Part 6

“Indeed,” she repeated, “you do not know that my mother and myself, we spend all our days, and the greater part of our nights, working?”

Hanging his head, he said nothing.

“If it were for myself alone,” she continued, “I would not speak to you thus. But look at our mother! See her poor eyes, red and weak from her ceaseless labor! If I have said nothing until now, it is because I did not as yet despair of your heart; because I hoped that you would recover some feeling of decency. But no, nothing. With time, your last scruples seem to have vanished. Once you begged humbly; now you demand rudely. How soon will you resort to blows?”

“Gilberte!” stammered the poor fellow, “Gilberte!”

She interrupted him:

“Money!” she went on, “always, and without time, you must have money; no matter whence it comes, nor what it costs. If, at least, you had to justify your expenses, the excuse of some great passion, or of some object, were it absurd, ardently pursued! But I defy you to confess upon what degrading pleasures you lavish our humble economies. I defy you to tell us what you mean to do with the sum that you demand to-night,--that sum for which you would have our mother stoop to beg the assistance of a shop-keeper, to whom we would be compelled to reveal the secret of our shame.”

Touched by the frightful humiliation of her son:

“He is so unhappy!” stammered Mme. Favoral.

“He unhappy!” she exclaimed. “What, then, shall we say of us? and, above all, what shall you say of yourself, mother? Unhappy!--he, a man, who has liberty and strength, who may undertake every thing, attempt any thing, dare any thing. Ah, I wish I were a man! I! I would be a man as there are some, as I know some; and I would have avenged you, O beloved mother! long, long ago, from father; and I would have begun to repay you all the good you have done me.”

Mme. Favoral was sobbing.

“I beg of you,” she murmured, “spare him.”

“Be it so,” said the young girl. “But you must allow me to tell him that it is not for his sake that I devote my youth to a mercenary labor. It is for you, adored mother, that you may have the joy to give him what he asks, since it is your only joy.”

Maxence shuddered under the breath of that superb indignation. That frightful humiliation, he felt that he deserved it only too much. He understood the justice of these cruel reproaches. And, as his heart had not yet spoiled with the contact of his boon companions, as he was weak, rather than wicked, as the sentiments which are the honor and pride of a man were not dead within him.

“Ah! you are a brave sister, Gilberte,” he exclaimed; “and what you have just done is well. You have been harsh, but not as much as I deserve. Thanks for your courage, which will give me back mine. Yes, it is a shame for me to have thus cowardly abused you both.”

And, raising his mother’s hand to his lips: “Forgive, mother,” he continued, his eyes overflowing with tears; “forgive him who swears to you to redeem his past, and to become your support, instead of being a crushing burden--”

He was interrupted by the noise of steps on the stairs, and the shrill sound of a whistle.

“My husband!” exclaimed Mme. Favoral,--“your father, my children!”

“Well,” said Mlle. Gilberte coldly.

“Don’t you hear that he is whistling? and do you forget that it is a proof that he is furious? What new trial threatens us again?”

XIII

Mme. Favoral spoke from experience. She had learned, to her cost, that the whistle of her husband, more surely than the shriek of the stormy petrel, announces the storm.--And she had that evening more reasons than usual to fear. Breaking from all his habits, M. Favoral had not come home to dinner, and had sent one of the clerks of the Mutual Credit Society to say that they should not wait for him.

Soon his latch-key grated in the lock; the door swung open; he came in; and, seeing his son:

“Well, I am glad to find you here,” he exclaimed with a giggle, which with him was the utmost expression of anger.

Mme. Favoral shuddered. Still under the impression of the scene which had just taken place, his heart heavy, and his eyes full of tears, Maxence did not answer.

“It is doubtless a wager,” resumed the father, “and you wish to know how far my patience may go.”

“I do not understand you,” stammered the young man.

“The money that you used to get, I know not where, doubtless fails you now, or at least is no longer sufficient, and you go on making debts right and left--at the tailor’s, the shirt maker’s, the jeweler’s. Of course, it’s simple enough. We earn nothing; but we wish to dress in the latest style, to wear a gold chain across our vest, and then we make dupes.”

“I have never made any dupes, father.”

“Bah! And what, then, do you call all these people who came this very day to present me their bills? For they did dare to come to my office! They had agreed to come together, expecting thus to intimidate me more easily. I told them that you were of age, and that your business was none of mine. Hearing this, they became insolent, and commenced speaking so loud, that their voices could be heard in the adjoining rooms. At that very moment, the manager, M. de Thaller, happened to be passing through the hall. Hearing the noise of a discussion, he thought that I was having some difficulty with some of our stockholders, and he came in, as he had a right to. Then I was compelled to confess everything.”

