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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Zibeline, Complete, by Phillipe de Massa
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Zibeline, Complete
+
+Author: Phillipe de Massa
+
+Release Date: October 5, 2006 [EBook #3934]
+Last Updated: August 23, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ZIBELINE, COMPLETE ***
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+ZIBELINE
+
+By Philippe De Massa
+
+Translated By D. Knowlton Ranous
+
+
+
+
+ALEXANDRE-PHILIPPE-REGNIER DE MASSA
+
+MARQUIS DE MASSA, soldier, composer, and French dramatist, was born in
+Paris, December 5, 1831. He selected the military career and received a
+commission in the cavalry after leaving the school of St. Cyr. He served
+in the Imperial Guards, took part in the Italian and Franco-German Wars
+and was promoted Chief of Squadron, Fifth Regiment, Chasseurs a Cheval,
+September 10, 1871. Having tendered his resignation from active service,
+he was appointed a lieutenant-colonel in the territorial army February
+3, 1880. He has been decorated with the Legion of Honor.
+
+The Marquis de Massa is known as a composer of music and as a dramatic
+author and novelist. At the Opera Comique there was represented in
+1861 Royal-Cravate, written by him. Fragments of two operas by him were
+performed at the Paris Conservatory of Music in 1865, and in 1868. The
+list of his principal plays follows: ‘Le Service en campagne, comedy
+(1882); La Cicatrice, comedy (1885); Au Mont Ida, Fronsac a La Bastille,
+and La Coeur de Paris, all in 1887; La Czarine and Brouille depuis
+Magenta (1888), and La Bonne Aventure--all comedies--1889. Together with
+Petipa he also wrote a ballet Le Roi d’Yvetot (1866); music by Charles
+Labarre. He further wrote Zibeline, a most brilliant romance (1892) with
+an Introduction by Jules Claretie; crowned by the Academie Francaise.
+This odd and dainty little story has a heroine of striking originality,
+in character and exploits. Her real name is Valentine de Vermont, and
+she is the daughter of a fabulously wealthy French-American dealer in
+furs, and when, after his death, she goes to Paris to spend her colossal
+fortune, and to make restitution to the man from whom her father won
+at play the large sum that became the foundation of his wealth, certain
+lively Parisian ladies, envying her her rich furs, gave her the name of
+Zibeline, that of a very rare, almost extinct, wild animal. Zibeline’s
+American unconventionality, her audacity, her wealth, and generosity,
+set all Paris by the ears. There are fascinating glimpses into the
+drawing-rooms of the most exclusive Parisian society, and also into
+the historic greenroom of the Comedie Francaise, on a brilliant “first
+night.” The man to whom she makes graceful restitution of his fortune
+is a hero of the Franco-Mexican and Franco-Prussian wars, and when she
+gives him back his property, she throws her heart in with the gift. The
+story is an interesting study of a brilliant and unconventional American
+girl as seen by the eyes of a clever Frenchman.
+
+Later came ‘La Revue quand meme, comedy, (1894); Souvenirs et
+Impressions (1897); La Revue retrospective, comedy (1899); and Sonnets’
+the same year.
+
+               PAUL HERVIEU
+             de l’Academe Francaise.
+
+
+
+
+LETTER FROM JULES CLARETIE TO THE AUTHOR
+
+MY DEAR FRIEND:
+
+I have often declared that I never would write prefaces! But how can
+one resist a fine fellow who brings one an attractive manuscript, signed
+with a name popular among all his friends, who asks of one, in the most
+engaging way, an opinion on the same--then a word, a simple word of
+introduction, like a signal to saddle?
+
+I have read your Zibeline, my dear friend, and this romance--your
+first--has given me a very keen pleasure. You told me once that you felt
+a certain timidity in publishing it. Reassure yourself immediately. A
+man can not be regarded as a novice when he has known, as you have,
+all the Parisian literary world so long; or rather, perhaps, I may more
+accurately say, he is always a novice when he tastes for the first time
+the intoxication of printer’s ink.
+
+You have the quickest of wits and the least possible affectation of
+gravity, and you have made as well known in Mexico as in Paris your
+couplets on the end of the Mexican conflict with France. ‘Tout Mexico y
+passera!’ Where are they, the ‘tol-de-rols’ of autumn?
+
+Yesterday I found, in a volume of dramatic criticism by that terrible
+and charming Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly, an appreciation of one of your
+comedies which bears a title very appropriate to yourself: ‘Honor.’
+“And this play does him honor,” said Barbey d’Aurevilly, “because it is
+charming, light, and supple, written in flowing verse, the correctness
+of which does not rob it of its grace.”
+
+That which the critic said of your comedy I will say of your romance.
+It is a pretty fairy-story-all about Parisian fairies, for a great many
+fairies live in Paris! In fact, more are to be found there than anywhere
+else! There are good fairies and bad fairies among them. Your own
+particular fairy is good and she is charming. I am tempted to ask
+whether you have drawn your characters from life. That is a question
+which was frequently put to me recently, after I had published
+‘L’Americaine.’ The public longs to possess keys to our books. It is not
+sufficient for them that a romance is interesting; it must possess also
+a spice of scandal.
+
+Portraits? You have not drawn any--neither in the drawing-rooms where
+Zibeline scintillates, nor in the foyer of the Comedie Francaise,
+where for so long a time you have felt yourself at home. Your women are
+visions and not studies from life--and I do not believe that you will
+object to my saying this.
+
+You should not dislike the “romantic romance,” which every one in these
+days advises us to write--as if that style did not begin as far back
+as the birth of romance itself: as if the Princess of Cleves had not
+written, and as if Balzac himself, the great realist, had not invented,
+the finest “romantic romances” that can be found--for example, the
+amorous adventure of General de Montriveau and the Duchesse de Langlais!
+
+Apropos, in your charming story there is a General who pleases me very
+much. How was it that you did not take, after the fashion of Paul de
+Molenes, a dashing cavalry officer for your hero?--you, for whom the
+literary cavalier has all the attractions of a gentleman and a soldier?
+
+Nothing could be more piquant, alert, chivalrous--in short, worthy of
+a Frenchman--than the departure of your hero for the war after that
+dramatic card-party, which was also a battle--and what a battle!--where,
+at the end of the conflict, he left his all upon the green cloth. That
+is an attractive sketch of the amiable comedienne, who wishes for fair
+weather and a smooth sea for the soldier lover who is going so far away.
+It seems to me that I have actually known that pretty girl at some time
+or another! That chapter is full of the perfume of pearl powder and
+iris! It is only a story, of course, but it is a magnificent story,
+which will please many readers.
+
+The public will ask you to write others, be sure of that; and you will
+do well, my dear friend, for your own sake and for ours, to follow the
+precept of Denis Diderot: “My friends, write stories; while one writes
+them he amuses himself, and the story of life goes on, and that is less
+gay than the stories we can tell.”
+
+I do not know precisely whether these last words, which are slightly
+pessimistic, are those of the good Diderot himself. But they are
+those of a Parisian of 1892, who has been able to forget his cares and
+annoyances in reading the story that you have told so charmingly.
+
+With much affection to you, and wishing good luck to Zibeline, I am
+
+Your friend,               JULES CLARETIE
+             de l’Academie Francaise.
+APRIL 26, 1892.
+
+
+
+
+ZIBELINE
+
+
+
+
+BOOK 1.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. LES FRERES-PROVENCAUX.
+
+In the days of the Second Empire, the Restaurant des Freres-Provencaux
+still enjoyed a wide renown to which its fifty years of existence had
+contributed more than a little to heighten its fame.
+
+This celebrated establishment was situated near the Beaujolais Gallery
+of the Palais-Royal, close to the narrow street leading to the Rue
+Vivienne, and it had been the rendezvous of epicures, either residents
+of Paris or birds of passage, since the day it was opened.
+
+On the ground floor was the general dining-room, the gathering-place for
+honest folk from the provinces or from other lands; the next floor had
+been divided into a succession of private rooms, comfortably furnished,
+where, screened behind thick curtains, dined somewhat “irregular”
+ patrons: lovers who were in either the dawn, the zenith, or the decline
+of their often ephemeral fancies. On the top floor, spacious salons,
+richly decorated, were used for large and elaborate receptions of
+various kinds.
+
+At times the members of certain social clubs gave in these rooms
+subscription balls of anacreontic tendencies, the feminine element
+of which was recruited among the popular gay favorites of the period.
+Occasionally, also, young fellows about town, of different social rank,
+but brought together by a pursuit of amusement in common, met here on
+neutral ground, where, after a certain hour, the supper-table was turned
+into a gaming-table, enlivened by the clinking of glasses and the rattle
+of the croupier’s rake, and where to the excitement of good cheer was
+added that of high play, with its alternations of unexpected gains and
+disastrous losses.
+
+It was at a reunion of this kind, on the last evening in the month
+of May, 1862, that the salons on the top floor were brilliantly
+illuminated. A table had been laid for twenty persons, who were to join
+in a banquet in honor of the winner of the great military steeplechase
+at La Marche, which had taken place a few days before. The victorious
+gentleman-rider was, strange to say, an officer of infantry--an
+unprecedented thing in the annals of this sport.
+
+Heir to a seigneurial estate, which had been elevated to a marquisate in
+the reign of Louis XII, son of a father who had the strictest notions as
+to the preservation of pure blood, Henri de Prerolles, early initiated
+into the practice of the breaking and training of horses, was at
+eighteen as bold and dashing a rider as he was accomplished in other
+physical exercises; and although, three years later, at his debut at St.
+Cyr, he expressed no preference for entering the cavalry service, for
+which his early training and rare aptitude fitted him, it was because,
+in the long line of his ancestors--which included a marshal of France
+and a goodly number of lieutenants-general--all, without exception, from
+Ravenna to Fontenoy, had won renown as commanders of infantry.
+
+At the outbreak of the French Revolution, Henri’s grandfather, who had
+distinguished himself in the American War for Independence, left
+his native land only when he was in the last extremity. As soon as
+circumstances permitted, he reentered France with his son, upon whom
+Napoleon conferred a brevet rank, which the recipient accepted of his
+free will. He began his military experience in Spain, returned safe and
+well from the retreat from Russia, and fought valiantly at Bautzen and
+at Dresden. The Restoration--by which time he had become chief of his
+battalion--could not fail to advance his career; and the line was about
+to have another lieutenant-general added to its roll, when the events of
+1830 decided Field-Marshal the Marquis de Prerolles to sheathe his
+sword forever, and to withdraw to his own estate, near the forest of
+l’Ile-d’Adam, where hunting and efforts toward the improvement of the
+equine race occupied his latter years.
+
+He died in 1860, a widower, leaving two children: Jeanne, recently
+married to the Duc de Montgeron, and his son Henri, then a pupil in
+a military school, who found himself, on reaching his majority, in
+possession of the chateau and domains of Prerolles, the value of which
+was from fifteen to eighteen hundred thousand francs.
+
+Having been made sub-lieutenant by promotion on the first day of
+October, 1861, the young Marquis, already the head of his house and a
+military leader, asked and obtained the favor of being incorporated with
+a battalion of chasseurs garrisoned at Vincennes.
+
+Exact in the performance of his military duties, and at the same time
+ardent in the pursuit of pleasure, he was able, thanks to his robust
+health, to conciliate the exigencies of the one with the fatigues of the
+other.
+
+Unfortunately, Henri was fond of gaming, and his natural impetuosity,
+which showed itself by an emulation of high standards in his military
+duties, degenerated into recklessness before the baccarat-table. At the
+end of eighteen months, play, and an expensive liaison with an actress,
+had absorbed half his fortune, and his paternal inheritance had been
+mortgaged as well. The actress was a favorite in certain circles and had
+been very much courted; and this other form of rivalry, springing
+from the glitter of the footlights, added so much the more fuel to the
+prodigalities of the inflammable young officer.
+
+Affairs were in this situation when, immediately after Henri’s triumph
+at the race-track, a bettor on the opposite side paid one of his wagers
+by offering to the victor a grand dinner at the Freres-Provencaux.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. BIRDS OF PREY
+
+The hero of the night was seated at the middle of one side of the table,
+in the place of honor. For his ‘vis-a-vis’ he had his lively friend
+Fanny Dorville, star of the Palais Royal, while at his right sat Heloise
+Virot, the “first old woman,” or duenna, of the same theatre, whose well
+known jests and eccentricities added their own piquancy to gay life in
+Paris. The two artists, being compelled to appear in the after-piece at
+their theatre that evening, had come to the dinner made up and in full
+stage costume, ready to appear behind the footlights at the summons of
+the call-boy.
+
+The other guests were young men accustomed to the surroundings of the
+weighing-stand and the betting-room, at a time when betting had not yet
+become a practice of the masses; and most of them felt highly honored
+to rub elbows with a nobleman of ancient lineage, as was Henri de
+Prerolles.
+
+Among these persons was Andre Desvanneaux, whose father, a churchwarden
+at Ste.-Clotilde, had attained a certain social prestige by his good
+works, and Paul Landry, in his licentiate in a large banking house in
+Paris. The last named was the son of a ship-owner at Havre, and his
+character was ambitious and calculating. He cherished, under a
+quiet demeanor, a strong hope of being able to supply, by the rapid
+acquisition of a fortune, the deficiencies of his inferior birth, from
+which his secret vanity suffered severely. Being an expert in all games
+of chance, he had already accumulated, while waiting for some brilliant
+coup, enough to lead a life of comparative elegance, thus giving a
+certain satisfaction to his instincts. He and Henri de Prerolles never
+yet had played cards together, but the occasion was sure to come some
+day, and Paul Landry had desired it a long time.
+
+The company, a little silent at first, was becoming somewhat more
+animated, when a head-waiter, correct, and full of a sense of his own
+importance, entered the salon, holding out before him with both hands
+a large tray covered with slender glasses filled with a beverage called
+“the cardinal’s drink,” composed of champagne, Bordeaux, and slices of
+pineapple. The method of blending these materials was a professional
+secret of the Freres-Provencaux.
+
+Instantly the guests were on their feet, and Heloise, who had been
+served first, proposed that they should drink the health of the Marquis,
+but, prompted by one of her facetious impulses, instead of lifting the
+glass to her own lips, she presented it to those of the waiter, and,
+raising her arm, compelled him to swallow the contents. Encouraged
+by laughter and applause, she presented to him a second glass, then a
+third; and the unhappy man drank obediently, not being able to push away
+the glasses without endangering the safety of the tray he carried.
+
+Fanny Dorville interceded in vain for the victim; the inexorable duenna
+had already seized a fourth glass, and the final catastrophe would have
+been infallibly brought about, had not providence intervened in the
+person of the call-boy, who, thrusting his head through the half-open
+doorway, cried, shrilly:
+
+“Ladies, they are about to begin!”
+
+The two actresses hastened away, escorted by Andre Desvanneaux, a modern
+Tartufe, who, though married, was seen everywhere, as much at home
+behind the scenes as in church.
+
+Coffee and liqueurs were then served in a salon adjoining the large
+dining-room, which gave the effect of a private club-room to this part
+of the restaurant.
+
+Cigars were lighted, and conversation soon turned on feminine charms and
+the performances of various horses, particularly those of Franc-Comtois,
+the winner of the military steeplechase. This animal was one of the
+products of the Prerolles stud, and was ordinary enough on flat ground,
+but a jumper of the first rank.
+
+At last the clock struck the half hour after eleven, and some of the
+guests had already manifested their intention to depart, when Paul
+Landry, who had been rather silent until then, said, carelessly:
+
+“You expect to sleep to-night in Paris, no doubt, Monsieur de
+Prerolles?”
+
+“Oh, no,” Henri replied, “I am on duty this week, and am obliged to
+return to Vincennes early in the morning. So I shall stay here until it
+is time for me to go.”
+
+“In that case, might we not have a game of cards?” proposed Captain
+Constantin Lenaieff, military attache to the suite of the Russian
+ambassador.
+
+“As you please,” said Henri.
+
+This proposal decided every one to remain. The company returned to the
+large dining-room, which, in the mean time, had been again transformed
+into a gaming-hall, with the usual accessories: a frame for the
+tally-sheet, a metal bowl to hold rejected playing-cards set in one end
+of the table, and, placed at intervals around it, were tablets on which
+the punter registered the amount of the stakes.
+
+On reentering this apartment, Henri de Prerolles approached a sort
+of counter, and, drawing from his pocket thirty thousand francs in
+bank-notes, he exchanged them for their value in mother-of-pearl
+“chips” of different sizes, representing sums from one to five, ten,
+twenty-five, or a hundred louis. Paul Landry took twenty-five thousand
+francs’ worth; Constantin Unaieff, fifteen thousand; the others, less
+fortunate or more prudent, took smaller sums; and about midnight the
+game began.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE GAME
+
+It began quietly enough, the two principal players waiting, before
+making any bold strokes, to see how the luck should run. The first
+victory was in favor of Henri, who, at the end of a hand dealt by
+Constantin Lenaieff, had won about three hundred Louis. Just at this
+moment the two women returned, accompanied by Desvanneaux.
+
+“I had some difficulty in persuading our charming friends to return,”
+ said he; “Mademoiselle Dorville was determined that some one should
+escort her to her own house.”
+
+“You, perhaps, Desvanneaux,” said Henri, twisting up the ends of his
+moustache.
+
+“Not at all,” said Fanny; “I wished Heloise to go with me. I have
+noticed that when I am here you always lose. I fear I have the evil
+eye.”
+
+“Say, rather, that you have no stomach,” said Heloise. “Had you made
+your debut, as I made mine, with Frederic Lemaitre in ‘Thirty Years in
+the Life of an Actor’”
+
+“It certainly would not rejuvenate her,” said Henri, finishing the
+sentence.
+
+“Marquis, you are very impertinent,” said the duenna, laughing. “As a
+penalty, you must lend me five louis.”
+
+“With the greatest pleasure.”
+
+“Thank you!”
+
+And, as a new hand was about to be dealt, Heloise seated herself at one
+of the tables. This time Paul Landry put fifteen thousand francs in the
+bank.
+
+“Will you do me the favor to cut the cards?” he asked of Fanny, who
+stood behind Henri’s chair.
+
+“What! in spite of my evil eye, Monsieur?”
+
+“I do not fear that, Mademoiselle. Your eyes have always been too
+beautiful for one of them to change now.”
+
+Stale as was this compliment, it had the desired effect, and the young
+woman thrust vertically into the midst of the pack the cards he held out
+to her.
+
+“Play, messieurs,” said the banker.
+
+“Messieurs and Madame,” corrected Heloise, placing her five chips before
+her, while Henri, at the other table, staked the six thousand francs
+which he had just won.
+
+“Don’t put up more than there is in the bank,” objected Paul Landry,
+throwing a keen glance at the stakes. Having assured himself that on the
+opposing side to this large sum there were hardly thirty louis, he dealt
+the cards.
+
+“Eight!” said he, laying down his card.
+
+“Nine!” said Heloise.
+
+“Baccarat!” said Henri, throwing two court-cards into the basket.
+
+The rake rattled on the losing table, but after the small stakes of
+the winners had been paid, the greater part of the six thousand francs
+passed into the hands of the banker.
+
+Five times in succession, at the first deal, the same thing happened;
+and at the sixth round Heloise won six hundred francs, and Henri found
+himself with no more counters.
+
+“This is the proper moment to retire!” said the duenna, rising from the
+table. “Are you coming, Fanny?”
+
+“I beg you, let us go now,” murmured Mademoiselle Dorville in the ear of
+her lover.
+
+Her voice was caressing and full of tender promise. The young man
+hesitated an instant. But to desert the game at his first loss seemed to
+him an act unworthy of his reputation, and, as between love and pride,
+the latter finally prevailed.
+
+“I have only an hour or two more to wait. Can not you go home by
+yourself?” he replied to Fanny’s appeal, while Heloise exchanged her
+counters for tinkling coin, forgetting, no doubt, to reimburse her
+creditor, who, in fact, gave no thought to the matter.
+
+Henri accompanied the two women to a coach at the door, which had
+been engaged by the thoughtful and obliging Desvanneaux; and, pressing
+tenderly the hand of his mistress, he murmured:
+
+“Till to-morrow!”
+
+“To-morrow!” she echoed, her heart oppressed with sad forebodings.
+
+Desvanneaux, whose wife was very jealous of him, made all haste to
+regain his conjugal abode.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE RESULT
+
+Meanwhile, Paul Landry had begun badly, and had had some ill turns of
+luck; nevertheless, feeling that his fortune was about to change, he
+raised the stakes.
+
+“Does any one take him up?” asked Constantin Lenaeiff.
+
+“I do,” said De Prerolles, who had returned to the table.
+
+And, seizing a pencil that lay on the card-table, he signed four cheques
+of twenty-five thousand francs each. Unfortunately for him, the next
+hand was disastrous. The stakes were increased, and the bank was broken
+several times, when Paul Landry, profiting by a heavy gain, doubled and
+redoubled the preceding stakes, and beheld mounting before him a pile of
+cheques and counters.
+
+But, as often happens in such circumstances, his opponent, Henri de
+Prerolles, persisted in his vain battle against ill-luck, until at three
+o’clock in the morning, controlling his shaken nerves and throwing down
+his cards, without any apparent anger, he said:
+
+“Will you tell me, gentlemen, how much I owe you?”
+
+After all accounts had been reckoned, he saw that he had lost two
+hundred and ninety thousand francs, of which two hundred and sixty
+thousand in cheques belonged to Paul Landry, and the thirty thousand
+francs’ balance to the bank.
+
+“Monsieur de Prerolles,” said Paul Landry, hypocritically, “I am ashamed
+to win such a sum from you. If you wish to seek your revenge at some
+other game, I am entirely at your service.”
+
+The Marquis looked at the clock, calculated that he had still half an
+hour to spare, and, not more for the purpose of “playing to the gallery”
+ than in the hope of reducing the enormous sum of his indebtedness, he
+replied:
+
+“Will it be agreeable to you to play six hands of bezique?”
+
+“Certainly, Monsieur. How much a point?”
+
+“Ten francs, if that is not too much.”
+
+“Not at all! I was about to propose that amount myself.”
+
+A quick movement of curiosity ran through the assembly, and a circle was
+formed around the two opponents in this exciting match.
+
+Every one knows that bezique is played with four packs of cards, and
+that the number of points may be continued indefinitely. The essential
+thing is to win at least one thousand points at the end of each hand;
+unless a player does this he is said to “pass the Rubicon,” becoming
+twice a loser--that is, the victor adds to his own score the points lost
+by his adversary. Good play, therefore, consists largely in avoiding
+the “Rubicon” and in remaining master of the game to the last trick,
+in order to force one’s adversary over the “Rubicon,” if he stands in
+danger of it. The first two hands were lost by Landry, who, having each
+time approached the “Rubicon,” succeeded in avoiding it only by the
+greatest skill and prudence. Immediately his opponent, still believing
+that good luck must return to him, began to neglect the smaller points
+in order to make telling strokes, but he became stranded at the very
+port of success, as it were; so that, deducting the amount of his first
+winning, he found at the end of the fifth hand that he had lost six
+thousand points. Notwithstanding his wonderful self-control, it was
+not without difficulty that the young officer preserved a calm demeanor
+under the severe blows dealt him by Fortune. Paul Landry, always
+master of himself, lowered his eyes that their expression of greedy
+and merciless joy should not be seen. The nearer the game drew to its
+conclusion, the closer pressed the circle of spectators, and in the
+midst of a profound silence the last hand began. Favored from the
+beginning with the luckiest cards, followed by the most fortunate
+returns, Paul Landry scored successively “forty, bezique,” five hundred
+and fifteen hundred. He lacked two cards to make the highest point
+possible, but Henri, by their absence from his own hand, could measure
+the peril that menaced him. So, surveying the number of cards that
+remained in stock, he guarded carefully three aces of trumps which might
+help him to avert disaster. But, playing the only ace that would allow
+him to score again, Paul Landry announced coldly, laying on the table
+four queens of spades and four knaves of diamonds:
+
+“Four thousand five hundred!” This was the final stroke. The last hand
+had wiped out, by eight thousand points, the possessions of Landry’s
+adversary. The former losses of the unfortunate Marquis were now
+augmented by one hundred and forty thousand francs. Henri became very
+pale, but, summoning all his pride to meet the glances of the curious,
+he arose, rang a bell, and called for a pen and a sheet of stamped
+paper. Then, turning to Paul Landry, he said, calmly “Monsieur, I owe
+you four hundred thousand francs. Debts of honor are payable within
+twenty-four hours, but in order to realize this sum, I shall require
+more time. How long a delay will you grant me?”
+
+“As long as you wish, Monsieur.”
+
+“I thank you. I ask a month.”
+
+A waiter appeared, bringing the pen and paper.
+
+“Oh, your word will be sufficient for me,” said Landry.
+
+“Pardon me!” said the Marquis. “One never knows what may happen. I
+insist that you shall accept a formal acknowledgment of the debt.”
