"What! You wicked man! you, too!"
"Yes, monsieur."
"Pray consider that — "
"My wife has told you, sir. We made a marriage of love, and, like her, I believe that love marriages are the only happy ones."
"To make merchandise of Antonine! I, counsel her to be guilty of an act of shocking meanness, a marriage of interest! to sell herself, in a word, when but an hour ago she confessed her pure and noble love to me! Ah, monsieur, I thought you had a higher opinion of me!"
"Come, come, now, my dear Dutertre, you are a man of sense, confess that these reasons are nothing but romance; help me to convince your wife."
"I repeat, monsieur, that I think as she does."
"Ah," exclaimed M. Pascal, "I did not expect to find here friends so cold and indifferent to what concerned me."
"Sir," exclaimed Sophie, "that reproach is unjust."
"Unjust! alas, I wish it were; but, indeed, I have too much reason to think differently. But a moment ago, your husband refused one of my requests, and now it is you. Ah, it is sad — sad. What can I rely upon after this?"
"Refused what?" said Sophie to her husband, more and more disquieted. "What does he mean, Charles?"
"It is not necessary to mention it, my dear Sophie."
"I think, on the contrary," replied Pascal, "that it would be well to tell your wife, my dear Dutertre, and have her opinion."
"Sir!" exclaimed Dutertre, clasping his hands in dismay.
"Come! is it not a marriage of love?" said Pascal, "you do not have any secrets from each other!"
"Charles, I beseech you, explain to me the meaning of all this. Ah, I saw plainly enough that you were suffering. Monsieur, has anything happened between you and Charles?" said she to Pascal, in a tone of entreaty. "I implore you to tell me."
"My God! a very simple thing happened. You can judge of it yourself, madame — "
"Monsieur!" cried Dutertre, "in the name of the gratitude we owe you, in the name of pity, not one word more, I beseech you, for I can never believe that you will persist in your resolution. And then, what good does it do to torture my wife with needless alarm?"
Then, turning to Madame Dutertre, he said:
"Compose yourself, Sophie, I beg you."
The father Dutertre, hearing the sound of voices as he sat in his chamber, suddenly opened his door, made two steps into the parlour, extending his hands before him, and cried, trembling with excitement:
"Charles! Sophie. My God! what is the matter?"
"My father!" whispered Dutertre, wholly overcome.
"The old man!" said Pascal. "Good! that suits me!"
CHAPTER IX
A moment's silence followed the entrance of the old blind man into the parlour.
Dutertre went quickly to meet his father, took hold of his trembling hand, and said, as he pressed it tenderly:
"Calm yourself, father, it is nothing; a simple discussion, a little lively. Let me take you back to your chamber."
"Charles," said the old man, shaking his head sadly, "your hand is cold, you are nervous, your voice is changed; something has happened which you wish to hide from me."
"You are not mistaken, sir," said Pascal to the old man. "Your son is hiding something from you, and in his interest, in yours, and in the interest of your daughter-in-law and her children, you ought not to be ignorant of it."
"But M. Pascal, can nothing touch your heart?" cried Charles Dutertre. "Are you without pity, without compassion?"
"It is because I pity your obstinate folly, and that of your wife, my dear Dutertre, that I wish to appeal from it, to the good sense of your respectable father."
"Charles," cried Sophie, "however cruel the truth may be, tell it. This doubt, this agony, is beyond my endurance!"
"My son," added the old man, "be frank, as you have always been, and we will have courage."
"You see, my dear Dutertre," persisted M. Pascal, "your worthy father himself wishes to know the truth."
"Monsieur," answered Dutertre, in a broken voice, looking at Pascal with tears which he could hardly restrain, "be good, be generous, as you have been until to-day. Your power is immense, I know; with one word you can plunge us in distress, in disaster; but with one word, too, you can restore to us the peace and happiness which we have owed to you. I implore you, do not be pitiless."
At the sight of the tears, which, in spite of his efforts to control, rose to the eyes of Dutertre, a man so resolute and energetic, Sophie detected the greatness of the danger, and, turning to M. Pascal, said, in a heartrending voice:
"My God! I do not know the danger with which you threaten us, but I am afraid, oh, I am afraid, and I implore you also, M. Pascal."
"After having been our saviour," cried Dutertre, drying the tears which escaped in spite of him, "surely you will not be our executioner!"
