Part 22

He had admitted to her that it was only with great reluctance and under pressure of necessity, that he worked at all; that he was far from being rich; that although he took his dinner with his parents, his salary barely sufficed for his wants; and that he had debts.

He hoped, however, he added, that it would not be always thus, and that, sooner or later, he would see the termination of all this misery and privation; for his father had at least fifty thousand francs a year and some day he must be rich.

Far from smiling, Mlle. Lucienne frowned at such a prospect.

“Ah! your father is a millionaire, is he?” she interrupted. “Well, I understand now how, at twenty-five, after refusing all the positions which have been offered to you, you have no position. You relied on your father, instead of relying on yourself. Judging that he worked hard enough for two, you bravely folded your arms, waiting for the fortune which he is amassing, and which you seem to consider yours.”

Such morality seemed a little steep to Maxence. “I think,” he began, “that, if one is the son of a rich man--”

“One has the right to be useless, I suppose?” added the girl.

“I do not mean that; but--”

“There is no but about it. And the proof that your views are wrong, is that they have brought you where you are, and deprived you of your own free will. To place one’s self at the mercy of another, be that other your own father, is always silly; and one is always at the mercy of the man from whom he expects money that he has not earned. Your father would never have been so harsh, had he not believed that you could not do without him.”

He wanted to discuss: she stopped him.

“Do you wish the proof that you are at M. Favoral’s mercy?” she said. “Very well. You spoke of marrying me.”

“Ah, if you were willing!”

“Very well. Go and speak of it to your father.”

“I suppose--”

“You don’t suppose any thing at all: you are absolutely certain that he will refuse you his consent.”

“I could do without it.”

“I admit that you could. But do you know what he would do then? He would arrange things in such a way that you would never get a centime of his fortune.”

Maxence had never thought of that.

“Therefore,” the young girl went on gayly, “though there is as yet no question of marriage, learn to secure your independence; that is, the means of living. And to that effect let us work.”

It was from that moment, that Mme. Favoral had noticed in her son the change that had surprised her so much.

Under the inspiration, under the impulsion, of Mlle. Lucienne, Maxence had been suddenly taken with a zeal for work, and a desire to earn money, of which he could not have been suspected.

He was no longer late at his office, and had not, at the end of each month, ten or fifteen francs’ fines to pay.

Every morning, as soon as she was up, Mlle. Lucienne came to knock at his door. “Come, get up!” she cried to him.

And quick he jumped out of bed and dressed, so that he might bid her good-morning before she left.

In the evening, the last mouthful of his dinner was hardly swallowed, before he began copying the documents which he procured from M. Chapelain’s successor.

And often he worked quite late in the night whilst by his side Mlle. Lucienne applied herself to some work of embroidery.

The girl was the cashier of the association; and she administered the common capital with such skillful and such scrupulous economy, that Maxence soon succeeded in paying off his creditors.

“Do you know,” she was saying at the end of December, “that, between us, we have earned over six hundred francs this month?”

On Sundays only, after a week of which not a minute had been lost, they indulged in some little recreation.

If the weather was not too bad, they went out together, dined in some modest restaurant, and finished the day at the theatre.

Having thus a common existence, both young, free, and having their rooms divided only by a narrow passage it was difficult that people should believe in the innocence of their intercourse. The proprietors of the Hotel des Folies believed nothing of the kind; and they were not alone in that opinion.

Mlle. Lucienne having continued to show herself in the Bois on the afternoons when the weather was fine, the number of fools who annoyed her with their attentions had greatly increased. Among the most obstinate could be numbered M. Costeclar, who was pleased to declare, upon his word of honor, that he had lost his sleep, and his taste for business, since the day when, together with M. Saint Pavin, he had first seen Mlle. Lucienne.

The efforts of his valet, and the letters which he had written, having proved useless, M. Costeclar had made up his mind to act in person; and gallantly he had come to put himself on guard in front of the Hotel des Folies.

Great was his surprise, when he saw Mlle. Lucienne coming out arm in arm with Maxence; and greater still was his spite.

“That girl is a fool,” he thought, “to prefer to me a fellow who has not two hundred francs a month to spend. But never mind! He laughs best who laughs last.”

And, as he was a man fertile in expedients, he went the next day to take a walk in the neighborhood of the Mutual Credit; and, having met M. Favoral by chance, he told him how his son Maxence was ruining himself for a young lady whose toilets were a scandal, insinuating delicately that it was his duty, as the head of the family, to put a stop to such a thing.

This was precisely the time when Maxence was endeavoring to obtain a situation in the office of the Mutual Credit.

It is true that the idea was not original with him, and that he had even vehemently rejected it, when, for the first time, Mlle. Lucienne had suggested it.