+
+And he wrote:
+
+“I, the undersigned, acknowledge that I owe to Monsieur Paul Landry the
+sum of four hundred thousand francs, which I promise to pay in thirty
+days, counting from this date.”
+
+He dated, signed, and folded the paper, and handed it to Paul Landry.
+Then, glancing at the clock, whose hands pointed to a quarter before
+four, he said:
+
+“Permit me to take leave of you, gentlemen. I have barely time to reach
+Vincennes before roll-call.”
+
+He lighted a cigar, saluted the astonished assembly with perfect
+coolness, slowly descended the stairs, and jumped into his carriage, the
+chasseur of the restaurant holding open the door for him.
+
+“To Vincennes!” he cried to the coachman; “and drive like the devil!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. A DESPERATE RESOLUTION
+
+The chimneys and roofs of the tall houses along the boulevards stood out
+sharp and clear in the light of the rising sun. Here and there squads
+of street-cleaners appeared, and belated hucksters urged their horses
+toward the markets; but except for these, the streets were deserted, and
+the little coupe that carried Caesar and his misfortunes rolled rapidly
+toward the Barriere du Trone.
+
+With all the coach-windows lowered, in order to admit the fresh morning
+air, the energetic nobleman, buffeted by ill-luck, suddenly raised his
+head and steadily looked in the face the consequences of his defeat.
+He, too, could say that all was lost save honor; and already, from the
+depths of his virile soul, sprang the only resolution that seemed to him
+worthy of himself.
+
+When he entered his own rooms in order to dress, his mind was made up;
+and although, during the military exercises that morning, his commands
+were more abrupt than usual, no one would have suspected that his mind
+was preoccupied by any unusual trouble.
+
+He decided to call upon his superior officer that afternoon to request
+from him authorization to seek an exchange for Africa. Then he went
+quietly to breakfast at the pension of the officers of his own rank,
+who, observing his calm demeanor, in contrast to their own, knew that
+he must be unaware of the important news just published in the morning
+journals. General de Lorencez, after an unsuccessful attack upon the
+walls of Puebla, had been compelled to retreat toward Orizaba, and to
+intrench there while waiting for reenforcements.
+
+This military event awakened the liveliest discussions, and in the
+midst of the repast a quartermaster entered to announce the reply to the
+report, first presenting his open register to the senior lieutenant.
+
+“Ah! By Jove, fellows! what luck!” cried that officer, joyously.
+
+“What is it?” demanded the others in chorus.
+
+“Listen to this!” And he read aloud: “‘General Order: An expedition
+corps, composed of two divisions of infantry, under the command of
+General Forey, is in process of forming, in order to be sent to Mexico
+on urgent business. The brigade of the advance guard will be composed of
+the First Regiment of Zouaves and the Eighteenth Battalion of infantry.
+As soon as these companies shall be prepared for war, this battalion
+will proceed by the shortest route to Toulon; thence they will embark
+aboard the Imperial on the twenty-sixth day of June next.’”
+
+Arousing cheer drowned the end of the reading of this bulletin, the
+tenor of which gave to Henri’s aspirations an immediate and more
+advantageous prospect immediate, because, as his company was the first
+to march, he was assured of not remaining longer at the garrison; more
+advantageous, because the dangers of a foreign expedition opened a much
+larger field for his chances of promotion.
+
+Consequently, less than a month remained to him in which to settle his
+indebtedness. After the reading of the bulletin, he asked one of his
+brother officers to take his place until evening, caught the first train
+to town, and, alighting at the Bastille, went directly to the Hotel
+de Montgeron, where he had temporary quarters whenever he chose to use
+them.
+
+“Is the Duke at home?” he inquired of the Swiss.
+
+Receiving an affirmative reply, he crossed the courtyard, and was soon
+announced to his brother-in-law, the noble proprietor of La Sarthe,
+deputy of the Legitimist opposition to the Corps Legislatif of the
+Empire.
+
+The Duc de Montgeron listened in silence to his relative’s explanation
+of his situation. When the recital was finished, without uttering a
+syllable he opened a drawer, drew out a legal paper, and handed it to
+Henri, saying:
+
+“This is my marriage contract. Read it, and you will see that I have
+had, from the head of my family, three hundred and fifteen thousand
+livres income. I do not say this to you in order to contrast my riches
+with your ruin, but only to prove to you that I was perfectly well able
+to marry your sister even had she possessed no dot. That dot yields
+seven hundred and fifteen thousand francs’ income, at three per cent.
+We were married under the law of community of goods, which greatly
+simplifies matters when husband and wife have, as have Jeanne and
+myself, but one heart and one way of looking at things. To consult her
+would be, perhaps, to injure her. To-morrow I will sell the necessary
+stock, and ere the end of the week Monsieur Durand, your notary and
+ours, shall hold at your disposal the amount of the sum you lost last
+night.”
+
+The blood rose to the cheeks of the young officer.
+
+“I--I” he stammered, pressing convulsively the hands of his
+brother-in-law. “Shall I let you pay the ransom for my madness and
+folly? Shall I a second time despoil my sister, already robbed by me of
+one half her rightful share? I should die of shame! Or, rather--wait a
+moment! Let us reverse our situations for an instant, and if you will
+swear to me that, were you in my place, you would accept--Ah, you see!
+You hesitate as much now as you hesitated little a moment ago in your
+simple and cordial burst of generosity: Consequently, I refuse!”
+
+“What do you mean to do, then?”
+
+“To sell Prerolles immediately-to-day, if possible. This determination
+troubles you because of the grief it will cause Jeanne. It will grieve
+me, too. And the courage to tell this to her is the only effort to which
+my strength is unequal. Only you can tell it in such a way as to soften
+the blow--”
+
+“I will try to do it,” said the Duke.
+
+“I thank you! As to the personal belongings and the family portraits,
+their place is at Montgeron, is it not?”
+
+“That is understood. Now, one word more, Henri.”
+
+“Speak!”
+
+“Have you not another embarrassment to settle?”
+
+“I have indeed, and the sooner the better. Unhappily--”
+
+“You have not enough money,” finished the Duke. “I have received this
+morning twenty-five thousand francs’ rent from my farms. Will you allow
+me to lend them to you?”
+
+“To be repaid from the price of the sale? Very willingly, this time.”
+
+And he placed in an envelope the notes handed him by his brother-in-law.
+
+“This is the last will and testament of love,” said the Marquis, as he
+departed, to give the necessary instructions to his notary.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. THE FAREWELL
+
+His debts were easily reckoned. He owed eight hundred thousand francs to
+the Credit Foncier; four hundred thousand to Paul Landry; more than
+one hundred thousand to various jewellers and shopkeepers; twenty-five
+thousand to the Duc de Montgeron. It was necessary to sell the chateau
+and the property at one million four hundred thousand francs, and the
+posters advertising the sale must be displayed without delay.
+
+Then he must say farewell to Fanny Dorville. Nothing should disturb a
+sensible mind; the man who, with so much resolution, deprives himself
+of his patrimonial estates should not meet less bravely the separation
+imposed by necessity.
+
+As soon as Henri appeared in Fanny’s boudoir, she divined that her
+presentiments of the previous night had not deceived her.
+
+“You have lost heavily?” she asked.
+
+“Very heavily,” he replied, kissing her brow.
+
+“And it was my fault!” she cried. “I brought you bad luck, and that
+wretch of a Landry knew well what he was about when he made me cut the
+cards that brought you misfortune!”
+
+“No, no, my dear-listen! The only one in fault was I, who allowed
+myself, through false pride, to be persuaded that I should not seem to
+fear him.”
+
+“Fear him--a professional gambler, who lives one knows not how!
+Nonsense! It is as if one should fight a duel with a fencing-master.”
+
+“What do you wish, my dear? The evil is done--and it is so great--”
+
+“That you have not the means to pay the sum? Oh, but wait a moment.”
+
+And taking up a casket containing a superb collar of pearls, she said:
+
+“This is worth fourteen thousand francs. You may well take them from me,
+since it was you that gave them to me.”
+
+No doubt, she had read De Musset, and this action was perhaps a
+refection of that of Marion, but the movement was sincere. Something
+of the stern pride of this other Rolla was stirred; a sob swelled his
+bosom, and two tears--those tears that rise to a soldier’s eyes in the
+presence of nobility and goodness--fell from his eyes upon the hair of
+the poor girl.
+
+“I have not come to that yet,” he said, after a short silence. “But we
+must part--”
+
+“You are about to marry?” she cried.
+
+“Oh, no!”
+
+“Ah, so much the better!”
+
+In a few words he told her of his approaching departure, and said that
+he must devote all his remaining time to the details of the mobilization
+of troops.
+
+“So--it is all over!” said Fanny, sadly. “But fear nothing! I have
+courage, and even if I have the evil eye at play, I know of something
+that brings success in war. Will you accept a little fetich from me?”
+
+“Yes, but you persist in trying to give me something,” he said, placing
+on a table the sealed envelope he had brought.
+
+“How good you are!” she murmured. “Now promise me one thing: let us dine
+together once more. Not at the Provencaux, however. Oh, heavens! no! At
+the Cafe Anglais--where we dined before the play the first time we--”
+
+The entrance of Heloise cut short the allusion to a memory of autumn.
+
+“Ah, it is you,” said Fanny nervously. “You come apropos.”
+
+“Is there a row in the family?” inquired Heloise.
+
+“As if there could be!”
+
+“What is it, then?”
+
+“You see Henri, do you not?”
+
+“Well, yes, I do, certainly. What then?”
+
+“Then look at him long and well, for you will not see him again in many
+a day. He is going to Mexico!”
+
+“To exploit a mine?”
+
+“Yes, Heloise,” the officer replied, “a mine that will make the walls of
+Puebla totter.”
+
+“In that case, good luck, my General!” said the duenna, presenting arms
+with her umbrella.
+
+Fanny could not repress a smile in spite of her tears. Her lover seized
+this moment to withdraw from her arms and reach the stairs.
+
+“And now, Marquis de Prerolles, go forth to battle!” cried the old
+actress to him over the banisters, with the air of an artist who knows
+her proper cue.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE VOW
+
+Notwithstanding the desire expressed by his mistress, Henri firmly
+decided not to repeat that farewell scene.
+
+The matter that concerned him most was the wish not to depart without
+having freed himself wholly from his debt to Paul Landry. Fortunately,
+because of a kindly interest, as well as on account of the guaranty of
+the Duc de Montgeron, a rich friend consented to advance the sum; so
+that, one week before the day appointed for payment, the losing
+player was able to withdraw his signature from the hands of his greedy
+creditor.
+
+Relieved from this anxiety, Henri had asked, the night before the day
+set for departure, for leave of absence for several hours, in order
+to visit for the last time a spot very dear to him, upon whose walls
+placards now hung, announcing the sale of the property to take place on
+the following morning.
+
+No one received warning of this visit in extremis save the steward,
+who awaited his master before the gates of the chateau, the doors and
+windows of which had been flung wide open.
+
+At the appointed hour the visitor appeared at the end of the avenue,
+advancing with a firm step between two hedges bordered with poplars,
+behind which several brood-mares, standing knee-deep in the rich grass,
+suckled their foal.
+
+The threshold of the gate crossed, master and man skirted the lawn,
+traversed the garden, laid out in the French fashion, and, side by side,
+without exchanging a word, mounted the steps of the mansion. Entering
+the main hall, the Marquis, whose heart was full of memories of his
+childhood, stopped a long time to regard alternately the two suites of
+apartments that joined the vestibule to the two opposite wings. Making
+a sign to his companion not to follow him, Henri then entered the vast
+gallery, wherein hung long rows of the portraits of his ancestors; and
+there, baring his head before that of the Marshal of France whose name
+he bore, he vowed simply, without excitement, and in a low tone, either
+to vanquish the enemy or to add, after the manner of his forbears, a
+glorious page to his family’s history.
+
+The object of his pilgrimage having thus been accomplished, the Marquis
+ordered the steward to see that all the portraits were sent to the
+Chateau de Montgeron; then, after pressing his hand in farewell, he
+returned to the station by the road whence he had come, avoiding the
+village in order to escape the curious eyes of the peasantry.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. IN SEARCH OF GLORY
+
+The next morning the 18th battalion of ‘chasseurs’, in dress uniform,
+with knapsacks on their backs and fully armed, awaited in the Gare de
+Lyon the moment to board the train destined to transport them to the
+coast.
+
+At a trumpet-call this movement was executed in silence, and in perfect
+order; and only after all the men were installed did the functionaries
+who kept the crowd in order take their own places in the carriages,
+leaving a throng of relatives and friends jostling one another upon the
+quay.
+
+Fanny Dorville and her friend the duenna tried in vain to reach the
+compartment wherein Henri had his place, already in marching order;
+the presence of the Duc and the Duchesse de Montgeron prevented the two
+women from approaching him. Nevertheless, at the moment when the train
+began to move slowly out of the station, an employee found the means to
+slip into the hands of the Marquis a small packet containing the little
+fetich which his mistress had kept for him. It was a medallion of the
+Holy Virgin, which had been blessed at Notre-Dame des-Victoires, and it
+was attached to a long gold chain.
+
+Thirty-six hours later, on the evening of the 26th of June, the
+battalion embarked aboard the Imperial, which, with steam up, was due to
+leave the Toulon roadstead at daybreak. At the moment of getting under
+weigh, the officer in charge of the luggage, who was the last to leave
+the shore, brought several despatches aboard the ship, and handed to
+Lieutenant de Prerolles a telegram, which had been received the evening
+before at the quay.
+
+The Marquis opened it and read: “Chateau and lands sold for 1,450,000
+francs. Everything paid, 1600 francs remain disposable.”
+
+“That is to say,” thought the officer, sadly, “I have my pay and barely
+three thousand francs’ income!”
+
+Leaning both elbows upon the taffrail, he gazed long at the shores
+of France, which appeared to fly toward the horizon; then, brusquely
+turning his eyes to the quarters filled with the strong figures and
+manly faces of the young foot-soldiers of the 18th battalion, he said
+to himself that among such men, under whatever skies or at whatever
+distance, one found his country--glancing aloft where floated above his
+head the folds of his flag.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE
+
+Twenty-three years after the events already recorded, on a cold
+afternoon in February, the Bois de Boulogne appeared to be draped in a
+Siberian mantle rarely seen at that season. A deep and clinging covering
+of snow hid the ground, and the prolonged freezing of the lakes gave
+absolute guaranty of their solidity.
+
+A red sun, drowned in mist, threw a mild radiance over the landscape,
+and many pedestrians stamped their feet around the borders of the lake
+belonging to the Skaters’ Club, and watched the hosts of pretty women
+descending from their carriages, delighted at the opportunity afforded
+them, by this return of winter, to engage in their favorite exercise.
+
+Received on her arrival by one of the attendants posted at the entrance,
+each of the fair skaters entered in turn a small building reserved for
+ladies, whence she soon came forth in full skating array, ready to risk
+herself on the ice, either alone or guided by the hand of some expert
+cavalier.
+
+Here and there, around the enclosure, large garden-seats, shaped like
+sentry-boxes, were reserved for the mothers and sisters of the members
+of the club, so that they could observe, from a comfortable shelter, the
+evolutions of those in whom they were interested.
+
+Within two of these nooks, side by side, sat the Duchesse de Montgeron,
+president, and the Comtesse Desvanneaux, vice-president of the Charity
+Orphan Asylum; the latter had come to look on at the first essay on the
+ice of her daughter, Madame de Thomery; the former, to judge the skill
+of her brother, General the Marquis de Prerolles, past-master in all
+exercises of strength and skill.
+
+At forty-five years of age, the young General had preserved the same
+grace and slenderness that had distinguished him when he had first
+donned the elegant tunic of an officer of chasseuys. His hair, cut
+rather short, had become slightly gray on his temples, but his jaunty
+moustache and well-trimmed beard were as yet innocent of a single silver
+thread. The same energy shone in his eyes, the same sonority rang in his
+voice, which had become slightly more brusque and authoritative from his
+long-continued habit of command.
+
+In a small round hat, with his hands in the pockets of an outing-jacket,
+matching his knickerbockers in color, he strolled to and fro near his
+sister, now encouraging Madame de Thomery, hesitating on the arm of her
+instructor, now describing scientific flourishes on the ice, in rivalry
+against the crosses dashed off by Madame de Lisieux and Madame de
+Nointel--two other patronesses of the orphanage--the most renowned among
+all the fashionable skaters. This sort of tourney naturally attracted
+all eyes, and the idlers along the outer walks had climbed upon the
+paling in order to gain a better view of the evolutions, when suddenly a
+spectacle of another kind called their attention to the entrance-gate in
+their rear.
+
+Passing through the Porte Dauphine, and driven by a young woman
+enveloped in furs, advanced swiftly, over the crisp snow, a light
+American sleigh, to which was harnessed a magnificent trotter, whose
+head and shoulders emerged, as from an aureole, through that flexible,
+circular ornament which the Russians call the ‘douga’.
+
+Having passed the last turn of the path, the driver slackened her grasp,
+and the horse stopped short before the entrance. His owner, throwing the
+reins to a groom perched up behind, sprang lightly to the ground amid a
+crowd of curious observers, whose interest was greatly enhanced by the
+sight of the odd-looking vehicle.
+
+The late-comer presented her card of invitation to the proper
+functionary, and went across the enclosure toward the ladies’ salon.
+
+“Ah! there is Zibeline!” cried Madame Desvanneaux, with an affected air.
+“Do you know her?” she inquired of the Duchesse de Montgeron.
+
+“Not yet,” the Duchess replied. “She did not arrive in Paris until the
+end of spring, just at the time I was leaving town for the seashore. But
+I know that she says her real name is Mademoiselle de Vermont, and that
+she was born in Louisiana, of an old French family that emigrated to the
+North, and recently became rich in the fur trade-from which circumstance
+Madame de Nointel has wittily named her ‘Zibeline.’ I know also that
+she is an orphan, that she has an enormous fortune, and has successively
+refused, I believe, all pretenders who have thus far aspired to her
+hand.”
+
+“Yes--gamblers, and fortune-hunters, in whose eyes her millions excuse
+all her eccentricities.”
+
+“Do I understand that she has been presented to you?” asked the Duchess,
+surprised.
+
+“Well, yes-by the old Chevalier de Sainte-Foy, one of her so-called
+cousins--rather distant, I fancy! But the independent airs of this young
+lady, and her absolute lack of any respectable chaperon, have decided me
+to break off any relations that might throw discredit on our patriarchal
+house,” Madame Desvanneaux replied volubly, as ready to cross herself as
+if she had been speaking of the devil!
+
+The Duchess could not repress a smile, knowing perfectly that her
+interlocutor had been among the first to demand for her son the hand of
+Mademoiselle de Vermont!
+
+During this dialogue, the subject of it had had time to cast aside her
+fur cloak, to fasten upon her slender, arched feet, clad in dainty,
+laced boots, a pair of steel skates, with tangent blades, and without
+either grooves or straps, and to dart out upon this miniature sheet of
+water with the agility of a person accustomed to skating on the great
+lakes of America.
+
+She was a brunette, with crisply waving hair, a small head, well-set,
+and deep yet brilliant eyes beneath arched and slightly meeting brows.
+Her complexion was pale, and her little aquiline nose showed thin,
+dilating nostrils. Her rosy lips, whose corners drooped slightly,
+revealed dazzling teeth, and her whole physiognomy expressed an air of
+haughty disdain, somewhat softened by her natural elegance.
+
+Her cloth costume, which displayed to advantage her slender waist and
+graceful bust, was of simple but elegant cut, and was adorned with
+superb trimmings of black fox, which matched her toque and a little
+satin-lined muff, which from time to time she raised to her cheek to
+ward off the biting wind.
+
+Perhaps her skirt was a shade too short, revealing in its undulations a
+trifle too much of the dainty hose; but the revelation was so shapely it
+would have been a pity to conceal it!
+
+“Very bad form!” murmured Madame Desvanneaux.
+
+“But one can not come to a place like this in a skirt with a train,” was
+the more charitable thought of the Duchess.
+
+Meantime the aforesaid tournament went on in the centre of the sheet of
+ice, and Zibeline, without mingling with the other skaters, contented
+herself with skirting the borders of the lake, rapidly designing a chain
+of pierced hearts on the smooth surface, an appropriate symbol of her
+own superiority.
+
+Annoyed to see himself eclipsed by a stranger, the General threw a
+challenging glance in her direction, and, striking out vigorously in a
+straight line, he sped swiftly toward the other end of the lake.
+
+Stung to the quick by his glance, Mademoiselle de Vermont darted after
+him, passed him halfway along the course, and, wheeling around with
+a wide, outward curve, her body swaying low, she allowed him to pass
+before her, maintaining an attitude which her antagonist might interpret
+as a salute, courteous or ironic, as he chose.
+
+By this time the crowd was gradually diminishing. The daylight was
+waning, and a continued sound of closing gates announced the retreat of
+the gay world toward Paris.
+
+Zibeline alone, taking advantage of the free field, lingered a few
+moments to execute some evolutions in the deepening twilight, looking
+like the heroines in the old ballads, half-visible, through the mists, \
+to the vivid imagination of the Scottish bards.
+
+Henri de Prerolles had entered his sister’s carriage, in company with
+Madame Desvanneaux and Madame Thomery, and during the drive home, these
+two gentle dames--for the daughter was worthy of the mother--did not
+fail to sneer at the fair stranger, dilating particularly upon the
+impropriety of the challenging salute she had given to the General, with
+whom she was unacquainted.
+
+“But my brother could hardly request his seconds to call upon her for
+that!” laughingly said the Duchess who, it seemed, had decided to defend
+the accused one in all attacks made upon her.
+
+“Look! Here she comes! She is passing us again. One would think she was
+deliberately trying to do it!” exclaimed Madame Desvanneaux, just before
+their carriage reached the Arc de Triomphe.
+
+Zibeline’s sleigh, which had glided swiftly, and without hindrance,
+along the unfrequented track used chiefly by equestrians, had indeed
+overtaken the Duchess’s carriage. Turning abruptly to the left, it
+entered the open gateway belonging to one of the corner houses of the
+Rond-Point de l’Etoile.
+
+“Decidedly, the young lady is very fond of posing,” said the General,
+with a shrug, and, settling himself in his corner, he turned his
+thoughts elsewhere.
+
+Having deposited her two friends at their own door, the Duchess ordered
+the coachman to take her home, and at the foot of the steps she said to
+her brother:
+
+“Will you dine with us to-night?”
+
+“No, not to-night,” he replied, “but we shall meet at the theatre.”
+
+And, crossing the court, he entered his little bachelor apartment, which
+he had occupied from time to time since the days when he was only a
+sub-lieutenant.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. GENERAL DE PREROLLES
+
+The sub-lieutenant had kept his word, and the progress of his career
+deserves detailed mention.
+
+He was a lieutenant at the taking of Puebla, where he was first to
+mount in the assault of the Convent of Guadalupita. Captain of the Third
+Zouaves after the siege of Oajaca, he had exercised, during the rest
+of the expedition, command over a mounted company, whose duty was to
+maintain communications between the various columns, continuing, at the
+same time, their operations in the Michoacan.
+
+This confidential mission, requiring as much power to take the
+initiative as it demanded a cool head, gave the Marquis opportunity to
+execute, with rapidity and decision, several master-strokes, which,
+in the following circumstances, won for him the cross of the Legion of
+Honor.
+
+The most audacious of the guerrillas who had devastated this fertile
+country was a chief called Regulas. He pillaged the farms, stopped
+railway trains, boldly demanding ransom from captives from the municipal
+governments of large towns. He was continually, active, and always
+inaccessible.
+
+Warned by his scouts that the followers of this villain menaced the town
+of Pazcuaro, Captain de Prerolles prepared himself eagerly to meet them.
+He overtook them in a night march, and fell upon them unexpectedly, just
+as they were holding up the diligence from Morelia to Guadalajara.
+His plans had been so well laid that not a man escaped. What was the
+surprise of the French officer to find, among the travellers, delivered
+by himself from certain death, Paul Landry, the principal cause of his
+ruin, who the chances of war now laid under obligations to him!
+
+“This is my revenge,” said the Captain, simply, to Landry, attempting to
+avoid his thanks, and returning to him intact his luggage, of which the
+chinacos had not had time to divide the contents.
+
+Reconciled in Algiers with his regiment, Henri de Prerolles did not
+again quit the province of Constantine except to serve in the army of
+the Rhine, as chief of battalion in the line, until the promotions which
+followed the declaration of war in 1870. Officer of the Legion of Honor
+for his gallantry at Gravelotte and at St. Privat, and assigned for his
+ability to the employ of the chief of corps, he had just been called
+upon to assume command of his former battalion of chasseurs, when the
+disastrous surrender of Metz left him a prisoner of war in the hands of
+the Germans.
+
+Profoundly affected by this disaster, but learning that the conflict
+still continued, he refused to avail himself of the offer of comparative
+freedom in the city, provided he would give his parole not to attempt
+to escape. He was therefore conducted to a distant fortress near the
+Russian frontier, and handed over to the captain of the landwehr, who
+received instructions to keep a strict guard over him.