"Your executioner!" repeated Pascal. "Please God, my poor friends, it is not I, it is you who wish to be your own executioner. This word you expect from me, this word which can assure your happiness, say it, my dear Dutertre, and our little feast will be as joyous as it ought to be; if not, then do not complain of the bad fate which awaits you. Alas, you will have it so!"
"Charles, if it depends on you," cried Sophie, in a voice of agony, "if this word M. Pascal asks depends on you, then say it, oh, my God, since the salvation of your father and your children depend upon it."
"You hear your wife, my dear Dutertre," resumed Pascal. "Will you be insensible to her voice?"
"Ah, well, then," cried Dutertre, pale and desperate, "since this man is pitiless, you, my father, and you, too, Sophie, can know all. I dismissed Marcelange from my employ. M. Pascal has an interest, of which I am ignorant, in having this man enter the business house of Durand, and he asks me to give to this firm a voucher for the integrity of a wretch whom I have thrown out of my establishment as an arrant impostor."
"Ah, monsieur," said the old man, shocked, as he turned to the side where he supposed M. Pascal to be, "that is impossible. You cannot expect such an unworthy action from my son!"
"And if I refuse to do this degrading thing," said Dutertre, "M. Pascal withdraws from me the capital which I have so rashly accepted, he refuses me credit, and in our present crisis that would be our loss, our ruin."
"Great God!" whispered Sophie, terrified.
"That is not all, father," continued Dutertre. "My wife, too, must pay her tribute of shame. M. Pascal is, he says, in love with Mlle. Antonine, and Sophie must serve this love, which she knows to be impossible, and which for honourable reasons she disapproves, or a threat is still suspended over our heads. Now you have the truth, father, — submit to a ruin as terrible as unforeseen, or commit a base action, such is the alternative to which a man whom we have trusted so long as loyal and generous reduces me."
"That again, always that; so goes the world," interposed M. Pascal, sighing and shrugging his shoulders. "So long as they can receive your aid without making any return, oh, then they flatter you and praise you. It is always 'My noble benefactor, my generous saviour;' they call you 'dear, good man,' load you with attentions; they embroider purses for you and make a feast for you. The little children repeat compliments to you, but let the day come when this poor, innocent man presumes in his turn to ask one or two miserable little favours, then they cry, 'Scoundrel!' 'Unworthy!' 'Infamous!'"
"Any sacrifice, compatible with honour, you might have asked of me, M. Pascal," said Dutertre, in a voice which told how deeply he was wounded, "and I would have made it with joy!"
"Then, what is to be expected?" continued Pascal, without replying to Dutertre, "if the 'good, innocent man,' so good-natured as they suppose him to be, the benefactor, at last, grows weary, ingratitude breaks his heart, for he is naturally sensitive, too sensitive?"
"Ingratitude!" cried Sophie, bursting into tears, "we — we — ingrates, oh, my God!"
"And as the 'good, innocent man' sees a little later that he has been mistaken," continued Pascal, without replying to Sophie, "as he recognises the fact, with pain, that he has been dealing with people incapable of putting their grateful friendship beyond a few puerile prejudices, he says to himself that he would be by far too much of an 'innocent man' to continue to open his purse for the use of such lukewarm friends. So he withdraws his money and his credit as I do, being brought to this resolution by certain circumstances consequent upon the refusal of this dear Dutertre, whom I loved so much, and whom I would love still to call my friend. One last word, sir," added Pascal, addressing the old man. "I have just told you frankly my attitude toward your son, and his toward me; but as it would cost my own heart too much to renounce the faith that I had in the affection of this dear Dutertre, as I know the terrible evils which, through his own fault, must come upon him and his family, I am willing still to give him one quarter of an hour for reconsideration. Let him give me the letter in question, let Madame Dutertre make me the promise that I ask of her, and all shall become again as in the past, and I shall ask for breakfast, and enthusiastically drink a toast to friendship. You are the father of Dutertre, monsieur, you have a great influence over him; judge and decide."
"Charles," said the old man to his son, in a voice full of emotion, "you have acted as an honest man. That is well, but there is still another thing to do; to refuse to vouch for the integrity of a scoundrel is not enough."
"Ah, ah!" interrupted Pascal, "what more, then, is there to do?"
"If M. Pascal," continued the old man, "persists in this dangerous design, you ought, my son, to write to the house of Durand, that for reasons of which you are ignorant, but which are perhaps hostile to their interests, M. Pascal desires to place this Marcelange with them, and that they must be on their guard, because to be silent when an unworthy project is proposed is to become an accomplice."