“What!” had he exclaimed, “be employed in the same establishment as my father? Suffer at the office the same intolerable despotism as at home? I’d rather break stones on the roads.”

But Mlle. Lucienne was not the girl to give up so easily a project conceived and carefully matured by herself.

She returned to the charge with that infinite art of women, who understand so marvelously well how to turn a position which they cannot carry in front. She kept the matter so well before him, she spoke of it so often and so much, on every occasion, and under all pretexts, that he ended by persuading himself that it was the only reasonable and practical thing he could do, the only way in which he had any chance of making his fortune; and so, one evening overcoming his last hesitations,

“I am going to speak about it to my father,” he said to Mlle. Lucienne.

But whether he had been influenced by M. Costeclar’s insinuations, or for some other reason, M. Favoral had rejected indignantly his son’s request, saying that it was impossible to trust a young man who was ruining himself for the sake of a miserable creature.

Maxence had become crimson with rage on hearing the woman spoken of thus, whom he loved to madness, and who, far from ruining him, was making him.

He returned to the Hotel des Folies in an indescribable state of exasperation.

“There’s the result,” he said to Mlle. Lucienne, “of the step which you have urged me so strongly to take.”

She seemed neither surprised nor irritated.

“Very well,” she replied simply.

But Maxence could not resign himself so quietly to such a cruel disappointment; and, not having the slightest suspicion of Costeclar’s doings,

“And such is,” he added, “the result of all the gossip of these stupid shop-keepers who run to see you every time you go out in the carriage.”

The girl shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. “I expected it,” she said, “the day when I accepted M. Van Klopen’s offers.”

“Everybody believes that you are my mistress.”

“What matters it, since it is not so?”

Maxence did not dare to confess that this was precisely what made him doubly angry; and he shuddered at the thought of the ridicule that would certainly be heaped upon him, if the true state of the case was known.

“We ought to move,” he suggested.

“What’s the use? Wherever we should go, it would be the same thing. Besides, I don’t want to leave this neighborhood.”

“And I am too much your friend not to tell you, that your reputation in it is absolutely lost.”

“I have no accounts to render to any one.”

“Except to your friend the commissary of police, however.”

A pale smile flitted upon her lips. “Ah!” she uttered, “he knows the truth.”

“You have seen him again, then?”

“Several times.”

“Since we have known each other?”

“Yes.”

“And you never told me anything about it?”

“I did not think it necessary.”

Maxence insisted no more; but, by the sharp pang that he felt, he realized how dear Mlle. Lucienne had become to him.

“She has secrets from me,” thought he,--“from me who would deem it a crime to have any from her.”

What secrets? Had she concealed from him that she was pursuing an object which had become, as it were, that of her whole life. Had she not told him, that with the assistance of her friend the peace-officer, who had now become commissary of police of the district, she hoped to penetrate the mystery of her birth, and to revenge herself on the villains, who, three times, had attempted to do away with her?

She had never mentioned her projects again; but it was evident that she had not abandoned them, for she would at the same time have given up her rides to the bois, which were to her an abominable torment.

But passion can neither reason nor discuss.

“She mistrusts me, who would give my life for hers,” repeated Maxence.

And the idea was so painful to him, that he resolved to clear his doubts at any cost, preferring the worst misery to the anxiety which was gnawing at his heart.

And as soon as he found himself alone with Mlle. Lucienne, arming himself with all his courage, and looking her straight in the eyes,

“You never speak to me any more of your enemies?” he said.

She doubtless understood what was passing within him.

“It’s because I don’t hear any thing of them myself,” she answered gently.

“Then you have given up your purpose?”

“Not at all.”

“What are your hopes, then, and what are your prospects?”

“Extraordinary as it may seem to you, I must confess that I know nothing about it. My friend the commissary has his plan, I am certain; and he is following it with an indefatigable obstinacy. I am but an instrument in his hands. I never do any thing without consulting him; and what he advises me to do I do.”

Maxence started upon his chair.

“Was it he, then,” he said in a tone of bitter irony, “who suggested to you the idea of our fraternal association?”

A frown appeared upon the girl’s countenance. She evidently felt hurt by the tone of this species of interrogatory.

“At least he did not disapprove of it,” she replied.

But that answer was just evasive enough to excite Maxence’s anxiety.

“Was it from him too,” he went on, “that came the lovely idea of having me enter the Mutual Credit?”

“Yes, it was from him.”

“For what purpose?”

“He did not explain.”

“Why did you not tell me?”

“Because he requested me not to do so.”

From being red at the start, Maxence had now become very pale.

“And so,” he resumed, “it is that man, that police-agent, who is the real arbiter of my fate; and if to-morrow he commanded you to break off with me--”

Mlle. Lucienne drew herself up.