+
+This officer belonged to the engineering corps, and directed, at the
+same time, the work of repairs within the citadel, in charge of a
+civilian contractor.
+
+Taking into consideration the rank of his prisoner, the captain
+permitted the Marquis to have with him his orderly, an Alsatian, who
+twice a day brought from the inn his chief’s repasts. This functionary
+had permission also, from ten o’clock in the morning until sunset, to
+promenade in the court under the eye of the sentinel on guard at the
+entrance. At five o’clock in the evening, the officer of the landwehr
+politely shut up his guest in his prison, double-locked the door, put
+the key in his pocket, and appeared no more until the next morning.
+
+The middle of November had arrived; heavy snows had already fallen, and
+the prisoner amused himself by constructing fortifications of snow--a
+work which his amiable jailer followed with a professional interest,
+giving him advice regarding modifications proper to introduce in the
+defense of certain places, himself putting a finger in the pie in
+support of his demonstration.
+
+This sort of amusement was followed so industriously that in a few days
+a kind of rampart was erected in front of the casemate of the fortress,
+behind which, by stooping a little, a man of ordinary height could
+easily creep along unseen by the sentinel.
+
+While pursuing his work of modelling in snow, the Marquis de Prerolles
+had taken care to observe the goings and comings of the civilian
+contractor, who, wearing a tall hat and attired in a black redingote,
+departed regularly every day at half-past four, carrying a large
+portfolio under his arm. To procure such a costume and similar
+accessories for himself was easy, since the Marquis’s orderly spoke the
+language of the country; and to introduce them into the prison, hidden
+in a basket of provisions, was not difficult to accomplish.
+
+To execute all this required only four trips to and fro. At the end
+of forty-eight hours, the necessary aids to escape were in the proper
+place, hidden under the snow behind the bastion. More than this, the
+clever Alsatian had slipped a topographical map of the surrounding
+country between two of the plates in the basket. According to the scale,
+the frontier was distant only about five leagues, across open
+country, sparsely settled with occasional farms which would serve as
+resting-places.
+
+By that time, the plan of escape was drawn up. Upon the day fixed for
+his flight, the Marquis assumed his disguise, rolled up his own uniform
+to look like a man asleep in his bed, lying after the fashion of a
+sleeping soldier; and pleading a slight illness as an excuse for not
+dining that evening, and, not without emotion, curled himself up behind
+the snowy intrenchment which his jailer himself had helped to fashion.
+That worthy man, only too glad to be able to rejoin his ‘liebe frau’
+a little earlier than usual, peeped through the half-open door of the
+prisoner’s room and threw a glance at the little cot-bed.
+
+“Good-night, Commander!” said the honest fellow, in a gentle voice.
+
+Then he double-locked the door, according to custom, and disappeared
+whistling a national air. A quarter of an hour later the contractor left
+the place, and as soon as the functionary who had seen him depart was
+relieved by another, the prisoner left his hiding-place, crossed the
+drawbridge in his turn, simulating the gait of his twin, and, without
+any hindrance, rejoined his orderly at the place agreed upon. The trick
+was played!
+
+A matter of twenty kilometres was a mere trifle for infantry troopers.
+They walked as lightly as gymnasts, under a clear sky, through the
+fields, guided by the lights in the farmhouses, and at nine o’clock,
+having passed the frontier, they stumbled upon a post of Cossacks
+ambuscaded behind a hedge!
+
+Unfortunately, at that time the Franco-Russian alliance was still in
+embryo, and an agreement between the two neighboring States interdicted
+all passage to Frenchmen escaping from the hands of their conquerors.
+The two deserters were therefore conducted to the major of the nearest
+garrison, who alone had the right to question them.
+
+As soon as they were in his presence, Henri could not restrain a
+start of surprise, for he recognized Constantin Lenaieff, one of his
+adversaries on the fatal night of the Freres-Provencaux.
+
+“Who are you?” demanded the Major, brusquely.
+
+“A dealer in Belgian cattle, purveyor to the German intendant,” hazarded
+the prisoner, who had his reply all prepared.
+
+“You--nonsense! You are a French officer; that is plain enough to be
+seen, in spite of your disguise.”
+
+The Major advanced a step in order to examine the prisoner more closely.
+
+“Good heavens!” he muttered, “I can not be mistaken--”
+
+He made a sign to his soldiers to retire, then, turning to Henri, he
+said:
+
+“You are the Marquis de Prerolles!” and he extended his hand cordially
+to the former companion of his pleasures.
+
+In a few words Henri explained to him the situation.
+
+“My fate is in your hands,” he concluded. “Decide it!”
+
+“You are too good a player at this game not to win it,” Lenaieff
+replied, “and I am not a Paul Landry, to dispute it with you. Here is a
+letter of safe-conduct made out in due form; write upon it any name you
+choose. As for myself, I regard you absolutely as a Belgian citizen, and
+I shall make no report of this occurrence. Only, let me warn you, as a
+matter of prudence, you would do well not to linger in this territory,
+and if you need money--”
+
+“I thank you!” replied the nobleman, quickly, declining with his
+customary proud courtesy. “But I never shall forget the service you have
+rendered me!”
+
+A few moments later, the two travellers drove away in a carriage toward
+the nearest railway, in order to reenter France by way of Vienna and
+Turin.
+
+They passed the Austrian and Italian frontiers without difficulty; but
+at the station at Modena a too-zealous detective of the French police,
+struck with the Alsatian accent of the orderly, immediately decided
+that they were two Prussian spies, and refused to allow them to proceed,
+since they could show him no passports.
+
+“Passports!” cried Henri de Prerolles, accompanying his exclamation with
+the most Parisian oath that ever had reverberated from the Rue Laffitte
+to the Madeleine.
+
+“Here is my passport!” he added, drawing from his pocket his officer’s
+cross, which he had taken good care not to allow to become a souvenir
+in the hands of his jailer. “And if that does not satisfy you, give me a
+pen.”
+
+Suiting the action to the word, he seized a pen and wrote out the
+following telegram:
+
+   “DEPUTY OF WAR, TOURS:
+
+   “Escaped from prisons of the enemy, I demand admittance to France,
+   and official duties suitable to my rank, that I may cooperate in the
+   national defence.
+
+               “DE PREROLLES, Commandant.”
+
+He handed the paper to the police agent, saying: “Do me the favor to
+forward this despatch with the utmost expedition.”
+
+As soon as the agent had glanced at the message, he swept a profound
+salute. “Pass on, Commandant,” said he, in a tone of great respect.
+
+Promoted to a higher rank, and appointed commander of a regiment of
+foot, the Lieutenant-Colonel de Prerolles rejoined the army of Chanzy,
+which, having known him a long time, assigned to him the duties of a
+brigadier-general, and instructed him to cover his retreat from the
+Loire on the Sarthe.
+
+In the ensuing series of daily combats, the auxiliary General performed
+all that his chief expected of him, from Orleans to the battle of Maus,
+where, in the thick of the fight, a shell struck him in the breast. It
+is necessary to say that on the evening before he had noticed that the
+little medallion which had been given to him by Fanny Dorville, worn
+from its chain by friction, had disappeared from his neck. Scoffing
+comrades smiled at the coincidence; the more credulous looked grave.
+
+The wound was serious, for, transported to the Chateau de Montgeron,
+a few leagues distant, the Marquis was compelled to remain there six
+months before he was in fit condition to rejoin his command. Toward the
+end of his convalescence, in June, 1871, the brother and sister resolved
+to make a pious pilgrimage to the cradle of their ancestors.
+
+Exactly nine years had elapsed since the castle and lands had been sold
+at auction and fallen into the possession of a company of speculators,
+who had divided it and resold it to various purchasers. Only the farm of
+Valpendant, with a house of ancient and vast construction, built in
+the time of Philippe-Auguste, remained to an old tenant, with his
+dependencies and his primitive methods of agriculture.
+
+Leaving the train at the Beaumont tunnel, the two travellers made their
+way along a road which crosses the high plateau that separates the
+forest of Carnelle from the forest of the Ile-d’Adam, whence one can
+discern the steeple of Prerolles rising above the banks of the Oise.
+
+From this culminating point they beheld the chateau transformed into
+a factory, the park cut up into countryseats, the fields turned into
+market-gardens! With profound sadness the brother and the sister met
+each other’s glance, and their eyes filled with tears, as if they stood
+before a tomb on All Souls’ Day.
+
+“No expiation is possible,” said Henri to Jeanne, pressing her hand
+convulsively. “I must go--I must move on forever and ever, like the
+Wandering Jew.”
+
+Thanks to the influence of the Duke of Montgeron, whose faithful
+constituents had sent him to the National Assembly, his brother-in-law
+had been transferred to a regiment of zouaves, of which he became
+colonel in 1875, whereupon he decided to remain in Africa during the
+rest of his life.
+
+But Tunis and Tonquin opened new horizons to him. Landing as a
+brigadier-general at Haiphong, he was about to assume, at Bac-Ninh, his
+third star, when the Minister of War, examining the brilliant record
+of this officer who, since 1862, never had ceased his service to his
+country, called him to take command of one of the infantry divisions
+of the army of Paris, a place which he had occupied only a few months
+before the events related in the preceding chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. EUGENIE GONTIER
+
+Few salons in Paris have so imposing an air as the foyer of the
+dramatic artists of the Comedie Francaise, a rectangular room of fine
+proportions, whose walls are adorned with portraits of great actors,
+representing the principal illustrations of the plays that have been
+the glory of the house Mademoiselle Duclos, by Largilliere; Fleury, by
+Gerard; Moliere crowned, by Mignard; Baron, by De Troy, and many others.
+
+At the left of the entrance, separated by a large, high mirror which
+faced the fireplace, two other canvases, signed by Geffroy, represent
+the foyer itself, in costumes of the classic repertoire, the greater
+part of the eminent modern ‘societaires’, colleagues and contemporaries
+of the great painter.
+
+Between the windows, two pedestals, surmounted by busts of Mademoiselle
+Clairon and Mademoiselle Dangeville, stood, one on each side of the
+great regulator--made by Robin, clockmaker to the king--which dominated
+the bust of Moliere--after Houdon--seeming to keep guard over all this
+gathering of artistic glory.
+
+Opposite this group, hanging above a large table of finely chiselled
+iron, were two precious autographs under glass: a brevet of pension,
+dated 1682, signed Louis and countersigned Colbert; an act of notary,
+dated 1670, bearing the signature of Moliere, the master of the house.
+
+Disposed about the room were sofas, armchairs, and tete-a-tete seats in
+oak, covered with stamped green velvet.
+
+Here, at the first representations of new plays, or at important
+revivals of old ones, flocked literary notables and the regular
+frequenters of the theatre, eager to compliment the performers; here,
+those favored strangers who have the proper introduction, and who
+wish to see the place at close range, are graciously conducted by the
+administrator-general or by the officer for the week.
+
+Here it was that the Marquis de Prerolles appeared in the evening after
+his experience at the skating-pond. He had dressed, and had dined in
+great haste at a restaurant near the theatre.
+
+The posters announced a revival of ‘Adrienne Lecouvreur’, with
+Mademoiselle Gontier in the principal role, in which she was to appear
+for the first time.
+
+Eugenie Gontier was, it was said, the natural daughter of a great
+foreign lord, who had bequeathed to her a certain amount of money.
+Therefore, she had chosen the theatrical life less from necessity than
+from inclination.
+
+She was distinguished in presence, a great favorite with the public,
+and had a wide circle of friends, among whom a rich banker, the Baron
+de Samoreau, greatly devoted to her, had made for her investments
+sufficiently profitable to enable her to occupy a mansion of her own,
+and to open a salon which became a favorite rendezvous with many persons
+distinguished in artistic, financial, and even political circles.
+Talent being the guaranty of good companionship, this salon became
+much frequented, and General de Prerolles had become one of its most
+assiduous visitors.
+
+The first act had begun. Although the charming artist was not to appear
+until the second act, she had already descended from her dressing-room,
+and, finding herself alone in the greenroom, was putting a final touch
+to her coiffure before the mirror when the General entered.
+
+He kissed her hand gallantly, and both seated themselves in a retired
+corner between the fireplace and the window.
+
+“I thank you for coming so early,” said Eugenie. “I wished very much
+to see you to-night, in order to draw from your eyes a little of your
+courage before I must face the footlights in a role so difficult and so
+superb.”
+
+“The fire of the footlights is not that of the enemy--above all, for
+you, who are so sure of winning the battle.”
+
+“Alas! does one ever know? Although at the last rehearsal Monsieur
+Legouve assured me that all was perfect, look up there at that portrait
+of Rachel, and judge for yourself whether I have not reason to tremble
+at my audacity in attempting this role after such a predecessor.”
+
+“But you yourself caused this play to be revived,” said Henri.
+
+“I did it because of you,” Eugenie replied.
+
+“Of me?”
+
+“Yes. Am I not your Adrienne, and is not Maurice de Saxe as intrepid as
+you, and as prodigal as you have been? Was he not dispossessed of his
+duchy of Courlande, as you were of your--”
+
+A gesture from Henri prevented her from finishing the sentence.
+
+“Pardon me!” said she. “I had forgotten how painful to you is any
+reference to that matter. We will speak only of your present renown, and
+of the current of mutual sympathy that attracts each of us toward the
+other. For myself, that attraction began on the fourteenth of last July.
+You had just arrived at Paris, and a morning journal, in mentioning
+the troops, and the names of the generals who appeared at the review,
+related, apropos of your military exploits, many exciting details of
+your escape during the war. Do you recall the applause that greeted you
+when you marched past the tribunes? I saw you then for the first time,
+but I should have known you among a thousand! The next day--”
+
+“The next day,” Henri interrupted, “it was my turn to applaud you. I had
+been deprived a long time of the pleasures of the theatre, of which I
+am very fond, and I began by going to the Comedie Francaise, where
+you played, that night, the role of Helene in ‘Mademoiselle de la
+Seigliere.’ Do you remember?”
+
+“Do I remember! I recognized you instantly, sitting in the third row in
+the orchestra.”
+
+“I had never seen you until then,” Henri continued, “but that
+sympathetic current was soon established, from the moment you appeared
+until the end of the second piece. As it is my opinion that any officer
+is sufficiently a gentleman to have the right to love a girl of noble
+birth, I fell readily under the spell in which she whom you represented
+echoed my own sentiments. Bernard Stamply also had just returned from
+captivity, and the more enamored of you he became the more I pleased
+myself with fancying my own personality an incarnation of his, with less
+presumption than would be necessary for me to imagine myself the hero of
+which you spoke a moment ago. After the play, a friend brought me here,
+presented me to you--”
+
+“And the sympathetic current did the rest!” added Eugenie Gontier,
+looking at him tenderly. “Since then you have consecrated to me a part
+of whatever time is at your disposal, and I assure you that I never have
+been so happy, nor have felt so flattered, in my life.”
+
+“Second act!” came the voice of the call-boy from the corridor.
+
+“Will you return here after the fourth act?” said the actress, rising.
+“I shall wish to know how you find me in the great scene, and whether
+there is another princess de Bouillon among the audience--beware of
+her!”
+
+“You know very well that there is not.”
+
+“Not yet, perhaps, but military men are so inconstant! By and by,
+Maurice!” she murmured, with a smile.
+
+“By and by, Adrienne!” Henri replied, kissing her hand.
+
+He accompanied her to the steps that led to the stage, and, lounging
+along the passage that ends at the head of the grand stairway, he
+entered the theatre and hastened to his usual seat in the third row of
+the orchestra.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. RIVAL BEAUTIES
+
+It was Tuesday, the subscription night; the auditorium was as much the
+more brilliant as the play was more interesting than on other nights.
+In one of the proscenium boxes sat the Duchesse de Montgeron with the
+Comtesse de Lisieux; in another the Vicomtesse de Nointel and Madame
+Thomery. In the first box on the left Madame Desvanneaux was to be
+seen, with her husband and her son, the youthful and recently rejected
+pretender to the hand of Mademoiselle de Vermont.
+
+Among the subscription seats in the orchestra sat the Baron de Samoreau,
+the notary Durand, treasurer of the Industrial Orphan Asylum; the
+aide-de-camp of General Lenaieff, beside his friend the Marquis de
+Prerolles. One large box, the first proscenium loge on the right, was
+still unoccupied when the curtain rose on the second act.
+
+The liaison of Eugenie Gontier with the Marquis de Prerolles was not a
+mystery; from the moment of her entrance upon the scene, it was evident
+that she “played to him,” to use a phrase in theatrical parlance. Thus,
+after the recital of the combat undertaken in behalf of Adrienne by her
+defender--a recital which she concluded in paraphrasing these two lines:
+
+     ‘Paraissez, Navarrois, Maures et Castilians,
+     Et tout ce que l’Espagne a produit de vaillants,’
+
+many opera-glasses were directed toward the spectator to whom the
+actress appeared to address herself, when suddenly a new object of
+interest changed the circuit of observation. The door of the large,
+right-hand box opened, and Zibeline appeared, accompanied by the
+Chevalier de Sainte-Foy, an elderly gallant, carefully dressed and
+wearing many decorations, and whose respectable tale of years could
+give no occasion for malicious comment on his appearance in the role of
+‘cavalier servente’. Having assisted his companion to remove her mantle,
+he profited by the instant of time she took to settle her slightly
+ruffled plumage before the mirror, to lay upon the railing of the box
+her bouquet and her lorgnette. Then he took up a position behind the
+chair she would occupy, ready to assist her when she might deign to sit
+down. His whole manner suggested a chamberlain of the ancient court in
+the service of a princess.
+
+Mademoiselle de Vermont disliked bright colors, and wore on this
+occasion a robe of black velvet, of which the ‘decolletee’ bodice set
+off the whiteness of her shoulders and her neck, the latter ornamented
+with a simple band of cherry-colored velvet, without jewels, as was
+suitable for a young girl. Long suede gloves, buttoned to the elbow,
+outlined her well-modelled arms, of which the upper part emerged,
+without sleeves, from lace ruffles gathered in the form of epaulets.
+
+The men admired her; the women sought some point to criticise, and had
+the eyes of Madame Desvanneaux been able to throw deadly projectiles,
+her powerful lorgnette would have become an instrument of death for the
+object of her resentment.
+
+“This morning,” said the irreconcilable matron, “she showed us her
+ankles; this evening she allows us to see the remainder.”
+
+“I should have been very well pleased, however--” murmured young
+Desvanneaux, with regret.
+
+“If you had married her, Victor,” said his mother, “I should have taken
+full charge of her wardrobe, and should have made some decided changes,
+I assure you.”
+
+Perfectly indifferent to the general curiosity, Zibeline in her turn
+calmly reviewed the audience. After exploring the boxes with her
+opera-glass, she lowered it to examine the orchestra stalls, and,
+perceiving the Marquis, she fixed her gaze upon him. Undoubtedly she
+knew the reason for the particular attention which he paid to the stage,
+because, until the end of the act, her glance was divided alternately
+between the General and the actress.
+
+As the curtain fell on this act the spectators turned their backs to the
+footlights, and Lenaieff, indicating Zibeline to his friend, said in his
+slightly Slavonic accent:
+
+“Who is that pretty woman, my dear Henri?”
+
+“One of Jules Verne’s personages, a product of the land of furs.”
+
+“Do you know her?”
+
+“Not at all. I have a prejudice against girls that are too rich. Why do
+you ask?”
+
+“Because it seems to me that she looks at you very attentively.”
+
+“Indeed! I had not noticed it.”
+
+In saying this, the General--exaggerated! He had been perfectly well
+aware of the gaze of Mademoiselle de Vermont, but whether he still
+cherished a slight resentment against the lady, or whether her
+appearance really displeased him, he cut the conversation short and went
+to pay his respects to the occupants of several boxes.
+
+Evidently Zibeline knew few persons in society, for no visitor appeared
+in her box. However, after the next act she made a sign to M. Durand.
+That gentleman rejoined the Baron de Samoreau in the corridor and took
+him to meet Zibeline, and a sort of council appeared to be going on in
+the rear of her box.
+
+“What the deuce can she be talking about to them?” said Desvanneaux to
+his wife.
+
+“A new offer of marriage, probably. They say she declares she will marry
+no one of lower rank than a prince, in order to complete our chagrin!
+Perhaps they have succeeded in finding one for her!”
+
+The instructions that Mademoiselle de Vermont gave to the two men must
+have been easy to execute, for neither the notary nor the banker seemed
+to raise the least objection. The conversation was finished, and both
+gentlemen saluted her, preparing to take leave, when she said to M.
+Durand:
+
+“You understand that the meeting is for tomorrow?”
+
+“At five o’clock,” he replied.
+
+“Very well. I will stop for you at your door at a quarter of an hour
+before that time.”
+
+The fourth act had begun, that scene in which Adrienne accomplishes her
+generous sacrifice in furnishing herself the ransom which must deliver
+her unfaithful lover. The rapt attention that Zibeline paid to this
+scene, and the slight movements of her head, showed her approval of
+this disinterested act. Very touching in her invocation to her “old
+Corneille,” Mademoiselle Gontier was superb at the moment when the
+comedienne, knowing at last who is her rival, quotes from Racine that
+passage in ‘Phedre’ which she throws, so to speak, in the face of the
+patrician woman:
+
+  .... Je sais ses perfidies,
+     OEnone! et ne suis point de ces femmes hardies
+     Qui, goutant dans la crime une honteuse paix,
+     Ont su se faire un front qui ne rougit jamais.
+
+From the place she was to obliged to take in the arrangement of the
+scene, the apostrophe and the gestures of the actress appeared to be
+unconsciously directed toward Mademoiselle de Vermont, who could not
+restrain a startled movement.
+
+“Look! One would think that Zibeline took that allusion for herself,”
+ said Madame Desvanneaux, whom nothing escaped.
+
+On reentering the greenroom, after two well-deserved recalls, Eugenie
+Gontier was soon surrounded by a throng of admirers who had come to
+congratulate her upon her success.
+
+“Were you pleased, Henri?” she said in a low tone to the General.
+
+“Enthusiastically!” he replied.
+
+“Ah, then I can die happy!” she said, laughingly.
+
+As she traversed the ranks of her admirers to go to change her costume
+for the last act, she found herself face to face with Zibeline, who,
+having quickly recovered from her emotion, was advancing on the arm of
+the Chevalier de Sainte-Foy.
+
+“My dear child,” said the old nobleman to the actress, “I bring to you
+Mademoiselle de Vermont, who wishes to say to you herself--”
+
+“That Mademoiselle must be very tired of listening to our praises,”
+ interrupted Zibeline. “But if the tribute of a foreigner can prove to
+her that her prestige is universal, I beg that she will accept these
+flowers which I dared not throw to her from my box.”
+
+“Really, Mademoiselle, you embarrass me!” Eugenie replied, somewhat
+surprised.
+
+“Oh, you need not fear to take them--they are not poisoned!” added
+Zibeline, smiling.
+
+And, after a gracious inclination of her head, to which the actress
+responded with a deep courtesy, Zibeline took again the arm of her
+escort in order to seek her carriage, without waiting for the end of the
+play.
+
+Three-quarters of an hour later, as, the audience was leaving the
+theatre, M. Desvanneaux recounted to whoever chose to listen that
+Mademoiselle de Vermont had passed the whole of the last ‘entr’acte’ in
+the greenroom corridor, in a friendly chat with Eugenie Gontier.
+
+
+
+
+BOOK 2.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. THE INDUSTRIAL ORPHAN ASYLUM
+
+When the prefectoral axe of the Baron Haussmann hewed its way through
+the Faubourg St. Germain in order to create the boulevard to which this
+aristocratic centre has given its flame, the appropriation of private
+property for public purposes caused to disappear numerous ancient
+dwellings bearing armorial devices, torn down in the interest of the
+public good, to the equalizing level of a line of tramways. In the
+midst of this sacrilegious upheaval, the Hotel de Montgeron, one of
+the largest in the Rue St. Dominique, had the good fortune to be hardly
+touched by the surveyor’s line; in exchange for a few yards sliced
+obliquely from the garden, it received a generous addition of air and
+light on that side of the mansion which formerly had been shut in.
+
+The Duke lived there in considerable state. His electors, faithful
+in all things, had made of their deputy a senator who sat in the
+Luxembourg, in virtue of the Republican Constitution, as he would have
+sat as a peer of France had the legitimate monarchy followed its course.
+He was a great lord in the true meaning of the word: gracious to the
+humble, affable among his equals, inclined, among the throng of new
+families, to take the part of the disinherited against that of the
+usurpers.
+
+In Mademoiselle de Prerolles he had found a companion animated with the
+same sentiments, and the charitable organization, meeting again at
+the Duchess’s residence, on the day following the revival of ‘Adrienne
+Lecouvreuer’, to appoint officers for the Industrial Orphan Asylum,
+could not have chosen a president more worthy or more devoted.
+
+Besides such austere patronesses as Madame Desvanneaux and her daughter,
+the organization included several persons belonging to the world
+of fashion, such as Madame de Lisieux and Madame de Nointel, whose
+influence was the more effective because their circle of acquaintance
+was more extensive. The gay world often fraternizes willingly with those
+who are interested in philanthropic works.
