NOVELS

BY

GEORGE SAND




VOLUME XIII


ANTONIA




THE JEFFERSON PRESS
BOSTON, NEW YORK


[Illustration 01: _THE LOVERS' TRYST_
_They sat there in the darkness, amid bushes laden
with flowers, in the splendor of early summer, which
retains all the charm of spring._]


CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
THE LOVERS' TRYST
JULIEN'S RUSE
A DISTURBED CONFERENCE
JULIEN ESCORTS MADAME D'ESTRELLE
JULIE AT THE CONVENT AT CHAILLOT
THE CHRISTENING OF THE LILY




ANTONIA




_To M. EDOUARD RODRIGUES_

To you who adopt orphan children, and who do good
modestly, with both hands and at sight, as you read Mozart
and Beethoven.

GEORGE SAND




I


The time was the month of April, 1785, and the place Paris, where the
spring that year was a genuine spring. The garden was in holiday attire,
the greensward was studded with marguerites, the birds were singing, and
the lilacs grew so straight and so close to Julien's window, that their
fragrant clusters actually entered his room and strewed the white tiled
floor of his studio with their little violet crosses.

Julien Thierry was a painter of flowers, like his father André Thierry,
renowned under Louis XV. in the art of decorating spaces over doors,
dining-room panels and boudoir ceilings. Those dainty ornaments became,
under his skilful hands, objects of genuine, serious art, so that the
artisan had became an artist, highly esteemed by people of taste,
handsomely paid, and a person of much consideration in society. Julien,
his pupil, had confined himself to painting on canvas. The fashion of
his time frowned upon the fanciful and charming decorations of the
Pompadour style. The Louis XVI. style was more severe; flowers were no
longer strewn upon walls and ceilings, but were framed. Julien, then,
painted flower and fruit pieces of the Mignon variety, mother-of-pearl
shells, multi-colored butterflies, green lizards and drops of dew. He
had much talent, he was handsome, he was twenty-four years old, and his
father had left him nothing but debts.

André Thierry's widow was there in the studio where Julien was at work,
and where the clusters of lilac shed their petals under the soft touch
of a warm breeze. She was a woman of sixty, well-preserved, with eyes
that were still beautiful, hair almost black, and slim, delicate hands.
Short, slight, pale, dressed poorly, but with studied neatness, Madame
Thierry was knitting mittens, and from time to time raised her eyes to
glance at her son, who was absorbed in the study of a rose.

"Julien," she said, "why is it, I wonder, that you don't sing now when
you are working? You might induce the nightingale to let us hear his
voice."

"Listen, mother, there he is now," Julien replied. "He doesn't need
anybody to give him the key."

And at that moment they did in fact hear the pure, sweet and resonant
notes of the nightingale for the first time that year.

"Ah! so he has come!" exclaimed Madame Thierry. "To think that a whole
year has passed!--Can you see him, Julien?" she asked, as the young man,
putting aside his work, scrutinized the shrubs massed in front of the
window.

"I thought I saw him," he replied with a sigh, "but I was mistaken."

And he returned to his easel. His mother watched him more closely, but
she dared not question him.

"Never mind," she began after a few moments, "you have a beautiful voice
too, and I used to love to hear you sing the pretty ballads your poor
father sang so well--only last year at just this time!"

"Yes," Julien replied, "you insist on my singing them, and then you
weep. No, I don't propose to sing any more!"

"I won't weep, I promise you! Sing me a lively one, and I will laugh--as
if he were here!"

"No! don't ask me to sing. It makes me feel sad too! Later, later! it
will come back gradually. Let us not force our sorrow!"

"Julien, we must not talk about sorrow any more," said the mother in a
tone of gentle but indubitably strong determination. "I was a little
weak at the beginning; you will forgive me, won't you? To lose thirty
years of happiness in a day! But I ought to have reflected that you lost
more than I did, because I still have you, while I am good for nothing
except to love you."

"And what more can I want?" said Julien, kneeling in front of his
mother. "You love me as no one else will ever love me, I know! and I do
not say that you were weak. You concealed from me at least half of your
suffering, I saw it and understood it. I gave you full credit for it,
never fear, and I thank you for it, my dear mother! You sustained me
when I needed it sadly; for I suffered on your account at least as much
as on my own, and, when I saw how brave you were, I was always certain
that God would perform a miracle to keep you alive and well for me,
despite the most cruel of trials. He owed us that much, and He did it.
Now, mother, you do not feel weak and disheartened any more, do you?"

"Now, my child, I am really happy. You are right in thinking that God
sustains those who do not despair, and that He gives strength to those
who pray to Him for it with all their hearts. Do not think that I am
unhappy; I have wept bitterly; but how could I do otherwise? he was so
lovely, so kind to us! and he always seemed to be so happy! He might
have lived a long while--but that was not God's will. I have had such a
beautiful life that I really had no right to ask for anything more. And
see what the divine goodness has left me! the best and most dearly loved
of sons! Should I complain? Should I pray for death? No, no! I will join
your dear father when my time comes, and he will say to me: 'You did
well to remain on earth as long as you could, and not leave our beloved
son too soon.'"

"So you see," said Julien, putting his arms around his mother, "that we
are no longer unhappy, and that there is no need for me to sing to
divert our thoughts. We can think of him without bitterness and of each
other without selfishness."

They remained in a close embrace for an instant, then returned to their
respective occupations.

This took place in Rue de Babylone, in a sort of pavilion, already very
old, for it dated from the reign of Louis XIII., and stood by itself at
the end of the street, whose most modest structure--and at the same time
the one nearest the said pavilion--was the house, to-day torn down,
which was then called the hôtel d'Estrelle.

While Julien and his mother were engaged in the conversation we have
just reported, two other persons were talking in a dainty little salon
of the aforesaid hôtel d'Estrelle, a cool, homelike apartment,
decorated in the style of the last years of Louis XVI., a pretty bastard
Greek style, a little stiff in outline, but harmonious in tone and set
off by much gilding against a pearl-white ground. The Comtesse
d'Estrelle was simply dressed in a half-mourning gown of gray silk, and
her friend the Baronne d'Ancourt in a morning visiting costume--that is
to say, in an elaborate combination of muslins, ribbons and lace.

"Dear heart," she was saying to the countess, "I don't understand you at
all. You are twenty years old; you are as beautiful as the Loves, and
you persist in living in solitude like the wife of a petty bourgeois!
You have put off your mourning, and everybody knows that you had no
reason to regret your husband, the least regrettable of mankind. He left
you a fortune; that is the only reasonable thing he ever did in his
life."

"And as to that, my dear baroness, you are entirely mistaken. The
fortune the count left me is overburdened with debts; I was told that,
by making a few sacrifices and depriving myself of some luxuries, I
might clear myself in a few years. So I accepted the succession without
looking into it very carefully, and the result is that to-day, after two
years of uncertainty and long explanations of which I did not understand
a word, my new solicitor, who is a very honorable man, assures me that I
have been deceived and that I am much nearer being poor than rich. The
case is so serious, my dear, that I have been in consultation with him
this morning to decide whether or not I could keep this house."

"What! sell your house! Why, that is impossible, my dear! It would be a
stain on your husband's memory. His family will never consent to that."

"His family say that they will not consent, but they also say that they
will not help me in any way. What do they want, and what do they expect
me to do?"

"They are a detestable family!" cried the baroness, "but I ought not to
be astonished at anything that the old marquis and his bigot of a wife
may do!"

