Three days elapsed before Graham again saw M. Lebeau. The letter-writer
did not show himself at the cafe, and was not to be found at his office,
the ordinary business of which was transacted by his clerk, saying that
his master was much engaged on important matters that took him from home.
Graham naturally thought that these matters concerned the discovery of
Louise Duval, and was reconciled to suspense. At the cafe, awaiting
Lebeau, he had slid into some acquaintance with the ouvrier Armand
Monnier, whose face and talk had before excited his interest. Indeed,
the acquaintance had been commenced by the _ouvrier_, who seated himself
at a table near to Graham's, and, after looking at him earnestly for some
minutes, said, "You are waiting for your antagonist at dominos,
M. Lebeau,--a very remarkable man."
"So he seems. I know, however, but little of him. You, perhaps, have
known him longer?"
"Several months. Many of your countrymen frequent this cafe, but you do
not seem to care to associate with the blouses."
"It is not that; but we islanders are shy, and don't make acquaintance
with each other readily. By the way, since you so courteously accost me,
I may take the liberty of saying that I overheard you defend the other
night, against one of my countrymen, who seemed to me to talk great
nonsense, the existence of le bon Dieu. You had much the best of it.
I rather gathered from your argument that you went somewhat further, and
were not too enlightened to admit of Christianity."
Armand Monnier looked pleased. He liked praise; and he liked to hear
himself talk, and he plunged at once into a very complicated sort of
Christianity,--partly Arian, partly Saint Simonian, with a little of
Rousseau and a great deal of Armand Monnier. Into this we need not
follow him; but, in sum, it was a sort of Christianity, the main heads
of which consisted in the removal of your neighbour's landmarks, in the
right of the poor to appropriate the property of the rich, in the right
of love to dispense with marriage, and the duty of the State to provide
for any children that might result from such union,--the parents being
incapacitated to do so, as whatever they might leave was due to the
treasury in common. Graham listened to these doctrines with melancholy
not unmixed with contempt. "Are these opinions of yours," he asked,
"derived from reading or your own reflection?"
"Well, from both, but from circumstances in life that induced me to read
and reflect. I am one of the many victims of the tyrannical law of
marriage. When very young I married a woman who made me miserable, and
then forsook me. Morally, she has ceased to be my wife; legally, she is.
I then met with another woman who suits me, who loves me. She lives with
me; I cannot marry her; she has to submit to humiliations, to be called
contemptuously an _ouvrier's_ mistress. Then, though before I was only a
Republican, I felt there was something wrong in society which needed a
greater change than that of a merely political government; and then, too,
when I was all troubled and sore, I chanced to read one of Madame de
Grantmesnil's books. A glorious genius that woman's!"
"She has genius, certainly," said Graham, with a keen pang at his heart,
--Madame de Grantmesnil, the dearest friend of Isaura! "But," he added,
"though I believe that eloquent author has indirectly assailed certain
social institutions, including that of marriage, I am perfectly persuaded
that she never designed to effect such complete overthrow of the system
which all civilized communities have hitherto held in reverence as your
doctrines would attempt; and, after all, she but expresses her ideas
through the medium of fabulous incidents and characters. And men of your
sense should not look for a creed in the fictions of poets and romance-
writers."
"Ah," said Monnier, "I dare say neither Madame de Grantmesnil nor even
Rousseau ever even guessed the ideas they awoke in their readers; but one
idea leads on to another. And genuine poetry and romance touch the heart
so much more than dry treatises. In a word, Madame de Grantmesnil's book
set me thinking; and then I read other books, and talked with clever men,
and educated myself. And so I became the man I am." Here, with a self-
satisfied air, Monnier bowed to the Englishman, and joined a group at the
other end of the room.
The next evening, just before dusk, Graham Vane was seated musingly in
his own apartment in the Faubourg Montmartre, when there came a slight
knock at his door. He was so wrapped in thought that he did not hear the
sound, though twice repeated. The door opened gently, and M. Lebeau
appeared on the threshold. The room was lighted only by the gas-lamp
from the street without.
Lebeau advanced through the gloom, and quietly seated himself in the
corner of the fireplace opposite to Graham before he spoke. "A thousand
pardons for disturbing your slumbers, Monsieur Lamb."
Startled then by the voice so near him, Graham raised his head, looked
round, and beheld very indistinctly the person seated so near him.
"Monsieur Lebeau?"
"At your service. I promise to give an answer to your question; accept
my apologies that it has been deferred so long. I shall not this evening
go to our cafe. I took the liberty of calling--"
"Monsieur Lebeau, you are a brick."
