Part 27

M. de Tregars shook his head.

“I will give you my opinion,” he uttered, “after I have investigated matters in the Rue du Cirque.”

They drove there in a few minutes; and, the cab having stopped at the entrance of the street, they walked on foot in front of No. 49. It was a small cottage, only one story in height, built between a sanded court-yard and a garden, whose tall trees showed above the roof. At the windows could be seen curtains of light-colored silk, --a sure indication of the presence of a young and pretty woman.

For a few minutes Marius de Tregars remained in observation; but, as nothing stirred,

“We must find out something, somehow,” he exclaimed impatiently.

And noticing a large grocery store bearing No. 62, he directed his steps towards it, still accompanied by Maxence.

It was the hour of the day when customers are rare. Standing in the centre of the shop, the grocer, a big fat man with an air of importance, was overseeing his men, who were busy putting things in order.

M. de Tregars took him aside, and with an accent of mystery,

“I am,” he said, “a clerk with M. Drayton, the jeweler in the Rue de la Paix; and I come to ask you one of those little favors which tradespeople owe to each other.”

A frown appeared on the fat man’s countenance. He thought, perhaps, that M. Drayton’s clerks were rather too stylish-looking; or else, perhaps, he felt apprehensive of one of those numerous petty swindles of which shopkeepers are constantly the victims.

“What is it?” said he. “Speak!”

“I am on my way,” spoke M. de Tregars, “to deliver a ring which a lady purchased of us yesterday. She is not a regular customer, and has given us no references. If she doesn’t pay, shall I leave the ring? My employer told me, ‘Consult some prominent tradesman of the neighborhood, and follow his advice.’”

Prominent tradesman! Delicately tickled vanity was dancing in the grocer’s eyes.

“What is the name of the lady?” he inquired.

“Mme. Zelie Cadelle.”

The grocer burst out laughing.

“In that case, my boy,” he said, tapping familiarly the shoulder of the so-called clerk, “whether she pays or not, you can deliver the article.”

The familiarity was not, perhaps, very much to the taste of the Marquis de Tregars. No matter.

“She is rich, then, that lady?” he said.

“Personally no. But she is protected by an old fool, who allows her all her fancies.”

“Indeed!”

“It is scandalous; and you cannot form an idea of the amount of money that is spent in that house. Horses, carriages, servants, dresses, balls, dinners, card-playing all night, a perpetual carnival: it must be ruinous!”

M. de Tregars never winced.

“And the old man who pays?” he asked; “do you know him?”

“I have seen him pass,--a tall, lean, old fellow, who doesn’t look very rich, either. But excuse me: here is a customer I must wait upon.”

Having walked out into the street,

“We must separate now,” declared M. de Tregars to Maxence.

“What! You wish to--”

“Go and wait for me in that cafe yonder, at the corner of the street. I must see that Zelie Cadelle and speak to her.”

And without suffering an objection on the part of Maxence, he walked resolutely up to the cottage-gate, and rang vigorously.

At the sound of the bell, one of those servants stepped out into the yard, who seem manufactured on purpose, heaven knows where, for the special service of young ladies who keep house,--a tall rascal with sallow complexion and straight hair, a cynical eye, and a low, impudent smile.

“What do you wish, sir?” he inquired through the grating.

“That you should open the door, first,” uttered M. de Tregars, with such a look and such an accent, that the other obeyed at once.

“And now,” he added, “go and announce me to Mme. Zelie Cadelle.”

“Madame is out,” replied the valet.

And noticing that M. de Tregars shrugged his shoulders,

“Upon my word,” he said, “she has gone to the bois with one of her friends. If you won’t believe me, ask my comrades there.”

And he pointed out two other servants of the same pattern as himself, who were silting at a table in the carriage-house, playing cards, and drinking.

But M. de Tregars did not mean to be imposed upon. He felt certain that the man was lying. Instead, therefore, of discussing,

“I want you to take me to your mistress,” he ordered, in a tone that admitted of no objection; “or else I’ll find my way to her alone.”

It was evident that he would do just as he said, by force if needs be. The valet saw this, and, after hesitating a moment longer,

“Come along, then,” he said, “since you insist so much. We’ll talk to the chambermaid.”

And, having led M. de Tregars into the vestibule, he called out, “Mam’selle Amanda!”

A woman at once made her appearance who was a worthy mate for the valet. She must have been about forty, and the most alarming duplicity could be read upon her features, deeply pitted by the small-pox. She wore a pretentious dress, an apron like a stage-servant, and a cap profusely decorated with flowers and ribbons.

“Here is a gentleman,” said the valet, “who insists upon seeing madame. You fix it with him.”

Better than her fellow servant, Mlle. Amanda could judge with whom she had to deal. A single glance at this obstinate visitor convinced her that he was not one who can be easily turned off.