“Enough!” she interrupted in a brief tone, “enough! There is not in my whole existence a single act which would give to my bitterest enemy the right to suspect my loyalty; and now you accuse me of the basest treason. What have you to reproach me with? Have I not been faithful to the pact sworn between us. Have I not always been for you the best of comrades and the most devoted of friends? I remained silent, because the man in whom I have the fullest confidence requested me to do so; but he knew, that, if you questioned me, I would speak. Did you question me? And now what more do you want? That I should stoop to quiet the suspicions of your morbid mind? That I do not mean to do.”

She was not, perhaps, entirely right; but Maxence was certainly wrong. He acknowledged it, wept, implored her pardon, which was granted; and this explanation only served to rivet more closely the fetters that bound him.

It is true, that, availing himself of the permission that had been granted him, he kept himself constantly informed of Mlle. Lucienne’s doings. He learnt from her that her friend the commissary had held a most minute investigation at Louveciennes, and that the footman who went to the bois with her was now, in reality, a detective. And at last, one day,

“My friend the commissary,” she said, “thinks he is on the right track now.”

XXIX

Such was the exact situation of Maxence and Mlle. Lucienne on that eventful Saturday evening in the month of April, 1872, when the police came to arrest M. Vincent Favoral, on the charge of embezzlement and forgery.

It will be remembered, how, at his mother’s request, Maxence had spent that night in the Rue St. Gilles, and how, the next morning, unable any longer to resist his eager desire to see Mlle. Lucienne, he had started for the Hotel des Folies, leaving his sister alone at home.

He retired to his room, as she had requested him, and, sinking upon his old arm-chair in a fit of the deepest distress,

“She is singing,” he murmured: “Mme. Fortin has not told her any thing.”

And at the same moment Mlle. Lucienne had resumed her song, the words of which reached him like a bitter raillery,

“Hope! O sweet, deceiving word! Mad indeed is he, Who does think he can trust thee, And take thy coin can afford. Over his door every one Will hang thee to his sorrow, Then saying of days begone, ‘Cash to-day, credit to-morrow!’ ‘Tis very nice to run; But to have is better fun!”

“What will she say,” thought Maxence, “when she learns the horrible truth?”

And he felt a cold perspiration starting on his temples when he remembered Mlle. Lucienne’s pride, and that honor has her only faith, the safety-plank to which she had desperately clung in the midst of the storms of her life. What if she should leave him, now that the name he bore was disgraced!

A rapid and light step on the landing drew him from his gloomy thoughts. Almost immediately, the door opened, and Mlle. Lucienne came in.

She must have dressed in haste; for she was just finishing hooking her dress, the simplicity of which seemed studied, so marvelously did it set off the elegance of her figure, the splendors of her waist, and the rare perfections of her shoulders and of her neck.

A look of intense dissatisfaction could be read upon her lovely features; but, as soon as she had seen Maxence, her countenance changed.

And, in fact, his look of utter distress, the disorder of his garments, his livid paleness, and the sinister look of his eyes, showed plainly enough that a great misfortune had befallen him. In a voice whose agitation betrayed something more than the anxiety and the sympathy of a friend,

“What is the matter? What has happened?” inquired the girl.

“A terrible misfortune,” he replied.

He was hesitating: he wished to tell every thing at once, and knew not how to begin.

“I have told you,” he said, “that my family was very rich.”

“Yes.”

“Well, we have nothing left, absolutely nothing!” She seemed to breathe more freely, and, in a tone of friendly irony,

“And it is the loss of your fortune,” she said, “that distresses you thus?”

He raised himself painfully to his feet, and, in a low hoarse voice,

“Honor is lost too,” he uttered.

“Honor?”

“Yes. My father has stolen: my father has forged!”

She had become whiter than her collar.

“Your father!” she stammered.

“Yes. For years he has been using the money that was intrusted to him, until the deficit now amounts to twelve millions.”

“Great heavens!”

“And, notwithstanding the enormity of that sum, he was reduced, during the latter months, to the most miserable expedients,--going from door to door in the neighborhood, soliciting deposits, until he actually basely swindled a poor newspaper-vender out of five hundred francs.”

“Why, this is madness! And how did you find out?”

“Last night they came to arrest him. Fortunately we had been notified; and I helped him to escape through a window of my sister’s room, which opens on the yard of an adjoining house.”

“And where is he now?”

“Who knows?”

“Had he any money?”

“Everybody thinks that he carries off millions. I do not believe it. He even refused to take the few thousand francs which M. de Thaller had brought him to facilitate his flight.”

Mlle. Lucienne shuddered.

“Did you see M. de Thaller?” she asked.