"A what, Monsieur!--a brique?"
"I forgot; you are not up to our fashionable London idioms. A brick
means a jolly fellow, and it is very kind in you to call. What is your
decision?"
"Monsieur, I can give you some information, but it is so slight that I
offer it gratis, and forego all thought of undertaking further inquiries.
They could only be prosecuted in another country, and it would not be
worth my while to leave Paris on the chance of gaining so trifling a
reward as you propose. Judge for yourself. In the year 1849, and in the
month of July, Louise Duval left Paris for Aix-la-Chapelle. There she
remained some weeks, and then left it. I can learn no further traces of
her movements."
"Aix-la-Chapelle! What could she do there?"
"It is a Spa in great request; crowded during the summer season with
visitors from all countries. She might have gone there for health or for
pleasure."
"Do you think that one could learn more at the Spa itself if one went
there?"
"Possibly. But it is so long,--twenty years ago."
"She might have revisited the place."
"Certainly; but I know no more."
"Was she there under the same name,--Duval?"
"I am sure of that."
"Do you think she left it alone or with others? You tell me she was
awfully belle; she might have attracted admirers."
"If," answered Lebeau, reluctantly, "I could believe the report of my
informant, Louise Duval left Aix not alone, but with some gallant; not an
Englishman. They are said to have parted soon, and the man is now dead.
But, speaking frankly, I do not think Mademoiselle Duval would have thus
compromised her honour and sacrificed her future. I believe she would
have scorned all proposals that were not those of marriage. But all I
can say for certainty is that nothing is known to me of her fate since
she quitted Aix-la-Chapelle."
"In 1849? She had then a child living."
"A child? I never heard that she had any child; and I do not believe she
could have had any child in 1849."
Graham mused. Somewhat less than five years after 1849 Louise Duval had
been seen at Aix-la-Chapelle. Possibly she found some attraction at that
place, and might yet be discovered there. "Monsieur Lebeau," said
Graham, "you know this lady by sight; you would recognize her in spite of
the lapse of years. Will you go to Aix and find out there what you can?
Of course, expenses will be paid, and the reward will be given if you
succeed."
"I cannot oblige you. My interest in this poor lady is not very strong,
though I should be willing to serve her, and glad to know that she were
alive. I have now business on hand which interests me much more, and
which will take me from Paris, but not in the direction of Aix."
"If I wrote to my employer, and got him to raise the reward to some
higher amount, that might make it worth your while?"
"I should still answer that my affairs will not permit such a journey.
But if there be any chance of tracing Louise Duval at Aix,--and there may
be,--you would succeed quite as well as I should. You must judge for
yourself if it be worth your trouble to attempt such a task; and if you
do attempt it, and do succeed, pray let me know.--A line to my office
will reach me for some little time, even if I am absent from Paris.
Adieu, Monsieur Lamb."
Here M. Lebeau Lose and departed.
Graham relapsed into thought; but a train of thought much more active,
much more concentred than before. "No," thus ran his meditations,--"no,
it would not be safe to employ that man further. The reasons that forbid
me to offer any very high reward for the discovery of this woman operate
still more strongly against tendering to her own relation a sum that
might indeed secure his aid, but would unquestionably arouse his
suspicions, and perhaps drag into light all that must be concealed. Oh,
this cruel mission! I am, indeed, an impostor to myself till it be
fulfilled. I will go to Aix, and take Renard with me. I am impatient
till I set out, but I cannot quit Paris without once more seeing Isaura.
She consents to relinquish the stage; surely I could wean her too from
intimate friendship with a woman whose genius has so fatal an effect upon
enthusiastic minds. And then--and then?"
He fell into a delightful revery; and contemplating Isaura as his future
wife, he surrounded her sweet image with all those attributes of dignity
and respect with which an Englishman is accustomed to invest the destined
bearer of his name, the gentle sovereign of his household, the sacred
mother of his children. In this picture the more brilliant qualities of
Isaura found, perhaps, but faint presentation. Her glow of sentiment,
her play of fancy, her artistic yearnings for truths remote, for the
invisible fairyland of beautiful romance, receded into the background of
the picture. It was all these, no doubt, that had so strengthened and
enriched the love at first sight, which had shaken the equilibrium of his
positive existence; and yet he now viewed all these as subordinate to the
one image of mild decorous matronage into which wedlock was to transform
the child of genius, longing for angel wings and unlimited space.