At that moment Monsieur Marcel Thierry was announced.

"Show him in," said the countess; and she added, addressing the
baroness: "it is the very person of whom I was just speaking--my
solicitor."

"In that case I will leave you."

"That is not necessary. He has but a word to say to me, and as you know
my plight----"

"And am deeply interested in it. I will remain."

The solicitor entered.

He was a man of about forty, balder than was natural at his age, but
with a pleasant face, good-humored and frank, although remarkably shrewd
and even satirical. One could see that much experience of the conduct of
men at odds with their selfish interests had made him thoroughly
practical, perhaps sceptical, but that it had not destroyed his ideal of
uprightness and sincerity, which he was all the better able to recognize
and appreciate.

"Well, Monsieur Thierry," said the countess, motioning to a chair, "is
there anything new since this morning that you have taken the trouble to
return?"

"Yes, madame," the solicitor replied, "there is something new. Monsieur
le Marquis d'Estrelle sent his man of business to me with an offer which
I have accepted in your behalf, subject to your assent, which I have
come to obtain. He suggests coming to your assistance by turning over a
few unimportant pieces of property, the total value of which, to be
sure, will not pay all the debts which are hanging over you, but which
will allay your anxieties for a moment and delay the sale of your house
by enabling you to give your creditors something on account."

"Something _on account!_ Is that all?" cried the Baroness d'Ancourt
indignantly. "That is all that the Estrelle family can do for the widow
of a spendthrift? Why, it is a perfect outrage, monsieur le procureur!"

"It is at the best a pitifully mean performance," rejoined Marcel
Thierry; "I wasted my eloquence, and this is where we stand. As madame
la comtesse has no fortune of her own, she is forced, in order to retain
even a paltry dower, to submit to the conditions imposed by a family
devoid of consideration and generosity."

"Say of heart and honor!" exclaimed the baroness.

"Say nothing at all," added the countess, who had listened with a
resigned expression. "The family is what it is; it is not for me to pass
judgment on them, bearing their name as I do. In every other respect I
am a stranger to them, and lamentations would come with a very bad grace
from me, for I alone am to blame."

"You to blame!" repeated the solicitor, with an incredulous smile.

"Yes," continued Madame d'Estrelle. "I have committed one great sin in
my life. I consented to that marriage, against which my heart and my
instincts rebelled. I was a coward! I was a mere child, and they gave me
my choice between a convent and a disagreeable husband; I was afraid of
everlasting seclusion, so I accepted the everlasting humiliation of an
ill-assorted marriage. I did as so many other women have done, I thought
that wealth would take the place of happiness. Happiness! I did not
know, I have never known what it is. I was told that it consisted, above
all things, in riding in a carriage, wearing diamonds, and having a box
at the opera. My head was turned, I was intoxicated, put to sleep with
presents. I must not say that my hand was forced, for that would not be
true. To be sure there were locks and bolts and bars, imprisonment for
life in the cloister, before me in case of refusal; but there was
neither axe nor executioner, and I might have said no if I had had any
courage. But we have none, my dear baroness, we may as well admit it; we
women cannot make up our minds to resign frankly, and conceal our
spring-time under the veil of a nun, which, however, would be more
dignified, more honest and perhaps pleasanter in the end than to throw
ourselves into the arms of the first stranger who presents himself. That
then was my cowardice, my blindness, my folly, my vanity, my neglect of
myself--in a word, my sin! I hope never to commit another; but I cannot
forget that my punishment has come through my sin. I allowed puerile
ambition to dispose of my life, and to-day I see that I was deceived,
that I am not rich, that I must sell diamonds and horses, and that there
is great danger that before long I shall not have over my head the roof
of a house that bears my crest. That is as it should be--I feel it and
admit it; I am penitent, but I do not want to be pitied, and I shall
accept without discussion such alms as my husband's relations choose to
bestow upon me in order to save his honor."

A pause of amazement and emotion succeeded this declaration from Julie
d'Estrelle. She had spoken with ill-concealed distress, like one weary
of discussing pecuniary interests, who gives way to the craving to pass
her mental life in review and to discover the philosophical formula for
her situation. The proud Amélie d'Ancourt was more scandalized than
moved by an avowal which condemned her own ideas and the customs of her
caste; moreover, she considered this effusive outburst on her friend's
part, in the presence of a petty attorney, a little dangerous.

As for the attorney, he was sincerely touched; but he did not allow it
to appear, being accustomed to see such explosions of secret feeling
override the proprieties, even among people of the highest rank.

"My fair client is a sincere and touching creature," he said to himself;
"she is right to accuse herself; there is no human law which can force a
_yes_ from the mouth which is determined to say _no_. She sinned like
other women, because she longed for glittering gewgaws; but she sadly
admits it, and in that she shows herself superior to most of her
sisters. It is not for me to console her; I will confine myself to
saving her, if I can.--Madame," he said aloud, after turning over these
reflections in his mind, "you can augur better for your interests in the
future than in the past. The present shows that monsieur le marquis will
not easily make up his mind to set you free, but that he will not make
up his mind to abandon you in any event. The paltry assistance which he
offers you is not to be the last, so I was given to understand, and I am
certain of it. Wait a few months, allow his son's creditors to threaten
you, and you will find that he will put his hand in his pocket again to
prevent the sale of this house. Forget these worries, do not think of
moving, trust to time and circumstances."

"Very good, monsieur," said the baroness, who was in haste to give her
opinion and display her pride of rank. "That is very excellent advice of
yours; but, if I were in madame la countesse's place, I would not follow
it. I would flatly refuse these miserable little charities! Yes, indeed,
I should blush to accept them! I would go from this house with head
erect, and live in a convent; or, better still, I would go to some one
of my friends, Baronne d'Ancourt for example, and I would say to the
marquis and marchioness: 'Arrange matters to suit yourselves; I will let
the house be sold. I have incurred no debts, and I do not worry about
those left by monsieur your son. Pay them with the tattered remnants of
a fortune that he left me, and we will see whether you will put up with
the public spectacle of my destitution.'--Yes, my dear Julie, that is
what I would do, and I promise you that the marquis, who is very rich by
his second marriage, would retract these infamous propositions he makes
to-day."

"Does Madame la Comtesse d'Estrelle coincide with that opinion," said
the solicitor, "and am I to burn our bridges?"

"No," replied the countess. "Tell me in two words of what my
father-in-law's contribution consists, and, whatever it may be, I accept
it."

"It consists," replied Marcel Thierry, "of a small farm in the
Beauvoisis, worth about twenty thousand francs, and a very old, but not
badly dilapidated pavilion, situated on your street at the end of the
garden of your hôtel."

"Ah! that old pavilion of Richelieu's day?" said the countess
indifferently.

"A mere hovel!" said the baroness; "it is good for nothing but to pull
down!"

"Possibly," replied Marcel; "but the land has some value, and as the
street is being built up, you might find a purchaser for it."

"And allow a house to be built so near my own," said Julie, "overlooking
my garden, and almost overlooking my apartments."

"No, you would require that the house should turn its back to you and
_take the air_ from the street or from my uncle's garden."

"Who might your uncle be?" queried the baroness, with an indescribable
touch of contempt in her tone.

"Monsieur Marcel Thierry," said the countess, "is a near relative of my
wealthy neighbor, Monsieur Antoine Thierry, of whom you must certainly
have heard."

"Oh! yes, a former tradesman."