"I will follow your advice, father," replied Dutertre, in a firm voice.
"Better and better," exclaimed Pascal, sighing, "to ingratitude they add the odious abuse of confidence. Ah, well, I will drink the cup to the dregs. Only, my poor former friends," added he, throwing a strange and sinister glance upon the actors in this scene, "only I fear, you see, that after drinking it a great deal of bitterness and rancour will remain in my heart, and then, you know, when a legitimate hatred succeeds a tender friendship, this hatred, unhappily, becomes a terrible thing."
"Oh, Charles! he frightens me," whispered the young wife, drawing nearer her husband.
"As to you, my dear Sophie," added the old man, with imperturbable calmness, without replying to M. Pascal's threat, "you ought not only to favour in nothing — the course which you have taken — a marriage which you must disapprove, but if M. Pascal persists in his intentions, you ought, by all means, to enlighten Mlle. Antonine as to the character of the man who seeks her. To do that, you have only to inform her at what an infamous price he put the continuation of the aid he has rendered your husband."
"That is my duty," replied Sophie, in a calmer voice, "and I will do it, father."
"And you, too, my dear Madame Dutertre, to abuse an honest confidence!" said M. Pascal, hiding his anger under a veil of sweetness, "to strike me in my dearest hope, ah, this is generous! God grant that I may not give myself up to cruel retaliation! After two years of friendship to part with such sentiments! But it must be, it must be!" added Pascal, looking alternately at Dutertre and his wife. "Is all ended between us?"
Sophie and her husband preserved a silence full of resignation and dignity.
"Oh, well," said Pascal, taking his hat, "another proof of the ingratitude of men, alas!"
"Monsieur," cried Dutertre, exasperated beyond measure at the affected sensibility of Pascal, "in the presence of the frightful blow with which you intend to crush us, this continued sarcasm is atrocious. Leave us, leave us!"
"Ah, here I am driven away from this house by people who are conscious of owing their happiness to me for so long a time, — their salvation even, they owe to me," said Pascal, walking slowly toward the door. "Driven away from here! I! Ah, this mortifying grief disappoints me, indeed!"
Then, pausing, he rummaged his pocket, and drew out the little purse that Sophie had given him a few moments before, and, handing it to the young wife, he said, with a pitiless accent of sardonic contrition:
"Happily, they are mute, or these pearls of steel would tell me every moment how much my name was blessed in this house from which I am driven away."
Then, with the air of changing his mind, he put the purse back in his pocket, after looking at it with a melancholy smile, and said:
"No, no, I will keep you, poor little innocent purse. You will recall to me the little good I have done, and the cruel deception which has been my reward."
So saying, M. Pascal put his hand on the knob of the door, opened it, and went out, while Sophie and her husband and her father sat in gloomy silence.
This oppressive silence was still unbroken when M. Pascal, returning and opening the door half-way, said across the threshold:
"To tell the truth, Dutertre, I have reflected. Listen to me, my dear Dutertre."
A ray of foolish hope illumined the face of Dutertre; for a moment he believed that, in spite of the cold and sarcastic cruelty that Pascal had first affected, he did feel some pity at last.
Sophie shared the same hope; like her husband she listened with indescribable anguish to the words of the man who was to dispose so absolutely of their fate, while Pascal said:
"Next Saturday is your pay-day, is it not, my dear Dutertre? Let me call you so notwithstanding what has passed between us."
"Thank God, he has some pity," thought Dutertre, and he replied aloud:
"Yes, monsieur."
"I would not wish, you understand, my dear Dutertre," continued Pascal, "to put you in ruinous embarrassment. I know Paris, and in the present business crisis you could not get credit for a cent, especially if it were known that I have withdrawn mine from you, and as, after all, you relied upon my name to meet your liabilities, did you not?"
"Charles, we are saved!" whispered Sophie, panting, "he was only testing us."
Dutertre, struck with this idea, which appeared to him all the more probable as he had at first suspected it, no longer doubted his safety; his heart beat violently, his contracted features relaxed into their ordinary cheerful expression, and he replied, stammering from excess of emotion:
"In fact, sir, trusting blindly to your promises, I relied on your credit as usual."
"Well, my dear Dutertre, that you may not find yourself in an embarrassed position, I have come back to tell you that, as you still have about a week, you had better provide for yourself elsewhere, as you cannot depend on Paris or on me."
