OCULAR DEMONSTRATION.
INSCRIBED on the card which the lounger leaves on the table of
Mademoiselle de Cevennes, or Madame de Lancy, is the name of Raymond
Marolles. The lounger, then, is Raymond Marolles, and it is he whom we
must follow, on the morning after the stormy interview in the pavilion.
He occupies a charming apartment in the Champs Élysées; small,
of course, as befitting a bachelor, but furnished in the best
taste. On entering his rooms there is one thing you could scarcely
fail to notice; and this is the surprising neatness, the almost
mathematical precision, with which everything is arranged. Books,
pictures, desks, pistols, small-swords, boxing-gloves, riding-whips,
canes, and guns--every object is disposed in an order quite unusual
in a bachelor’s apartment. But this habit of neatness is one of
the idiosyncrasies of Monsieur Marolles. It is to be seen in his
exquisitely-appointed dress; in his carefully-trimmed moustache; it is
to be heard even in the inflexions of his voice, which rise and fall
with rather monotonous though melodious regularity, and which are never
broken by anything so vulgar as anger or emotion.
At ten o’clock this morning he is still seated at breakfast. He has
eaten nothing, but he is drinking his second cup of strong coffee, and
it is easy to see that he is thinking very deeply.
“Yes,” he mutters, “I must find a way to convince her; she must be
thoroughly convinced before she will be induced to act. My first blows
have told so well, I must not fail in my masterstroke. But how to
convince her--words alone will not satisfy her long; there must be
ocular demonstration.”
He finishes his cup of coffee, and sits playing with the teaspoon,
clinking it with a low musical sound against the china teacup.
Presently he hits it with one loud ringing stroke. That stroke is
a note of triumph. He has been working a problem and has found the
solution. He takes up his hat and hurries out of the house; but as
soon as he is out of doors he slackens his step, and resumes his usual
lounging gait. He crosses the Place de la Concorde, and makes his way
to the Boulevard, and only turns aside when he reaches the Italian
Opera House. It is to the stage-door he directs his steps. An old man,
the doorkeeper, is busy in the little dark hall, manufacturing a _pot
à feu_, and warming his hands at the same time at a tiny stove in
a corner. He is quite accustomed to the apparition of a stylish young
man; so he scarcely looks up when the shadow of Raymond Marolles
darkens the doorway.
“Good morning, Monsieur Concierge,” says Raymond; “you are very busy, I
see.”
“A little domestic avocation, that is all, monsieur, being a bachelor.”
The doorkeeper is rather elderly, and somewhat snuffy for a bachelor;
but he is very fond of informing the visitors of the stage-door that
he has never sacrificed his liberty at the shrine of Hymen. He thinks,
perhaps, that they might scruple to give their messages to a married
man.
“Not too busy, then, for a little conversation, my friend?” asks the
visitor, slipping a five-franc piece into the porter’s dingy hand.
“Never too busy for that, monsieur;” and the porter abandons the _pot
à feu_ to its fate, and dusts with his coloured handkerchief a
knock-kneed-looking easy-chair, which he presents to monsieur.
Monsieur is very condescending, and the doorkeeper is very
communicative. He gives monsieur a great deal of useful information
about the salaries of the principal dancers; the bouquets and diamond
bracelets thrown to them; the airs and graces indulged in by them;
and divers other interesting facts. Presently monsieur, who has been
graciously though rather languidly interested in all this, says--“Do
you happen to have amongst your supernumeraries or choruses, or any of
your insignificant people, one of those mimics so generally met with in
a theatre?”
“Ah,” says the doorkeeper, chuckling, “I see monsieur knows a theatre.
We have indeed two or three mimics; but one above all--a chorus-singer,
a great man, who can strike off an imitation which is life itself;
a drunken, dissolute fellow, monsieur, or he would have taken to
principal characters and made himself a name. A fellow with a soul for
nothing but dominoes and vulgar wine-shops; but a wonderful mimic.”
“Ah! and he imitates, I suppose, all your great people--your prima
donna, your basso, your tenor--” hazards Monsieur Raymond Marolles.
“Yes, monsieur. You should hear him mimic this new tenor, this Monsieur
Gaston de Lancy, who has made such a sensation this season. He is not a
bad-looking fellow, pretty much the same height as De Lancy, and he can
assume his manner, voice, and walk, so completely that----”
“Perhaps in a dark room you could scarcely tell one from the other, eh?”
“Precisely, monsieur.”
“I have rather a curiosity about these sort of people; and I should
like to see this man, if----” he hesitates, jingling some silver in his
pocket.
“Nay, monsieur,” says the porter; “nothing more easy; this Moucée is
always here about this time. They call the chorus to rehearsal while
the great people are lounging over their breakfasts. We shall find him
either on the stage, or in one of the dressing-rooms playing dominoes.
This way, monsieur.”
Raymond Marolles follows the doorkeeper down dark passages and up
innumerable flights of stairs; till, very high up, he stops at a low
door, on the other side of which there is evidently a rather noisy
party. This door the porter opens without ceremony, and he and Monsieur
Marolles enter a long low room, with bare white-washed walls, scrawled
over with charcoal caricatures of prima donnas and tenors, with
impossible noses and spindle legs. Seated at a deal table is a group of
young men, shabbily dressed, playing at dominoes, while others look on
and bet upon the game. They are all smoking tiny cigarettes which look
like damp curl-papers, and which last about two minutes each.
“Pardon me, Monsieur Moucée,” says the porter, addressing one of the
domino players, a good-looking young man, with a pale dark face and
black hair--“pardon me that I disturb your pleasant game; but I bring a
gentleman who wishes to make your acquaintance.”
The chorus-singer rises, gives a lingering look at a double-six he was
just going to play, and advances to where Monsieur Marolles is standing.