"An armorer," rejoined Marcel. "He made his fortune in the colonies
without ever setting foot on a ship, and, thanks to shrewd planning and
good luck, he made several millions in his chimney corner, you might
say."

"I congratulate him," replied the baroness. "And he lives in this
neighborhood?"

"His house faces the new court; but his garden is separated only by a
wall from the Comtesse d'Estrelle's, and the pavilion forms a sort of
elbow between the two estates. Now my uncle might purchase the pavilion,
either to straighten his own lines by destroying it, or to repair it and
turn it into a green-house or gardener's lodge."

"So the wealthy Monsieur Thierry has his eye on the pavilion," observed
the baroness, "and perhaps he has commissioned you----"

"He has commissioned me to do nothing," Marcel interrupted in a firm
tone. "He has no knowledge whatever of the affairs of my other clients."

"Then you are his solicitor also?"

"Naturally, madame la baronne; but that will not prevent me from making
him pay the highest possible price for whatever it may please madame la
comtesse to sell him, and he will not take it ill of me. He is too good
a man of business not to know the value of a piece of real estate that
he really wants."

"But I have not decided to sell the property we are talking about," said
the countess, emerging from a sort of vague reverie. "It does not annoy
me at all. It is occupied, I am told, by a most excellent person of
quiet habits."

"True, madame," said Marcel; "but the rent is so small that it will
increase your income very slightly. However, if you prefer to keep it,
it will be of use to you, in that it represents a substantial security
for the interest on your debts."

"We will talk about this again, Monsieur Thierry. I will think it over
and you will advise me further. Tell me the total amount of the gift to
be made to me."

"About thirty thousand francs."

"Should I express my thanks for it?"

"If I were in your place, I would do nothing of the kind!" cried the
baroness.

"Do so by all means," said the solicitor in an undertone. "A word of
amiable and modest resignation costs a heart like yours nothing at all."

The countess wrote two lines and handed them to Marcel.

"Let us hope," he said, as he rose to go, "that the Marquis d'Estrelle
will be touched by your gentleness."

"He is not a bad man," replied Julie, "but he is very old and feeble,
and his second wife governs him completely."

"She is a genuine plague spot, that ex-Madame d'Orlandes!" cried the
baroness.

"Do not speak ill of her, madame la baronne," retorted Marcel; "she
belongs to that society and entertains those opinions which you
certainly look upon as the law and the prophets."

"What is that, monsieur le procureur?"

"She abhors the new ideas and considers the privileges of birth the
blessed ark of tradition."

"Do not insult me by comparing me to that woman," said the baroness;
"that her ideas are all right is very possible; but her actions are all
wrong. She is miserly, and people say that she would even desert her
opinions for money."

"Oh! in that case," said Marcel, with an equivocal smile which Madame
d'Ancourt took for an act of homage, "I can understand that madame la
baronne must regard her with profound aversion."

He bowed and retired.

"That man is not by any means ill-bred!" said the baroness, who had
observed the dignified and respectful ease of his exit. "His name is
Thierry, you say?"

"Like his uncle's the rich man, and like his other uncle, much more
favorably known, Thierry the painter of flowers."

"Ah! the painter? I almost knew the excellent Thierry. My husband used
to receive him in the morning."

"Everybody received him at all hours, my dear love, at least all people
of taste and intelligence; for he was a charming old man, extremely well
educated and most agreeable in conversation."

"Baron d'Ancourt apparently lacks taste and intelligence, for he did not
choose to have him to dinner."

"I do not say that the baron lacks----"

"Say it, say it, I don't care; I know more about it than you do."

And, having delivered that double-edged retort, the baroness, who had a
sovereign contempt for her husband's intellect, but forgave him in
consideration of his eminent qualities in the matter of noble birth,
indulged in a hearty and good-humored peal of laughter.

"Let us return to these Thierrys," she said. "Do I understand that you
were well acquainted with the artist?"

"No, I did not know him. You know that Comte d'Estrelle fell sick
immediately after our marriage, that I went with him to take the waters,
and that as a matter of fact I have never received visitors at all, for
he simply languished and languished until he died."

"That is why you have never seen society and know nothing about it. Poor
dear, after sacrificing yourself for a brilliant life, you have known
nothing except the duties due to a dying man, the crêpe of mourning,
and the annoyances of business! Come, you must leave all this behind
you, my dear Julie; you must marry again."

"Ah! God forbid!" cried the countess.

"You propose to live alone and bury yourself, at your age? Impossible!"

"I cannot say that is to my taste, for I have no idea. I have
passed so entirely beside everything that goes to make up the life of
young women--marriage, wealth and liberty--that I am hardly acquainted
with myself. I know that I have consumed two years in ennui and
melancholy, and thus far in my solitude, except for these money
troubles, which are exceedingly distasteful to me, but which I do my
best to endure without bitterness, I find myself in a more tolerable
condition than in those through which I have previously passed. It may
be that my character lacks energy just as my mind lacks variety. Being
driven to some occupation to kill time, I have taken a liking to quiet
amusements. I read a great deal, I draw a little, I play on the piano, I
embroider, I write occasional letters to my old friends at the convent.
I receive four or five people of a serious turn of mind, but
good-tempered, and always the same, so that I am habitually placid and
free from excitement. In a word, I do not suffer, and I am not bored;
and that is a good deal to one who has always suffered or yawned with
ennui hitherto. So leave me as I am, my friend. Come to see me as often
as you can without interfering with your pleasures, and do not worry
about my lot, which is not so bad as it might be."

"All this will do very well for a while, my dear, and you act like a
woman of spirit by meeting misfortune with a stout heart; but all things
have their day, and you must not sacrifice too much of the age of beauty
and the advantages which it procures. You are not, be it said without
offence, of very exalted birth, but your unfortunate marriage gave you a
fine name and a title which placed you on a higher social level. You are
a widow, which enables you to go about and be seen and known, and you
have no children; so that you are still in all the bloom of your youth.
You have no fortune; but, as your dower, overladen with debts as it is,
will be no great loss, you can very well hold it cheap, and renounce it
for a more eligible suitor than the first. If you choose to put yourself
in my hands, I will undertake to arrange the sort of marriage for you to
which you have a perfect right to aspire."

"The sort of marriage? You surprise me; explain yourself!"

"I mean to say that you are too fascinating not to be married for love."

"Very good; but will it be someone whom I shall be able to love?"

"If the man, instead of being a spendthrift and a fool, is really rich
and well-born, for that is most important of all, and you cannot descend
socially without blame; if he has breeding, tact, and the instincts of a
man of quality; and, lastly, if he is an honorable man--what more can
you ask? You must not expect that he will be in his first youth, and
built like the hero of a novel.--We see but few of those magnificent
creatures who are disposed to select a person of great merit for her
lovely eyes; everybody is more or less hard up in these days!"