+
+The founders of the Industrial Orphan Asylum intended that the
+institution should harbor, bring up, and instruct as great a number as
+possible of the children of infirm or deceased laborers.
+
+The secretary, M. Andre Desvanneaux, churchwarden of Ste.-Clotilde,
+as was his father before him, and in addition a Roman count, had
+just finished his address, concluding by making the following double
+statement: First, the necessity for combining all available-funds for
+the purchase of the land required, and for the building of the asylum
+itself; second, to determine whether the institution could be maintained
+by the annual resources of the organization.
+
+“I should like to observe,” said the Duchesse de Montgeron, “that the
+first of these two questions is the only order of the day. Not counting
+the purchase of the land, the architect’s plan calls for an estimate of
+five hundred thousand francs in round numbers.”
+
+“And we have on hand--” said the Comtesse de Lisieux.
+
+“One hundred and sixty-odd thousand francs from the first
+subscriptions,” said M. Desvanneaux. “It has been decided that the
+work shall not begin until we have disposed of half of the sum total.
+Therefore, the difference we have to make up at present is about one
+hundred and forty thousand francs. In order to realize this sum, the
+committee of action proposes to organize at the Palais de l’Industrie
+a grand kermess, with the assistance of the principal artists from
+the theatres of Paris, including that of Mademoiselle Gontier, of the
+Comedie Francaise,” added the secretary, with a sly smile on observing
+the expression of General de Prerolles.
+
+“Good!” Henri promptly rejoined. “That will permit Monsieur Desvanneaux
+to combine very agreeably the discharge of his official duties with the
+making of pleasant acquaintances!”
+
+“The object of my action in this matter is above all suspicion,”
+ remarked the churchwarden, with great dignity, while his wife darted
+toward him a furious glance.
+
+“You? Come, come!” continued the General, who took a mischievous delight
+in making trouble for the worthy Desvanneaux. “Every one knows quite
+well that you have by no means renounced Satan, his pomps--”
+
+“And his good works!” added Madame de Nointel, with a burst of laughter
+somewhat out of place in this formal gathering for the discussion of
+charitable works.
+
+“We are getting outside of the question,” said the Duchess, striking her
+bell. “Moreover, is not the assistance of these ladies necessary?”
+
+“Indispensable,” the secretary replied. “Their assistance will greatly
+increase the receipts.”
+
+“What sum shall we decide upon as the price of admission?” asked Madame
+de Lisieux.
+
+“Twenty francs,” said Desvanneaux. “We have a thousand tickets printed
+already, and, if the ladies present wish to solicit subscriptions, each
+has before her the wherewithal to inscribe appropriate notes of appeal.”
+
+“To be drawn upon at sight,” said the Comtesse de Lisieux, taking a pen.
+“A tax on vanity, I should call it.”
+
+She wrote rapidly, and then read aloud:
+
+   “MY DEAR BARON:
+
+   “Your proverbial generosity justifies my new appeal. You will
+   accept, I am sure, the ten tickets which I enclose, when you know
+   that your confreres, the Messieurs Axenstein, have taken double that
+   number.”
+
+“And here,” said the Vicomtesse de Nointel, “is a tax on gallantry.” And
+she read aloud:
+
+   “MY DEAR PRINCE:
+
+   “You have done me the honor to write to me that you love me. I
+   suppose I ought to show your note to my husband, who is an expert
+   swordsman; but I prefer to return to you your autograph letter for
+   the price of these fifteen tickets. Go--and sin again, should your
+   heart prompt you!”
+
+“But that is a species of blackmail, Madame!” cried Madame Desvanneaux.
+
+“The end justifies the means,” replied the Vicomtesse gayly. “Besides, I
+am accountable only to the Duc de Montgeron. What is his opinion?”
+
+“I call it a very clever stroke,” said the Duke.
+
+“You hear, Madame! Only, of course, not every lady has a collection of
+similar little notes!” said the Vicomtesse de Nointel.
+
+The entrance of M. Durand, treasurer of the society, interrupted the
+progress of this correspondence.
+
+“Do not trouble yourselves so much, Mesdames,” said the notary. “The
+practical solution of the matter I am about to lay before you, if Madame
+the president will permit me to speak.”
+
+“I should think so!” said the Duchess. “Speak, by all means!”
+
+“A charitable person has offered to assume all the expenses of the
+affair,” said the notary, “on condition that carte blanche is granted to
+her in the matter of the site. In case her offer is accepted, she will
+make over to the society, within three months, the title to the real
+estate, in regular order.”
+
+“Do you guarantee the solvency of this person?” demanded M. Desvanneaux,
+who saw the project of the kermess falling to the ground.
+
+“It is one of my rich clients; but I have orders not to reveal her name
+unless her offer is accepted.”
+
+The unanimity with which all hands were raised did not even give time to
+put the question.
+
+“Her name?” demanded the Duchess.
+
+“Here it is,” replied the notary, handing her a visiting card.
+
+“‘Valentine de Vermont,’” she read aloud.
+
+“Zibeline?” cried Madame de Nointel. “Bravo! I offer her the assurance
+of my esteem!”
+
+“And I also,” added Madame de Lisieux.
+
+“I can not offer mine,” said Madame Desvanneaux, dryly. “A young woman
+who is received nowhere!”
+
+“So generous an act should open all doors to her, beginning with mine,”
+ said the Duchesse de Montgeron. “I beg that you will tell her so from
+me, Monsieur Durand.”
+
+“At once, Madame. She is waiting below in her carriage.”
+
+“Why did you not say so before? I must beg her myself to join us here,”
+ said the master of the house, leaving the room in haste.
+
+“See how any one can purchase admission to our world in these days!”
+ whispered Madame Desvanneaux in her daughter’s ear.
+
+“Heavens! yes, dear mother! The only question is whether one is able to
+pay the price.”
+
+We must render justice to the two titled patronesses by saying that the
+immediate admission of Mademoiselle de Vermont to their circle seemed to
+them the least they could do, and that they greeted her appearance, as
+she entered on the arm of the Duke, with a sympathetic murmur which put
+the final stroke to the exasperation of the two malicious dames.
+
+“You are very welcome here, Mademoiselle,” said the Duchess, advancing
+to greet her guest. “I am delighted to express to you, in behalf of
+all these ladies, the profound gratitude with which your generous aid
+inspires them!”
+
+“It is more than I deserve, Madame la Duchesse!” said Valentine. “The
+important work in which they have taken the initiative is so interesting
+that each of us should contribute to it according to his means. I am
+alone in Paris, without relatives or friends, and these ladies have
+furnished me the means to cure my idleness; so it is I, rather, who am
+indebted to them.”
+
+Whether this speech were studied or not, it was pronounced to be in very
+good taste, and the stranger’s conquest of the assemblage was more and
+more assured.
+
+“Since you wish to join us,” resumed the Duchess, “allow me to present
+to you these gentlemen: Monsieur Desvanneaux, our zealous general
+secretary--”
+
+“I have already had the pleasure of seeing Monsieur at my house,” said
+Valentine, “also Madame Desvanneaux; and although I was unable to accede
+to their wishes, I retain, nevertheless, the pleasantest recollections
+of their visit.”
+
+“Good hit!” whispered Madame de Nointel to her neighbor.
+
+“The Marquis de Prerolles, my brother,” the Duchess continued.
+
+“The smiles of Fortune must be sweet, Mademoiselle,” said the General,
+bowing low.
+
+“Not so sweet as those of Glory, General,” Zibeline replied, with a
+pretty air of deference.
+
+“She possesses a decidedly ready wit,” said Madame de Lisieux in a
+confidential aside.
+
+“Now, ladies,” added the president, “I believe that the best thing
+we can do is to leave everything in the hands of Mademoiselle and our
+treasurer. The examination of the annual resources will be the object of
+the next meeting. For to-day, the meeting is adjourned.”
+
+Then, as Mademoiselle de Vermont was about to mingle with the other
+ladies, the Duchess detained her an instant, inquiring:
+
+“Have you any engagement for this evening, Mademoiselle?”
+
+“None, Madame.”
+
+“Will you do us the honor to join us in my box at the opera?”
+
+“But--I have no one to accompany me,” said Zibeline. “I dismissed my
+cousin De Sainte-Foy, thinking that I should have no further need of his
+escort to-day.”
+
+“That does not matter at all,” the Duchess replied. “We will stop for
+you on our way.”
+
+“I should not like to trouble you so much, Madame. If you will allow me,
+I will stop at your door at whatever hour will be agreeable to you, and
+my carriage shall follow yours.”
+
+“Very well. At nine o’clock, if you please. They sing Le Prophete
+tonight, and we shall arrive just in time for the ballet.”
+
+“The ‘Skaters’ Ballet,’” said the General.
+
+This remark recalled to Mademoiselle her triumph of the evening before.
+“Do you bear a grudge against me?” she said, with a smile.
+
+“Less and less of one,” the General replied.
+
+“Then, let us make a compact of peace,” said Zibeline, holding out her
+hand in the English fashion.
+
+With these words she left the room on the arm of the Duke, who claimed
+the honor of escorting her to her carriage.
+
+“Shall you go to the opera also?” asked the Duchess of her brother.
+
+“Yes, but later. I shall dine in town.”
+
+“Then-au-revoir--this evening!”
+
+“This evening!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. A WOMAN’S INSTINCT
+
+The General had been more favorably impressed with Zibeline’s appearance
+than he cared to show. The generous action of this beautiful girl, her
+frankness, her ease of manner, her cleverness in repartee, were likely
+to attract the attention of a man of his character. He reproached
+himself already for having allowed himself to be influenced by the
+rancorous hostility of the Desvanneaux, and, as always happens with just
+natures, the sudden change of his mind was the more favorable as his
+first opinion had been unjust.
+
+Such was the theme of his reflections on the route from the Hotel de
+Montgeron to that of Eugenic Gontie’s, with whom he was engaged to
+dine with some of her friends, invited to celebrate her success of the
+evening before.
+
+On entering her dining-room Eugenie took the arm of Lenaieff, placed
+Henri de Prerolles on her left and Samoreau opposite her--in his
+character of senior member, so that no one could mistake his transitory
+function with that of an accredited master of the house.
+
+The four other guests were distinguished writers or artists, including
+the painter Edmond Delorme, and, like him, all were intimate friends of
+the mistress of the house.
+
+Naturally the conversation turned upon the representation of Adrienne,
+and on the applause of the fashionable audience, usually rather
+undemonstrative.
+
+“Never have I received so many flowers as were given to me last night,”
+ said Eugenic, displaying an enormous beribboned basket which ornamented
+the table. “But that which particularly flattered me,” she added, “was
+the spontaneous tribute from that pretty foreigner who sought me in the
+greenroom expressly to offer me her bouquet.”
+
+“The young lady in the proscenium box, I will wager,” said Lenaieff.
+
+“Precisely. I know that they call her Zibeline, but I did not catch her
+real name.”
+
+“It is Mademoiselle de Vermont,” said Edmond Delorme. “She is, in my
+opinion, the most dashing of all the Amazons in the Bois de Boulogne.
+The Chevalier de Sainte-Foy brought her to visit my studio last autumn,
+and I am making a life-size portrait of her on her famous horse, Seaman,
+the winner of the great steeplechase at Liverpool, in 1882.”
+
+“What were you pencilling on the back of your menu while you were
+talking?” asked the actress, curiously.
+
+“The profile of General de Prerolles,” the painter replied. “I think
+that his mare Aida would make a capital companion picture for Seaman,
+and that he himself would be an appropriate figure to adorn a canvas
+hung on the line opposite her at the next Salon!”
+
+“Pardon me, dear master!” interrupted the General. “Spare me, I pray,
+the honor of figuring in this equestrian contradance. I have not the
+means to bequeath to posterity that your fair model possesses--”
+
+“Is she, then, as rich as they say?” inquired one of the guests.
+
+“I can answer for that,” said the Baron de Samoreau. “She has a letter
+of credit upon me from my correspondent in New York. Last night, during
+an entr’acte, she gave me an order to hold a million francs at her
+disposal before the end of the week.”
+
+“I know the reason why,” added Henri.
+
+“But,” Lenaieff exclaimed, “you told me that you did not know her!”
+
+“I have made her acquaintance since then.”
+
+“Ah! Where?” Eugenie inquired, with interest.
+
+“At my sister’s house, during the meeting of a charitable society.”
+
+“Had it anything to do with the society for which Monsieur Desvanneaux
+asked me to appear in a kermess?”
+
+“Well, yes. In fact, he has gone so far as to announce that he is
+assured of your cooperation.”
+
+“I could not refuse him,” said Eugenie. “Under the mantle of charity,
+the holy man paid court to me!”
+
+“I knew well enough that he had not yet laid down his arms forever,”
+ said the General.
+
+“Oh, he is not the only one. His son-in-law also honored me with an
+attack.”
+
+“What, Monsieur de Thomery? Well, that is a good joke!”
+
+“But what is funnier yet,” continued the actress, “is the fact that
+the first-named gentleman was on his knees, just about to make me a
+declaration, apparently, when the second was announced! Immediately the
+father-in-law jumped to his feet, entreating me not to allow them to
+meet. I was compelled to open for him the door leading to the servants’
+stairway--”
+
+“And what did you do with the other man?” asked Lenaieff, laughing
+loudly.
+
+“I rid myself of him in the same way. At a sign from me, my maid
+announced the name of the father-in-law, and the alarmed son-in-law
+escaped by the same road! Oh, but I know them! They will come back!”
+
+“Under some other pretext, however,” said the General. “Because
+Mademoiselle de Vermont’s million francs have destroyed their amorous
+designs.”
+
+“So now we see Zibeline fairly launched,” remarked the banker. “Since
+the Duchesse de Montgeron has taken her up, all the naughty tales that
+have been fabricated about her will go to pieces like a house of cards.”
+
+“That is very probable,” the General concluded, “for she has made a
+complete conquest of my sister.”
+
+At these words a slight cloud passed over the actress’s face. The
+imagination of a jealous mistress sees rivals everywhere; especially
+that of an actress.
+
+After dinner, while her other guests went into the smoking-room, Eugenic
+made a sign to her lover to remain with her, and seated herself beside
+him.
+
+“I wish to ask you a question, Henri,” said she.
+
+“What is it?”
+
+“Do you still love me?”
+
+“What reason have you to doubt it?”
+
+“None that warrants me in reproaching you for anything. But so many
+things separate us! Your career, to which you owe everything! Your
+social standing, so different from mine! Oh, I know that you are
+sincere, and that if you ever have a scruple regarding our liaison, you
+will not be able to hide it from me. It is this possibility of which I
+think.”
+
+“You are quite wrong, I assure you. Did I hide myself last night in
+order to prove openly my admiration for you? Did I appear to disclaim
+the allusions which you emphasized in seeming to address me in the
+course of your role?”
+
+“No, that is true. Shall I make a confession? When I am on the stage,
+I fear nothing, because there the points of comparison are all in my
+favor, since you can say to yourself: ‘This woman on whom all eyes are
+fixed, whose voice penetrates to the depths of the soul--this woman,
+beautiful, applauded, courted, belongs to me--wholly to me,’ and your
+masculine vanity is pleasantly flattered. But later, Henri! When the
+rouge is effaced from my lips, when the powder is removed from my
+cheeks--perhaps revealing some premature line caused by study and
+late hours--if, after that, you return to your own circle, and there
+encounter some fresh young girl, graceful and blooming, the object, in
+her turn, of the fickle admiration of the multitude, forgetful already
+of her who just now charmed them--tell me, Henri! do you not, as do
+the others, covet that beautiful exotic flower, and must not the poor
+comedienne weep for her lost prestige?”
+
+“It is Mademoiselle de Vermont, then, who inspires you with this
+apprehension,” said the General, smiling.
+
+“Well, yes, it is she!”
+
+“What childishness! Lenaieff will tell you that I have never even looked
+at her.”
+
+“Last night, perhaps--but to-day?”
+
+“We exchanged no more than a dozen words.”
+
+“But the more I think of her visit to the greenroom, the more
+inexplicable it appears to me.”
+
+“You need not be surprised at that: she does nothing that any one else
+does.”
+
+“These things are not done to displease you.”
+
+“I may agree as to that; but what conclusion do you draw?”
+
+“That she is trying to turn your head.”
+
+“My head! You jest! I might be her father.”
+
+“That is not always a reason--”
+
+Nevertheless, Henri’s exclamation had been so frank that Eugenie felt
+somewhat reassured.
+
+“Are you going so soon?” she said, seeing him take his hat.
+
+“I promised my sister to join her at the opera. Besides, this is your
+reception night, and I leave you to your duties as hostess. To-morrow,
+at the usual hour-and we will talk of something else, shall we not?”
+
+“Ah, dearest, that is all I ask!” said Eugenie.
+
+He attempted to kiss her hand, but she held up her lips. He pressed his
+own upon them in a long kiss, and left her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. DEFIANCE OF MRS. GRUNDY
+
+For more than fifty years the first proscenium box on the ground floor,
+to the left, at the Opera, had belonged exclusively to ten members of
+the jockey Club, in the name of the oldest member of which the box is
+taken. When a place becomes vacant through any cause, the nine remaining
+subscribers vote on the admission of a new candidate for the vacant
+chair; it is a sort of academy within the national Academy of Music.
+
+When this plan was originated, that particular corner was called
+“the infernal box,” but the name has fallen into desuetude since the
+dedication of the fine monument of M. Gamier. Nevertheless, as it is
+counted a high privilege to be numbered among these select subscribers,
+changes are rare among them; besides, the members are not, as a rule,
+men in their first youth. They have seen, within those walls, the
+blooming and the renewal of several generations of pretty women; and
+the number of singers and dancers to whom they have paid court in the
+coulisses is still greater.
+
+From their post of observation nothing that occurs either before or
+behind the curtain escapes their analysis--an analysis undoubtedly
+benevolent on the part of men who have seen much of life, and who accord
+willingly, to their younger fellow-members, a little of that indulgence
+of which they stand in need themselves.
+
+An event so unexpected as the enthronement of Zibeline in one of the
+two large boxes between the columns, in company with the Duchesse de
+Montgeron, Madame de Lisieux, and Madame de Nointel, did not escape
+their observation and comment.
+
+“The Duchess is never thoughtless in her choice of associates,” said one
+of the ten. “There must be some very powerful motive to induce her to
+shield with her patronage a foreigner who sets so completely at defiance
+anything that people may say about her.”
+
+“Nonsense! What is it, after all, that they say about this young woman?”
+ demanded the senior member of the party. “That she rides alone on
+horseback. If she were to ride with a groom, some one would be sure
+to say that he was her lover. They say that she drives out without any
+female chaperon beside her in the carriage. Well, if she had one, they
+would probably find some other malicious thing to say. Paris has become
+like a little country town in its gossip.”
+
+“And all this,” added a third member, “because she is as lovely as a
+dream, and because she drives the handsomest turnout in the Bois. If
+she were ugly, and contented herself with a hired carriage, she would be
+absolved without confession!”
+
+“Where the deuce does Christian charity come in, in all this gossip?”
+ said Henri de Prerolles to himself, who had just entered the box and
+overheard the last remarks. “Will you grant me your hospitality until
+the beginning of the next act, gentlemen?” he said aloud. “My sister’s
+box is full of guests and transient visitors; she can not admit even
+me!”
+
+The General was a great favorite with the members of the club. One of
+them rose to offer him his place.
+
+“I shall stay only a moment, to escape a cloud of questioners in the
+foyer. Every one that stops me asks--”
+
+“About the new recruit in the Duchess’s box, eh?” said a member. “We,
+too, wish to inquire about her; we are all leagued together.”
+
+“Thank you, no,” said the General.
+
+“But if it is a secret--”
+
+“There is no secret about it,” the General replied; and in a few words
+he explained the enigma.
+
+“Why, then,” exclaimed the senior member, “she is indeed the fowl that
+lays the golden eggs! What a lucky bird will be the one that mates with
+her!”
+
+The rising curtain sent the spectators back to their places. The augurs
+of the Duchess’s box reinstalled themselves before it where they could
+examine at their ease through their lorgnettes the fair stranger of whom
+so much had been said; and, mounting to the next floor, the General was
+at last able to find room among his sister’s guests.
+
+“You can see for yourself that our young friend is altogether charming,”
+ whispered Madame de Nointel, behind the shelter of her fan, and
+indicating Zibeline.
+
+“If you pronounce her so, Madame, she can receive no higher praise,”
+ said Henri.
+
+“Say at once that you think me exasperating,” laughed the lady.
+
+“Was it not you that first called her Zibeline?” Henri inquired.
+
+“Yes, but she calls herself Valentine--which rhymes, after all. Not
+richly enough for her, I know, but her means allow her to do without the
+supporting consonant. See how beautiful she is to-night!”
+
+In fact, twenty-four hours had sufficed to change the lonely stranger
+of the day before into the heroine of this evening, and the satisfaction
+that shone in her face tempered the somewhat haughty and disdainful
+expression that had hitherto characterized her.
+
+“You have not yet said ‘good-evening’ to Mademoiselle de Vermont,
+Henri,” said the Duchess to her brother, and he changed his place in
+order to act upon her hint.
+
+“Ah, is it you, General?” said Zibeline, affecting not to have seen him
+until that moment. “It seems that music interests you less than comedy.”
+
+“What has made you form that opinion, Mademoiselle?”
+
+“The fact that you arrive much later at the opera than at the Comedie
+Francaise.”
+
+“Have you, then, kept watch upon my movements?”
+
+“Only a passing observation of signs--quite allowable in warfare!”
+
+“But I thought we had made a compact of peace.”
+
+“True enough, we did make it, but suppose it were only an armistice?”
+
+“You are ready, then, to resume hostilities?” said Henri.
+
+“Now that I have Madame la Duchesse, your sister, for an ally, I fear no
+enemies.”
+
+“Not even if I should call for aid upon the camp of Desvanneaux?”
+
+“Alceste leagued with Tartufe? That idea never occurred to Moliere,”
+ said Zibeline, mischievously.
+
+“Take care!” said the Duchess, interrupting this skirmishing, “you will
+fall over into the orchestra! It is growing late, and if Mademoiselle de
+Vermont does not wish to remain to see the final conflagration, we might
+go now, before the crowd begins to leave.”
+
+“I await your orders, Madame la Duchesse,” said Zibeline, rising.
+
+The other ladies followed her example, receiving their cloaks from the
+hands of their cavaliers, and the occupants of the box made their exit
+in the following order: Zibeline, on the arm of the Duke; the Comtesse
+de Lisieux, leaning upon M. de Nointel; Madame de Nointel with the
+General; the Duchess bringing up the procession with M. de Lisieux.
+
+As soon as they reached the outer lobby their footmen ran to find their
+carriages, and that of the Duc de Montgeron advanced first.
+
+“I beg, Madame, that you will not trouble yourself to wait here until
+my carriage comes,” said Mademoiselle de Vermont to the Duchess, who
+hesitated to leave her guest alone.
+
+“Since you wish it, I will leave you, then,” said the Duchess, “and
+we thank you for giving us your society this evening. My brother will
+accompany you to your carriage.”
+
+When Zibeline’s vehicle drove up to the entrance in its turn, the
+General conducted his charge to the door of a marvellously equipped
+brougham, to which was harnessed a carriage-horse of powerful frame,
+well suited to the kind of vehicle he drew.
+
+A thaw had begun, not yet transforming the gutters into yellow torrents
+rushing toward the openings of the sewer, but covering the streets with
+thick, black mud, over which the wheels rolled noiselessly.
+
+“Your carriage is late, is it not?” said Zibeline, after the General had
+handed her into the brougham.
+
+“My carriage?” said the General. “Behold it!”
+
+He pointed to a passing fiacre, at the same time hailing the driver.
+
+“Don’t call him. I will take you home myself,” said Zibeline, as if such
+a suggestion were the most natural thing in the world.
+
+“You know that in France it is not the custom,” said the General.
+
+“What! Do you bother yourself with such things at your age?”
+
+“If my age seems to you a sufficient guaranty, that is different. I
+accept your invitation.”
+
+“To the Hotel de Montgeron,” said Zibeline to her footman.
+
+“I never shall forget your sister’s kindness to me,” she continued, as
+the carriage rolled away. “She fulfils my idea of the great lady better
+than any other woman I have seen.”
+
+“You may be proud of her friendship,” said Henri. “When once she likes
+a person, it is forever. I am like her in that respect. Only I am rather
+slow in forming friendships.”
+
+“And so am I.”
+
+“That is obvious, else you would have been married ere this.”
+
+“No doubt--to some one like young Desvanneaux, perhaps. You are very
+flattering! If you think that I would sacrifice my independence for a
+man like that--”
+
+“But surely you do not intend to remain unmarried.”
+
+“Perhaps I shall--if I do not meet my ideal.”
+
+“All women say that, but they usually change their minds in the end.”