He became excited at the sound of his words, like a horse at the jingle of his bells. And, more and more beside himself:

“That is just what your creditors wished,” he pursued. “They thought I would be afraid of a row, and that I would ‘come down.’ It is a system of blackmailing, like any other. An account is opened to some young rascal; and, when the amount is reasonably large, they take it to the family, saying, ‘Money, or I make row.’ Do you think it is to you, who are penniless, that they give credit? It’s on my pocket that they were drawing,--on my pocket, because they believed me rich. They sold you at exorbitant prices every thing they wished; and they relied on me to pay for trousers at ninety francs, shirts at forty francs, and watches at six hundred francs.”

Contrary to his habit, Maxence did not offer any denial.

“I expect to pay all I owe,” he said.

“You!”

“I give my word I will!”

“And with what, pray?”

“With my salary.”

“You have a salary, then?”

Maxence blushed.

“I have what I earn at my employer’s.”

“What employer?”

“The architect in whose office M. Chapelain helped me to find a place.”

With a threatening gesture, M. Favoral interrupted him.

“Spare me your lies,” he uttered. “I am better posted than you suppose. I know, that, over a month ago, your employer, tired of your idleness, dismissed you in disgrace.”

Disgrace was superfluous. The fact was, that Maxence, returning to work after an absence of five days, had found another in his place.

“I shall find another place,” he said.

M. Favoral shrugged his shoulders with a movement of rage.

“And in the mean time,” he said, “I shall have to pay. Do you know what your creditors threaten to do?--to commence a suit against me. They would lose it, of course, they know it; but they hope that I would yield before a scandal. And this is not all: they talk of entering a criminal complaint. They pretend that you have audaciously swindled them; that the articles you purchased of them were not at all for your own use, but that you sold them as fast as you got them, at any price you could obtain, to raise ready money. The jeweler has proofs, he says, that you went straight from his shop to the pawnbroker’s, and pledged a watch and chain which he had just sold you. It is a police matter. They said all that in presence of my superior officer--in presence of M. de Thaller. I had to get the janitor to put them out. But, after they had left, M. de Thaller gave me to understand that he wished me very much to settle everything. And he is right. My consideration could not resist another such scene. What confidence can be placed in a cashier whose son behaves in this manner? How can a key of a safe containing millions be left with a man whose son would have been dragged into the police-courts? In a word, I am at your mercy. In a word, my honor, my position, my fortune, rest upon you. As often as it may please you to make debts, you can make them, and I shall be compelled to pay.”

Gathering all his courage:

“You have been sometimes very harsh with me, father,” commenced Maxence; “and yet I will not try to justify my conduct. I swear to you, that hereafter you shall have nothing to fear from me.”

“I fear nothing,” uttered M. Favoral with a sinister smile. “I know the means of placing myself beyond the reach of your follies --and I shall use them.”

“I assure you, father, that I have taken a firm resolution.”

“Oh! you may dispense with your periodical repentance.”

Mlle. Gilberte stepped forward.

“I’ll stand warrant,” she said, “for Maxence’s resolutions.”

Her father did not permit her to proceed.

“Enough,” he interrupted somewhat harshly. “Mind your own business, Gilberte! I have to speak to you too.”

“To me, father?”

“Yes.”

He walked up and down three or four times through the parlor, as if to calm his irritation. Then planting himself straight before his daughter, his arms folded across his breast:

“You are eighteen years of age,” he said; “that is to say, it is time to think of your marriage. An excellent match offers itself.”

She shuddered, stepped back, and, redder than a peony:

“A match!” she repeated in a tone of immense surprise.

“Yes, and which suits me.”

“But I do not wish to marry, father.”

“All young girls say the same thing; and, as soon as a pretender offers himself, they are delighted. Mine is a fellow of twenty-six, quite good looking, amiable, witty, and who has had the greatest success in society.”

“Father, I assure you that I do not wish to leave mother.”

“Of course not. He is an intelligent, hard-working man, destined, everybody says, to make an immense fortune. Although he is rich already, for he holds a controlling interest in a stock-broker’s firm, he works as hard as any poor devil. I would not be surprised to hear that he makes half a million of francs a year. His wife will have her carriage, her box at the opera, diamonds, and dresses as handsome as Mlle. de Thaller’s.”

“Eh! What do I care for such things?”

“It’s understood. I’ll present him to you on Saturday.”

But Mlle. Gilberte was not one of those young girls who allow themselves, through weakness or timidity, to become engaged, and so far engaged, that later, they can no longer withdraw. A discussion being unavoidable, she preferred to have it out at once.