"I understand you," replied Madame d'Estrelle, with a sad smile. "You
wish me to marry some excellent old man, some friend of yours, for I do
not believe that you would propose a monster to me. Thanks, my dear
baroness, I don't propose again to hire myself out to an invalid for
large wages; for, to put things baldly, that is the sort of good-fortune
which you have in mind for me. But, although I should be capable of
waiting upon and nursing a father, if I had one, with the utmost
tenderness, or even an old friend who needed me, I am firmly resolved
never again to put my neck in the yoke of an infirm and morose stranger.
I conscientiously fulfilled those depressing duties to Monsieur
d'Estrelle, and everybody gave me credit for it. Now I am free, and I
propose to remain free. I have no relatives left--only a few friends. I
desire nothing more, and I ask you in all seriousness not to seek
happiness for me according to your ideas, which I do not share. You, my
friend, are still what I was at sixteen, when I was married. You have
retained the illusions which were dinned into my ears; you believe that
one cannot do without wealth and show, and, therefore, are younger than
I. So much the better for you, since fate has bound you to a husband who
denies you nothing. That is all that you need, is it not? But I should
be more exacting; I should like to love. You laugh? Ah! yes, I know your
theories. 'The honeymoon is short,' you have said to me a hundred times;
'but the golden moon is the light which never goes out.' For my part, I
am foolish enough to say to myself that on the first day of my married
life I propose to love and believe, even though it last but a day!
Otherwise, I know by experience, marriage is a shame and a martyrdom."

"If that is so," said the baroness, rising, "I leave you to your
reveries, my dear friend, and humbly beg pardon for interrupting them."

She took her leave somewhat piqued, for she was perspicacious, although
foolish, and she realized that the gentle-mannered Julie, in that
outbreak of rebellion, had told her a home-truth; but she was not
evil-minded, and an hour later had forgotten her spleen. Indeed, she
felt a little depressed, and at times was quite ready to say to herself:

"Perhaps Julie is right!"

Julie, on her part, felt that all her courage failed her as soon as she
was left alone, and her pride melted away in tears. She was strong only
as a result of nervous reactions, and perhaps of a more eager craving
for love than she confessed to herself. Naturally she was timid, even
shrinking. She knew the baroness's kind heart too well to fear a real
rupture with her; but she too said to herself:

"Perhaps Amélie is right! I seek the impossible, the surroundings of
rank and fortune in conjunction with love! Who ever obtains that? No one
in my position. For lack of the best, I may be going to fall into the
worst, which is solitude and sadness."

She took her parasol, one of those flat white parasols which produced a
prettier effect among the shrubbery than our modern mushrooms, and
placing the heels of her little slippers softly on the turf, her skirt
turned gracefully back over the straight petticoat, she strolled
pensively along under the lilac bushes in her garden, inhaling the air
of spring in silent misery, starting at the voice of the nightingale,
thinking of nobody, yet carried outside of herself by a boundless
aspiration.

She went from lilac to lilac until she drew near the pavilion, where, an
hour earlier, Julien Thierry, the painter's son, the rich man's nephew,
the solicitor's cousin, was at work. The garden was large for a garden
in Paris, and was beautiful, both as to its arrangement and its
contents. Every day Madame d'Estrelle walked around it two or three
times, casting a melancholy or loving glance at each of the flower-beds
with which the turf was studded. When she came in sight of the windows
of the Louis XIII. pavilion, she did not turn away nor worry about being
seen, for the pavilion had been long unoccupied. Julien and his mother
had been settled there only a month; Madame d'Estrelle had complained to
Marcel Thierry because the marquis, her father-in-law, being unwilling
to sacrifice the trifling revenue from so worthless a piece of property,
had let it to strange tenants. Marcel had reassured her by informing her
that the new tenant was the venerable and most respectable widow of his
uncle the artist. He had not mentioned Julien. It may be that the
countess did not know that the painter had left a son. At all events it
had not occurred to her to make inquiries about him. She had never seen
him at the windows, in the first place because she was very near-sighted
and the young women in those days did not wear glasses; and secondly,
because Julien, being informed of the proximity of a person of rigid
morals, had taken great pains not to show himself. Sometimes Madame
d'Estrelle had seen at the first floor window a pale, refined face
surmounted by a white cap, which saluted her with deferential reserve.
She had returned the sweet-faced widow's salutation pleasantly, even
with respect; but they had not as yet exchanged a word.

On this day Julie, seeing that the ground-floor window was partly open,
began to ask herself for the first time why she had not entered into
neighborly relations with Madame Thierry. She examined the wall of the
little building, and noticed that the door at the end of the garden was
locked on the outside, as when the house was unoccupied. Madame Thierry
could see nothing but the shrubbery, which concealed the countess's
mansion and a part of the principal lawn. She had no right even to sit
in the sunshine, along the wall of her house, under those flowering
shrubs which actually entered her rooms, and which she had no right to
prune. Moreover, she was forbidden, by the terms of her lease, to walk
on the gravelled walk that ran inside the street wall. In a word, the
door was condemned, and the tenant had made no vexatious demands on that
subject.

It is true that the countess had anticipated such a demand with the
determination to comply with it; but she had not noticed the feeling of
timidity or pride which prevented Madame Thierry from making it. She
thought of it on that day of self-condemnation, and reproached herself
for not forestalling the poor widow's presumed desire.

"If it had been some ruined great lady," she thought, "I should have
been careful not to forget the consideration due to age or misfortune.
There is another proof of what I was just saying to the baroness: our
minds are given a false direction and our hearts are withered by being
brought up in the prejudices of rank. I feel that I have been selfish
and discourteous in my treatment of this lady, who, as I have been told,
is eminently respectable and in very straitened circumstances. How can
I have forgotten a bounden duty? But here is an opportunity to make up
for everything, and I will not throw it away; for I long to make peace
with myself to-day."

The countess resolutely approached the window and coughed two or three
times as if to give notice of her presence; and as no one stirred she
ventured to tap on the glass.

Julien had gone out, but Madame Thierry was at home. Greatly surprised,
she came to the window, and, when she saw that beautiful lady whom she
knew perfectly well by sight, although she had never spoken to her, she
threw it wide open.

"Excuse me, madame," said the countess, "for choosing this method of
making your acquaintance; but I am not quite out of mourning yet, as you
see; I do not pay visits, and I have something to say to you with your
permission. Can you listen to me for a moment where you are?"

"Assuredly, madame, and with very great pleasure," replied Madame
Thierry in a dignified and amiable tone, and with a perfect ease of
manner in which there was nothing of the petty bourgeoise dazzled by an
overture from one of more exalted station.

The countess was deeply impressed by the distinction of her face, by the
excellent taste of her simple dress, by her sweet voice, and by an
indefinable savor of refinement exhaled by her whole person.

"Be seated, I beg," she said, spying the arm-chair in the window recess;
"I do not wish to keep you standing."

"But you, madame?" rejoined the widow with a smile. "Ah! I have an idea.
With your permission I will pass you a chair."

"No, do not take that trouble!"

"Yes, indeed! Here is a very light straw chair; and between us----"

Between them they succeeded in passing the chair over the window-sill,
one holding it, the other receiving it, and smiling both at that
unceremonious performance, which created a sort of intimacy between them
at once.

"This is what I had to say," said Madame d'Estrelle when she was seated.
"Hitherto, you have been living in a house belonging to the Marquis
d'Estrelle, my father-in-law; but to-day you are living in my house,
monsieur le marquis having presented it to me. I do not know as yet the
terms of your lease; but there is one which I presume you will consent
to modify."

"Be kind enough to tell me which one you refer to, madame la comtesse,"
replied the widow, bowing slightly, and with a faint cloud upon her face
in anticipation of some disagreement.

"I refer," said the countess, "to keeping this miserable door always
locked and bolted between us; it is a perfect eyesore to me. If you
consent, I propose to have it opened to-morrow. I will give you the
keys, and I invite you to walk in my garden for exercise or diversion as
much as you please. It will be a great pleasure to me to meet you here.
I live very much alone, and if you are willing to stop and rest
sometimes in the house I live in, I will do my utmost to prevent your
being dissatisfied with me as a neighbor."