“He got to the house a few moments in advance of the commissary of police; and a terrible scene took place between him and my father.”

“What was he saying?”

“That my father had ruined him.”

“And your father?”

“He stammered incoherent phrases. He was like a man who has received a stunning blow. But we have discovered incredible things. My father, so austere and so parsimonious at home, led a merry life elsewhere, spending money without stint. It was for a woman that he robbed.”

“And--do you know who that woman is?”

“No. But I can find out from the writer of the article in this paper, who says that he knows her. See!”

Mlle. Lucienne took the paper which Maxence was holding out to her: but she hardly condescended to look at it.

“But what’s your idea now?”

“I do not believe that my father is innocent; but I believe that there are people more guilty than he,--skillful and prudent knaves, who have made use of him as a man of straw,--villains who will quietly digest their share of the millions (the biggest one, of course), while he will be sent to prison.”

A fugitive blush colored Mlle. Lucienne’s cheeks.

“That being the case,” she interrupted, “what do you expect to do?”

“Avenge my father, if possible, and discover his accomplices, if he has any.”

She held out her hand to him.

“That’s right,” she said. “But how will you go about it?”

“I don’t know yet. At any rate, I must first of all run to the newspaper office, and get that woman’s address.”

But Mlle. Lucienne stopped him.

“No,” she uttered: “it isn’t there that you must go. You must come with me to see my friend the commissary.”

Maxence received this suggestion with a gesture of surprise, almost of terror.

“Why, how can you think of such a thing?” he exclaimed. “My father is fleeing from justice; and you want me to take for my confidant a commissary of police,--the very man whose duty it is to arrest him, if he can find him!”

But he interrupted himself for a moment, staring and gaping, as if the truth had suddenly flashed upon his mind in dazzling evidence.

“For my father has not gone abroad,” he went on. “It is in Paris that he is hiding: I am sure of it. You have seen him?”

Mlle. Lucienne really thought that Maxence was losing his mind.

“I have seen your father--I?” she said.

“Yes, last evening. How could I have forgotten it? While you were waiting for me down stairs, between eleven and half-past eleven a middle-aged man, thin, wearing a long overcoat, came and asked for me.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“He spoke to you in the yard.”

“That’s a fact.”

“What did he tell you?”

She hesitated for a moment, evidently trying to tax her memory; then,

“Nothing,” she replied, “that he had not already said before the Fortins; that he wanted to see you on important business, and was sorry not to find you in. What surprised me, though, is, that he was speaking as if he knew me, and knew that I was a friend of yours.” Then, striking her forehead,

“Perhaps you are right,” she went on. “Perhaps that man was indeed your father. Wait a minute. Yes, he seemed quite excited, and at every moment he looked around towards the door. He said it would be impossible for him to return, but that he would write to you, and that probably he would require your assistance and your services.”

“You see,” exclaimed Maxence, almost crazy with subdued excitement, “it was my father. He is going to write; to return, perhaps; and, under the circumstances, to apply to a commissary of police would be sheer folly, almost treason.”

She shook her head.

“So much the more reason,” she uttered, “why you should follow my advice. Have you ever had occasion to repent doing so?”

“No, but you may be mistaken.”

“I am not mistaken.”

She expressed herself in a tone of such absolute certainty, that Maxence, in the disorder of his mind, was at a loss to know what to imagine, what to believe.

“You must have some reason to urge me thus,” he said.

“I have.”

“Why not tell it to me then?”

“Because I should have no proofs to furnish you of my assertions. Because I should have to go into details which you would not understand. Because, above all, I am following one of those inexplicable presentiments which never deceive.”

It was evident that she was not willing to unveil her whole mind; and yet Maxence felt himself terribly staggered.

“Think of my agony,” he said, “if I were to cause my father’s arrest.”

“Would my own be less? Can any misfortune strike you without reaching me? Let us reason a little. What were you saying a moment since? That certainly your father is not as guilty as people think; at any rate, that he is not alone guilty; that he has been but the instrument of rascals more skillful and more powerful than himself; and that he has had but a small share of the twelve millions?”

“Such is my absolute conviction.”

“And that you would like to deliver up to justice the villains who have benefitted by your father’s crime, and who think themselves sure of impunity?”

Tears of anger fell from Maxence’s eyes.

“Do you wish to take away all my courage?” he murmured.

“No; but I wish to demonstrate to you the necessity of the step which I advise you to take. The end justifies the means; and we have not the choice of means. Come, ‘tis to an honest man and a tried friend that I shall take you. Fear nothing. If he remembers that he is commissary of police, it will be to serve us, not to injure you. You hesitate? Perhaps at this moment he already knows more than we do ourselves.”

Maxence took a sudden resolution.