And M. Pascal closed the door, and took his departure.
The reaction was so terrible that Dutertre fell back in his chair, pale, inanimate, and utterly exhausted. Hiding his face in his hands, he sobbed:
"Lost, lost!"
"Oh, our children!" cried Sophie, in a heartrending voice, as she threw herself down at her husband's knees, "our poor children!"
"Charles," said the old man, extending his hands, and timidly groping his way to his son, "Charles, my beloved son, have courage!"
"Oh, father, it is ruin, it is bankruptcy," said the unhappy man, with convulsive sobs. "The misery, oh, my God! the misery in store for us all!"
At the height of this overwhelming sorrow came a cruel contrast; the little children, clamorous with joy, rushed into the parlour, exclaiming:
"It is Madeleine; here is Madeleine!"
CHAPTER X
At the sight of Madeleine, who was no other than the Marquise de Miranda, the happiness of Madame Dutertre was so great that for a moment all her sorrows and all her terrors for the future were forgotten; her sweet and gracious countenance beamed with joy, she could only pronounce these words in broken accents:
"Madeleine, dear Madeleine! after such a long absence, at last you have come!"
After the two young women had embraced each other Sophie said to her friend as she looked at her husband and the old man:
"Madeleine, my husband and his father, — our father, as he calls me his daughter."
The marquise, entering suddenly, had thrown herself upon Sophie's neck with such impetuous affection that Charles Dutertre could not distinguish the features of the stranger, but when, at Madame Dutertre's last words, the newly arrived friend turned toward him, he felt a sudden strange impression, — an impression so positive that, for a few minutes, he, like his wife, forgot the vindictive speech of M. Pascal.
What Charles Dutertre felt at the sight of Madeleine was a singular mixture of surprise, admiration, and almost distress, for he experienced a sort of indefinable remorse at the thought of being in that critical moment accessible to any emotion except that which pertained to the ruin which threatened him and his family.
The Marquise de Miranda would hardly, at first sight, seem capable of making so sudden and so deep an impression. Quite tall in stature, her form and waist were completely hidden under a large mantle of spring material which matched that of her dress, whose long, trailing folds scarcely permitted a view of the extremity of her little boot. It was the same with her hands, which were almost entirely concealed by the sleeves of her dress, which she wore, as was her custom, long and floating. A little hood made of crape, as white as snow, formed a framework for her distinctly oval face, and set off the tint of her complexion, for Madeleine had that dull, pale flesh-colour so often found in brunettes of a pronounced type, with large, expressive blue eyes fringed with lashes as black as her eyebrows of jet, while, by a bewitching contrast, her hair, arranged in a mass of little curls, à la Sevigné, was of that charming and delicate ash-blonde which Rubens makes flow like waves upon the shoulders of his fair naiads.
This pallid complexion, these blue eyes, these black eyebrows and blonde hair, gave to Madeleine's physiognomy a very fetching attraction; her ebony lashes were so thick, so closely set, that one might have said — like the women of the East, who by this means impart a passionate and at the same time an enervated expression to their faces — she painted with black the under part of her eyelids, almost always partially closed over their large azure-coloured pupils; her pink nostrils, changing and nervous, dilated on each side of a Greek nose exquisite in its contour; while her lips, of so warm a red that one might almost see the blood circulate under their delicate epidermis, were full but clear cut, and a little prominent, like those of an antique Erigone, and sometimes under their bright coloured edges one could see the beautiful enamel of her teeth.
But why continue this portrait? Will there not be always, however faithful our description, however highly coloured it may be, as immeasurable a distance between that and the reality as exists between a painting and a living being? It would be impossible to make perceptible that atmosphere of irresistible attraction, that magnetism, we might say, which emanated from this singular creature. That which in others would have produced a neutralising effect, seemed in her to increase her fascinations a hundredfold. The very length and amplitude of her garments, which, without revealing the contour of her figure, allowed only a sight of the end of her fingers and the extremity of her boot, added a charm to her. In a word, if the chaste drapery which falls at the feet of an antique muse, of severe and thoughtful face, enhances the dignity of her aspect, a veil thrown over the beautiful form of the Venus Aphrodite only serves to excite and inflame the imagination.
Such was the impression which Madeleine had produced on Charles Dutertre, who, speechless and troubled, stood for some moments gazing at her.