Madame Thierry's face had lighted up. The countess's offer gave her
genuine pleasure. To have a beautiful garden under one's eyes every hour
in the day and not be able to set foot inside it, is a sort of torture.
Moreover, she was deeply touched by the graceful way in which the
invitation was given, and she realized at once that she had to do with a
lovable and noble-hearted woman. She thanked her with charming warmth,
abating nothing of the gentle dignity of her manners, and they at once
began to converse as if they had always known each other, the
instinctive sympathy between them was so quick and so entirely
reciprocal.

"You live alone, you say?" said Madame Thierry; "surely it is a merely
temporary condition of affairs, and not a matter of inclination?"

"It is partly because I shrink from society and distrust myself. Do you
like society, madame?"

"I do not hate it," said the widow. "I left it because I was in love; I
forgot it, then returned to it without an effort and without losing my
head. Then I left it again, from necessity and without regret. All this
seems a little obscure to you, does it not?"

"I know that Monsieur Thierry was in very comfortable circumstances and
had most desirable social connections; that he went into society and
received at his own house the very elite of persons of intellect."

"But you do not know of our earlier life? It made some noise at the
time; but that was a long while ago and you are so young!"

"Stay!" said the countess. "I beg your pardon for my forgetfulness. Now,
I remember: you are of noble birth?"

"Yes; I was Mademoiselle de Meuil, of a good old noble family of
Lorraine. Indeed I might have been quite wealthy if I had consented to
marry at the bidding of my guardians. I loved Monsieur Thierry, who was
then only a journeyman painter, without a name and without means. I left
everything, broke with everything, threw everything to the winds to
become his wife. Little by little he became famous, and just as he began
to earn money rapidly, I received my inheritance. So we were repaid for
our constancy, not only by thirty years of happiness, but by more or
less prosperity in our old age."

"And now----?"

"Oh! now it's a different story! I am happy still, but in another way. I
have lost my dearly loved companion, and with him all material comfort;
but I still have such great consolation----"

She was about to mention her son, when a servant in livery came and
informed the countess that her old friend Madame Desmorges was waiting
for her in the house.

"To-morrow," said Julie as she rose to go, "we will talk at our ease, in
your house or mine. I am anxious to know all about you, for I feel that
I love you dearly. Forgive me for saying it so bluntly, but it is the
truth! I must go to receive an elderly lady whom I cannot keep waiting;
but I will give orders now for the workmen to come here to-morrow and
open your prison door."

Madame Thierry was enchanted with Madame d'Estrelle. She was a woman of
keen and spontaneous sympathies, still young in heart and full of
enthusiasm, because she had lived in the enthusiastic atmosphere that
surrounds a beloved artist, and she was more or less romantic, as a
woman must be who has sacrificed everything to love. In the first flush
of excitement, she would have told her son what had happened; but he was
not there, and she exerted her ingenuity to arrange for him the same
surprise she had enjoyed. Many times, as they were passing from
comparative opulence to their present straitened and harassing
condition, Julien had taken alarm at the privations with which his
mother was threatened. They had had a pretty little cottage at Sèvres,
with a fine garden, where Madame Thierry tended lovingly with her own
hands the flowers which her husband and son used as models. They had had
to sell everything. Julien's heart ached when he saw the poor old woman
confined in Paris, in that pavilion, which they hired at a very modest
rate. He hoped at first that they could enjoy the surrounding gardens;
but the lease informed him that neither the Marquis d'Estrelle, their
landlord, nor the wealthy Monsieur Thierry, their near neighbor and near
kinsman, would allow them to walk elsewhere than in the street, which
was always filled with workmen and with materials for buildings under
construction.

"He complained bitterly of that condemned door," said Madame Thierry to
herself, as she thought of her son. "A score of times he has had an idea
of going and asking the countess to remove the prohibition for my
benefit, promising on his honor that he himself would never cross the
threshold of the pavilion. I have always dissuaded him from taking a
step which might have subjected us to humiliation. How glad he will be
to see me at liberty! But how shall I arrange matters to give him a
little surprise? Suppose I should send him on an errand to-morrow
morning, while the workmen are here?"

She was arranging her plan in her head, when Julien came home to dinner.
The straw chair was still in the garden near the window. Madame
d'Estrelle had placed her white parasol on the ground against the chair,
and had forgotten to take it. Madame Thierry had gone into the kitchen
to tell her only servant, a strapping Norman wench, to bring in the
chair. So Julien saw those two objects, without any previous warning. He
divined without comprehending; his head swam, his heart beat fast, and
his mother found him so confused, so excited, so strange, that she was
frightened, thinking that something had happened to him.

"What is it, in heaven's name?" she cried, running to him.

"Nothing, mother," said Julien, after a slight struggle with himself to
overcome his emotion. "I hurried home and I was very warm, so that the
cool air of the studio gave me a chill. I am hungry, let's have dinner;
you can explain to me at the table the meaning of this visit you have
received."

He took in the chair, unfolded and refolded the parasol, and kept it in
his hands a long while, with an affectation of indifference; but his
hands trembled, and he could not meet his mother's eyes.

"_Mon Dieu!_" she said to herself, "can it be that this increase of
melancholy during the past fortnight, this refusal to sing, these
stifled sighs, this peculiar behavior, this sleeplessness and loss of
appetite are due to--But he doesn't know her, he has hardly seen her in
the distance. Oh! my poor child, can it be possible?"

They took their places at the table. Julien questioned his mother calmly
enough. She described the countess's visit with much discretion,
restraining the impulse of her heart, which would have made her eloquent
on the subject, had it not been for the discovery she had made, or the
danger she began to foresee.

Julien felt that his mother was watching him, and he kept a close watch
upon himself. He had never before had any secrets from her; but, during
the last few days he had had one, and the fear of alarming her made him
cunning.

"This step of Madame d'Estrelle," he said, "shows that she is a prudent
and gracious woman. She has realized--a little tardily perhaps--that she
owed you some consideration. Let us be grateful to her for her kindness
of heart. You told her, I presume, that I had sufficient good sense not
to consider myself included in the permission she has given you?"

"That goes without saying. I didn't mention you to her at all."

"Indeed, she probably is not aware of my existence, and perhaps it will
be as well for you never to mention your son to her, so that she may not
repent of her gracious behavior."

"Why shouldn't I mention you to her? I shall or shall not, according to
the turn the conversation happens to take."

"You expect to see her often then? to go to her house perhaps?"

"To meet her in the garden unquestionably; whether I go to her house or
not will depend on the duration of her kindly disposition."

"Was she agreeable?"

"Very agreeable and natural."

"Is she bright?"

"I don't know; she has plenty of good sense, I think."

"None of the arrogance of a _grande dame_?"

"She showed me none of it."

"Is she young?"

"Why, yes."

"And quite pretty, so they say?"

"Fie! do you mean to say you have never seen her?"

"I have, but at a distance. I have never happened to be near the window
when she walked along our path."

"But you know that she walks there every day?"

"It was you who told me so. You must think I am very inquisitive, to
watch all the beautiful women who pass? I am no longer a schoolboy,
little mamma, I am a man, and my mind has been matured by disaster."

"Did you learn any more unpleasant news at Marcel's?"

"On the contrary, Uncle Antoine has agreed to become responsible for
us."

"Ah! at last! and you didn't tell me!"

"You have been talking about something else."

"Which was more interesting to you?"

