Chapter III
The dinner at Passy resulted in several things. Fontaine and Claire could no longer conceal their infatuation with each other, and a tacit engagement ensued, to be announced as soon as Fontaine could free himself wholly from Madame Fleury,—which meant, as soon as she gave up the pursuit of him.
The two friends had escaped from under the roof of 17 Rue Montignal by the exercise of an ingenuity akin to that which enables men to dig under castle walls, to steal past sentries, and to find their way over prison gates. They secretly hired another lodging, and, to avoid suspicion, made no move toward paying their rent to Madame Fleury, in spite of their coming into ready money. This apparent absence of cash led her to believe, more than ever, that the story of the rich uncle was an invention of Marsac’s. They had little to move, except their new clothes and Uncle Maurice’s portrait. For a week before their flight, every day they came downstairs whistling, and wearing two and sometimes three suits of clothes, which they shed, as a snake sheds his skin, at their new lodgings. At last, in the dead of night, they crept softly out of their apartment, leaving on the table a note addressed to Madame Fleury, enclosing the full amount of their indebtedness; and stealing downstairs,—Marsac with his violin case, and Fontaine with Uncle Maurice’s portrait,—they gained the street, where they ran as if Satan were after them.
Madame Fleury’s chagrin next morning was excessive, particularly when she read the note, in which Marsac thanked her ironically for her hospitality to them. She had not the smallest clew to their whereabouts, but she went to work quietly to find them out. Meanwhile, Marsac and Fontaine, having her out of sight, were not disposed to trouble themselves further about her; but old Duval naturally wished his daughter to avoid any scandal which might arise over the affair, and was very solicitous that Madame Fleury be settled with. “Let sleeping dogs lie,” was Marsac’s motto; and he was not inclined to hunt up Madame Fleury in order to get a formal release from her.
Meanwhile, the catastrophe indicated at the very first meeting between Marsac and Delphine had fallen out in the most violent manner. They fell mutually in love, with a precipitance to which even Claire and Fontaine’s ardour was not a patch. But although there was disaffection in the citadel of both their hearts, pride and policy made a brave show of defence when really each only waited the demand from the other to surrender. Marsac dared not propose to Delphine that to secure himself the charm of her society he enslave her in marriage. To ward off the suspicions which might arise in her mind from the sly jokes and hints of the two confessed lovers, he gibed at marriage more keenly than ever. Delphine, who was not a whit behind Marsac in falling in love, scorned to be outdone, and railed at love and marriage, quoted Plato and Nordau, and made herself miserable in a manner truly feminine.
Old Duval was bent on the match between his daughter and Fontaine,—the more so, as Marsac informed him confidentially that Fontaine had two more uncles in America, and an aged and infirm aunt, all of whom intended to make him their heir, and each of whom was over eighty years of age.
The two young men were much at Passy, and the invitations elsewhere which they had once been forced to invent now really existed. The whole face of existence, indeed, was changed for them,—for Marsac as for Fontaine. Fontaine had always thought Marsac the cleverest fellow in the world, and he now ranked him with Napoleon and Alexander the Great. The play had been produced, and was immensely successful; the picture had been exhibited, and highly praised; while at the journalists’ dinner, Marsac’s speech delivered by Fontaine had marked Fontaine forever as a born after-dinner speaker and a man of esprit. This last reputation was amply confirmed by the brilliant articles, signed by Fontaine and written by Marsac, which sparkled three times a week upon the pages of “La Lune.” In short, it appeared as if the mere report of a fortune of two million francs was enough to produce two million francs. But the real fact was that Marsac, hitherto an unappreciated genius, had risen to the great occasion offered him, and his success was not that of a charlatan. It was that of a man of parts, accomplishments, and that large generosity which does a good thing and troubles not that the world gives the credit to some one else. And as everybody believed in the defunct Uncle Maurice, Fontaine and Marsac actually seemed to be deceived by their own illusion, and would talk quite gravely between themselves of Uncle Maurice,—his tastes, his habits, and his appearance. As for the real Uncle Maurice, nothing more had been heard of him, and the two young men easily persuaded themselves that nothing would. In any event, they did not intend to cross the bridge until they came to it; and some of the advantages gained by the fictitious uncle were of so solid a nature that even if Uncle Maurice turned up, he could not rob them of the entire fruits of their scheme.