+
+“Mine is one and indivisible. If I do not give all I give nothing.”
+
+“And shall you wait patiently until your ideal presents himself?”
+
+“On the contrary, I am always looking for him.”
+
+“Did you come to Europe for that purpose?”
+
+“For that and for nothing else.”
+
+“And suppose, should you find your ideal, that he himself raises
+obstacles?”
+
+“I shall try to smooth them away.”
+
+“Do you believe, then, that the power of money is irresistible?”
+
+“Far from it! A great fortune is only a trust which Providence has
+placed in our hands, in order that we may repair, in its name, the
+injustices of fate. But I have another string to my bow.”
+
+“What is it?”
+
+“The force of my will.”
+
+“You have plenty of that! But suppose, by some impossible chance, your
+ideal resists you even then?”
+
+“Then I know what will remain for me to do.”
+
+“You will resort to the pistol?”
+
+“Not for him, but for myself,” she replied, in a tone so resolute as to
+exclude any suggestion of bravado.
+
+Zibeline’s horse, which was a rapid trotter, now stopped before the
+Hotel de Montgeron, arriving just in advance of the Duchess’s carriage,
+for which the Swiss was watching at the threshold of the open Porte
+cochere. He drew himself up; the brougham entered the gate at a swift
+pace, described a circle, and halted under the marquee at the main
+entrance. The General sprang lightly to the ground.
+
+“I thank you, Mademoiselle,” bowing, hat in hand, to his charming
+conductor.
+
+“Call me Valentine, please,” she responded, with her usual ease of
+manner.
+
+“Even in the character of a stage father, that would be rather too
+familiar,” said the Marquis.
+
+“Not so much so as to call me Zibeline,” said Mademoiselle de Vermont,
+laughing.
+
+“Ha! ha! You know your sobriquet, then?”
+
+“I have known it a long time! Good-night, General! We shall meet again.”
+
+Then, addressing her footman, she said in English: “Home!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. FRATERNAL ADVICE
+
+Like all residences where the owners receive much company, the Hotel de
+Montgeron had a double porte-cochere. Just as the Swiss opened the
+outer gate to allow the departure of Mademoiselle de Vermont, the two
+carriages crossed each other on the threshold. In fact, Henri had had
+hardly time to cross the courtyard to mount to his own apartments before
+his brother-in-law and his sister stopped him at the foot of the steps.
+He rejoined them to say good-night.
+
+“Won’t you come and take a cup of tea with us in the little salon?” they
+asked.
+
+“Willingly,” was his response. He followed them, and all three seated
+themselves beside a table which was already laid, and upon which the
+boiling water sang in the kettle.
+
+“Leave us,” said the Duchess to the butler. “I will serve tea myself.
+Did Mademoiselle de Vermont bring you home?” she asked, when the servant
+had retired.
+
+“Well,” said Henri, “in proposing to do so she mentioned my discreet
+age, which appeared to her to make the thing all right! If I had
+declined her invitation, I should have seemed to pose as a compromising
+person! That is the reason why I accepted.”
+
+“You did quite right. What do you really think of her?”
+
+“She is very different from what I had fancied her: I find her frank,
+intellectual, full of originality. I have only one fault to mention: she
+is too rich.”
+
+“Well, surely, you do not expect her to ruin herself to please you.”
+
+“I should think not! Besides, what would be the object?”
+
+“To permit you to fall in love with her.”
+
+“Oh, that is what you are thinking of, is it?”
+
+“Certainly, for, if need be, perhaps you would make a sacrifice to your
+feelings.”
+
+“In what way?”
+
+“In the toleration of a few remaining millions which she might retain,
+so that when you marry her neither of you will be reduced to absolute
+beggary!”
+
+“Marry her!--I?” cried the General, astonished.
+
+“What is there to prevent your doing so?”
+
+“The past, my dear sister. To speculate upon my title and my rank in
+order to make a wealthy marriage? To quit my nomad’s tent for a fixed
+residence other than that where the Prerolles have succeeded one another
+from generation to generation? Never! Of all our ancient prejudices,
+that is the only one I cherish. Besides, I am free at present to serve
+my country under any form of government which it may please her to
+adopt. But, with his hereditary estates lost, through his own fault,
+shall he who has nothing left to him but his name form a mere branch of
+another family? He has no right to do so.”
+
+This declaration was categorical. Madame de Montgeron bent her head; her
+jesting vein was quenched in a moment.
+
+After a moment of silence the Duke spoke.
+
+“There are scruples that one does not discuss,” he said. “But, on the
+other hand, if I do not deceive myself, there are others which can be
+adjusted to suit circumstances.”
+
+“What circumstances?” said the General.
+
+“The subject is rather delicate--especially to mention before you, my
+dear Jeanne.”
+
+“I was just about to propose that I should retire,” said the Duchess.
+“Good-night, Henri!” And she bent to kiss him.
+
+“You are not vexed?” said her brother, embracing her tenderly.
+
+“What an idea! Good-night!”
+
+“Am I always to be considered as occupying the stool of repentance?”
+ Henri inquired, as soon as his sister had left the room.
+
+“Yes, but you will not be offended if I interrogate you a little, after
+the manner of a judge?” said the Duke.
+
+“Quite the contrary. Go on; I will listen.”
+
+“Had you not just now expressed yourself very distinctly in disfavor of
+any project of marriage because of perfectly unimpeachable principles,
+I should not permit myself to make any allusion to your private life.
+Every man is his own master in his choice of liaisons, and on that head
+is answerable only to his own conscience. In these days, moreover, art
+is on a level with birth, and talent with military glory. You see that I
+am quite modern in my ideas! However--”
+
+“Ah, there is a reserve?”
+
+“Without liability. Mademoiselle Gontier is surrounded by great luxury.
+She maintains an expensive house and keeps an open table. Her annual
+salary and her income can not possibly cover these expenses. Whence does
+she obtain further resources?”
+
+“From the investments made for her by the Baron de Samoreau.”
+
+“Without her having to pay a commission of any kind? A most remarkable
+case of disinterestedness!”
+
+“I never have sought to examine the matter particularly,” said Henri.
+
+“And is that the way you keep yourself informed? A future
+general-in-chief!”
+
+“I was not aware that I am in an enemy’s country.”
+
+“No, but you are in a conquered country, which is still more dangerous.
+Oh, no one will attack you face to face at the point of the sword. But
+behind your back, in the shadow, you have already massed against you
+various rejected swains, the Desvanneaux of the coulisses, jealous of
+a preference which wounds their own vanity, and the more ready to throw
+discredit--were they able--upon a man of your valor, because they are
+better armed against him with the logic of facts.”
+
+“What logic, in heaven’s name?”
+
+“That which emanates from the following dilemma: Either Danae is obliged
+to hide from Jupiter--or, rather, from Maecenas--her intimacy with
+you--and you are only a lover who simply loves her--or else Maecenas is
+an epicurean who has no objection to share his fortune philosophically;
+so that ostensibly you sit at the feast without paying the cost--which
+is worse yet.”
+
+“Does any one dare to say that of me?” cried the General, springing from
+his chair.
+
+“They are beginning to say it,” the Duke replied, his eyes fixed on his
+brother-in-law, who paced to and fro, gnawing his moustache. “I ask your
+pardon for throwing such a bucket of ice-water on you, but with men of
+your constitution--”
+
+“Pleurisy is not mortal,” Henri interrupted briefly. “I know. Don’t
+worry about me.”
+
+“I knew you would understand,” said the Duke, going toward the door
+of his own apartments. “That is the reason why I have not spared you a
+thorough ducking!”
+
+“I thank you,” said the General, as he was about to leave the room. “I
+will talk to you about this tomorrow. The night brings counsel.”
+
+Wrapped in thought, he made his way to the little suite of apartments
+between the ground floor and the first story which he occupied, and
+which had a separate door opening on the Rue de Bellechase.
+
+At the foot of the stairs, in a coach-house which had been transformed
+into a chamber, slept the orderlies beneath the apartment of their
+chief. This apartment, composed of four rooms, was of the utmost
+simplicity, harmonizing with the poverty of its occupant, who made it a
+point of honor not to attempt to disguise his situation.
+
+The ante-chamber formed a military bureau for the General and his chief
+orderly.
+
+The salon, hung with draperies to simulate a tent, had no other
+decoration than some trophies of Arabian arms, souvenirs of raids upon
+rebellious tribes.
+
+More primitive still was the bedroom, furnished with a simple canteen
+bed, as if it were put up in a temporary camp, soon to be abandoned.
+
+The only room which suggested nothing of the anchorite was the
+dressing-room, furnished with all the comforts and conveniences
+necessary to an elegant and fastidious man of the world.
+
+But his real luxury, which, by habit and by reason of his rank, the
+General had always maintained, was found among his horses, as he devoted
+to them all the available funds that could be spared from his salary.
+Hence the four box-stalls placed at his disposal in the stables of his
+brother-in-law were occupied by four animals of remarkably pure blood,
+whose pedigrees were inscribed in the French stud-book. Neither years,
+nor the hard service which their master had seen, had deteriorated any
+of his ability as a dashing horseman. His sober and active life having
+even enabled him to preserve a comparatively slender figure, he would
+have joined victoriously in the races, except that his height made his
+weight too heavy for that amusement.
+
+Entering his own domain, still overwhelmed, with the shock of the
+revelations and the gossip of which he never had dreamed, he felt
+himself wounded to the quick in all those sentiments upon which his
+‘amour propre’ had been most sensitive.
+
+The more he pondered proudly over his pecuniary misfortunes, the
+more grave the situation appeared to him, and the more imperious the
+necessity of a rupture.
+
+When it had been a question of dismissing Fanny Dorville, an actress of
+humble standing, his parting gift, a diamond worth twenty-five thousand
+francs, had seemed to him a sufficient indemnity to cancel all accounts.
+
+But now, in the presence of an artiste of merit, who had given herself
+without calculation and who loved him for himself alone, how, without
+wounding her heart and her dignity, could he break violently a chain so
+light yesterday, so heavy to-day?
+
+To indulge in tergiversation, to invent some subterfuge to cover his
+retreat--he did not feel himself capable of such a course; moreover,
+his manoeuvre would be quickly suspected by a clever woman whom nothing
+escaped.
+
+To ask to be sent back to Africa, just at the time when his intelligent
+and practical instruction in the latest grand manoeuvres had drawn
+all eyes upon him, would compromise, by an untimely retirement, the
+advantages of this new office, the object of his ambition.
+
+For the first time this nobleman, always prompt and radical in his
+decisions, found himself hesitating; and, such is the power of human
+egotism even in generous natures, he felt almost incensed against
+Eugenie, the involuntary cause of his hesitation.
+
+After weighing everything carefully in his mind, he finally said to
+himself that an open confession, sincere and unrestricted, would be the
+best solution of the difficulty; and just as the first light of day came
+to dissipate the shadow that overcast his mind, when his orderly entered
+to open the blinds in his chamber, he formed a fixed resolution as to
+his course.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. THE LADY BOUNTIFUL
+
+Valentine de Vermont was not yet twenty-two years old.
+
+Her birth had cost the life of her mother, and, brought up by an
+active and enterprising man, her education had been directed by plain
+common-sense, rather masculine, perhaps, but without injury to her
+personal attractions, nor to those of her delicate and lofty spirit.
+
+Her father, who was endowed with a veritable genius for commercial
+action, had monopolized more than the fur-trade of Alaska and of
+Hudson’s Bay. From year to year he had extended the field of his
+operations: in Central America, dealing in grains and salt meats; in
+Europe in wines and brandy; commodities always bought at the right time,
+in enormous quantities, and, without pausing in transshipment from one
+country to another, carried in vessels belonging to him and sailing
+under the English flag.
+
+Without giving her any unnecessary instruction as to the management of
+his affairs, he wished his daughter to possess sufficient knowledge of
+them to handle herself the wealth that she would receive as a dowry and
+at his death; and he decided that she should not contract a marriage
+except under the law of the separation of goods, according to the custom
+generally adopted in the United States.
+
+An attack of paralysis having condemned him to his armchair, he
+consecrated the remainder of his days to settling all his enterprises,
+and when he died, about two years before the arrival of Valentine in
+Paris, that young lady found herself in the possession of more than
+one hundred and twenty million francs, nearly all invested in English,
+American, and French State bonds.
+
+At the expiration of her period of mourning, the wealthy heiress could
+then live in London, New York, or Paris, at her pleasure; but the French
+blood that ran in her veins prevented her from hesitating a moment, and
+she chose the last named of the three cities for her abode.
+
+Being passionately fond of saddle and driving-horses, she did not stop
+in England without taking the necessary time to acquire everything
+of the best for the fitting-up of a stable, and after a time she
+established herself temporarily in a sumptuous apartment in the Place de
+l’Etoile, furnished with a taste worthy of the most thorough Parisian.
+
+On the evening after her appearance at the Opera, just as she left her
+breakfast-table, M. Durand presented himself at her dwelling with the
+architect’s plan for the building of the orphan asylum, and declared
+himself ready to take her orders regarding the plan, as well as on the
+subject of the gift of money to the Society.
+
+“I have resolved,” said Zibeline, “to transform into an asylum,
+following a certain plan, the model farm belonging to the estate that
+I have recently purchased through you. If I required carte blanche in
+choosing the site, it was because I desire that Monsieur Desvanneaux
+shall have nothing to do with the matter until the day when I shall put
+the committee in possession of the building and its premises, which I
+have engaged to furnish, free of all expense to the Society. I shall
+employ my own architect to execute the work, and I shall ask you to
+indemnify, for me, the architect who has drawn up this first plan, which
+will remain as the minimum expense incurred on my part. But I wish to
+be the only person to superintend the arrangements, and to be free to
+introduce, without control, such improvements as I may judge suitable.
+Should the committee demand a guaranty, I have on deposit with Monsieur
+de Samoreau a million francs which I intend to use in carrying out these
+operations. Half of that sum may be consigned to the hands of some one
+they may wish to choose; the other half will serve to pay the laborers
+in proportion to their work. In order to insure even greater regularity,
+have the kindness to draw up, to cover the interval that will elapse
+before I make my final definite donation, a provisionary document,
+setting forth the engagement that I have undertaken to carry out.”
+
+“Here it is,” said the notary; “I have already prepared it.”
+
+Having examined the document carefully, to assure herself that all
+statements contained therein were according to her intentions, Zibeline
+took her pen and wrote at the foot of the page: “Read and approved,” and
+signed the paper.
+
+“Mademoiselle appears to be well accustomed to business habits,”
+ observed M. Durand, with a smile.
+
+“That is because I have been trained to them since childhood,” she
+replied. “My plan is to place this document myself in the hands of
+Madame la Duchesse de Montgeron.”
+
+“You can do so this very afternoon, if you wish. Thursday is her
+reception day,” said the notary, rising with a bow, preparatory to
+taking his leave.
+
+“I shall take good care not to fail to call,” earnestly replied the fair
+Lady Bountiful.
+
+She telephoned immediately to her head-groom, ordering ham to bring
+around her brougham at three o’clock.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. A MODERN TARTUFE
+
+At the same hour that the elegant carriage of Zibeline was conducting
+her to the Hotel de Montgeron, M. Desvanneaux descended from a modest
+fiacre at the gate of the hotel occupied by Eugenie Gontier.
+
+The first impulse of the actress--who was engaged in studying a new role
+in her library--was not to receive her importunate visitor; but a sudden
+idea changed her determination, and she gave the order to admit him.
+
+“This is the first time that I have had the high favor of being admitted
+to this sanctuary,” said the churchwarden, kissing with ardor the hand
+that the actress extended to him.
+
+“Don’t let us have so great a display of pious manifestations,” she
+said, withdrawing her hand from this act of humility, which was rather
+too prolonged. “Sit down and be sensible,” she added.
+
+“Can one be sensible when he finds himself at your feet, dear
+Mademoiselle? At the feet of the idol who is so appropriately enthroned
+among so many artistic objects!” replied the honey-tongued Prudhomme,
+adjusting his eyeglasses. “The bust of General de Prerolles, no doubt?”
+ he added, inquiringly, scrutinizing a marble statuette placed on the
+high mantelpiece.
+
+“You are wrong, Monsieur Desvanneaux; it is that of Moliere!”
+
+“I beg your pardon!--I am standing so far below it! I, too, have on my
+bureau a bust of our great Poquelin, but Madame Desvanneaux thinks that
+this author’s style is somewhat too pornographic, and has ordered me
+to replace his profane image by the more edifying one of our charitable
+patron, Saint Vincent de Paul.”
+
+“Is it to tell me of your family jars that you honor me with this
+visit?” said Eugenie.
+
+“No, indeed! It was rather to escape from them, dear Mademoiselle! But
+alas! my visit has also another object: to release you from the promise
+you were so kind as to make me regarding the matter of our kermess; a
+project now unfortunately rendered futile by that Zibeline!”
+
+“Otherwise called ‘Mademoiselle de Vermont.’”
+
+“I prefer to call her Zibeline--that name is better suited to a
+courtesan.”
+
+“You are very severe toward her!”
+
+“I can not endure hypocrites!” naively replied the worthy man.
+
+“She appeared to me to be very beautiful, however,” continued Eugenie
+Gontier, in order to keep up the conversation on the woman who she felt
+instinctively was her rival.
+
+“Beautiful! Not so beautiful as you,” rejoined M. Desvanneaux,
+gallantly. “She is a very ambitious person, who throws her money at our
+heads, the better to humiliate us.”
+
+“But, since it is all in the interest of the Orphan Asylum--”
+
+“Say, rather, in her own interest, to put herself on a pedestal because
+of her generosity! Oh, she has succeeded at the first stroke! Already,
+at the Hotel de Montgeron they swear by her; and if this sort of thing
+goes on, I shall very soon be regarded only as a pariah!”
+
+“Poor Monsieur Desvanneaux!”
+
+“You pity me, dear Mademoiselle? I thank you! The role of consoler is
+truly worthy of your large heart, and if you do not forbid me to hope--”
+ said this modern Tartufe, approaching Eugenie little by little.
+
+“Take care!” said she; “suppose the General should be hidden under that
+table, like Orgon!”
+
+“The General!” exclaimed Desvanneaux; “he is too much occupied
+elsewhere!”
+
+“Occupied with whom?”
+
+“With Zibeline, probably. He never left her side all the evening, last
+night at the Opera.”
+
+“Pardon me! He was here until after ten o’clock.”
+
+“Yes, but afterward--when the opera was over?”
+
+“Well, what happened when the opera was over?” Eugenie inquired, forcing
+herself to hide her emotion.
+
+“They went away together! I saw them--I was watching them from behind a
+column. What a scandal!”
+
+“And your conclusion on all this, Monsieur Desvanneaux?”
+
+“It is that the General is deceiving you, dear Mademoiselle.”
+
+“With that young girl?”
+
+“A bold hussy, I tell you! A Messalina! Ah, I pity you sincerely in my
+turn! And should a devoted consoler, a discreet avenger, be able to make
+you forget this outrage to your charms, behold me at your feet, devoting
+to you my prayers, awaiting only a word from you to become the most
+fortunate among the elect--”
+
+A loud knock at the outer door spared Mademoiselle Gontier the trouble
+of repelling her ridiculous adorer, who promptly scrambled to his feet
+at the sound.
+
+“A visitor!” he murmured, turning pale. “Decidedly, I have no luck--”
+
+“Monsieur le Marquis de Prerolles is in the drawing-room,” a domestic
+announced.
+
+“Beg him to wait,” said Eugenie, reassured by this visit, which was
+earlier than the usual hour. “You see that you are badly informed,
+Monsieur Desvanneaux,” she added.
+
+“For heaven’s sake, spare me this embarrassing meeting!” said the
+informer, whose complexion had become livid.
+
+“I understand. You fear a challenge?”
+
+“Oh, no, not that! My religious principles would forbid me to fight
+a duel. But the General would not fail to rally me before my wife
+regarding my presence here, and Madame Desvanneaux would be pitiless.”
+
+“Own, however, that you richly deserve a lesson, Lovelace that you are!
+But I will take pity on you,” said Eugenie, opening a door at the end
+of the room. “The servants’ stairway is at the end of that corridor. You
+know the way!” she added, laughing.
+
+“I am beginning to know it, dear Mademoiselle!” said the pitiful
+beguiler, slipping through the doorway on tiptoe.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. BROKEN TIES
+
+After picking up a chair which, in his alarm, the fugitive had
+overturned in his flight, Mademoiselle Gontier herself opened the door
+leading to the drawing-room.
+
+“Come in, Henri!” said she, lifting the portiere.
+
+“Do I disturb you?” the General inquired, entering the library.
+
+“Never! You know that well! But how gravely you asked the question!”
+
+“For the reason that I wish to speak to you about serious matters, my
+dear Eugenie.”
+
+The image of Zibeline passed before the eyes of the actress. That
+which Desvanneaux had revealed, in accusing the girl of debauchery, now
+appeared plausible to her, if considered in another way.
+
+“You are about to marry!” she exclaimed.
+
+They were the same words pronounced by Fanny Dorville in similar
+circumstances.
+
+“Never! You know that well enough!” he replied, in his turn.
+
+“Speak, then!” said she, sinking upon a chair and motioning him to a
+seat before her.
+
+He obeyed, and sitting so far forward upon his chair that his knees
+touched her skirt, he took both her hands in his own, and said gently:
+
+“You know how much I love you, and how much I esteem you. You know, too,
+the story of my life: my past follies, and also the honorable career
+I have run in order to atone for them morally, for in a material sense
+they are irreparable--according to my ideas, at least. This career
+has been fortunate. I have reached the highest rank that a soldier can
+attain to-day. But my rapid promotion, however justifiable it may be,
+has none the less awakened jealousy. The nature of my services being
+above all possibility of suspicion, calumny has sought another quarter
+at which to strike, and at this moment it is my delicacy which is
+impugned.”
+
+“Your delicacy, Henri! What do you mean?” asked Eugenie, in an altered
+voice.
+
+“Our friendship is well known. You are rich, and I have only my pay:
+the antithesis is flagrant! The gossips comment upon it, and exploit the
+fact against me.”
+
+“Against you!” cried Eugenie, indignantly.
+
+“Against me--yes. I have proof of it. A man in private life would
+be justified in ignoring such gossip, but for a man in my profession
+ambiguity has no place, nor has compromise. Himself a severe judge of
+the conduct of others, he must not afford them a single instance whereby
+they can accuse him of not following his own precepts.”
+
+And, as his companion remained silent and startled before an explanation
+so unexpected, he added:
+
+“You say nothing, my love. You must divine the depth of my chagrin
+at the prospect of a necessary separation, and you are sufficiently
+charitable not to remind me that I ought to have made these tardy
+reflections before I yielded to a fascination which made me close my
+eyes to facts.”
+
+“I reproach you with nothing, Henri,” said Eugenie in a trembling voice.
+“I myself yielded to the same enchantment, and in abandoning myself
+to it, I did not foresee that some day it might be prejudicial to your
+honor. A singular moral law is that of the world!” she pursued, growing
+more excited. “Let General de Prerolles be the lover of Madame de
+Lisieux or of Madame de Nointel; let him sit every day at their
+tables--if there be only a husband whose hand he may clasp in greeting,
+no one will call this hospitable liaison a crime! But let him feel
+anything more than a passing fancy for Eugenie Gontier, who violates
+no conjugal vow in loving him, but whose love he is not rich enough to
+buy--even were that love for sale--oh, then, everyone must point at him
+the finger of scorn! As for myself, it seems that it was useless for me
+to resist so many would-be lovers in order to open my door more freely
+to the man of my choice--an action which no one holds against me,
+however, because I am only an actress, and the public classes us in
+a separate category, so that they may more readily offer up to us the
+incense with which they smother us! Be it so! There are also in my
+profession disinterested hearts which may serve as examples--and I
+pretend to the very highest rank as an actress in every role I assume,
+even in this city. Take back your liberty, Henri!”
+
+“I have most unwillingly offended you,” said he, sadly.
+
+“You? Ah, no! I know that you are loyal and sincere, and I could not
+harbor resentment against you after your avowal. You would have lacked
+self-confidence had you acted otherwise. But,” she continued, “have you
+indeed told me all?”
+
+“All!” he replied, without hesitation.
+
+“Will you give me your word of honor that no other woman stands between
+you and me?”
+
+“I swear it to you!”
+
+“I thank you! You are incapable of lying. Whatever happens, you never
+will have a better friend than I, for your just pride is still more dear
+to me than my own. If you cease to come to the theatre, and appear no
+more at my receptions, that will be sufficient to insure the silence of
+gossip concerning us. Go without remorse, Henri! But come back to see me
+sometimes--quietly, without the knowledge of the envious--will you not?”
+
+“Do you doubt it?” he responded, folding her tenderly in his arms.
+
+“Yes and no! But if this is our supreme farewell, do not tell me so!”
+
+
+
+
+BOOK 3.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. ZIBELINE RECEIVES
+
+The Duchesse de Montgeron had no children, and her most tender
+affections were concentrated upon her husband and her brother. The
+scruples which caused the latter to forswear matrimony grieved her
+deeply, for, knowing the inflexibility of his character, she was sure
+that no one in the world could make him alter his decision.