“A presentation is absolutely useless, father,” she declared resolutely.

“Because?”

“I have told you that I did not wish to marry.”

“But if it is my will?”

“I am ready to obey you in every thing except that.”

“In that as in every thing else,” interrupted the cashier of the Mutual Credit in a thundering voice.

And, casting upon his wife and children a glance full of defiance and threats:

“In that, as in every thing else,” he repeated, “because I am the master; and I shall prove it. Yes, I will prove it; for I am tired to see my family leagued against my authority.”

And out he went, slamming the door so violently, that the partitions shook.

“You are wrong to resist your father thus,” murmured the weak Mme. Favoral.

The fact is, that the poor woman could not understand why her daughter refused the only means at her command to break off with her miserable existence.

“Let him present you this young man,” she said. “You might like him.”

“I am sure I shall not like him.”

She said this in such a tone, that the light suddenly flashed upon Mme. Favoral’s mind.

“Heavens!” she murmured. “Gilberte, my darling child, have you then a secret which your mother does not know?”

XIV

Yes, Mlle. Gilberte had her secret--a very simple one, though, chaste, like herself, and one of those which, as the old women say, must cause the angels to rejoice.

The spring of that year having been unusually mild, Mme. Favoral and her daughter had taken the habit of going daily to breathe the fresh air in the Place Royale. They took their work with them, crotchet or knitting; so that this salutary exercise did not in any way diminish the earnings of the week. It was during these walks that Mlle. Gilberte had at last noticed a young man, unknown to her, whom she met every day at the same place.

Tall and robust, he had a grand look, notwithstanding his modest clothes, the exquisite neatness of which betrayed a sort of respectable poverty. He wore his full beard; and his proud and intelligent features were lighted up by a pair of large black eyes, of those eyes whose straight and clear look disconcerts hypocrites and knaves.

He never failed, as he passed by Mlle. Gilberte, to look down, or turn his head slightly away; and in spite of this, in spite of the expression of respect which she had detected upon his face, she could not help blushing.

“Which is absurd,” she thought; “for after all, what on earth do I care for that young man?”

The infallible instinct, which is the experience of inexperienced young girls, told her that it was not chance alone that brought this stranger in her way. But she wished to make sure of it. She managed so well, that each day of the following week, the hour of their walk was changed. Sometimes they went out at noon, sometimes after four o’clock.

But, whatever the hour, Mlle. Gilberte, as she turned the corner of the Rue des Minimes, noticed her unknown admirer under the arcades, looking in some shop-window, and watching out of the corner of his eye. As soon as she appeared, he left his post, and hurried fast enough to meet her at the gate of the Place.

“It is a persecution,” thought Mlle. Gilberte.

How, then, had she not spoken of it to her mother? Why had she not said any thing to her the day, when, happening, to look out of the window, she saw her “persecutor” passing before the house, or, evidently looking in her direction?

“Am I losing my mind?” she thought, seriously irritated against herself. “I will not think of him any more.”

And yet she was thinking of him, when one afternoon, as her mother and herself were working, sitting upon a bench, she saw the stranger come and sit down not far from them. He was accompanied by an elderly man with long white mustaches, and wearing the rosette of the Legion of Honor.

“This is an insolence,” thought the young girl, whilst seeking a pretext to ask her mother to change their seats.

But already had the young man and his elderly friend seated themselves, and so arranged their chairs, that Mlle. Gilberte could not miss a word of what they were about to say. It was the young man who spoke first.

“You know me as well as I know myself, my dear count,” he commenced --“you who were my poor father’s best friend, you who dandled me upon your knees when I was a child, and who has never lost sight of me.”

“Which is to say, my boy, that I answer for you as for myself,” put in the old man. “But go on.”

“I am twenty-six years old. My name is Yves-Marius-Genost de Tregars. My family, which is one of the oldest of Brittany, is allied to all the great families.”

“Perfectly exact,” remarked the old gentleman.

“Unfortunately, my fortune is not on a par with my nobility. When my mother died, in 1856, my father, who worshiped her, could no longer bear, in the intensity of his grief, to remain at the Chateau de Tregars where he had spent his whole life. He came to Paris, which he could well afford, since we were rich then, but unfortunately, made acquaintances who soon inoculated him with the fever of the age. They proved to him that he was mad to keep lands which barely yielded him forty thousand francs a year, and which he could easily sell for two millions; which amount, invested merely at five per cent, would yield him an income of one hundred thousand francs. He therefore sold every thing, except our patrimonial homestead on the road from Quimper to Audierne, and rushed into speculations. He was rather lucky at first. But he was too honest and too loyal to be lucky long. An operation in which he became interested early in 1869 turned out badly. His associates became rich; but he, I know not how, was ruined, and came near being compromised. He died of grief a month later.”