Putting on, therefore, her pleasantest smile, thus displaying at the same time her decayed teeth,

“The fact is that monsieur will very much disturb madame,” she observed.

“I shall excuse myself.”

“But I’ll be scolded.”

Instead of answering, M. de Tregars took a couple of twenty-franc-notes out of his pocket, and slipped them into her hand.

“Please follow me to the parlor, then,” she said with a heavy sigh.

M. de Tregars did so, whilst observing everything around him with the attentive perspicacity of a deputy sheriff preparing to make out an inventory.

Being double, the house was much more spacious than could have been thought from the street, and arranged with that science of comfort which is the genius of modern architects.

The most lavish luxury was displayed on all sides; not that solid, quiet, and harmonious luxury which is the result of long years of opulence, but the coarse, loud, and superficial luxury of the _parvenu_, who is eager to enjoy quick, and to possess all that he has craved from others.

The vestibule was a folly, with its exotic plants climbing along crystal trellises, and its Sevres and China jardinieres filled with gigantic azaleas. And along the gilt railing of the stairs marble and bronze statuary was intermingled with masses of growing flowers.

“It must take twenty thousand francs a year to keep up this conservatory alone,” thought M. de Tregars.

Meantime the old chambermaid opened a satinwood door with silver lock.

“That’s the parlor,” she said. “Take a seat whilst I go and tell madame.”

In this parlor everything had been combined to dazzle. Furniture, carpets, hangings, every thing, was rich, too rich, furiously, incontestably, obviously rich. The chandelier was a masterpiece, the clock an original and unique piece of work. The pictures hanging upon the wall were all signed with the most famous names.

“To judge of the rest by what I have seen,” thought M. de Tregars, “there must have been at least four or five hundred thousand francs spent on this house.”

And, although he was shocked by a quantity of details which betrayed the most absolute lack of taste, he could hardly persuade himself that the cashier of the Mutual Credit could be the master of this sumptuous dwelling; and he was asking himself whether he had not followed the wrong scent, when a circumstance came to put an end to all his doubts.

Upon the mantlepiece, in a small velvet frame, was Vincent Favoral’s portrait.

M. de Tregars had been seated for a few minutes, and was collecting his somewhat scattered thoughts, when a slight grating sound, and a rustling noise, made him turn around.

Mme. Zelie Cadelle was coming in.

She was a woman of some twenty-five or six, rather tall, lithe, and well made. Her face was pale and worn; and her heavy dark hair was scattered over her neck and shoulders. She looked at once sarcastic and good-natured, impudent and naive, with her sparkling eyes, her turned-up nose, and wide mouth furnished with teeth, sound and white, like those of a young dog. She had wasted no time upon her dress; for she wore a plain blue cashmere wrapper, fastened at the waist with a sort of silk scarf of similar color.

From the very threshold,

“Dear me!” she exclaimed, “how very singular!”

M. de Tregars stepped forward.

“What?” he inquired.

“Oh, nothing!” she replied,--“nothing at all!”

And without ceasing to look at him with a wondering eye, but suddenly changing her tone of voice,

“And so, sir,” she said, “my servants have been unable to keep you from forcing yourself into my house!”

“I hope, madame,” said M. de Tregars with a polite bow, “that you will excuse my persistence. I come for a matter which can suffer no delay.”

She was still looking at him obstinately. “Who are you?” she asked.

“My name will not afford you any information. I am the Marquis de Tregars.”

“Tregars!” she repeated, looking up at the ceiling, as if in search of an inspiration. “Tregars! Never heard of it!”

And throwing herself into an arm chair,

“Well, sir, what do you wish with me, then? Speak!”

He had taken a seat near her, and kept his eyes riveted upon hers.

“I have come, madame,” he replied, “to ask you to put me in the way to see and speak to the man whose photograph is there on the mantlepiece.”

He expected to take her by surprise, and that by a shudder, a cry, a gesture, she might betray her secret. Not at all.

“Are you, then, one of M. Vincent’s friends?” she asked quietly.

M. de Tregars understood, and this was subsequently confirmed, that it was under his Christian name of Vincent alone, that the cashier of the Mutual Credit was known in the Rue du Cirque.

“Yes, I am a friend of his,” he replied; “and if I could see him, I could probably render him an important service.”

“Well, you are too late.”

“Why?”

“Because M. Vincent put off more than twenty-four hours since?”

“Are you sure of that?”

“As sure as a person can be who went to the railway station yesterday with him and all his baggage.”

“You saw him leave?”

“As I see you.”

“Where was he going?”

“To Havre, to take the steamer for Brazil, which was to sail on the same day; so that, by this time, he must be awfully seasick.”

“And you really think that it was his intention to go to Brazil?”

“He said so. It was written on his thirty-six trunks in letters half a foot high. Besides, he showed me his ticket.”