Sophie, not suspecting the cause of her husband's silence and emotion, supposed him to be absorbed in thought of the imminent danger which threatened him, and this idea bringing her back to the position she had for a moment forgotten, she said to the marquise, trying to force a smile:
"My dear Madeleine, you must excuse the preoccupation of Charles. At the moment you entered we were talking of business, and business of a very serious nature indeed."
"Yes, really, madame, you must excuse me," said Dutertre, starting, and reproaching himself for the strange impression his wife's friend had made upon him. "Fortunately, all that Sophie has told me of your kindness encourages me to presume upon your indulgence."
"My indulgence? It is I who have need of yours, monsieur," replied the marquise, smiling, "for in my overmastering desire to see my dear Sophie again, running here unawares, I threw myself on her neck, without dreaming of your presence or that of your father. But he will, I know, pardon me for treating Sophie like a sister, since he treats her as a daughter."
With these words, Madeleine turned to the old man.
"Alas! madame," exclaimed he, involuntarily, "never did my poor children have greater need of the fidelity of their friends. Perhaps it is Heaven that sends you — "
"Take care, father," said Dutertre, in a low voice to the old man, as if he would reproach him tenderly for making a stranger acquainted with their domestic troubles, for Madeleine had suddenly directed a surprised and interrogative glance toward Sophie.
The old man comprehended his son's thought, and whispered:
"You are right. I ought to keep silent, but grief is so indiscreet! Come now, Charles, take me back to my room. I feel very much overcome."
And he took his son's arm. As Dutertre was about to leave the parlour the marquise approached him, and said:
"I shall see you soon, M. Dutertre, I warn you, for I am resolved during my sojourn in Paris to come often, oh! very often, to see my dear Sophie. Besides, I wish to make a request of you, and, in order to be certain of your consent, I shall charge Sophie to ask it. You see, I act without ceremony, as a friend, an old friend, for my friendship for you, M. Dutertre, dates from the happiness Sophie owes you. I shall see you, then, soon!" added the marquise, extending her hand to Dutertre with gracious cordiality.
For the first time in his life Sophie's husband felt ashamed of the hands blackened by toil; he hardly dared touch the rosy little fingers of Madeleine; he trembled slightly at the contact; a burning blush mounted to his forehead, and, to dissimulate his mortification and embarrassment, he bowed profoundly before the marquise, and went out with his father.
From the commencement of this scene Sophie's two little children, holding each other's hands, and hiding now and then behind their mother, near whom they were standing, opened their eyes wide in silent and curious contemplation of the great lady.
The marquise, perceiving them, exclaimed, as she looked at her friend:
"Your children? My God, how pretty they are! How proud you must be!" And she dropped on her knees before them, putting herself, so to speak, on a level with them; then, dispersing with one hand the blond curls which hid the brow and eyes of the little girl, she lifted the chin of the child's half-bent head with the other hand, looked a moment at the charming little face so rosy and fresh, and kissed the cheeks and eyes and brow and hair and neck of the little one with maternal tenderness.
"And you, little cherub, you must not be jealous," added she, and, holding the brown head of the little boy and the blond curls of the little girl together, she divided her caresses between them.
Sophie Dutertre, moved to tears, smiled sadly at this picture, when the marquise, still on her knees, looked up at her and said, holding both children in her embrace:
"You would not believe, Sophie, that, in embracing these little angels, I comprehend, I feel almost the happiness that you experience when you devour them with kisses and caresses, and it seems to me that I love you even more to know that you are so happy, so perfectly happy."
As she heard her happiness thus extolled, Sophie, brought back to the painful present a moment forgotten, dropped her head, turned pale, and showed in her countenance such intense agony, that Madeleine rose immediately, and exclaimed:
"My God, Sophie, how pale you are! What is the matter?"
Madame Dutertre stifled a sigh, lifted her head sadly, and replied:
"Nothing is the matter, Madeleine; the excitement, the joy of seeing you again after such a long separation, — that is all."
"Excitement, joy?" answered the marquise, with an air of painful doubt. "No, no! A few moments ago it was excitement and joy, but now you seem to be heart-broken, Sophie."
Madame Dutertre said nothing, hid her tears, embraced her children, and then whispered to them:
"Go find your nurse, my darlings."
Madeleine and Augustus obeyed and left the parlour, not, however, without turning many times to look at the great lady whom they thought so charming.
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