+
+Thus, on one side the title of the Duc de Montgeron was destined to pass
+to a collateral branch of the family; and on the other, the title of
+Marquis de Prerolles would become extinct with the General.
+
+But, although she now considered it impossible to realize the project
+which she had momentarily cherished, she continued to show the same
+kindness to Mademoiselle de Vermont. She would have regarded any other
+course as unworthy of her, since she had made the first advances;
+moreover, the young girl’s nature was so engaging that no one who
+approached her could resist her charm.
+
+Very reserved or absolutely frank, according to the degree of confidence
+with which she was treated, Valentine had sufficient intuition to avoid
+a lack of tact.
+
+She was, in feminine guise, like ‘L’Ingenu’ of Voltaire, struck, as was
+Huron, with all that was illogical in our social code; but she did not
+make, after his fashion, a too literal application of its rules, and
+knew where to draw the line, if she found herself on the point of making
+some hazardous remark, declaring frankly: “I was about to say something
+foolish!” which lent originality to her playful conversation.
+
+After receiving from Valentine’s hands the contract signed in presence
+of the notary, for the benefit of the Orphan Asylum, the president of
+the society did not fail to give a dinner in honor of the new patroness.
+
+As she was a foreigner she was placed in the seat of honor at the table,
+to the great displeasure of Madame Desvanneaux, who was invited to take
+the second place, in spite of her title of vice-president.
+
+“It is because of her millions that she was placed before me,” she said
+in an undertone to her husband, as soon as the guests had returned
+to the drawing-room. And, giving orders that her carriage should be
+summoned immediately, she left the house without speaking to any one,
+and with the air of a peeress of England outraged in her rights of
+precedence!
+
+This was, for the hostile pair, a new cause of grievance against
+Zibeline. When she, in her turn, gave at her home a similar dinner, a
+fortnight later, she received from them, in reply to her invitation,
+which was couched in the most courteous terms, a simple visiting card,
+with the following refusal: “The Comte and the Comtesse Desvanneaux,
+not being in the habit of accepting invitations during Lent, feel
+constrained to decline that of Mademoiselle de Vermont.”
+
+The dinner was only the more gay and cordial.
+
+Valentine’s household was conducted on a footing more elegant than
+sumptuous.
+
+The livery was simple, but the appearance of her people was
+irreproachable. The butler and the house servants wore the ordinary
+dress-coat and trousers; the powdered footmen wore short brown coats,
+ornamented, after the English fashion, with metal buttons and a false
+waistcoat; the breeches were of black velveteen, held above the knee by
+a band of gold braid, with embroidered ends, which fell over black silk
+stockings. At the end of the ante-chamber where this numerous personnel
+was grouped, opened a long gallery, ornamented with old tapestries
+representing mythological subjects in lively and well-preserved
+coloring. This room, which was intended to serve as a ballroom at need,
+was next to two large drawing-rooms. The walls of one were covered with
+a rich material, on which hung costly paintings; the furniture and the
+ceiling of the other were of oak, finely carved, relieved with touches
+of gold in light and artistic design.
+
+Everywhere was revealed an evident desire to avoid an effect of
+heaviness and ostentation, and this was especially noticeable in the
+dining-room, where the pure tone of the panels and the moulding
+doubled the intensity of the light thrown upon them. Upon the table
+the illumination of the apartment was aided by two large candelabra of
+beautifully chiselled silver, filled with candles, the light of which
+filtered through a forest of diaphanous little white shades.
+
+The square table was a veritable parterre of flowers, and was laid for
+twelve guests, three on each side.
+
+The young mistress of the house was seated on one side, between the Duc
+de Montgeron and the Marquis de Prerolles. Facing her sat the
+Duchesse de Montgeron, between General Lenaieff and the Chevalier de
+Sainte-Foy.--Laterally, on one hand appeared Madame de Lisieux, between
+M. de Nointel and the painter Edmond Delorme; on the other, Madame de
+Nointel, between M. de Lisieux and the Baron de Samoreau.
+
+Never, during the six weeks that Valentine had had friendly relations
+with the Duchess, had she appeared so self-possessed, or among
+surroundings so well fitted to display her attractions of mind and of
+person. She was a little on the defensive on finding herself in this new
+and unexpected society, but she felt, this evening, that she was in the
+midst of a sympathetic and admiring circle, and did the honors of her
+own house with perfect ease, finding agreeable words and showing a
+delicate forethought for each guest, and above all displaying toward
+her protectress a charming deference, by which the Duchess felt herself
+particularly touched.
+
+“What a pity!” she said to herself, glancing alternately at Zibeline
+and at her brother, between whom a tone of frank comradeship had been
+established, free from any coquetry on her side or from gallantry on
+his.
+
+The more clearly Henri divined the thoughts of his sister, the more he
+affected to remain insensible to the natural seductions of his neighbor,
+to whom Lenaieff, on the contrary, addressed continually, in his soft
+and caressing voice, compliments upon compliments and madrigals upon
+madrigals!
+
+“Take care, my dear Constantin!” said Henri to him, bluntly. “You will
+make Mademoiselle de Vermont quite impossible. If you go on thus, she
+will take herself seriously as a divinity!”
+
+“Fortunately,” rejoined Zibeline, “you are there, General, to remind
+me that I am only a mortal, as Philippe’s freedman reminded his master
+every morning.”
+
+“You can not complain! I serve you as a confederate, to allow you
+to display your erudition,” retorted the General, continuing his
+persiflage.
+
+But he, too, was only a man, wavering and changeable, to use Montaigne’s
+expression, for his eyes, contradicting the brusqueness of his speech,
+rested long, and not without envy, on this beautiful and tempting fruit
+which his fate forbade him to gather. The more he admired her freshness,
+and the more he inhaled her sweetness, the more the image of Eugenie
+Gontier was gradually effaced from his memory, like one of those
+tableaux on the stage, which gauze curtains, descending from the flies,
+seem to absorb without removing, gradually obliterating the pictures as
+they fall, one after another.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. A DASHING AMAZON
+
+On leaving the table, the fair “Amphitryonne” proposed that the
+gentlemen should use her private office as a smoking-room, and the
+ladies followed them thither, pretending that the odor of tobacco would
+not annoy them in the least, but in reality to inspect this new room.
+
+Edmond Delorme had finished his work that very morning, and the enormous
+canvas, with its life-size subject, had already been hung, lighted from
+above and below by electric bulbs, the battery for which was cleverly
+hidden behind a piece of furniture.
+
+The portrait, bearing a striking resemblance to the original, was indeed
+that of “the most dashing of all the Amazons on the Bois,” to quote
+the words of the artist, who was a better painter of portraits than of
+animals, but who, in this case, could not separate the rider from her
+steed.
+
+Seaman, a Hungarian bay, by Xenophon and Lena Rivers, was drawn in
+profile, very erect on his slender, nervous legs. He appeared, on the
+side nearest the observer, to be pawing the ground impatiently with his
+hoof, a movement which seemed to be facilitated by his rider, who, drawn
+in a three-quarters view and extending her hand, allowed the reins to
+fall over the shoulders of her pure-blooded mount.
+
+“What do you think of it?” Zibeline inquired of General de Prerolles.
+
+“I think you have the air of the commander of a division of cavalry,
+awaiting the moment to sound the charge.”
+
+“I shall guard her well,” said Zibeline, “for she would be sure to be
+put to rout by your bayonets.”
+
+“Not by mine!” gallantly exclaimed Lenaieff. “I should immediately lower
+my arms before her!”
+
+“You!--perhaps! But between General de Prerolles and myself the
+declaration of war is without quarter. Is it not, General?” said
+Valentine, laughing.
+
+“It is the only declaration that fate permits me to make to you,
+Mademoiselle,” Henri replied, rather dryly, laying emphasis on the
+double sense of his words.
+
+This rejoinder, which nothing in the playful attack had justified,
+irritated the Duchess, but Valentine appeared to pay no attention to it,
+and at ten o’clock, when a gypsy band began to play in the long gallery,
+she arose.
+
+“Although we are a very small party,” she said, “would you not like to
+indulge in a waltz, Mesdames? The gentlemen can not complain of being
+crowded here,” she added, with a smile.
+
+M. de Lisieux and M. de Nointel, as well as Edmond Delorme, hastened to
+throw away their cigarettes, and all made their way to the long gallery.
+The Baron de Samoreau and the Chevalier de Sainte-Foy remained alone
+together.
+
+The Duchess took the occasion to speak quietly to her brother.
+
+“I assure you that you are too hard with her,” she said. “There is
+no need to excuse yourself for not marrying. No one dreams of such a
+thing--she no more than any one else. But she seems to have a sentiment
+of friendship toward you, and I am sure that your harshness wounds her.”
+
+A more experienced woman than Madame de Montgeron, who had known only
+a peaceful and legitimate love, would have quickly divined that beneath
+her brother’s brusque manner lurked a budding but hopeless passion,
+whence sprang his intermittent revolt against the object that had
+inspired it.
+
+This revolt was not only against Zibeline’s fortune; it included her
+all-pervading charm, which penetrated his soul. He was vexed at his
+sister for having brought them together; he was angry with himself
+that he had allowed his mind to be turned so quickly from his former
+prejudices; and, however indifferent he forced himself to appear, he
+was irritated against Lenaieff because of the attentions which that
+gentleman showered upon Zibeline, upon whom he revenged himself by
+assuming the aggressive attitude for which the Duchess had reproached
+him.
+
+In a still worse humor after the sisterly remonstrance to which he had
+just been compelled to listen, he seated himself near the entrance of
+the gallery, where the gypsy band was playing one of their alluring
+waltzes, of a cadence so different from the regular and monotonous
+measure of French dance music.
+
+The three couples who were to compose this impromptu ball, yielded
+quickly to the spell of this irresistible accompaniment.
+
+“Suppose Monsieur Desvanneaux should hear that we danced on the eve of
+Palm Sunday?” laughingly pro-tested Madame de Lisieux.
+
+“He would report it at Rome,” said Madame de Nointel.
+
+And, without further regard to the compromising of their souls, each of
+the two young women took for a partner the husband of the other.
+
+Mademoiselle de Vermont had granted the eager request of Lenaieff that
+she would waltz with him, an occupation in which the Russian officer
+acquitted himself with the same respectful correctness that had formerly
+obtained for him the high favor of some grand duchess at the balls in
+the palace of Gatchina.
+
+He was older and stouter than his brother-in-arms, Henri de Prerolles,
+and a wound he had received at Plevna slightly impeded his movements,
+so that he was unable to display the same activity in the dance as the
+other waltzers, and contented himself with moving a ‘trois temps’, in an
+evolution less in harmony with the brilliancy of the music.
+
+Henri, on the contrary, who had been a familiar friend of the Austrian
+ambassador at the time when the Princess de Metternich maintained a sort
+of open ballroom for her intimates, had learned, in a good school, all
+the boldness and elegance of the Viennese style of dancing.
+
+But he sat immovable, as did also Edmond Delorme, because of the lack of
+partners; and, not wishing to take the second place after Lenaieff, his
+rival, he would not for the world abandon his role of spectator, unless
+some one forced him to it.
+
+“Suppose we have a cotillon figure, in order to change partners?” said
+Valentine suddenly, during a pause, after she had thanked her partner.
+
+And, to set the example, she took, from a basket of flowers, a rosebud,
+which she offered to Henri.
+
+“Will you take a turn with me?” she said, with the air of the mistress
+of the house, who shows equal courtesy to all her guests.
+
+“A deux temps?” he asked, fastening the rosebud in his buttonhole.
+
+“Yes, I prefer that,” she replied.
+
+He passed his arm around her waist, and they swept out upon the polished
+floor, he erect and gallant, she light and supple as a gazelle, her
+chin almost resting upon her left hand, which lay upon her partner’s
+shoulder, her other hand clasped in his.
+
+At times her long train swirled in a misty spiral around her, when they
+whirled about in some corner; then it spread out behind her like a great
+fan when they swept in a wide curve from one end of the gallery to the
+other.
+
+During the feverish flight which drew these two together, their breasts
+touched, the bosom of the enchantress leaned against the broad chest
+of the vigorous soldier, her soft hair caressed his cheek, he inhaled a
+subtle Perfume, and a sudden intoxication overflowed his heart, which he
+had tried to make as stern and immobile as his face.
+
+“How well you waltz!” murmured Zibeline, in his ear.
+
+“I am taking my revenge for my defeat on the ice,” he replied, clasping
+her a little closer, in order to facilitate their movements.
+
+“The prisoners you take must find it very difficult to escape from your
+hands,” she said, with a touch of malice.
+
+“Does that mean that already you wish to reclaim your liberty?”
+
+“Not yet--unless you are fatigued.”
+
+“Fatigued! I should like to go thus to the end of the world!”
+
+“And I, too,” said Zibeline, simply.
+
+By common consent the other waltzers had stopped, as much for the
+purpose of observing these two as for giving them more space, while the
+wearied musicians scraped away as if it were a contest who should move
+the faster, themselves or the audacious couple.
+
+“What a pity!” again said the Duchess to her husband, whose
+sole response was a shrug of his shoulders as he glanced at his
+brother-in-law.
+
+At the end of his strength, and with a streaming brow, the gypsy leader
+lowered his bow, and the music ceased.
+
+Henri de Prerolles, resuming his sang-froid, drew the hand of
+Mademoiselle de Vermont through his arm, and escorted her to her place
+among the other ladies.
+
+“Bravo, General!” said Madame de Lisieux. “You have won your decoration,
+I see,” she added, indicating the rosebud which adorned his buttonhole.
+
+“What shall we call this new order, ladies?” asked Madame de Nointel of
+the circle.
+
+“The order of the Zibeline,” Valentine replied, with a frank burst of
+laughter.
+
+“What?--do you know--” stammered the author of the nickname, blushing up
+to her ears.
+
+“Do not disturb yourself, Madame! The zibeline is a little animal which
+is becoming more and more rare. They never have been found at all in my
+country, which I regret,” said Mademoiselle de Vermont graciously.
+
+The hour was late, and the Duchess arose to depart. The Chevalier de
+Sainte-Foy, exercising his function as a sort of chamberlain, went to
+summon the domestics. Meanwhile Valentine spoke confidentially to Henri.
+
+“General,” said she, “I wish to ask a favor of you.”
+
+“I am at your orders, Mademoiselle.”
+
+“I am delighted with the success of this little dinner,” Valentine
+continued, “and I wish to give another after Easter. My great desire is
+to have Mademoiselle Gontier--with whom I should like to become better
+acquainted--recite poetry to us after dinner. Would you have the
+kindness to tell her of my desire?”
+
+“I!” exclaimed the General, amazed at such a request.
+
+“Yes, certainly. If you ask her, she will come all the more willingly.”
+
+“You forget that I am not in the diplomatic service, Mademoiselle.”
+
+“My request annoys you? Well, we will say no more about it,” said
+Zibeline. “I will charge Monsieur de Samoreau with the negotiations.”
+
+They rejoined the Duchess, Zibeline accompanying her to the vestibule,
+always evincing toward her the same pretty air of deference.
+
+The drive home was silent. The Duke and the Duchess had agreed not to
+pronounce the name of Mademoiselle de Vermont before Henri, who racked
+his brain without being able to guess what strange motive prompted the
+young girl to wish to enter into closer relations with the actress.
+
+A letter from Eugenie was awaiting him. He read:
+
+   “Two weeks have elapsed since you have been to see me. I do not ask
+   whether you love me still, but I do ask you, in case you love
+   another, to tell me so frankly.
+
+                    “ARIADNE.”
+
+“So I am summoned to the confessional, and am expected to accuse myself
+of that which I dare not avow even to my own heart! Never!” said Henri,
+crushing the note in his hand. “Besides, unless I deceive myself,
+Ariadne has not been slow in seeking a consoling divinity! Samoreau is
+at hand, it appears. He played the part of Plutus before; now he will
+assume that of Bacchus,” thought the recreant lover, in order to smother
+his feeling of remorse.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
+
+The life of General de Prerolles was uniformly regulated. He arose at
+dawn, and worked until the arrival of his courier; then he mounted his
+horse, attired in morning military costume.
+
+After his ride, he visited the quartermaster-general of his division,
+received the report of his chief of staff, and gave necessary orders.
+It was at this place, and never at the General’s own dwelling, that
+the captains or subaltern officers presented themselves when they had
+occasion to speak to him.
+
+At midday he returned to breakfast at the Hotel de Montgeron where,
+morning and evening, his plate was laid; and soon after this meal he
+retired to his own quarters to work with his orderly, whose duty it
+was to report to him regarding the numerous guns and pieces of heavy
+ordnance which make the object of much going and coming in military
+life.
+
+After signing the usual number of documents, the General would mount
+another of his horses, and at this hour would appear in civilian attire
+for an afternoon canter. After this second ride he would pass an hour at
+his club, but without ever touching a card, no matter what game was in
+progress.
+
+He dined at different places, but oftenest with his sister, where by
+this time a studied silence was preserved on the subject of Zibeline.
+This, however, did not prevent him from thinking of her more and more.
+
+Mademoiselle de Vermont had not been seen again in the Bois de Boulogne
+since the night of her dinner, although Henri had sought in vain to meet
+her in the mornings in the bridle-path, and afternoons in the Avenue des
+Acacias.
+
+He decided that probably she did not wish to ride during Holy Week; but
+when several days had passed after Easter, and still she was not seen
+amusing herself in her usual fashion, he said to himself that perhaps it
+would be the proper thing to make what is called “a dinner-call.”
+
+There are some women whose fascination is so overwhelming as to cause
+the sanest of lovers to commit themselves, whence comes the slightly
+vulgar expression, “He has lost his bearings.” Henri began to feel that
+he was in this state when he presented himself at Zibeline’s home. A
+domestic informed him that Mademoiselle had been absent a week, but was
+expected home that evening. He left his card, regretting that he had not
+waited twenty-four hours more.
+
+It was now the middle of April, the time when the military governor
+of Paris is accustomed to pass in review the troops stationed on the
+territory under his command, and this review was to take place the next
+morning.
+
+The order for the mobilizing of his own division having been received
+and transmitted, Henri’s evening was his own, and he resolved to pass it
+with Lenaieff, feeling certain that his colleague at least would speak
+to him of Zibeline.
+
+The aide-de-camp general lived at the Hotel Continental, much frequented
+by Russians of distinction. Henri found his friend just dressing for
+dinner, and well disposed to accept his proposition.
+
+As they descended the stairs, they passed an imposing elderly man, with
+white moustache and imperial, still very erect in his long redingote
+with military buttons--a perfect type of the German officer who gets
+himself up to look like the late Emperor William I. This officer and
+the French general stopped on the stairs, each eyeing the other without
+deciding whether he ought to salute or not, as often happens with people
+who think they recognize some one, but without being able to recall
+where or in what circumstances they have met before.
+
+It was Henri whose memory was first revived.
+
+“Captain, you are my prisoner!” he said, gayly, seizing the stranger by
+the collar.
+
+“What! The Commandant de Prerolles!” cried the elderly man, in
+a reproachful tone, from which fifteen years had not removed the
+bitterness.
+
+“I know who he is!” said Lenaieff. “Monsieur is your former jailer of
+the frontier fortress!”
+
+The officer of the landwehr attempted to withdraw from the hand that
+held him.
+
+“Oh, I don’t intend to let you escape! You are coming to dine with
+us, and we will sign a treaty of peace over the dessert,” said Henri,
+clasping the officer’s hand affectionately.
+
+His tone was so cordial that the stranger allowed himself to be
+persuaded. A quarter of an hour later all three were seated at a table
+in the Cafe Anglais.
+
+“I present to you General Lenaieff,” said Henri to his guest. “You
+should be more incensed against him than against me, for, if he had done
+his duty, you would probably have had me imprisoned again.”
+
+“Not imprisoned--shot!” the Captain replied, with conviction.
+
+“In that case I regret my complicity still less,” said Lenaieff, “for
+otherwise I should have lost an excellent friend, and, had Prerolles
+been shot, he never could have made me acquainted with the delicious
+Mademoiselle de Vermont!”
+
+“Ah! So that is what you are thinking of?” Henri said to himself.
+
+“I do not know the young lady of whom you speak,” the German
+interrupted; “but I know that, for having allowed the Commandant to
+escape, I was condemned to take his place in the prison, and was shut
+up there for six months, in solitary confinement, without even seeing my
+wife!”
+
+“Poor Captain! How is the lady?” Henry inquired.
+
+“Very well, I thank you.”
+
+“Will you permit us to drink her health?”
+
+“Certainly, Monsieur.”
+
+“Hock! hoch!” said Henri, lifting his glass.
+
+“Hock! hoch!” responded the ex-jailer, drinking with his former
+prisoner.
+
+This delicate toast began to appease the bitterness of the good man;
+while the memories of his escape, offering a diversion to Henri’s mind,
+put him in sympathetic humor with the stranger.
+
+“‘Ah! There are mountains that we never climb but once,’” he said. “We
+three, meeting in Paris, can prove the truth of that proverb.”
+
+“Not only in Paris,” said Lenaieff. “If you were in Saint Petersburg,
+Henri, you might, any evening, see your old flame, Fanny Dorville.”
+
+“Does she keep a table d’hote?”
+
+“No, indeed, my boy. She plays duenna at the Theatre Michel, as that
+fat Heloise used to do at the Palais-Royal. She must have died long ago,
+that funny old girl!”
+
+“Not at all. She is still living, and is a pensioner of the Association
+of Dramatic Artists! But, pardon me, our conversation can hardly be
+amusing to our guest.”
+
+“No one can keep a Frenchman and a Russian from talking about women! The
+habit is stronger than themselves!” said the old officer, with a hearty
+laugh.
+
+“Well, and you, Captain,” said Lenaieff: “Have you not also trodden the
+primrose path in your time?”
+
+“Gentlemen, I never have loved any other woman than my own wife,”
+ replied the honest German, laying his large hand upon his heart, as if
+he were taking an oath. “That astonishes you Parisians, eh?” he added
+benevolently.
+
+“Quite the contrary! It assures us peace of mind!” said Lenaieff. “To
+your health, Captain!”
+
+“And yours, Messieurs!”
+
+And their glasses clinked a second time.
+
+“Apropos,” said Lenaieff to Henri, “the military governor has asked me
+to accompany him to-morrow to the review at Vincennes. I shall then have
+the pleasure of seeing you at the head of your division.”
+
+“Teufel!” exclaimed the German officer; “it appears that the Commandant
+de Prerolles has lost no time since we took leave of each other.”
+
+“Thanks to you, Monsieur! Had you not allowed me to withdraw from your
+society, I should certainly not have reached my present rank! To your
+health, Captain!”
+
+“To yours, General!”
+
+Succeeding bumpers finally dissipated entirely the resentment of the
+former jailer, and when they parted probably never to meet again--he and
+his prisoner had become the best friends in the world.
+
+“Meine besten complimente der Frau Hauptmannin!” said Henri to him, in
+leaving him on the boulevard.
+
+“Lieber Gott! I shall take good care not to own to her that I dined with
+you.”
+
+“And why, pray?”
+
+“Because there is one thing for which she never will forgive you.”
+
+“What is that?”
+
+“The fact that you were the cause of her living alone for six months!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. THE MILITARY REVIEW
+
+The different troops, assembled for review, were massed on the
+parade-ground at Vincennes, facing the tribunes.
+
+In the centre, the artillery brigade, surrounded by two divisions of
+infantry, was drawn up in two straight columns, connected by regiments;
+each division of infantry, in double columns, was connected by brigades.
+
+These six columns were separated by spaces varying from twenty to
+twenty-five metres.
+
+In the background, the cavalry division was lined up in columns; behind
+that was its artillery, in the same order of formation.
+
+At a given signal, the troops advanced five hundred metres, and, as soon
+as they halted, drums, clarinets and trumpets beat and sounded from all
+parts of the field, saluting the arrival of the military governor of
+Paris.
+
+This functionary, followed by his staff, in the midst of which group
+glittered the brilliant Russian uniform of the aide-decamp General
+Leniaeff, rode slowly past the front and the flanks of the massed body,
+the troops facing to the left or the right as he passed.
+
+This inspection finished, he took up his stand before the pillars at the
+entrance, and the march past began by battalions en masse, in the midst
+of the acclamations of numerous spectators who had come to witness this
+imposing display, well calculated to stir patriotic pride.
+
+The enthusiasm increased; the Prerolles division marched past after its
+artillery, and, as always, the martial and distinguished profile of its
+general produced its usual effect on the public.
+
+He rode Aida, his favorite mare, an Irish sorrel of powerful frame, with
+solid limbs, whose horizontal crupper and long tail indicated her race;
+she was one of those animals that are calm and lively at the same time,
+capable of going anywhere and of passing through all sorts of trials.
+
+After its parade, the infantry, whose part in the affair was finished,
+retraced their steps and took up a position on the other side of the
+field of manoeuvres, facing the north, and in front of rising ground, in
+preparation for the discharge of musketry.