"Frankly, yes, for the moment! I am really overjoyed to think that you
can walk in yonder garden at any time. I shall not be there to give you
my arm, for naturally, I shall not be allowed to do that; but I shall
see you go out and come back with more color and a little appetite, I
hope!"

"Appetite! you are the one who has no appetite! You have eaten almost
nothing to-day, and yet you said that you were hungry. Where are you
going, pray?"

"To take Madame d'Estrelle's parasol to the porter at the hôtel. It
would not be polite to neglect it."

"You are right, but Babet will take it. It is quite useless to show
yourself to the people there. It might cause talk."

Madame Thierry took the parasol and placed it in her servant's hands
herself.

"Not that way!" cried Julien, taking it from her. "Babet will spot the
silk with her hot hands."

He carefully wrapped the parasol in white paper, and handed it to Babet,
not without regret, but without hesitation. He saw clearly enough the
anxiety of his mother, who was watching him closely.

Babet remained away ten minutes; that was more time than she needed to
walk the length of the garden on the street, enter the courtyard and
return. She reappeared at last with the parasol and a note from the
countess.

"Madame,

"You need a parasol as you will be exposed to the sunshine. Be kind
enough to use mine; I desire to deprive you of every pretext for not
coming to call upon

"Your servant,

"JULIE D'ESTRELLE."

Madame Thierry glanced again at Julien, who controlled himself perfectly
as he removed the paper in which he had wrapped the parasol. As soon as
her back was turned, he covered it with kisses, like the romantic,
excitable child he was, despite his claim to be a mature man. As for the
poor mother, in her distrust and uncertainty she said to herself that
every joy is attended by danger in this world, and that she might
perhaps have reason to regret the amiable overtures of her too
fascinating neighbor.

The next day the door swung on its hinges, and the keys were handed to
Madame Thierry, who, urged on by Julien, ventured timidly to enter the
countess's flowery domain. That lady had determined to do the honors of
her primroses and hyacinths in person, but an inevitable disclosure by
Marcel had changed the course of her ideas and cooled her zeal in some
measure.

The solicitor had called again to discuss her affairs. She made haste to
tell him that she had made his aunt's acquaintance, and spoke of her in
the warmest possible terms. Then she went on to ask questions.

"The charming woman told me of her birth, her love and her past
happiness, and she was on the point of telling me about what she calls
her present happiness, when we were interrupted. I supposed, on the
other hand, that she was very unhappy. Have I not heard that she had
been forced to sell all that she had?"

"That is the truth," Marcel replied; "but there is something in my
excellent aunt's character which not everybody can understand, but which
you will understand perfectly, madame la comtesse. I can tell you her
husband's story and hers in a word. My uncle the artist had a great
heart, much talent and wit, but very little method and no foresight at
all. As he had never had anything in his youth, and earned from day to
day, first the bare necessaries of life, afterward the luxuries, he
allowed himself to be carried along by his natural recklessness; and as
he had some rather extravagant tastes--an artist's tastes, that tells
the whole story--he soon established his outlay upon a very agreeable
but very hazardous footing. He loved society and was popular; he never
went on foot, he had a carriage; he gave exquisite little dinners in
what he called his hut at Sèvres, which was crowded with sumptuous
trinkets and artistic objects, for which he paid great prices; so that
he ran in debt. His wife's property paid his debts, and enabled them to
continue this risky but delightful life. When he died he was over head
and ears in debt once more. My dear aunt knew it, but did not choose to
cast a shadow on his heedless and light-hearted old age by showing the
slightest concern for their son's future. 'My son is sensible,' she
said; 'he is studying his art with passionate zeal. He will have as much
talent as his father. He will be poor, and he will make his fortune. He
will pass through the trials and triumphs which his father passed
through honorably and courageously, and, knowing him as I do, I know
that he will never reproach me for placing all my confidence in his
noble heart.'--It turned out as she had foreseen. On his father's death,
Julien Thierry, discovering that he had inherited nothing but debts, set
bravely to work to pay them all, and, far from complaining of his
mother, he told her that she had done well never to annoy the best of
fathers. I confess that I do not agree with him there. The best of
fathers is the one who sacrifices his tastes and his pleasures to the
welfare of those who will probably survive him. My uncle the painter was
a great man, I might better say a great child. Genius is a very fine
thing; but devotion to those whom one loves is a vastly finer thing,
and, let me say it under my breath, my uncle's widow and son seem to me
to be much greater than he. What is madame la comtesse's opinion?"

The countess had become very thoughtful, although she listened
attentively.

"I think as you do, Monsieur Thierry," she replied, "and I admire your
aunt and cousin with all my heart."

"But my story seems to have saddened you," said Marcel.

"Perhaps; it gives me something to think about. Do you know, I am deeply
impressed by the example set us by some lives? I see that Madame Thierry
is like me, being a widow and ruined; but I see that she is happy none
the less, while I am not. She is proud to pay the debts of a husband
whom she loved dearly,--and I--But I do not propose to retract the
confession that escaped my lips yesterday in your presence. I wish to
ask you one question. This son, this most excellent son of the worthy
widow--where is he?"

"In Paris, madame, where he is working very hard and beginning to pay
off the debts by painting pictures which are already almost as good as
his father's. Some influential friends have become interested in him,
and would push him ahead more rapidly if he were less scrupulous and
proud; but with a little time he will be rich in his turn, indeed he now
owes only a mere trifle, for which our Uncle Antoine has decided to
become responsible, inasmuch as there is no longer any risk in so
doing."

"This rich uncle seems to be about as timid and economical as my
father-in-law the marquis?"

"No, madame; his is an entirely different sort of selfishness. It would
take a long while to tell you about him, and it is time for me to be at
the Palais."

"Of course, of course, some other time, Monsieur Thierry. Go and attend
to your business. Here are the papers all signed; come again soon!"

"As soon as your affairs require it; rely upon my promptitude, madame la
comtesse."

"Do not be so ceremonious. Come to see me when you have time, without
regard to business. I am greatly indebted to you, Monsieur Thierry. You
have not only given me the clear understanding of my position which was
so necessary to me. You have given me good advice and have not led my
honor astray in order to protect my selfish interests. In fact I see
that you feel perhaps a little friendliness for me, and I thank you with
all my heart."

The countess had a way of saying such simple things which made her
extremely charming. Modest and dignified in her every act and every
word, there was in her manners an indefinable suggestion of restrained
emotion which denoted a too full heart, a heart seeking a fit receptacle
for its overflow. The baroness would surely have considered that she was
altogether too grateful and effusive to the pettifogger, who was only
too happy to act for her. She would have told her that one must not
spoil people of that sort by letting them see that they are necessary to
one. Julie, being perfectly sure of herself, notwithstanding her
pathetic humility, was not afraid of placing her friendship too low by
bestowing it on a clever and honorable man; and, moreover, there was
taking place within her, as we have seen, an insensible yet rapid
reaction against the circle in which she had hitherto lived.

"A most delightful woman!" said Marcel Thierry to himself as he left
her. "Deuce take me! if I were not an attorney, married to the best
woman on earth, and the father of a bouncing boy--all of which things
tend to guarantee the strength of a man's brain--I should be in love
with this countess myself! oh! head over heels in love, I verily
believe! I will tell my wife so this evening, and we will have a good
laugh over it."

"How did it happen," Madame d'Estrelle was thinking at that moment,
"that I did not ask Thierry what it is most important for me to know? I
thought of it, and then I forgot it. I must find out, however! If this
young Thierry lives with his mother, it will not be proper for him to
make my garden his usual place of promenade. But perhaps he is not a
young man. Did he say that he was young? His father was very old. But
did he say that he was so very old? I cannot remember at all. However,
my servants must know. Servants know everything."