One bright evening early in May, they had dined at Passy, and after dinner sat, with the two girls and old Duval, on the terrace. The evening was warm for the season, and coffee was served out of doors. After a while Delphine, who carried a volume of Plato about with her as her oriflamme of battle, asked Marsac to read something to them from the great philosopher. This Marsac promptly agreed to, if Delphine would hold a candle,—which would be necessary in the fading light. As it brought Delphine’s golden head quite close to Marsac’s closely cropped brown one, she consented willingly. Old Duval, who had but a poor opinion of Plato, sauntered off to the other end of the terrace, close by the hedge which overlooked the high-road. A table with coffee, iced champagne, and cigars mitigated his solitude. Afar off in the dark illumined by the wax candle which looked like a firefly, Marsac read Plato aloud, with assent on his lips and contradiction in his heart. Fontaine and Claire, exchanging laughing glances, varied by an occasional tender pressure of the hands, half listened; while Delphine, happy to be near Marsac, and smiling at him, yet cherished bitterness against him in her heart for his professed disdain of love.
Presently Monsieur Duval was heard calling, “Monsieur Marsac!” Marsac, to whom Plato had become well-nigh intolerable, laid the book down with a vicious slam, and walked to the other end of the terrace, where they were almost out of sight and hearing.
“Come,” said the old man, good-humouredly, “haven’t you had enough of that old fool Plato?”
“My dear Monsieur Duval, you horrify me, you pain me!” responded Marsac, in a shocked voice. “Plato—the divine Plato—may go to the devil,” was his inward conclusion.
“Well, well,” continued Monsieur Duval, “we won’t say anything more on the subject, since you and Delphine are so touchy about it. Take a glass of champagne,—you like it?”
“I am not afraid of it,” said Marsac, pouring out a glass.
Monsieur Duval sighed, fidgeted, and then burst out with, “Do you know, I am afraid—I am afraid I have been to blame in letting my daughter and Monsieur Fontaine see so much of each other, while matters are still so uncertain about the Comtesse de Fleury; for I see the two young people are deeply in love with each other. Now,” he continued, with a smile, “there is no such danger for you and Delphine, for I believe you talk about nothing except the folly of loving and being loved.”
“True,” responded Marsac, gloomily, and trying to drown in champagne the resentment he felt at the scurvy trick which fate had played him.
“Monsieur Fontaine is a very gifted young fellow,” said Monsieur Duval.
“He is,” replied Marsac, with enthusiasm.
“That picture he painted—”
“Admirable!”
“I have no objections to a man’s knowing something about art, if he can sell his pictures,” said Monsieur Duval, with cautious praise. “There was—ahem—Michael Angelo, for example—”
“Michael Angelo was a devil of a fellow with a brush and a paint-pot; but the man who painted Fontaine’s picture wasn’t far behind him.”
“And that play?”
“Literally, a screaming success. The women are carried out in hysterics at every performance. One of them, we hoped, would die from excitement. It would have been worth five thousand francs’ advertising. But, unfortunately, she recovered just when our prospects seemed brightest.”
“And the speech at the journalists’ dinner—”
“The greatest effort of my—I mean, of Fontaine’s life.”
“Those signed articles are making a sensation.”
“Ah, yes; many a night have I sat up writing—that is, reading those articles. Depend upon it, the things that go under Fontaine’s name are very remarkable.”
At that moment a footman approached, and handed Marsac a card, saying, “The lady asked for Monsieur Fontaine.”
Marsac was about to hand the card back, when he happened to see on it “Madame Fleury.”
“Stop!” he cried instantly; “give me a moment to think. Monsieur Duval, here is the Comtesse de Fleury come after Fontaine! She must not see him!”
Monsieur Duval jumped up, flurried, and anxious to be out of the way at the coming scene. “Good heavens! Let me get away. I must keep my poor child out of sight. And Fontaine—” Monsieur Duval waddled off, making remarkably good time for a gentleman of his years, but returned to say impressively, “Take care she doesn’t bamboozle you. You need two pairs of eyes to watch, and four legs to run away, where a widow is concerned;” and then he disappeared.
“Show the lady here,” said Marsac, with assumed calmness, and at the same time taking another glass of champagne to steady his nerves.