+
+During this time the artillery brigade, re-formed in battle array on
+the parade-ground, detached six batteries, which advanced at a trot
+to within one hundred and fifty metres of the tribunes, where they
+discharged a volley. The long pieces were run rapidly to right and
+left, unmasking the cavalry, which, after a similar volley from its
+own batteries, appeared behind them in battle order, and executed a
+galloping march, its third line held in reserve.
+
+A few moments later all the troops rejoined the infantry on the ground
+set apart for rest and for the purpose of partaking of a cold repast,
+consisting of potted meats, with which each man was furnished.
+
+Nothing more picturesque could be imagined than this temporary camp,
+with its stacked arms, knapsacks lying on the ground, holes dug in the
+ground in which to kindle fires, and the clattering of cans. On the
+other side of the field the artillerymen and cavalrymen ate, holding
+their reins under their arms, while their officers stood around some
+temporary table, served by canteen men of the united divisions. Tiny
+columns of blue smoke rose where coffee was making, and everywhere were
+the swift movement and sprightly good-fellowship in which the soldier
+feels himself in his natural element.
+
+The curious spectators crowded themselves in front of the banner, while
+in the centre of the square the military governor of Paris, and the
+other officers, talked with some privileged persons who had been able to
+present themselves among them.
+
+Descending from his mount a little apart from the group, and plunged in
+thought, the former sub-lieutenant of ‘chasseurs a pied’ gazed at the
+old fortress, the sight of which recalled so many sad memories.
+
+Vincennes had been his first garrison, and its proximity to Paris had
+been disastrous for him. There he had entered one morning, stripped of
+his fortune!
+
+And what a series of disasters had followed! But for his heavy losses
+upon that fatal night, he would not have been compelled to sell
+Prerolles, the income of which, during his long absence, would have
+sufficed to lessen the tax on the land, transmissible, had events turned
+out otherwise, to some heir to his name. If only fate had not made Paul
+Landry cross his path!
+
+“Good morning, General!” came the sound of a fresh, gay voice behind,
+which sent a thrill through him.
+
+He turned and saw Zibeline, who had just stopped a few steps distant
+from him, sitting in her carriage, to which was harnessed a pretty pair
+of cobs, prancing and champing their bits.
+
+“Ah, it is you, Mademoiselle!” he said, carrying his hand to the visor
+of his kepi, fastened under his chin.
+
+“I found your card last night,” said Zibeline, “and I have come here
+this morning to return your call!”
+
+Then, leaning back in her driving-seat in order to reveal Edmond Delorme
+installed beside her, she added:
+
+“I have brought also my painter-in-ordinary. We have watched the review
+together, and he is as enthusiastic as I over the picturesque effect
+of this improvised bivouac. See! He is so much occupied with his sketch
+that I can not get a word out of him.”
+
+It was Aida, whose bridle was held by a dragoon, that served as a model
+for the artist’s pencil.
+
+“Will you permit me?” he said to Henri.
+
+“It appears decidedly, that my mare has caught your eye,” replied the
+General, approaching the carriage and resting his spurred foot on its
+step.
+
+“She has superb lines,” said the painter, without interrupting his
+drawing.
+
+“Well, I am curious to know whether she could beat Seaman,” said
+Zibeline. “Are you willing to run a race with me, General?”
+
+“As you please--some morning when you return to the Bois.”
+
+“You noticed my absence, then?”
+
+“I assure you that I did,” Henri replied, earnestly.
+
+Then, fearing that he had said too much, he added:
+
+“I, and many others!”
+
+“Good! You were almost making a pretty speech to me, but, as usual, the
+disavowal was not slow in coming. Fortunately, here comes your friend
+Lenaieff, who is hastening to make amends to me.”
+
+“What good fortune to meet you here, Mademoiselle!” cried Constantin,
+who, having perceived Valentine from a distance, had taken an abrupt
+leave of his general-in-chief.
+
+“I know that you have called to see me several times,” said she, “but I
+was in the country.”
+
+“So early in the month of April?”
+
+“Oh! not to live there. Monsieur de Perolles knows that I have promised
+to build our Orphan Asylum at a certain distance from Paris, and hardly
+three weeks remain to me before I must hand over the property. If I am
+not ready on the day appointed, Monsieur Desvanneaux will be sure to
+seize my furniture, and I could not invite you any more to dinner,
+Messieurs! A propos, General, Monsieur de Samoreau has failed in his
+negotiations. Mademoiselle Gontier refuses to come to recite at my next
+soiree!”
+
+“What necessity is there for you to make her acquaintance?” demanded
+Henri.
+
+“Ah, that is my secret!”
+
+During this conversation a hired fiacre, well appointed, had stopped
+beside the road, and Eugenie Gontier descended from it, inquiring of
+an officer belonging to the grounds where she could find General de
+Prerolles. When the officer had pointed out the General to her, she
+started to walk toward him; but, on seeing her former lover leaning
+familiarly against the door of Zibeline’s carriage, she immediately
+retraced her steps and quickly reentered her own.
+
+“There is no longer any doubt about it!” said Mademoiselle de Vermont,
+who had been observing Eugenie’s movements. “Mademoiselle Gontier has
+made a fixed resolution to avoid meeting me.”
+
+“That is because she is jealous of you!” said Lenaieff naively.
+
+“Jealous? And why?” said Zibeline, blushing.
+
+Visibly embarrassed, Henri drew out his watch in order to avert his
+countenance.
+
+“Midday!” he cried. “This is the hour for the return of the troops to
+their barracks. You would do well not to delay in starting for home,
+Mademoiselle. The roads will be very crowded, and your horses will not
+be able to trot. I beg your pardon for taking away your model, my dear
+Delorme, but I really must be off.”
+
+“It is all the same to me; I have finished my sketch,” said the painter,
+closing his portfolio.
+
+At this moment, as the military governor passed near them, on his way to
+the crossway of the Pyramid, Henri made a movement as if to rejoin him.
+
+“Do not disturb yourself, General de Prerolles,” said the military
+governor. “The compliments which I have made you on the fine appearance
+of your troops are probably not so agreeable to you as those to which
+you are listening at present!”
+
+And saluting Mademoiselle de Vermont courteously, he went his way.
+
+“Now you are free, Henri. Suppose we accompany Mademoiselle back to
+Paris?” suggested Lenaieff, seeming to read his friend’s mind.
+
+“What an honor for me!” Valentine exclaimed.
+
+The General made a sign to his orderly, who approached to receive his
+instructions.
+
+“Tell the brigadier-generals that I am about to depart. I need no more
+escort than two cavalrymen for General Lenaieff and myself. Now I am
+ready, Mademoiselle,” Henri continued, turning toward Valentine. “If you
+will be guided by me, we should do well to reach the fortifications by
+way of the Lake of Saint-Mande.”
+
+She made a little sound with her tongue, and the two cobs set off in
+the direction indicated, the crowds they passed stopping to admire their
+high action, and asking one another who was that pretty woman who was
+escorted by two generals, the one French, the other a foreigner.
+
+“I must look like a treaty of peace in a Franco-Russian alliance!” said
+Zibeline, gayly.
+
+The sun shone brightly, the new leaves were quivering on the trees, the
+breeze bore to the ear the echo of the military bands.
+
+Animated by the sound, the two cobs went ahead at a great pace, but they
+were kept well in hand by their mistress, who was dressed this morning
+in a simple navy-blue costume, with a small, oval, felt hat, ornamented
+with two white wings, set on in a manner that made the wearer resemble a
+valkyrie. Her whip, an unnecessary accessory, lay across the seat at her
+right, on which side of the carriage Henri rode.
+
+The General’s eyes missed none of the graceful movements of the young
+girl. And his reflections regarding her, recently interrupted, returned
+in full force, augmenting still more his regret at the inexorable fate
+that separated him from her. “What a pity!” he thought in his turn,
+repeating unconsciously the phrase so often uttered by his sister.
+
+Arrived at the Place du Trene, Valentine stopped her horses a moment,
+and addressed her two cavaliers:
+
+“I thank you for your escort, gentlemen. But however high may be your
+rank, I really can not go through Paris looking like a prisoner between
+two gendarmes! So good-by! I shall see you this evening perhaps, but
+good-by for the present.”
+
+They gave her a military salute, and the carriage disappeared in the
+Faubourg St. Antoine, while the two horsemen followed the line of the
+quays along the Boulevard Diderot.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. THE CHALLENGE
+
+That person who, in springtime, between ten o’clock and midday, never
+has walked beside the bridle-path in the Bois de Boulogne, under
+the deep shade of the trees, can form no idea of the large number of
+equestrians that for many years have been devoted to riding along that
+delightful and picturesque road.
+
+To see and to be seen constitutes the principal raison d’etre of this
+exercise, where the riders traverse the same path going and coming, a
+man thus being able to meet more than once the fair one whom he seeks,
+or a lady to encounter several times a cavalier who interests her.
+
+On this more and more frequented road, the masculine element displayed
+different costumes, according to the age and tastes of each rider. The
+young men appeared in careless array: leggins, short coats, and small
+caps. The older men, faithful to early traditions, wore long trousers,
+buttoned-up redingotes, and tall hats, like those worn by their fathers,
+as shown in the pictures by Alfred de Dreux.
+
+For the feminine element the dress is uniform. It consists of a
+riding-habit of black or dark blue, with bodice and skirt smoothly
+molded to the form by one of the two celebrated habit-makers, Youss or
+Creed. The personal presence alone varied, according to the degree of
+perfection of the model.
+
+A cylindrical hat, a little straight or turned-over collar, a cravat
+tied in a sailor’s knot, a gardenia in the buttonhole, long trousers and
+varnished boots completed the dress of these modern Amazons, who, having
+nothing in common with the female warriors of ancient times, are not
+deprived, as were those unfortunates, of any of their feminine charms.
+
+The military element is represented by officers of all grades from
+generals to sub-lieutenants, in morning coats, with breeches and high
+boots, forbidden under the Second Empire, but the rule at present.
+
+At the top of the Pre-Catelan, the path is crossed by the Bagatelle road
+to the lakes, a point of intersection situated near a glade where the
+ladies were fond of stopping their carriages to chat with those passing
+on horseback. A spectator might have fancied himself at the meet of a
+hunting-party, lacking the whippers-in and the dogs.
+
+A few days after the review at Vincennes, on a bright morning in May,
+a file of victorias and pony-chaises were strung out along this sylvan
+glade, and many persons had alighted from them. Announcing their arrival
+by trumpet-blasts, two or three vehicles of the Coaching Club, headed
+by that of the Duc de Mont had discharged a number of pretty passengers,
+whose presence soon caused the halt of many gay cavaliers.
+
+Several groups were formed, commenting on the news of the day, the
+scandal of the day before, the fete announced for the next day.
+
+More serious than the others, the group surrounding Madame de Montgeron
+strolled along under the trees in the side paths which, in their
+windings, often came alongside of the bridle-path.
+
+“What has become of Mademoiselle de Vermont, Duchess?” inquired Madame
+de Lisieux, who had been surprised not to find Zibeline riding with
+their party.
+
+“She is in the country, surrounded by masons, occupied in the building
+of our Orphan Asylum. The time she required before making over the
+property to us expires in two weeks.”
+
+“It is certainly very singular that we do not know where we are to go
+for the ceremonies of inauguration,” said Madame Desvanneaux, in her
+usual vinegary tones.
+
+“I feel at liberty to tell you that the place is not far away, and the
+journey thence will not fatigue you,” said the president, with the air
+of one who has long known what she has not wished to reveal heretofore.
+
+“The question of fatigue should not discourage us when it is a matter of
+doing good,” said M. Desvanneaux. “Only, in the opinion of the founders
+of the Orphan Asylum, it should be situated in the city of Paris
+itself.”
+
+“The donor thought that open fields and fresh air would be better for
+the children.”
+
+“Land outside of Paris costs very much less, of course; that is probably
+the real reason,” said M. Desvanneaux.
+
+“Poor Zibeline! you are well hated!” Madame de Nointel could not help
+saying.
+
+“We neither like nor dislike her, Madame. We regard her as indifferently
+as we do that,” the churchwarden replied, striking down a branch with
+the end of his stick, with the superb air of a Tarquin.
+
+Still gesticulating, he continued:
+
+“The dust that she throws in the eyes of others does not blind us, that
+is all!”
+
+The metaphor was not exactly happy, for at that instant the unlucky man
+received full in his face a broadside of gravel thrown by the hoofs of a
+horse which had been frightened by the flourishing stick, and which had
+responded to the menace by a violent kick.
+
+This steed was none other than Seaman, ridden by Mademoiselle de
+Vermont. She had recognized the Duchess and turned her horse back in
+order to offer her excuses for his misconduct, the effects of which
+Madame Desvanneaux tried to efface by brushing off the gravel with the
+corner of her handkerchief.
+
+“What has happened?” asked General de Prerolles, who at that moment
+cantered up, mounted on Aida.
+
+“Oh, nothing except that Mademoiselle has just missed killing my husband
+with that wicked animal of hers!” cried the Maegera, in a fury.
+
+“Mademoiselle might turn the accusation against him,” Madame de Nointel
+said, with some malice. “It was he who frightened her horse.”
+
+The fiery animal, with distended veins and quivering nostrils, snorted
+violently, cavorted sidewise, and tried to run. Zibeline needed all her
+firmness of grasp to force him, without allowing herself to be thrown,
+to stand still on the spot whence had come the movement that had alarmed
+him.
+
+“Your horse needs exercise,” said Henri to the equestrienne. “You ought
+to give him an opportunity to do something besides the formal trot
+around this path.”
+
+“I should be able to do so, if ever we could have our match,” said
+Zibeline. “Will you try it now?”
+
+“Come on!”
+
+She nodded, gave him her hand an instant, and they set off, side by
+side, followed by Zibeline’s groom, no less well mounted than she, and
+wearing turned-over boots, bordered with a band of fawn-colored leather,
+according to the fashion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV. THE AMAZON HAS A FALL
+
+They were a well-matched pair: he, the perfect type of the elegant and
+always youthful soldier; she, the most dashing of all the Amazons in the
+Bois, to quote the words of Edmond Delorme.
+
+Everyone was familiar with the personal appearance of both riders, and
+recognized them, but until now Mademoiselle de Vermont had always ridden
+alone, and now to see her accompanied by the gallant General, whose
+embroidered kepi glittered in the sunlight, was a new spectacle for the
+gallery.
+
+The people looked at them all the more because Seaman was still
+prancing, but without unseating his mistress, who held him at any gait
+or any degree of swiftness that pleased her.
+
+“What a good seat you have!” said Henri.
+
+“That is the first real compliment you ever have paid me. I shall
+appropriate it immediately, before you have time to retract it,”
+ Zibeline replied.
+
+At the circle of Melezes, Henri proposed to turn to the right, in order
+to reach Longchamp.
+
+“A flat race! You are joking!” Zibeline cried, turning to the left,
+toward the road of La Vierge,
+
+“You don’t intend that we shall run a steeplechase, I hope.”
+
+“On the contrary, that is exactly my intention! You are not afraid to
+try it, are you?”
+
+“Not on my own account, but on yours.”
+
+“You know very well that I never am daunted by any obstacle.”
+
+“Figuratively, yes; but in riding a horse it is another matter.”
+
+“All the more reason why I should not be daunted now,” Zibeline
+insisted.
+
+When they arrived at the public square of the Cascades, in front of the
+Auteuil hippodrome, she paused a moment between the two lakes, uncertain
+which course to take.
+
+It was Thursday, the day of the races. The vast ground, enclosed on all
+sides by a fence, had been cleared, since early morning, of the boards
+covering the paths reserved for pedestrians on days when there was no
+racing; but it was only eleven o’clock, and the place was not yet open
+to the paying public. Several workmen, in white blouses, went along the
+track, placing litters beside the obstacles where falls occurred most
+frequently.
+
+“Do you think the gatekeeper will allow us to enter at this hour?”
+ Zibeline asked.
+
+“I hope not!” Henri replied.
+
+“Well, then, I shall enter without his permission! You are free to
+declare me the winner. I shall be left to make a walkover, I see!” And
+setting off at a gallop along the bridle-path, which was obstructed a
+little farther on by the fence itself, she struck her horse resolutely,
+and with one audacious bound sprang over the entrance gate. She was now
+on the steeplechase track.
+
+“You are mad!” cried the General, who, as much concerned for her safety
+as for his own pride, urged on his mare, and, clearing the fence, landed
+beside Zibeline on the other side.
+
+“All right!” she cried, in English, dropping her whip, as the starter
+drops the flag at the beginning of a race.
+
+The die was cast. Henri bent over Aida’s neck, leaning his hands upon
+her withers in an attitude with which experience had made him familiar,
+and followed the Amazon, determined to win at all hazards.
+
+Zibeline’s groom, an Englishman, formerly a professional jockey, had
+already jumped the fence, in spite of the cries of the guard, who ran
+to prevent him, and coolly galloped after his mistress, keeping at his
+usual distance.
+
+The first two hedges, which were insignificant obstacles for such
+horses, were crossed without effort.
+
+“Not the brook, I beg of you!” cried Henri, seeing that, instead of
+running past the grand-stand, Zibeline apparently intended to attempt
+this dangerous feat.
+
+“Come on! Seaman would never forgive me if I balk at it!” she cried,
+riding fearlessly down the slope.
+
+The good horse gathered up his four feet on the brink, took one vigorous
+leap, appearing for a second to hover over the water; then he fell
+lightly on the other side of the stream, with a seesaw movement, to
+which the intrepid Amazon accommodated herself by leaning far back. The
+rebound threw her forward a little, but she straightened herself quickly
+and went on.
+
+The General, who had slackened his pace that he might not interfere
+with her leap, gave vent to a sigh of relief. He pressed Aida’s flanks
+firmly, and the big Irish mare jumped after her competitor, with the
+majestic dignity of her race.
+
+Reassured by the ‘savoir-faire’ of his companion, the former winner of
+the military steeplechase felt revive within himself all his ardor for
+the conflict, and he hastened to make up the distance he had lost.
+
+The two horses, now on the west side of the racetrack, were almost
+neck-and-neck, and it would have been difficult to prognosticate which
+had the better chance of victory. Zibeline’s light weight gave Seaman
+the advantage, but Aida gained a little ground every time she leaped an
+obstacle; so that, after passing the hurdles and the third hedge, the
+champions arrived simultaneously at the summit of the hill, from which
+point the track extends in a straight line, parallel with the Allee des
+Fortifications.
+
+Feeling himself urged on still harder, the English horse began to lay
+back his ears and pull so violently on the rein that his rider had all
+she could do to hold him, and lacked sufficient strength to direct his
+course. Seeing Zibeline’s danger, Henri hastened to slacken his horse’s
+pace, but it was too late: the almost perpendicular declivity of the
+other side of the hill added fresh impetus to the ungovernable rush of
+Seaman, who suddenly became wild and reckless.
+
+The situation was all the more critical for the reason that the next
+obstacle was a brook, only two metres wide, but of which the passage was
+obstructed on the farther side of the track by heavy beams, laid one
+on top of another, solidly riveted and measuring one metre and ten
+millimetres from the base to the summit. The excited horse charged
+obliquely toward this obstruction with all his might. Paying no more
+attention to the pressure upon his bit, he rose in the air, but as he
+had not given himself sufficient time to take plenty of room for the
+leap, his hoofs struck violently against the top beam, the force of
+resistance of which threw him over on one side; his hindquarters turned
+in the air, and he fell in a heap on the other side of the obstacle,
+sending up a great splash of water as he went into the brook.
+
+Had Zibeline been crushed by the weight of the horse in this terrible
+fall, or, not having been able to free herself from him, had she been
+drowned under him? Henri uttered a hoarse cry, struck his spurs into the
+sides of his mare, crossed the brook breathlessly, stopping on the other
+side as soon as he could control his horse’s pace; then, rushing back,
+he leaped to the ground to save the poor girl, if there was still time
+to do so.
+
+Zibeline lay inanimate on the grass, her face lying against the earth.
+By a lucky chance, the horse had fallen on his right side, so that his
+rider’s limbs and skirt had not been caught. Unhorsed by the violence
+of the shock, Zibeline had gone over the animal’s head and fallen on the
+other side of the brook. Her Amazon hat, so glossy when she had set out,
+was now crushed, and her gloves were torn and soiled with mud; which
+indicated that she had fallen on her head and her hands.
+
+Henri knelt beside her, passed his arm around her inert and charming
+body, and drew her tenderly toward him. Her eyes were half-open and
+dull, her lips pale; her nose, the nostrils of which were usually well
+dilated, had a pinched look; and a deadly pallor covered that face which
+only a moment before had been so rosy and smiling.
+
+These signs were the forerunners of death, which the officer had
+recognized so many times on the battlefield. But those stricken ones had
+at least been men, devoting themselves to the risks of warfare; while
+in the presence of this young girl lying before him, looking upon this
+victim of a reckless audacity to which he felt he had lent himself too
+readily, the whole responsibility for the accident seemed to him to rest
+upon his own shoulders, and a poignant remorse tore his heart.
+
+He removed her cravat, unhooked her bodice, laid his ear against her
+breast, from which an oppressed breathing still arose.
+
+Two laborers hurried to open the gate and soon arrived at the spot
+with a litter, guided by the groom, whose horse had refused to jump
+the brook, and who since then had followed the race on foot outside the
+track. While the General placed Zibeline on the litter, the groom took
+Aida by the bridle, and the sad procession made its way slowly toward
+the enclosure surrounding the weighing-stand.
+
+As for Seaman, half submerged in the stream, and with an incurable
+fracture of the leg, nothing was left to do for the poor animal but to
+kill him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI. AN UNCONSCIOUS AVOWAL
+
+Walking slowly, step by step, beside her whose power had so quickly
+and so wholly subjugated him, watching over her removal with more than
+paternal solicitude, Henri de Prerolles, sustained by a ray of hope,
+drew a memorandum-book from his pocket, wrote upon a slip of paper a
+name and an address, and, giving it to the groom, ordered him to go
+ahead of the litter and telephone to the most celebrated surgeon in
+Paris, requesting him to go as quickly as possible to the domicile
+of Mademoiselle de Vermont, and, meantime, to send with the greatest
+despatch one of the eight-spring carriages from the stables.
+
+It was noon by the dial on the grand-stand when the litter was finally
+deposited in a safe place. The surgeon could hardly arrive in less than
+two hours; therefore, the General realized that he must rely upon his
+own experience in rendering the first necessary aid.
+
+He lifted Valentine’s hand, unbuttoned the glove, laid his finger on her
+pulse, and counted the pulsations, which were weak, slow, and irregular.
+
+While the wife of the gate-keeper kept a bottle of salts at the nostrils
+of the injured girl, Henri soaked a handkerchief in tincture of arnica
+and sponged her temples with it; then, pouring some drops of the liquid
+into a glass of water, he tried in vain to make her swallow a mouthful.
+Her teeth, clenched by the contraction of muscles, refused to allow it
+to pass into her throat. At the end of half an hour, the inhalation
+of the salts began to produce a little effect; the breath came more
+regularly, but that was the only symptom which announced that the swoon
+might soon terminate. The landau with the high springs arrived. The
+General ordered the top laid back, and helped to lift and place upon the
+cushions on the back seat the thin mattress on which Zibeline lay; then
+he took his place on the front seat, made the men draw the carriage-top
+back into its proper position, and the equipage rolled smoothly,
+and without a jar, to its destination. On the way they met the first
+carriages that had arrived at the Auteuil hippodrome, the occupants of
+which little suspected what an exciting dramatic incident had occurred
+just before the races. Zibeline’s servants, by whom she was adored,
+awaited their mistress at the threshold, and for her maids it was an
+affair of some minutes to undress her and lay her in her own bed. During
+this delay, the surgeon, who had hastened to answer the call, found
+Henri nervously walking about from one drawing-room to the other; and,
+having received information as to the details of the fall, he soon
+entered the bedchamber. While awaiting the sentence of life or of death
+which must soon be pronounced, he who considered himself the chief cause
+of this tragic event continued to pace to and fro in the gallery--that
+gallery where, under the intoxication of a waltz, the demon of
+temptation had so quickly demolished all his resolutions of resistance.
+A half-hour--an age!--elapsed before the skilled practitioner
+reappeared. “There is no fracture,” he said, “but the cerebral shock
+has been such that I can not as yet answer for the consequences. If the
+powerful reactive medicine which I have just given should bring her back
+to her senses soon, her mental faculties will suffer no harm. If not,
+there is everything to fear. I will return in three hours,” he added.
+Without giving a thought to the conventionalities, Henri entered the
+bedchamber, to the great astonishment of the maids, and, installing
+himself at the head of the bed, he decided not to leave that spot until
+Valentine had regained her senses, should she ever regain them. An
+hour passed thus, while Henri kept the same attitude, erect, attentive,
+motionless, with stray scraps of his childhood’s prayers running through
+his brain. Suddenly the heavy eyelids of the wounded girl were lifted;
+the dulness of the eyes disappeared; her body made an involuntary
+attempt to change its position; the nostrils dilated; the lips quivered
+in an effort to speak. Youth and life had triumphed over death. With
+painful slowness, she tried to raise her hand to her head, the seat of
+her pain, where, though half paralyzed, thought was beginning to return.