The old soldier was nodding his assent.

“Very well, my boy,” he said. “But you are too modest; and there’s a circumstance which you neglect. You had a right, when your father became involved in these troubles, to claim and retain your mother’s fortune; that is, some thirty thousand francs a year. Not only you did not do so; but you gave up every thing to his creditors. You sold the domain of Tregars, except the old castle and its park, and paid over the proceeds to them; so that, if your father did die ruined, at least he did not owe a cent. And yet you knew, as well as myself, that your father had been deceived and swindled by a lot of scoundrels who drive their carriages now, and who, perhaps, if the courts were applied to, might still be made to disgorge their ill-gotten plunder.”

Her head bent upon her tapestry, Mlle. Gilberte seemed to be working with incomparable zeal. The truth is, she knew not how to conceal the blushes on her cheeks, and the trembling of her hands. She had something like a cloud before her eyes; and she drove her needle at random. She scarcely preserved enough presence of mind to reply to Mme. Favoral, who, not noticing any thing, spoke to her from time to time.

Indeed, the meaning of this scene was too clear to escape her.

“They have had an understanding,” she thought, “and it is for me alone that they are speaking.”

Meantime, Marius de Tregars was going on:

“I should lie, my old friend, were I to say that I was indifferent to our ruin. Philosopher though one may be, it is not without some pangs that one passes from a sumptuous hotel to a gloomy garret. But what grieved me most of all was that I saw myself compelled to give up the labors which had been the joy of my life, and upon which I had founded the most magnificent hopes. A positive vocation, stimulated further by the accidents of my education, had led me to the study of physical sciences. For several years, I had applied all I have of intelligence and energy to certain investigations in electricity. To convert electricity into an incomparable motive-power which would supersede steam,--such was the object I pursued without pause. Already, as you know, although quite young, I had obtained results which had attracted some attention in the scientific world. I thought I could see the last of a problem, the solution of which would change the face of the globe. Ruin was the death of my hopes, the total loss of the fruits of my labors; for my experiments were costly, and it required money, much money, to purchase the products which were indispensable to me, and to construct the machines which I contrived.

“And I was about being compelled to earn my daily bread.

“I was on the verge of despair, when I met a man whom I had formerly seen at my father’s, and who had seemed to take some interest in my researches, a speculator named Marcolet. But it is not at the bourse that he operates. Industry is the field of his labors. Ever on the lookout for those obstinate inventors who are starving to death in their garrets, he appears to them at the hour of supreme crisis: he pities them, encourages them, consoles them, helps them, and almost always succeeds in becoming the owner of their discovery. Sometimes he makes a mistake; and then all he has to do is to put a few thousand francs to the debit of profit or loss. But, if he has judged right, then he counts his profits by hundreds of thousands; and how many patents does he work thus! Of how many inventions does he reap the results which are a fortune, and the inventors of which have no shoes to wear! Every thing is good to him; and he defends with the same avidity a cough-sirup, the formula of which he has purchased of some poor devil of a druggist, and an improvement to the steam-engine, the patent for which has been sold to him by an engineer of genius. And yet Marcolet is not a bad man. Seeing my situation, he offered me a certain yearly sum to undertake some studies of industrial chemistry which he indicated to me. I accepted; and the very next day I hired a small basement in the Rue des Tournelles, where I set up my laboratory, and went to work at once. That was a year ago. Marcolet must be satisfied. I have already found for him a new shade for dyeing silk, the cost price of which is almost nothing. As to me, I have lived with the strictest economy, devoting all my surplus earnings to the prosecution of the problem, the solution of which would give me both glory and fortune.”

Palpitating with inexpressible emotion, Mlle. Gilberte was listening to this young man, unknown to her a few moments since, and whose whole history she now knew as well as if she had always lived near him; for it never occurred to her to suspect his sincerity.

No voice had ever vibrated to her ear like this voice, whose grave sonorousness stirred within her strange sensations, and legions of thoughts which she had never suspected. She was surprised at the accent of simplicity with which he spoke of the illustriousness of his family, of his past opulence, of his obscure labors, and of his exalted hopes.

She admired the superb disregard for money which beamed forth in his every word. Here was then one man, at least, who despised that money before which she had hitherto seen all the people she knew prostrated in abject worship.

After a pause of a few moments, Marius de Tregars, still addressing himself apparently to his aged companion, went on: