ANGELIQUE-LOUISE DE GUERCHI was a woman of about twenty-eight years of
age, tall, dark, and well made. The loose life she had led had, it is
true, somewhat staled her beauty, marred the delicacy of her complexion,
and coarsened the naturally elegant curves of her figure; but it is such
women who from time immemorial have had the strongest attraction for
profligate men. It seems as if dissipation destroyed the power to
perceive true beauty, and the man of pleasure must be aroused to
admiration by a bold glance and a meaning smile, and will only seek
satisfaction along the trail left by vice. Louise-Angelique was
admirably adapted for her way of life; not that her features wore an
expression of shameless effrontery, or that the words that passed her
lips bore habitual testimony to the disorders of her existence, but that
under a calm and sedate demeanour there lurked a secret and indefinable
charm. Many other women possessed more regular features, but none of
them had a greater power of seduction. We must add that she owed that
power entirely to her physical perfections, for except in regard to the
devices necessary to her calling, she showed no cleverness, being
ignorant, dull and without inner resources of any kind. As her
temperament led her to share the desires she excited, she was really
incapable of resisting an attack conducted with skill and ardour, and if
the Duc de Vitry had not been so madly in love, which is the same as
saying that he was hopelessly blind, silly, and dense to everything
around him, he might have found a score of opportunities to overcome her
resistance. We have already seen that she was so straitened in money
matters that she had been driven to try to sell her jewels that very,
morning.
Jeannin was the first to 'break silence.
"You are astonished at my visit, I know, my charming Angelique. But you
must excuse my thus appearing so unexpectedly before you. The truth is,
I found it impossible to leave Paris without seeing you once more."
"Thank you for your kind remembrance," said she, "but I did not at all
expect it."
"Come, come, you are offended with me."
She gave him a glance of mingled disdain and resentment; but he went on,
in a timid, wistful tone--
"I know that my conduct must have seemed strange to you, and I
acknowledge that nothing can justify a man for suddenly leaving the
woman he loves--I do not dare to say the woman who loves him--without a
word of explanation. But, dear Angelique, I was jealous."
"Jealous!" she repeated incredulously.
"I tried my best to overcome the feeling, and I hid my suspicions from
you. Twenty times I came to see you bursting with anger and determined
to overwhelm you with reproaches, but at the sight of your beauty I
forgot everything but that I loved you. My suspicions dissolved before a
smile; one word from your lips charmed me into happiness. But when I was
again alone my terrors revived, I saw my rivals at your feet, and rage
possessed me once more. Ah! you never knew how devotedly I loved you."
She let him speak without interruption; perhaps the same thought was in
her mind as in Quennebert's, who, himself a past master in the art of
lying; was thinking--
"The man does not believe a word of what he is saying."
But the treasurer went on--
"I can see that even now you doubt my sincerity."
"Does my lord desire that his handmaiden should be blunt? Well, I know
that there is no truth in what you say."
"Oh! I can see that you imagine that among the distractions of the world
I have kept no memory of you, and have found consolation in the love of
less obdurate fair ones. I have not broken in on your retirement; I have
not shadowed your steps; I have not kept watch on your actions; I have
not surrounded you with spies who would perhaps have brought me the
assurance, 'If she quitted the world which outraged her, she was not
driven forth by an impulse of wounded pride or noble indignation; she
did not even seek to punish those who misunderstood her by her absence;
she buried herself where she was unknown, that she might indulge in
stolen loves.' Such were the thoughts that came to me, and yet I
respected your hiding-place; and to-day I am ready to believe you true,
if you will merely say, 'I love no one else!'"
Jeannin, who was as fat as a stage financier, paused here to gasp; for
the utterance of this string of banalities, this rigmarole of
commonplaces, had left him breathless. He was very much dissatisfied
with his performance; and ready to curse his barren imagination. He
longed to hit upon swelling phrases and natural and touching gestures,
but in vain. He could only look at Mademoiselle de Guerchi with a
miserable, heart-broken air. She remained quietly seated, with the same
expression of incredulity on her features.
So there was nothing for it but to go on once more.
"But this one assurance that I ask you will not give. So what I
have--been told is true: you have given your love to him."
She could not check a startled movement.
"You see it is only when I speak of him that I can overcome in you the
insensibility which is killing me. My suspicions were true after all:
you deceived me for his sake. Oh! the instinctive feeling of jealousy
was right which forced me to quarrel with that man, to reject the
perfidious friendship which he tried to force upon me. He has returned
to town, and we shall meet! But why do I say 'returned'? Perhaps he only
pretended to go away, and safe in this retreat has flouted with
impunity, my despair and braved my vengeance!"
Up to this the lady had played a waiting game, but now she grew quite
confused, trying to discover the thread of the treasurer's thoughts. To
whom did he refer? The Duc de Vitry? That had been her first impression.
But the duke had only been acquainted with her for a few months--since
she had--left Court. He could not therefore have excited the jealousy of
her whilom lover; and if it were not he, to whom did the words about
rejecting "perfidious friendship," and "returned to town," and so on,
apply? Jeannin divined her embarrassment, and was not a little proud of
the tactics which would, he was almost sure; force her to expose
herself. For there are certain women who can be thrown into cruel
perplexity by speaking to them of their love-passages without affixing a
proper name label to each. They are placed as it were on the edge of an
abyss, and forced to feel their way in darkness. To say "You have loved"
almost obliges them to ask "Whom?"
Nevertheless, this was not the word uttered by Mademoiselle de Guerchi
while she ran through in her head a list of possibilities. Her answer
was--
"Your language astonishes me; I don't understand what you mean."
The ice was broken, and the treasurer made a plunge. Seizing one of
Angelique's hands, he asked--
"Have you never seen Commander de Jars since then?"