“Have you any idea what could have induced him to expatriate himself thus, at his age?”

“He told me he had spent all his money, and also some of other people’s; that he was afraid of being arrested; and that he was going yonder to be quiet, and try to make another fortune.”

Was Mme. Zelie speaking in good faith? To ask the question would have been rather naive; but an effort might be made to find out. Carefully concealing his own impressions, and the importance he attached to this conversation,

“I pity you sincerely, madame,” resumed M. de Tregars; “for you must be sorely grieved by this sudden departure.”

“Me!” she said in a voice that came from the heart. “I don’t care a straw.”

Marquis de Tregars knew well enough the ladies of the class to which he supposed that Mme. Zelie Cadelle must belong, not to be surprised at this frank declaration.

“And yet,” he said, “you are indebted to him for the princely magnificence that surrounds you here.”

“Of course.”

“He being gone, as you say, will you be able to keep up your style of living?”

Half raising herself from her seat,

“I haven’t the slightest idea of doing so,” she exclaimed. “Never in the whole world have I had such a stupid time as for the last five months that I have spent in this gilded cage. What a bore, my beloved brethren! I am yawning still at the mere thought of the number of times I have yawned in it.”

M. de Tregars’ gesture of surprise was the more natural, that his surprise was immense.

“You are tired being here?” he said.

“To death.”

“And you have only been here five months?”

“Dear me; yes! and by the merest chance, too, you’ll see. One day at the beginning of last December, I was coming from--but no matter where I was coming from. At any rate, I hadn’t a cent in my pocket, and nothing but an old calico dress on my back; and I was going along, not in the best of humor, as you may imagine, when I feel that some one is following me. Without looking around, and from the corner of my eye, I look over my shoulder, and I see a respectable-looking old gentleman, wearing a long frock-coat.”

“M. Vincent?”

“In his own natural person, and who was walking, walking. I quietly begin to walk slower; and, as soon as we come to a place where there was hardly any one, he comes up alongside of me.”

Something comical must have happened at this moment, which Mme. Zelie Cadelle said nothing about; for she was laughing most heartily, --a frank and sonorous laughter.

“Then,” she resumed, “he begins at once to explain that I remind him of a person whom he loved tenderly, and whom he has just had the misfortune to lose, adding, that he would deem himself the happiest of men if I would allow him to take care of me, and insure me a brilliant position.”

“You see! That rascally Vincent!” said M. de Tregars, just to be saying something.

Mme. Zelie shook her head.

“You know him,” she resumed. “He is not young; he is not handsome; he is not funny. I did not fancy him one bit; and, if I had only known where to find shelter for the night, I’d soon have sent him to the old Nick,--him and his brilliant position. But, not having enough money to buy myself a penny-loaf, it wasn’t the time to put on any airs. So I tell him that I accept. He goes for a cab; we get into it; and he brings me right straight here.”

Positively M. de Tregars required his entire self-control to conceal the intensity of his curiosity.

“Was this house, then, already as it is now?” he interrogated.

“Precisely, except that there were no servants in it, except the chambermaid Amanda, who is M. Favoral’s confidante. All the others had been dismissed; and it was a hostler from a stable near by who came to take care of the horses.”

“And what then?”

“Then you may imagine what I looked like in the midst of all this magnificence, with my old shoes and my fourpenny skirt. Something like a grease-spot on a satin dress. M. Vincent seemed delighted, nevertheless. He had sent Amanda out to get me some under-clothing and a ready-made wrapper; and, whilst waiting, he took me all through the house, from the cellar to the garret, saying that everything was at my command, and that the next day I would have a battalion of servants to wait on me.”

It was evidently with perfect frankness that she was speaking, and with the pleasure one feels in telling an extraordinary adventure. But suddenly she stopped short, as if discovering that she was forgetting herself, and going farther than was proper.

And it was only after a moment of reflection that she went on,

“It was like fairyland to me. I had never tasted the opulence of the great, you see, and I had never had any money except that which I earned. So, during the first days, I did nothing but run up and down stairs, admiring everything, feeling everything with my own hands, and looking at myself in the glass to make sure that I was not dreaming. I rang the bell just to make the servants come up; I spent hours trying dresses; then I’d have the horses put to the carriage, and either ride to the bois, or go out shopping. M. Vincent gave me as much money as I wanted; and it seemed as though I never spent enough. I shout, I was like a mad woman.”

A cloud appeared upon Mme. Zelie’s countenance, and, changing suddenly her tone and her manner,

“Unfortunately,” she went on, “one gets tired of every thing. At the end of two weeks I knew the house from top to bottom, and after a month I was sick of the whole thing; so that one night I began dressing.

“‘Where do you want to go?’ Amanda asked me. ‘Why, to Mabille, to dance a quadrille, or two.’ ‘Impossible!’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because M. Vincent does not wish you to go out at night.’ ‘We’ll see about that!’

“The next day, I tell all this to M. Vincent; and he says that Amanda is right; that it is not proper for a woman in my position to frequent balls; and that, if I want to go out at night, I can stay. Get out! I tell you what, if it hadn’t been for the fine carriage, and all that, I would have cleared out that minute. Any way, I became disgusted from that moment, and have been more and more ever since; and, if M. Vincent had not himself left, I certainly would.”

“To go where?”

“Anywhere. Look here, now! do you suppose I need a man to support me! No, thank Heaven! Little Zelie, here present, has only to apply to any dressmaker, and she’ll be glad to give her four francs a day to run the machine. And she’ll be free, at least; and she can laugh and dance as much as she likes.”

M. de Tregars had made a mistake: he had just discovered it.

Mme. Zelie Cadelle was certainly not particularly virtuous; but she was far from being the woman he expected to meet.

“At any rate,” he said, “you did well to wait patiently.”

“I do not regret it.”

“If you can keep this house--”

She interrupted him with a great burst of laughter.

“This house!” she exclaimed. “Why, it was sold long ago, with every thing in it,--furniture, horses, carriages, every thing except me. A young gentleman, very well dressed, bought it for a tall girl, who looks like a goose, and has far over a thousand francs of red hair on her head.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“Sure as I live, having seen with my own eyes the young swell and his red-headed friend counting heaps of bank-notes to M. Vincent. They are to move in day after to-morrow; and they have invited me to the house-warming. But no more of it for me, I thank you! I am sick and tired of all these people. And the proof of it is, I am busy packing my things; and lots of them I have too,--dresses, underclothes, jewelry. He was a good-natured fellow, old Vincent was, anyhow. He gave me money enough to buy some furniture. I have hired a small apartment; and I am going to set up dress-making on my own hook. And won’t we laugh then! and won’t we have some fun to make up for lost time! Come, my children, take your places for a quadrille. Forward two!”

And, bouncing out of her chair, she began sketching out one of those bold cancan steps which astound the policemen on duty in the ball-rooms.

“Bravo!” said M. de Tregars, forcing himself to smile,--“bravo!”

He saw clearly now what sort of woman was Mme. Zelie Cadelle; how he should speak to her, and what cords he might yet cause to vibrate within her. He recognized the true daughter of Paris, wayward and nervous, who in the midst of her disorders preserves an instinctive pride; who places her independence far above all the money in the world; who gives, rather than sells, herself; who knows no law but her caprice, no morality but the policeman, no religion but pleasure.

As soon as she had returned to her seat,

“There you are dancing gayly,” he said, “and poor Vincent is doubtless groaning at this moment over his separation from you.”

“Ah! I’d pity him if I had time,” she said.

“He was fond of you?”

“Don’t speak of it.”

“If he had not been fond of you, he would not have put you here.”

Mme. Zelie made a little face of equivocal meaning.

“What proof is that?” she murmured.

“He would not have spent so much money for you.”

“For me!” she interrupted,--“for me! What have I cost him of any consequence? Is it for me that he bought, furnished, and fitted out this house? No, no! He had the cage; and he put in the bird, --the first he happened to find. He brought me here as he might have brought any other woman, young or old, pretty or ugly, blonde or brunette. As to what I spent here, it was a mere bagatelle compared with what the other did,--the one before me. Amanda kept telling me all the time I was a fool. You may believe me, then, when I tell you that M. Vincent will not wet many handkerchiefs with the tears he’ll shed over me.”

“But do you know what became of the one before you, as you call her, --whether she is alive or dead, and owing to what circumstances the cage became empty?”

But, instead of answering, Mme. Zelie was fixing upon Marius de Tregars a suspicious glance. And, after a moment only,

“Why do you ask me that?” she said.

“I would like to know.”

She did not permit him to proceed. Rising from her seat, and stepping briskly up to him,

“Do you belong to the police, by chance?” she asked in a tone of mistrust.

If she was anxious, it was evidently because she had motives of anxiety which she had concealed. If, two or three times she had interrupted herself, it was because, manifestly, she had a secret to keep. If the idea of police had come into her mind, it is because, very probably, they had recommended her to be on her guard.

M. de Tregars understood all this, and, also, that he had tried to go too fast.

“Do I look like a secret police-agent?” he asked.

She was examining him with all her power of penetration.

“Not at all, I confess,” she replied. “But, if you are not one, how is it that you come to my house, without knowing me from this side of sole leather, to ask me a whole lot of questions, which I am fool enough to answer?”

“I told you I was a friend of M. Favoral.”

“Who’s that Favoral?”

“That’s M. Vincent’s real name, madame.”

She opened her eyes wide.

“You must be mistaken. I never heard him called any thing but Vincent.”