“At monsieur’s service,” he says, with an unstudied but graceful bow.
Raymond Marolles, with an ease of manner all his own passes his arm
through that of the young man, and leads him out into the passage.
“I have heard, Monsieur Moucée, that you possess a talent for mimicry
which is of a very superior order. Are you willing to assist with this
talent in a little farce I am preparing for the amusement of a lady? If
so you will have a claim (which I shall not forget) on my gratitude and
on my purse.”
This last word makes Paul Moucée prick up his ears. Poor fellow! his
last coin has gone for the half-ounce of tobacco he has just consumed.
He expresses himself only too happy to obey the commands of monsieur.
Monsieur suggests that they shall repair to an adjoining _café_,
at which they can have half an hour’s quiet conversation. They do so;
and at the end of the half-hour, Monsieur Marolles parts with Paul
Moucée at the door of this _café_. As they separate Raymond looks
at his watch--“Half-past eleven; all goes better than I could have
even hoped. This man will do very well for our friend Elvino, and the
lady shall have ocular demonstration. Now for the rest of my work; and
to-night, my proud and beautiful heiress, for you.”
As the clocks strike ten that night, a hackney-coach stops close to the
entrance of the Bois de Boulogne; and as the coachman checks his horse,
a gentleman emerges from the gloom, and goes up to the door of the
coach, which he opens before the driver can dismount. This gentleman is
Monsieur Raymond Marolles, and Valerie de Lancy is seated in the coach.
“Punctual, madame!” he says. “Ah, in the smallest matters you are
superior to your sex. May I request you to step out and walk with me
for some little distance?”
The lady, who is thickly veiled, only bows her head in reply; but she
is by his side in a moment. He gives the coachman some directions, and
the man drives off a few paces; he then offers his arm to Valerie.
“Nay, monsieur,” she says, in a cold, hard voice, “I can follow you, or
I can walk by your side. I had rather not take your arm.”
Perhaps it is as well for this man’s schemes that it is too dark for
his companion to see the smile that lifts his black moustache, or the
glitter in his blue eyes. He is something of a physiologist as well
as a mathematician, this man; and he can tell what she has suffered
since last night by the change in her voice alone. It has a dull and
monotonous sound, and the tone seems to have gone out of it for ever.
If the dead could speak, they might speak thus.
“This way, then, madame,” he says. “My first object is to convince you
of the treachery of the man for whom you have sacrificed so much. Have
you strength to live through the discovery?”
“I lived through last night. Come, monsieur, waste no more time
in words, or I shall think you are a charlatan. Let me hear from
_his_ lips that I have cause to hate him.”
“Follow me, then, and softly.”
He leads her into the wood. The trees are very young as yet, but all
is obscure to-night. There is not a star in the sky; the December
night is dark and cold. A slight fall of snow has whitened the ground,
and deadens the sound of footsteps. Raymond and Valerie might be two
shadows, as they glide amongst the trees. After they have walked about
a quarter of a mile, he catches her by the arm, and draws her hurriedly
into the shadow of a group of young pine-trees. “Now,” he says, “now
listen.”
She hears a voice whose every tone she knows. At first there is a
rushing sound in her ears, as if all the blood were surging from her
heart up to her brain; but presently she hears distinctly; presently
too, her eyes grow somewhat accustomed to the gloom; and she sees a few
paces from her the dim outline of a tall figure, familiar to her. It is
Gaston de Lancy, who is standing with one arm round the slight waist of
a young girl, his head bending down with the graceful droop she knows
so well, as he looks in her face.
Marolles’ voice whispers in her ear, “The girl is a dancer from one of
the minor theatres, whom he knew before he was a great man. Her name,
I think, is Rosette, or something like it. She loves him very much;
perhaps almost as much as you do, in spite of the quarterings on your
shield.”
He feels the slender hand, which before disdained to lean upon his arm,
now clasp his wrist, and tighten, as if each taper finger were an iron
vice.
“Listen,” he says again. “Listen to the drama, madame. I am the chorus!”
It is the girl who is speaking. “But, Gaston, this marriage, this
marriage, which has almost broken my heart.”
“Was a sacrifice to our love, my Rosette. For your sake alone would I
have made such a sacrifice. But this haughty lady’s wealth will make us
happy in a distant land. She little thinks, poor fool, for whose sake
I endure her patrician airs, her graces of the old _régime_, her
caprices, and her folly. Only be patient, Rosette, and trust me. The
day that is to unite us for ever is not far distant, believe me.”
It is the voice of Gaston de Lancy. Who should better know those tones
than his wife? Who should better know them than she to whose proud
heart they strike death?
The girl speaks again. “And you do not love this fine lady, Gaston?
Only tell me that you do not love her!”
Again the familiar voice speaks. “Love her! Bah! We never love these
fine ladies who give us such tender glances from opera-boxes. We never
admire these great heiresses, who fall in love with a handsome face,
and have not enough modesty to keep the sentiment a secret; who think
they honour us by a marriage which they are ashamed to confess; and who
fancy we must needs be devoted to them, because, after their fashion,
they are in love with us.”
“Have you heard enough?” asked Raymond Marolles.
“Give me a pistol or a dagger!” she gasped, in a hoarse whisper; “let
me shoot him dead, or stab him to the heart, that I may go away and die
in peace!”
“So,” muttered Raymond, “she has heard enough. Come, madame. Yet--stay,
one last look. You are sure that is Monsieur de Lancy?”
The man and the girl are standing a few yards from them; his back is
turned to Valerie, but she would know him amongst a thousand by the
dark hair and the peculiar bend of the head.
“Sure!” she answers. “Am I myself?”
“Come, then; we have another place to visit to-night. You are
satisfied, are you not, madame, now that you have had ocular
demonstration?”