monarchy. Of course she
liked the handsome young Prince with his rosy face and his fair silky
beard. She wished ardently for his return; she was impatient to witness
his entry into Paris, and his coronation. But, she argued, with his
income of two millions he had no need of anything but love, good wishes
and flowers. When Joseph Lacrisse had finished what he had to say the
silence became painful.
“_Mon Dieu!_ how awful my hair looks!” she muttered to the mirror.
When she had finished dressing, she took from her little purse a piece
of four-leaved clover, enclosed in a glass medallion framed in silver
gilt, and handing it to him whispered sentimentally:
“It will bring you luck. Promise to keep it always.”
In order to divert the attention of any police-agents that might be on
his track, Joseph Lacrisse was the first to leave the blue flat. As he
reached the landing he muttered with a scowl:
“She’s a regular Wallstein! It was no good _her_ being baptized. What
is bred in the bone will come out in the flesh!”