In a minute or two he saw Madame Fleury’s imposing figure advancing along the gravelled walk, and then she had mounted the terrace steps and was gliding over the velvet turf toward him. As usual, she was perfectly well dressed. Her bonnet was set on her head with the grace of a coronet. In one hand she carried a parasol, and in the other a silver card-case. Marsac advanced politely to meet her, and the two exchanged bows, as pugilists shake hands on entering the ring.
Madame Fleury lost no time in proceeding to business. “Monsieur Marsac, I have been at a great deal of trouble to find you; but, as you see, I have succeeded. I wish to see Monsieur Fontaine in regard to the engagement between us.”
“Is there an engagement between you?” asked Marsac, innocently. “Of what nature, may I ask?”
Madame Fleury smiled scornfully at Marsac’s pretended ignorance. “If it be true that he has come into a fortune, then I am the more determined that our contract shall be fulfilled on the 15th of this month. I acknowledge, though, that I have not yet been able to persuade myself fully of this old uncle’s death, or even of his previous existence, because you have had too much to do with the affair.”
“This, indeed, is humiliating,” said Marsac, with an offended air. “But, Madame, uncle or no uncle, let me beg of you to give up this pursuit of Fontaine. He loves another woman,—perhaps not so beautiful or attractive as you, but still he loves her. I can invent some plausible story to account for your coming here. I will introduce Monsieur Duval to you; he will, I guarantee, offer to send you back to Paris in a superb victoria.”
“No, I thank you.”
“In a brougham, then. The brougham is very handsome. I will also introduce you as the Comtesse de Fleury—think of that!—coming from Paris as Madame Fleury in a cab, returning as the Comtesse de Fleury in a splendid private carriage!”
Madame Fleury only laughed a little at this. “I know what your offers to serve me mean, and also how much good-will you owe me.”
“Do you doubt, Madame, that I have the very highest regard for you? Try me. There is, just behind the house, a well sixty feet deep, and the water of an icy coldness. Just you jump in, and see how quickly I will jump in after you to save you.”
Madame Fleury laughed more than ever as she declined this, and said banteringly, “How could I believe you, considering that when I made you an offer you refused me?”
“Oh, Madame Fleury!” cried Marsac, actually hanging his head, “surely I said my affections were engaged—or—or I asked time for consideration—or I was too young to marry—or something of the sort. I did not put it in that brutally frank fashion in which you represent me.”
“Yes, you did,” replied Madame Fleury. “But I like your proposition that I shall meet Monsieur Duval. I know a good deal about him and his family, but I have never seen him, and this is an admirable opportunity.”
The world called Marsac a clever man, but at that moment he felt himself to be the greatest lunkhead in existence. What had he mentioned old Duval’s name for? And at that very moment the old brewer’s curiosity having got the better of his cowardice, he was seen advancing across the terrace. There was no help for it; and Marsac, with a very bad grace, had to present him to the widow.
Madame Fleury was a perfect mistress of the art of coquetry as applied to elderly gentlemen. She turned her eyes upon Monsieur Duval with a melting glance that would have put a younger man on his guard. Not so Monsieur Duval. It had been a long time since a woman so young and handsome had made eyes at him, and he relished it exceedingly. All his precautions against widows were thrown to the four winds of heaven. Marsac almost groaned aloud as he saw, in five minutes’ talk, the widow sailing into the old fellow’s good graces. Monsieur Duval offered Madame Fleury a glass of champagne; and when the two sat down together on a rustic bench, Marsac was so overcome with chagrin at the chance he had given his enemy that he turned his back and walked toward the edge of the terrace.
Madame Fleury improved her opportunity. She drew closer to Monsieur Duval, and from tapping his hand gently with her card-case soon grew to letting her hand rest on his, while she poured into his ears the story of her alleged engagement to Fontaine. According to her account, Fontaine had pursued her, and by his importunity had made her consent to an engagement, which he now refused to fulfil. Her desire for a settlement of the question was simply to avoid scandal; and she dwelt so upon the impossibility of her feeling any affection for so young a man as Fontaine, and the chance she sacrificed of meeting a man old enough to please her, that old Duval began seriously to fear that his own age—sixty-seven—was callow and immature.
After fifteen minutes of this had gone on, Marsac turned round and glanced at the pair. It was still light enough to see. Madame Fleury had reached the weeping stage. Her left hand pressed a handkerchief to her eyes, while Monsieur Duval patting her right was saying tenderly,—
“There, there, don’t cry.”