"Commander de Jars!" exclaimed Angelique.
"Can you swear to me, Angelique, that you love him not?"
"Mon Dieu! What put it into your head that I ever cared for him? It's
over four months since I saw him last, and I hadn't an idea whether he
was alive or dead. So he has been out of town? That's the first I heard
of it."
"My fortune is yours, Angelique! Oh! assure me once again that you do
not love him--that you never loved him!" he pleaded in a faltering
voice, fixing a look of painful anxiety upon her.
He had no intention of putting her out of countenance by the course he
took; he knew quite well that a woman like Angelique is never more at
her ease than when she has a chance of telling an untruth of this
nature. Besides, he had prefaced this appeal by the magic words, "My
fortune' is yours!" and the hope thus aroused was well worth a perjury.
So she answered boldly and in a steady voice, while she looked straight
into his eyes--
"Never!"
"I believe you!" exclaimed Jeannin, going down on his knees and covering
with his kisses the hand he still held. "I can taste happiness again.
Listen, Angelique. I am leaving Paris; my mother is dead, and I am going
back to Spain. Will you follow me thither?"
"I---follow you?"
"I hesitated long before finding you out, so much did I fear a repulse.
I set out to-morrow. Quit Paris, leave the world which has slandered
you, and come with me. In a fortnight we shall be man and wife."
"You are not in earnest!"
"May I expire at your feet if I am not! Do you want me to sign the oath
with my blood?"
"Rise," she said in a broken voice. "Have I at last found a man to love
me and compensate me for all the abuse that has been showered on my
head? A thousand times I thank you, not for what you are doing for me,
but for the balm you pour on my wounded spirit. Even if you were to say
to me now, 'After all, I am obliged to give you up' the pleasure of
knowing you esteem me would make up for all the rest. It would be
another happy memory to treasure along with my memory of our love, which
was ineffaceable, although you so ungratefully suspected me of having
deceived you."
The treasurer appeared fairly intoxicated with joy. He indulged in a
thousand ridiculous extravagances and exaggerations, and declared
himself the happiest of men. Mademoiselle de Guerchi, who was desirous
of being prepared for every peril, asked him in a coaxing tone--
"Who can have put it into your head to be jealous of the commander? Has
he been base enough to boast that I ever gave him my love?"
"No, he never said anything about you; but someway I was afraid."
She renewed her assurances. The conversation continued some time in a
sentimental tone. A thousand oaths, a thousand protestations of love
were, exchanged. Jeannin feared that the suddenness of their journey
would inconvenience his mistress, and offered to put it off for some
days; but to this she would not consent, and it was arranged that the
next day at noon a carriage should call at the house and take Angelique
out of town to an appointed place at which the treasurer was to join
her.
Maitre Quennebert, eye and ear on the alert, had not lost a word of this
conversation, and the last proposition of the treasurer changed his
ideas.
"Pardieu!" he said to himself, "it looks as if this good man were really
going to let himself be taken in and done for. It is singular how very
clear-sighted we can be about things that don't touch us. This poor fly
is going to let himself be caught by a very clever spider, or I'm much
mistaken. Very likely my widow is quite of my opinion, and yet in what
concerns herself she will remain stone-blind. Well, such is life! We
have only two parts to choose between: we must be either knave or fool.
What's Madame Rapally doing, I wonder?"
At this moment he heard a stifled whisper from the opposite corner of
the room, but, protected by the distance and the darkness, he let the
widow murmur on, and applied his eye once more to his peephole. What he
saw confirmed his opinion. The damsel was springing up and down,
laughing, gesticulating, and congratulating herself on her unexpected
good fortune.
"Just imagine! He loves me like that!" she was saying to herself. "Poor
Jeannin! When I remember how I used to hesitate. How fortunate that
Commander de Jars, one of the most vain and indiscreet of men, never
babbled about me! Yes, we must leave town to-morrow without fail. I must
not give him time to be enlightened by a chance word. But the Duc de
Vitry? I am really sorry for him. However, why did he go away, and send
no word? And then, he's a married man. Ah! if I could only get back
again to court some day!... Who would ever have expected such a thing?
Good God! I must keep talking to myself, to be sure I'm not dreaming.
Yes, he was there, just now, at my feet, saying to me, 'Angelique, you
are going to become my wife.' One thing is sure, he may safely entrust
his honour to my care. It would be infamous to betray a man who loves me
as he does, who will give me his name. Never, no, never will I give him
cause to reproach me! I would rather----"
A loud and confused noise on the stairs interrupted this soliloquy. At
one moment bursts of laughter were heard, and the next angry voices.
Then a loud exclamation, followed by a short silence. Being alarmed at
this disturbance in a house which was usually so quiet, Mademoiselle de
Guerchi approached the door of her room, intending either to call for
protection or to lock herself in, when suddenly it was violently pushed
open. She recoiled with fright, exclaiming--
"Commander de Jars!"
"On my word!" said Quennebert behind the arras, "'tis as amusing as a
play! Is the commander also going to offer to make an honest woman of
her? But what do I see?"
He had just caught sight of the young man on whom de Jars had bestowed
the title and name of Chevalier de Moranges, and whose acquaintance the
reader has already made at the tavern in the rue Saint-Andre-des-Arts.
His appearance had as great an effect on the notary as a thunderbolt. He
stood motionless, trembling, breathless; his knees ready to give way
beneath him; everything black before his eyes. However, he soon pulled
himself together, and succeeded in overcoming the effects of his
surprise and terror. He looked once more through the hole in the
partition, and became so absorbed that no one in the whole world could
have got a word from him just then; the devil himself might have
shrieked into his ears unheeded, and a naked sword suspended over his
head would not have induced him to change his place.