She rang.

"Camille," she said to her maid, "has this Madame Thierry, who lives in
the old pavilion yonder,--a most excellent person, I know--has she any
children? I talked with her yesterday, but I didn't think of asking
her."

"She has a son," Camille replied.

"About how old?"

"Twenty-five, judging from his face."

"He is married, of course?"

"No, madame."

"Where does he live?"

"At the pavilion, with his mother."

"Is he a good sort of man? What do people say of him?"

"He is a most excellent young man, madame la comtesse. Everybody speaks
well of him. They are very poor, and they pay all their bills, never
keep anybody waiting. And yet they are not stingy, they never do
anything mean. One would say that they must be people of quality."

Camille did not mean to flatter her mistress by speaking in that way.
She, too, claimed to be well-born and to have known better days. She
claimed that some of her ancestors had been sheriffs.

"_Mon Dieu_, Camille, birth is of no consequence," said the countess,
who was often vexed by her maid's airs.

"I beg pardon, madame la comtesse," rejoined Camille, tartly, "I thought
that it was of the greatest consequence."

"As you please, my dear. Go and bring me my gray parasol. There is so
much of this pride on all sides," thought Madame d'Estrelle, "that it
will disgust me with all prejudices; it will make me more fond of
Jean-Jacques Rousseau than I ought to be; and really I am beginning to
wonder if the great are not living a little on their past, and if all
this antiquated nonsense is not becoming useful to amuse our servants."

She took her gray parasol, with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction; then
sat down in her salon, open to the April sun, saying to herself that she
must not go in the direction of the pavilion any more, and perhaps not
into her garden at all.

Then it was that Madame Thierry, finding that she did not come to meet
her as she expected, ventured to go as far as the house, to pay her
respects to her and thank her. Madame d'Estrelle received her with great
courtesy, but the widow was too keen not to detect a shade of
embarrassment in her greeting, and she had hardly seated herself before
she thanked her and rose to go.

"Already?" said the countess. "You find me ungracious, I am sure, and I
confess that I feel some slight embarrassment with you to-day which
makes me act foolishly. So let us have done at once with this nonsense,
which I am sure you will forgive. When I came and spoke to you
yesterday, I had no idea that you had a son, a young and estimable man,
I am told, who lives with you."

"Let me tell the rest, madame la comtesse. You are afraid----"

"Oh! _mon Dieu!_ I am afraid that people will talk, that is all. I am
young, alone in the world, with no immediate protector; a stranger in a
family which accepted me only with regret, as I learned too late, and
which blames me for not choosing to pass my period of mourning in a
convent."

"I know all that, madame la comtesse; my nephew Marcel told me. As I am
most solicitous for your good name, I do not propose that your kindness
of heart shall carry you too far. You must not come to the pavilion so
long as I live there, nor must I come into the garden or to your house.
That is what I came to say to you. It is not necessary for me to add
that my son never for an instant supposed that he was included in the
permission which you so graciously gave me yesterday."

"Very good!" cried the countess, "this last point is all that is
necessary. I thank you for your delicacy, which makes it possible for me
not to return your visits; but as to the other point, I do not agree
with you. You will walk in my garden and you will come to see me."

"Perhaps it would be better that I should not come."

"No, no," replied Julie, earnestly, "you must come, I insist upon it!
and, if you don't come, I shall be obliged to go to fetch you and knock
at your window again, which will compromise me. Tell me," she added with
a smile, "if you wish me to _ruin_ myself for you? I warn you that I am
capable of it."

Madame Thierry could not resist the fascination of this artless
generosity. She yielded, making a mental vow that she would fly to the
other end of Paris, if her presentiment of Julien's passion proved not
to be a dream of her maternal imagination.

"Now," said the countess, "let us arrange the conditions of our
intercourse, in order to put an end to all danger of evil-speaking. The
pavilion has only four windows looking on my garden. The two lower
ones--I do not know the arrangement of the rooms."

"The two lower ones are in the room which my son uses as a studio and I
as a salon. We always sit there; but the lower sash, with four panes of
ground glass, is stationary, and we open only the upper sashes; but they
are often open at this season."

"Then you cannot look into my house, as I was told. But that sash with
the ground glass was not stationary yesterday; it was partly open."

"True, madame la comtesse; there was a broken pane which you may have
noticed."

"No; my sight is bad, consequently I don't look very closely."

"For that reason I had to open that sash, a very unusual thing. But it
was repaired and fastened again this morning. Light from below would be
very inconvenient for my son in his painting, and he stretches a green
cloth over the window on the inside. So he would have to stand on a
chair to look into your garden, and, as he is a serious-minded man, and
not an ill-taught schoolboy----"

"Very well, very well! My mind is at rest concerning the lower floor.
The windows above----"

"Are in my bedroom. My son's room looks on the street."

"And he never sits in your room? No one in my garden will ever see a man
at your windows?"

"It never has happened and never will happen. I will answer for it."

"Nor will he ever come to the garden door, even for an instant? You will
warn him."

"Be perfectly at ease in that respect. My son is a man of honor."

"I do not doubt it. Commend my honor to him, and let us say no more
about him; that is to say let us say no more about me, for to forbid you
to speak of him would be very cruel. I know that he is your pride and
your joy, and I congratulate you."

Madame Thierry had made up her mind not to say another word about
Julien, but it was impossible for her to keep to her determination. Step
by step she finally reached the point where she gave full expression to
her idolatry of that adored son, who well deserved to be adored. The
countess listened without any uncalled-for scruples to her enumeration
of the young artist's talents and virtues. But she became a little
melancholy at the thought that she should probably never have children
to afford occupation for her youth and console her old age. Madame
Thierry divined her secret thought and changed the subject.

[Illustration 02: _JULIEN'S RUSE_
_He went to the window, the lower sash of which
was really nailed in its place and covered with a
green cloth; but there was an imperceptible slit in
that cloth, there was a scratch on the ground glass,
and through that treacherous crevice, cunningly
made and cunningly concealed, he saw Madame
d'Estrelle every day._]

What was Julien doing while they were talking about him in the little
summer salon of the hôtel d'Estrelle? He was working, or was supposed
to be working. He constantly changed his position, he was hot and cold,
he started at the slightest sound. He said to himself that perhaps his
name was on the countess's lips at that moment, that perhaps she was
asking some question about him, merely as a matter of form, without
listening to the answer. He went to the window, the lower sash of which
was really nailed in its place and covered with a green cloth; but there
was an imperceptible slit in that cloth, there was a scratch on the
ground glass, and through that treacherous crevice, cunningly made and
cunningly concealed, he saw Madame d'Estrelle every day, strolling among
the shrubbery in her garden, and walking along the path which was in
full view from the pavilion. Julien knew almost to a minute her regular
hours for that walk. When some accident interfered with her usual
practice, then mysterious presentiments, the divinatory instinct which
belongs only to love, and especially to a first love, warned him of
Julie's approach. Then he invented a thousand pretexts, each more
ingenious than the last, for turning his mother's vigilant eye in some
other direction and gazing at his fair neighbor; or else he would find
that he had to go and get something in his bedroom, and would go
upstairs, his mother remaining below, enter her room and look through
the blind. In fact he had adored Julie for a fortnight, and Julie
thought that he had never seen her, and Madame Thierry lied
unconsciously when she said that her son could see nothing from the
studio, and that he had never looked out of her bedroom windows.