“Ah, if one has a heart, one must suffer,” murmured Madame Fleury, with a beautiful little sob, and pressing a lace-trimmed handkerchief to her eyes. “And I have a heart too impulsive, a nature too unsophisticated.”
“I see it, I know it,” was old Duval’s fervent answer. “It is that charming simplicity, that inability to take care of your dear little self, that wins upon me.”
“I am so weak,” whispered Madame Fleury, squeezing his hand. “Pray, forgive me. You are so good—I know you are so good.”
“Yes, yes, I’ll forgive you,” Marsac heard old Duval answer, although what he was forgiving her he could not have told to save his life; “and it is a thousand shames that any man should cause that innocent little heart of yours to ache. Now, wouldn’t it be better for all parties if you and Fontaine could separate amicably? And then you might find some other man that you could love.” Old Duval, at this, stuck his head sentimentally on one side.
“A mature man, Monsieur Duval,” said Madame Fleury, wiping her eyes. “I have had enough of young men. It is impossible for me to feel a passionate regard for any man under sixty-five, at the least.”
At this, old Duval assumed a seraphic air, which fairly made Marsac, who could see it all, perfectly ill with disgust. Nevertheless, knowing that Madame Fleury and her victim both wished him out of the way, he continued to stand his ground stoutly, walking up and down and whistling loudly and contemptuously, as their voices sank to the sentimental pitch. Presently he saw Madame Fleury take carefully out of her card-case a folded slip of paper, which she read in a low voice to the old brewer. Marsac’s heart jumped into his mouth at the thought that it was the marriage contract she was reading.
Monsieur Duval kept looking toward Marsac with the evident desire to get rid of him. Presently he rose and walked over to where Marsac stood, and began to whisper in an embarrassed manner,—
“I say, Monsieur Marsac—pray pardon me for asking—would you—er—ah—be kind enough to tell me—excuse me for inquiring—” Here the old fellow burst out explosively: “What the devil are you sticking here for?”
“Because,” answered Marsac, “I thought you would like the protection of my presence, under the circumstances.”
“Well—I don’t.”
“And then, it occurred to me that you had once suggested I should myself make an offer to Madame Fleury. The lady is here; also the moon, nightingales, flowers, and other incentives to romance.”
“I withdraw that suggestion, Monsieur Marsac.”
“I have not asked to have it withdrawn, Monsieur Duval.”
“O-o-o-h!” groaned old Duval. Then, suddenly, the absurdity of Marsac’s making love to any woman overcame him, and he burst out, laughing: “This tickles me under the fifth rib! Delphine must know it.”
It was now Marsac’s turn to be chagrined.
“My dear sir,” he cried, “I beg of you not to mention it to Mademoiselle Delphine. It was a mere idle remark. As you have frequently heard me say, my ideal of a woman is a Platonist. I would not marry any other, and no Platonist would marry me; so you perceive the utter baselessness of my language.”
“I do,” answered old Duval, looking much relieved, “and I hope you’ll stick to it. Now, I’ll return to that poor woman yonder;” which he immediately proceeded to do. Within two minutes he said in a loud voice, meant for Marsac to hear, “Come, Madame, let us look for Fontaine in the garden.”
The two walked off, round the corner of the terrace, in a direction opposite to the garden.
Marsac knew in an instant that Madame Fleury’s manœuvre meant a chance to finish up old Duval in private, as a tigress drags her prey off to the jungle to devour. Marsac then looked carefully around him, and seeing that he was quite unobserved, he took from his pocket the copy of Plato out of which he had been reading to Delphine, and giving the book a vicious kick, sent it spinning to the other end of the terrace. “Villain,” “scoundrel,” “dolt,” “rascal,” “idiot,” were a few of the expletives that he hurled after the greatest of the Greeks. Then he walked over to the corner of the terrace where the table was, as the best point to command a view of the grounds, and seeing a champagne bottle half emptied was about to drink the balance of the wine in order to save it, when his eye suddenly fell upon a paper lying face upward on the table. It was the contract between Fontaine and Madame Fleury. Marsac could scarcely restrain a shout of joy. He seized it and put it in his pocket; but the next moment he saw Madame Fleury crossing swiftly toward him, and alone.