+Her eyes wandered to and fro in the shadowy room, seeking to recognize
+the surroundings. A ray of light, filtering through the window-curtains,
+showed her the anxious face bending tenderly over her. “Henri!” she
+murmured, in a soft, plaintive voice. That name, pronounced thus, the
+first word uttered after her long swoon, revealed her secret. Never had
+a more complete yet modest avowal been more simply expressed; was it not
+natural that he should be present at her reentrance into life, since
+she loved him? With women, the sentiment of love responds to the most
+diverse objects. The ordinary young girl of Zibeline’s age, either
+before or after her sojourn in a convent, considers that a man of thirty
+has arrived at middle age, and that a man of forty is absolutely old.
+Should she accept a man of either of these ages, she does it because a
+fortune, a title, or high social rank silences her other tastes, and
+her ambition does the rest. But, with an exceptional woman, like
+Mademoiselle de Vermont, brought up in view of wide horizons, in the
+midst of plains cleared by bold pioneers, among whom the most valorous
+governed the others, a man like General de Prerolles realized her ideal
+all the more, because both their natures presented the same striking
+characteristics: carelessness of danger, and frankness carried to
+its extremest limit. Therefore, this declaration--to use the common
+expression--entirely free from artifice or affectation, charmed Henri
+for one reason, yet, on the other hand, redoubled his perplexity. How
+could he conciliate his scruples of conscience with the aspirations
+of his heart? The problem seemed then as insoluble as when it had been
+presented the first time. But Valentine was saved. For the moment that
+was the essential point, the only one in question. The involuntary
+revelation of her secret had brought the color to her cheeks, the light
+to her eyes, a smile to her lips, in spite of the leaden band that
+seemed still pressing upon her head. “How you have frightened me!” said
+Henri, in a low voice, seating himself on the side of the bed and
+taking her hand. “Is that true?” she asked, softly pressing his fingers.
+“Hush!” he said, making a movement to enjoin silence. She obeyed, and
+they remained a few moments thus. Nevertheless, he reflected that
+the account of the accident would soon be spread everywhere, that
+Valentine’s new friends would hear about it as soon as they arrived at
+the race-track that day, and that he could no longer prolong his stay
+beside her.
+
+“Are you leaving me so soon?” Valentine murmured, when he said that he
+must go.
+
+“I am going to tell my sister and the Chevalier de Sainte-Foy of your
+mishap.”
+
+“Very well,” she replied, as if already she had no other desire than to
+follow his wishes.
+
+He gave the necessary orders, and again took his place beside the bed,
+awaiting the second visit of the doctor, whose arrival was simultaneous
+with that of the Duchess.
+
+This time the verdict was altogether favorable, with no mention of
+the possibility of any aggravating circumstances. An inevitable
+feverishness, and a great lassitude, which must be met with absolute
+repose for several days, would be the only consequences of this
+dangerous prank.
+
+The proprieties resumed their normal sway, and it was no longer possible
+for Henri to remain beside the charming invalid.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII. DISTRACTION
+
+The Duchesse de Montgeron, who had passed the rest of the day with
+Mademoiselle de Vermont, did not return to her own dwelling until eight
+o’clock that evening, bearing the most reassuring news.
+
+Longing for fresh air and exercise, Henri went out after dinner, walked
+through the Champs-Elysees, and traversed the crossing at l’Etoile, in
+order to approach the spot where Zibeline lay ill.
+
+If one can imagine the feelings of a man of forty-five, who is loved for
+himself, under the most flattering and unexpected conditions, one can
+comprehend the object of this nocturnal walk and the long pause that
+Henri made beneath the windows of Zibeline’s apartment. A small garden,
+protected by a light fence, was the only obstacle that separated them.
+But how much more insuperable was the barrier which his own principles
+had raised between this adorable girl and himself.
+
+Had he not told his sister, confided to Eugenie Gontier, and reiterated
+to any one that would listen to him, the scruples which forbade him ever
+to think of marriage? To change this decision, in asking for the hand of
+Mademoiselle de Vermont, would-in appearance, at least--sacrifice to the
+allurement of wealth the proud poverty which he had long borne so nobly.
+
+But the demon of temptation was then, as always, lurking in the shadow,
+the sole witness of this duel to the death between prejudice and love.
+
+When he returned to his rooms he found another note from his former
+mistress:
+
+   “You have just had a terrible experience, my dear friend. Nothing
+   that affects you can be indifferent to me. I beg you to believe,
+   notwithstanding the grief which our separation causes me, in all the
+   prayers that I offer for your happiness.
+
+                  “ARIADNE.”
+
+“My happiness? My torture, rather!” he said, the classic name of Ariadne
+suggesting the idea that the pseudonym of Tantalus might well be applied
+to himself.
+
+But he had long kept a rule to write as little as possible, and
+was guarded in making reply to any letter, especially to such a
+communication as this.
+
+When he left the house the next morning, on his way to attend to
+military duties, he learned that his sister had gone away early on an
+excursion to one of the suburbs, and that she would not return until
+evening. As the Duchess was the only person who had been initiated into
+the mystery surrounding Zibeline on the subject of the building of the
+Orphan Asylum, it was evident that she had gone to take her place in the
+directing of the work.
+
+In the afternoon Henri called to inquire for the invalid, and was
+received by the Chevalier de Sainte-Foy. She had had a quiet night; a
+little fever had appeared toward morning, and, above all, an extreme
+weakness, requiring absolute quiet and freedom from any excitement. On
+an open register in the reception-room were inscribed the names of all
+those persons who had called to express their interest in Mademoiselle
+de Vermont: Constantin Lenaieff, the Lisieux, the Nointels, Edmond
+Delorme, the Baron de Samoreau, and others. Only the Desvanneaux had
+shown no sign of life. Their Christian charity did not extend so far as
+that.
+
+Henri added his name to the list, and for several days he returned each
+morning to inscribe it anew, feeling certain that, as soon as Valentine
+was able to be placed half-reclining on a couch, she would give orders
+that he should be admitted to her presence. But nothing of the kind
+occurred.
+
+On the evening of the fifth day after the accident, the Duchess informed
+her brother that their young friend had been taken to the country, where
+it was thought a complete cure would sooner be effected.
+
+This hasty departure, made without any preliminary message, caused Henri
+to feel the liveliest disappointment.
+
+Had he deceived himself, then? Was it, after all, only by chance
+that she had so tenderly pronounced his name, and had that familiar
+appellative only been drawn from her involuntarily because of her
+surprise at beholding his unexpected presence at her bedside?
+
+Regarding the matter from this point of view, the whole romance that he
+had constructed on a fragile foundation had really never existed save in
+his own imagination!
+
+At this thought his self-esteem suffered cruelly. He felt a natural
+impulse to spring into a carriage and drive to the dwelling of
+Eugenie Gontier, and there to seek forgetfulness. But he felt that his
+bitterness would make itself known even there, and that such a course
+would be another affront to the dignity of a woman of heart, whose
+loyalty to himself he never had questioned.
+
+Try to disguise it as he would, his sombre mood made itself apparent,
+especially to his brother-in-law, who had no difficulty in guessing the
+cause, without allowing Henri to suspect that he divined it.
+
+The date for the formal transfer of the Orphan Asylum to the committee
+had been fixed for the fifteenth day of May.
+
+On the evening of the fourteenth, at the hour when the General was
+signing the usual military documents in his bureau, a domestic presented
+to him a letter which, he said, had just been brought in great haste by
+a messenger on horseback:
+
+The superscription, “To Monsieur the General the Marquis de Prerolles,”
+ was inscribed in a long, English hand, elegant and regular. The orderly
+gave the letter to his chief, who dismissed him with a gesture before
+breaking the seal. The seal represented, without escutcheon or crown, a
+small, wild animal, with a pointed muzzle, projecting teeth, and shaggy
+body, under which was a word Henri expected to find: Zibeline!
+
+The letter ran thus:
+
+   “MY DEAR GENERAL:
+
+   “An officer, like yourself, whose business it is to see that his
+   orders are obeyed, will understand that I have not dared, even in
+   your favor, to infringe on those imposed upon me by the doctor.
+   But those orders have been withdrawn! If you have nothing better to
+   do, come to-morrow, with your sister, to inspect our asylum, before
+   Monsieur Desvanneaux takes possession of it!
+
+   “Your military eye will be able to judge immediately whether
+   anything is lacking in the quarters. Yours affectionately,
+
+                  “VALENTINE DE VERMONT.
+
+   “P.S.--Poor Seaman is dead! I beg you to carry this sad news to his
+   friend Aida. V.”
+
+If a woman’s real self is revealed in her epistolary style, finesse,
+good-humor, and sprightliness were characterised in this note.
+Zibeline’s finesse had divined Henri’s self-deception; her good-humor
+sought to dissipate it; and her sprightliness was evidenced by her
+allusions to M. Desvanneaux and the loss of her horse.
+
+When they found themselves reunited at the dinner-hour, the Duchess said
+simply to her brother:
+
+“You must have received an invitation to-day from Mademoiselle de
+Vermont. Will you accompany us tomorrow?”
+
+“Yes, certainly. But where? How? At what hour?”
+
+“We must leave here at one o’clock. Don’t disturb yourself about any
+other detail--we shall look after everything.”
+
+“Good! I accept.”
+
+As he was not so curious as the Desvanneaux, it mattered little to him
+to what place they took him, so long as he should find Zibeline at the
+end of the journey.
+
+At the appointed hour the brother and sister drove to the Gare du Nord.
+The Duke, a director of the road, who had been obliged to attend a
+convocation of the Council until noon, had preceded them. He was waiting
+for them beside the turnstile at the station, having already procured
+their tickets and reserved a carriage in one of the omnibus trains from
+Paris to Treport which make stops at various suburban stations.
+
+“Will it be a very long journey?” Henri asked, on taking his place in
+the carriage.
+
+“Barely three-quarters of an hour,” said the Duke, as the train started
+on its way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII. THE VOW REDEEMED
+
+The third road, constructed between the two lines which met at Creil,
+passing, the one by way of Chantilly, the other, by Pontoise, was not
+in existence in 1871, when, after the war, Jeanne and Henri de Prerolles
+went to visit the spot, already unrecognizable, where they had passed
+their childhood. L’Ile-d’Adam was at that time the nearest station; to
+day it is Presles, on the intermediate line, which they now took.
+
+“This is our station,” said Madame de Montgeron, when the train stopped
+at Montsoult. They descended from the carriage, and found on the
+platform two footmen, who conducted them to a large char-a-banc, to
+which were harnessed four dark bay Percherons, whose bridles were held
+by postilions in Zibeline’s livery, as correct in their appearance as
+those belonging to the imperial stables, when the sojourn of the court
+was at Compiegne or at Fontainebleau.
+
+“Where are we going now, Jeanne?” asked Henri, whose heart seemed to him
+to contract at the sight of Maffliers, which he knew so well.
+
+“A short distance from here,” his sister replied.
+
+The horses set off, and, amid the sound of bells and the cracking of
+whips, the carriage reached the national road from Paris to Beauvais,
+which, from Montsoult, passes around the railway by a rapid descent,
+from the summit of which is visible, on the right, the Chateau of
+Franconville; on the left, the village of Nerville perched on its crest.
+
+One of the footmen on the rear seat held the reins, and a quarter of
+an hour later the carriage stopped just before arriving at the foot of
+Valpendant.
+
+Valpendant had formerly been a feudal manor within the confines of
+Ile-de-France, built midway upon a hill, as its name indicated. On the
+side toward the plain was a moat, and the castle itself commanded the
+view of a valley, through which ran the little stream called Le Roi,
+which flows into the river Oise near the hamlet of Mours. Acquired
+in the fifteenth century by the lords of Prerolles, it had become an
+agricultural territory worked for their profit, first by forced labor,
+and later by farmers.
+
+Even recently, the courtyard, filled with squawking fowls and domestic
+animals of all kinds, and the sheds crowded with agricultural implements
+piled up in disorder, presented a scene of confusion frequent among
+cultivators, and significant of the alienation of old domains from their
+former owners.
+
+“We have arrived!” said the Duchess, alighting first.
+
+“What, is it here?” Henri exclaimed, his heart beating more quickly.
+
+“Your old farm was for sale just at the time that Mademoiselle de
+Vermont was seeking an appropriate site for the Orphan Asylum. This spot
+appeared to her to combine all the desirable conditions, and she has
+wrought the transformation you are about to behold. It might as well be
+this place as another,” the Duchess added. “In my opinion, it is a sort
+of consolation offered to us by fate.”
+
+“Be it so!” said Henri, in a tone of less conviction.
+
+He followed his sister along the footpath of a bluff, which as children
+they had often climbed; while the carriage made a long detour in order
+to reach the main entrance to the grounds.
+
+The footpath, winding along near the railway embankment, ended at
+a bridge, where Zibeline awaited the three visitors. A significant
+pressure of her hand showed Henri how little cause he had had for his
+apprehensions.
+
+They entered. Seen from the main entrance, the metamorphosis of the
+place was complete.
+
+The old tower that had served as a barn alone remained the same; it was
+somewhat isolated from the other building, and had been repaired in
+the style of its period, making a comfortable dwelling for the future
+director of the Asylum. Mademoiselle de Vermont occupied it temporarily.
+
+On each side of the grounds, standing parallel, rose two fine buildings:
+on the ground floor of each were all the customary rooms and accessories
+found on model farms; on the upper floors were dormitories arranged
+to receive a large number of children of both sexes. There were
+schoolrooms, sewing-rooms, a chapel-in short, nothing was lacking to
+assist in the children’s intellectual and manual education.
+
+“You have done things royally,” said the Duke to the happy donor, when,
+having finished the inspection of the premises, they returned to the
+directors’ room, indicated by a plate upon its door.
+
+As for Henri, silent and absorbed, he hesitated between the dread of
+facing a new emotion and the desire to go once more to gaze upon the
+tower of Prerolles, hardly more than two kilometres distant.
+
+“What is the matter with you, General?” Zibeline asked, observing that
+he did not appear to take pleasure in the surprise she had prepared.
+
+“I lived here many years a long time ago,” he replied. “I am thinking
+of all that it recalls to me; and, if you would not consider it
+discourteous on my part, I should like to leave you for a little time to
+make a pilgrimage on foot around the neighborhood.”
+
+“Would you like to have me take you myself? I have a little English cart
+which can run about anywhere,” said Zibeline.
+
+The proposition was tempting. The sweetness of a tete-a-tete might
+diminish the bitterness of recollections. He accepted.
+
+She ordered the cart brought around, and they climbed into the small
+vehicle, which was drawn by a strong pony, driven by Zibeline herself.
+
+“Which way?” she asked, when they had passed through the gates.
+
+“To the right,” he said, pointing to a rough, half-paved slope, an
+abandoned part of what had been in former days the highway, which now
+joins the new road at the Beaumont tunnel.
+
+Passing this point, and leaving on their left the state road
+of l’Ile-d’Adam, they drove through a narrow cross-cut, between
+embankments, by which one mounts directly to the high, plateau that
+overlooks the town of Presles.
+
+The hill was steep, and the pony was out of breath. They were compelled
+to stop to allow him to rest.
+
+“It is not necessary to go any farther,” said Henri to his companion. “I
+need only to take a few steps in order to see what interests me.”
+
+“I will wait for you here,” she replied, alighting after him. “Don’t
+be afraid to leave me alone. The horse will not move; he is used to
+stopping.”
+
+He left her gathering daisies, and walked resolutely to the panoramic
+point of view, where a strange and unexpected sight met his eyes!
+
+All that had once been so dear to him had regained its former aspect.
+The kitchen-gardens had given place to the rich pastures, where yearling
+colts frisked gayly. The factory had disappeared, and the chateau had
+been restored to its original appearance. The walls enclosing the park
+had been rebuilt, and even several cleared places indicated the sites of
+cottages that had been pulled down.
+
+Henri de Prerolles could hardly believe his eyes! Was he the sport of a
+dream or of one of those mirages which rise before men who travel across
+the sandy African deserts? The latitude and the position of the sun
+forbade this interpretation. But whence came it, then? What fairy had
+turned a magic ring in order to work this miracle?
+
+A crackling of dry twigs under a light tread made him turn, and he
+beheld Zibeline, who had come up behind him.
+
+The fairy was there, pale and trembling, like a criminal awaiting
+arrest.
+
+“Is it you who have done this?” Henri exclaimed, with a sob which no
+human strength could have controlled.
+
+“It is I!” she murmured, lowering her eyes. “I did it in the hope that
+some day you would take back that which rightfully belongs to you.”
+
+“Rightfully, you say? By what act?”
+
+“An act of restitution.”
+
+“You never have done me any injury, and nothing authorizes me to accept
+such a gift from Mademoiselle de Vermont.”
+
+“Vermont was the family name of my mother. When my father married
+her, he obtained leave to add it to his own. I am the daughter of Paul
+Landry.”
+
+“You!”
+
+“Yes. The daughter of Paul Landry, whose fortune had no other origin
+than the large sum of which he despoiled you.”
+
+Henri made a gesture of denial.
+
+“Pardon me!” Zibeline continued. “He was doubly your debtor, since this
+sum had been increased tenfold when you rescued him from the Mexicans
+who were about to shoot him. ‘This is my revenge!’ you said to him,
+without waiting to hear a word from him. Your ruin was the remorse
+of his whole life. I knew it only when he lay upon his deathbed.
+Otherwise--”
+
+She paused, then raised her head higher to finish her words.
+
+“Never mind!” she went on. “That which he dared not do while living, I
+set myself to do after his death. When I came to Paris to inquire what
+had become of the Marquis de Prerolles, your glorious career answered
+for you; but even before I knew you I had become the possessor of these
+divided estates, which, reunited by me, must be restored to your hands.
+You are proud, Henri,” she added, with animation, “but I am none less
+proud than you. Judge, then, what I have suffered in realizing our
+situation: I, overwhelmed with riches, you, reduced to your officer’s
+pay. Is that a satisfaction to your pride? Very well! But to my own, it
+is the original stain, which only a restitution, nobly accepted by you,
+ever can efface!”
+
+She paused, looking at him supplicatingly, her hands clasped. As he
+remained silent, she understood that he still hesitated, and continued:
+
+“To plead my cause, to vanquish your resistance, as I am trying now to
+triumph over it, could be attempted with any chance of success only by
+a dear and tender friend; that is the reason why I sought to establish
+relations with--”
+
+“With Eugenie Gontier?”
+
+“But she would not consent to it--all the worse for her! For, since
+then, you and I have come to know each other well. Your prejudices have
+been overcome one by one. I have observed it well. I am a woman, and
+even your harshness has not changed my feelings, nor prevented me from
+believing that, in spite of yourself, you were beginning to love me.
+Have I been deceiving myself?--tell me!”
+
+“You know that you have not, since, as I look at you and listen to you,
+I know not which I admire more-your beauty or the treasures of your
+heart!”
+
+“Then come!”
+
+“Whither?”
+
+“To Prerolles, where all is ready to receive you.”
+
+“Well, since this is a tale from the Arabian Nights, let us follow it to
+the end! I will go!” said Henri.
+
+Browsing beside the road, the pony, left to himself, had advanced toward
+them, step by step, whinnying to his mistress. Valentine and Henri
+remounted the cart; which soon drew up before the gates of the chateau,
+where, awaiting them, reinstated in his former office, stood the old
+steward, bent and white with years.
+
+The borders of the broad driveway were of a rich, deep green.
+Rose-bushes in full bloom adorned the smooth lawns. The birds trilled a
+welcome in jumping from branch to branch, and across the facade of the
+chateau the open windows announced to the surrounding peasantry the
+return of the prodigal master.
+
+At the top of the flight of steps Valentine stepped back to allow Henri
+to pass before her; then, changing her mind, she advanced again.
+
+“No, you are at home,” she said. “It is I that must enter first!”
+
+He followed her docilely, caring no longer to yield to any other will
+than hers.
+
+Within the chateau, thanks to the complicity of the Duchess, the
+furnishings resembled as closely as possible those of former days. The
+good fairy had completed successfully two great works: the restoration
+of the chateau and the building of the asylum. The inhabitants of the
+one would be so much the better able to foresee the needs of the other.
+
+Having explored one of the wings, they returned to the central hall.
+Mademoiselle de Vermont made a sign to the steward to remain there, and
+beckoned to Henri to accompany her to the historic gallery. After they
+had entered it, she closed the door. The family portraits had been
+rehung in their former places, in chronological order, and, in its
+proper place, figured that of the General of Division the Marquis de
+Prerolles, in full uniform, mounted on Aida, the portrait being the work
+of Edmond Delorme.
+
+At this sight, touched to the depths of his heart, Henri knelt before
+Valentine, and carried her hand to his lips.
+
+“I adore you!” he said, without attempting to hide the tears of
+gratitude that fell upon those generous hands.
+
+“Do you, indeed?” Zibeline murmured.
+
+“You shall see!” he replied, rising. “Come, in your turn.”
+
+He led her before the portrait of the ancestral marshal of France, and
+said:
+
+“Twenty-three years ago I vowed before that portrait either to vanquish
+the enemy or to regain with honor all that I had lost at play. I have
+kept my word. Will you be my wife?”
+
+“Ah, you know my heart is yours!” Zibeline whispered, hiding her face
+upon his shoulder.
+
+The door at the end of the gallery opened; the Duc and the Duchesse de
+Montgeron appeared. Henri took Zibeline’s hand and approached them.
+
+“The Marquise de Prerolles!” he said, presenting her to his sister and
+her husband.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX. THE MARQUISE DE PREROLLES
+
+The next day a special train landed the fair patronesses at the station
+of Presles, whence Zibeline’s carriages conducted them to Valpendant.
+
+The deed of gift was signed before M. Durand and his colleague, a notary
+of Pontoise.
+
+This formality fulfilled, M. Desvanneaux, whose own role, for a moment
+overshadowed, appeared to him to renew its importance, took the floor
+and said:
+
+“It remains to us, Mesdames, to assure the support of the Orphan Asylum
+by means of an annual income.”
+
+“The Marquis and the Marquise de Prerolles assume this responsibility,”
+ said the ministerial officer, treasurer of the Asylum. “This mutual
+engagement will form the object of a special clause in the drawing up of
+their contract.”
+
+In this way was the news of the approaching marriage between Valentine
+and Henri announced to the Society.
+
+“The little intriguer!” murmured the churchwarden, nudging the elbow of
+his Maegera.
+
+The General, who noted the effect which this announcement had produced
+upon the peevish pair, divined the malicious words upon the hypocritical
+lips. He drew the husband aside, and put one hand upon his shoulder.
+
+“Desvanneaux,” he said, “you have known me twenty-five years, and you
+know that I am a man of my word. If ever a malevolent word from you
+regarding my wife should come to my ears, I shall elongate yours to such
+a degree that those of King Midas will be entirely eclipsed! Remember
+that!”
+
+The ceremony took place six weeks later, in the church of St.
+Honore-d’Eylau, which was not large enough to hold the numerous public
+and the brilliant corps of officers that assisted.
+
+The witnesses for the bridegroom were the military governor of Paris and
+the Duc de Montgeron. Those of the bride were the aide-de-camp General
+Lenaieff, in full uniform, wearing an astrachan cap and a white cloak
+with the Russian eagle fastened in the fur; and the Chevalier de
+Sainte-Foy.
+
+On the evening before, a last letter from his former mistress had come
+to the General:
+
+   “I have heard all the details of your romance, my dear Henri. Its
+   conclusion is according to all dramatic rules, and I congratulate
+   you without reserve.
+
+   “If, on the eve of contracting this happy union, an examination of
+   your conscience should suggest to you some remorse for having
+   abandoned me so abruptly, let me say that no shadow, not even the
+   lightest, must cloud the serenity of this joyous day: I am about to
+   leave the stage forever, to become the wife of the Baron de
+   Samoreau!
+
+          “Always affectionately yours,
+
+                    “EUGENIE GONTIER.”
+
+
+     ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:
+
+     All that was illogical in our social code
+     Ambiguity has no place, nor has compromise
+     But if this is our supreme farewell, do not tell me so!
+     Chain so light yesterday, so heavy to-day
+     Every man is his own master in his choice of liaisons
+     If I do not give all I give nothing
+     Indulgence of which they stand in need themselves
+     Life goes on, and that is less gay than the stories
+     Men admired her; the women sought some point to criticise
+     Only a man, wavering and changeable
+     Ostensibly you sit at the feast without paying the cost
+     Paris has become like a little country town in its gossip
+     The night brings counsel
+     Their Christian charity did not extend so far as that
+     There are mountains that we never climb but once
+     You are in a conquered country, which is still more dangerous
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Zibeline, Complete, by Phillipe de Massa
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