“Pardon me,” she said in a voice that she tried unavailingly to make calm. “I had a letter here a moment ago, in an envelope. I put the envelope back in my card-case, and thought I had the letter in it, but I have not. Did you see it on the ground anywhere about here?”
“No, Madame,” answered Marsac, looking her steadily in the eye,—a gaze which she as steadily returned.
Madame Fleury began eagerly searching on the ground for the letter, Marsac politely assisting, and lighting matches from time to time to supply the fast-vanishing light. Marsac never had so hard a task in his life as to keep his countenance straight while he fondled the breast-pocket in which lay the document that Madame Fleury searched for so eagerly.
Madame Fleury grew more and more anxious as she failed to find the paper. They were both tired with stooping, and presently sat down on the ground, facing each other, and each steadily eying the other.
“It is so vexatious to lose a letter,” said Madame Fleury.
“Yes; one might lose a love-letter,” hazarded Marsac.
“Not you, Monsieur Marsac,” replied Madame Fleury, sarcastically.
“True; I am not a widow,” was Marsac’s response to this shot.
Then they both began crawling round again, watching each other like cats. An idea came into Marsac’s head which almost made him laugh aloud. With a great show of secrecy, he took an old bill of Landais’s from his pocket, and began to tear it up into little bits, which he scattered about. Madame Fleury saw the bits, and with as much secrecy as Marsac she began to collect them, smiling to herself: she was convinced that Marsac was tearing up the contract. Presently, Marsac lighting another match dropped it, as if by accident, upon a little pile of these pieces of paper. Madame Fleury pretended to stumble against him, nearly knocking him over, and then deftly secured the half-burned scraps. They each sat on the ground and surveyed the other with an air of triumph.
“Never mind about the letter,” said Madame Fleury with a brilliant smile, clutching her precious scraps in her gloved hand; and then they both laughed.
Madame Fleury rose, and shaking her skirts into place, said, “I have not seen Monsieur Fontaine; but I am not ill-satisfied with my visit.”
“May I have the pleasure of escorting you to your carriage?” asked Marsac.
“No, no!” cried Madame Fleury, hastily; “I have promised Monsieur Duval that he shall put me in the carriage.”
A grinding of wheels on the roadway beneath them and behind the tall hedge was now heard, and Madame Fleury flew down the terrace steps as lightly as the swallow skims the ground; and then Marsac heard a vehicle rattle off. He could hardly wait until the carriage was half-way down the drive before shouting in his delight for Fontaine. But Fontaine and Claire and Delphine were all peeping round the verandah; and seeing that Madame Fleury was gone, all three came trooping toward Marsac.
“My dear fellow,” cried Marsac, in a tone of suppressed rapture, as he took out the contract, “here is that cursed paper. She has gone off with a lot of half-burned scraps of an old bill of Landais’s which she thinks is this contract.”
Fontaine, without a word, hugged Marsac according to custom; and Claire showed such an evident inclination to do the same that Marsac gave her a truly brotherly embrace, to which Fontaine made no objection.
“Here,” Marsac said, tearing the paper, “is half of it for you, Fontaine, and dear Claire; the other half is for Mademoiselle Delphine and me. And,” he added timidly, “we will have a marriage contract between us.”
“To be destroyed,” answered Delphine, supplying what she supposed Marsac meant.
Then, with laughter and little jokes, and blushes on Claire’s part, the contract was destroyed. Never were four persons merrier, until Claire suddenly asked,—
“Where is papa?”
At that moment Marsac happened to glance toward the high-road that crossed a hill about a mile off. The sunset glow was still upon the hill, and Marsac’s keen eyes recognised Monsieur Duval’s victoria, with Madame Fleury in it; and that stout figure in nankeen trousers and gaiters, with the Panama hat on his lap, could be no other than old Duval. The situation flashed upon them. Madame Fleury had bamboozled the old man into taking her back to town in one of his own carriages. Marsac could only point in silent consternation to the carriage. The two girls burst into hysterical tears. Marsac, throwing himself into a chair, groaned aloud; while Fontaine alone, although pretending to be grieved, felt perfectly willing to get rid of Madame Fleury at any price, even by presenting her with the head of his prospective father-in-law on a charger,—after the manner of Herodias, another enterprising would-be widow of a good many years ago.