To Julien himself there was something insane, or at all events
inexplicable, in that sudden passion which had taken possession of him,
who was so sensible in all other respects; but as there is a cause for
every effect, it is our place to seek it, and not be too free to admit
the improbability of actual occurrences.

Marcel came very often, with or without his wife, to pass a portion of
the evening with his aunt Thierry. Julien and he were much attached to
each other, and although they often disagreed, Marcel considering Julien
too romantic, and Julien considering Marcel too practical, they would
have died for each other. Marcel talked freely about his practice, which
was rapidly increasing. When Julien asked him: "Is your office
flourishing?" he would answer: "It is budding, my boy, it is budding! I
often have clients who bring me more honor than profit, and they are not
the ones of whom I think the least."--Among those clients who were not
fond of litigation, but to whom he owed pleasant or profitable
connections, Marcel placed the Comtesse d'Estrelle in the first rank. He
mentioned her so often and in such enthusiastic terms, he thought and
spoke so severely of the lovely widow's unworthy husband, he inveighed
so bitterly against the inhuman avarice of the family, he took such a
profound interest in Julie's gentle and noble character, he
involuntarily extolled her charms so warmly, that Julien was curious to
see her; he saw her and loved her, if indeed he did not love her before
he saw her.

Julien had never loved before. He had led a very virtuous life, he had
experienced a great sorrow, he was at the height of his physical and
mental development; his susceptibility was overstrained by the
courageous efforts he had made, by a constant exchange of fervent
affection with his loving mother, by a tendency to enthusiasm which he
derived from long association with an enthusiastic father. He lived in
seclusion, he denied himself all diversion and worked with intense
eagerness to preserve the honor of his name and to save his mother from
want. All this must inevitably find a vent, and that generous heart
discharge its surplus emotion. We will say no more about it; indeed we
have already said far too much in explanation of that impossible
phenomenon which we see every day--a persistent, violent, boundless
aspiration toward an object which is known to be unattainable. Long,
long before, La Fontaine had written this refrain, which had passed into
a proverb:



"Love, love! when thou dost hold us,
Well may we say: 'Prudence, farewell!'"




II


Now, while the countess was talking to Madame Thierry, and Julien to
himself, Marcel Thierry was talking not far away with his uncle Antoine,
the old bachelor, the ex-armorer, the rich man of the family.

Gentle reader--as they used to say at the time when these events took
place--be kind enough to accompany us to Rue Blomet from the hôtel
d'Estrelle on Rue de Babylone; skirting the garden wall for five
minutes, passing in front of the Louis XIII. pavilion, then skirting the
wall of another garden much larger than Madame d'Estrelle's, along a
lane grass-grown on the edges, muddy and full of holes in the centre,
destined at some time to be an extension of Rue de Babylone; then
turning to the left and passing along another street in embryo to the
corner of Rue Blomet, where stands a large house of the Louis XIV. style
of architecture, formerly the hôtel de Melcy, recently purchased and
occupied by Monsieur Antoine Thierry. If Monsieur Antoine Thierry would
have allowed us to pass through his extensive grounds, we might have
started from Julien's house and walked straight through the nursery to
the rear of the mansion; but Uncle Antoine is determined to be master on
his own estate, and he will not grant any easement whatsoever, even in
favor of his brother's widow and son. Marcel, therefore, on leaving the
countess, had taken this walk, half in the city, half in the country;
and now behold him seated in the rich man's study, formerly a boudoir
with painted and gilded ceiling, now filled with shelves and tables
covered with bags of seeds, specimens of fruit moulded in wax, and
baskets of tools and other articles connected with horticulture.

To reach this study, the proprietor's favorite retreat, he has had to
pass through galleries and immense salons overweighted with gilt
decorations in relief, grand in conception, but blackened by neglect and
dampness; for the windows are shut and the shutters tightly closed in
all weathers; the rich man never tarries in those majestic apartments,
he never receives visitors there, he never gives parties or banquets, he
cares for no one, he is suspicious of everybody. He loves rare flowers
and exotic shrubs, he also esteems the product of fruit trees, and he is
constantly deliberating upon the trimming and grafting of his
_subjects_. He overlooks and directs in person a score of gardeners,
whom he pays handsomely, and whose families he takes under his
protection. Never attempt to interest him in any other people than those
who flatter or subserve his caprices or his vanity.

This passion for gardening he acquired by a mere chance. One of the
vessels which sailed to the far east on his account and for his profit
brought from China a parcel of seeds which he carelessly dropped in an
urn filled with earth. The seeds sprouted, the plants grew and were
covered with lovely flowers. The armorer, who did not anticipate that
result, and who, moreover, had never in his life looked at a plant, paid
very little heed at first; but another accident brought to his house a
connoisseur who went into ecstasies, and declared the priceless plant to
be absolutely new and unknown to science.

This discovery exerted a decisive influence on Monsieur Antoine's life.
He had always despised flowers: it was probable that he would never
really understand them, for he was entirely devoid of the artistic
sense; but his vanity, which was stifling him for lack of nourishment,
pounced upon that windfall and pointed out to him the only way in which
he could attain renown. He had a brother who painted flowers, who
interpreted them, who loved them and gave his life to them. His brother
was much admired; a trivial sketch from his brush made more noise than
all of his older brother's great wealth. The older brother knew it, and
was jealous of him. He could never hear the word art mentioned without
shrugging his shoulders. He considered that the world was unjust and
idiotic to be amused by trifles and not to admire the shrewdness of a
man who, having started from nothing, counted his gold-pieces by the
shovelful. He was disappointed, perturbed in mind.--But suddenly all was
changed; he, too, was going to become a celebrity. The flowers which his
brother summoned forth from the canvas he would summon from the earth,
and they would not be mere every-day flowers which everybody knew and
could name at sight; they would be rarities, plants from the four
corners of the world, which scholars would have to cudgel their brains
to define and classify and baptize. The most wonderful should bear his
name! It had been suggested that his name should be given to several of
his nurslings, but there was no hurry, since his collection was enriched
every year by some marvel from the metropolis. He determined to wait,
and was still waiting for a certain lily, which was likely to surpass
all the rest, and which should bear, in addition to its generic name,
the specific designation of _Antonia Thierrii._

There was still time enough, for the uncle, although seventy-five years
old, was still hale and hearty. He was a short man, rather slight, with
a very good figure, but the hands hardened by constant contact with the
soil, the skin tanned by constant exposure to the air, the neglected
hair and dusty clothes, the back bent by bodily toil, presented the
incongruous image of a villager with rustic manners, tenacious in his
ideas, of an overbearing and surly disposition, ungrammatical, imperious
and peremptory, planted in the heart of Paris, in a mansion of which he
was the heedless and preoccupied master.

Marcel saluted his uncle with more familiarity than deference. He knew
that flattery would be a waste of time; that the ex-armorer could be
brought to terms on any subject only by a contest in obstinacy, in harsh
language at need. He knew that his first impulse would be to say no;
that no perhaps would be his last word; but that, in order to obtain one
poor _yes_ among a hundred _noes_ he must fight without losing heart for
a moment. Marcel was of a stout temper--it was a family trait--and he
was so accustomed to fighting, especially against his uncle, that he
derived a sort of painful pleasure from that occupation, which would
have disgusted an artist in an instant.

"I have brought you something to sign," he began.

"I will not sign anything; my word is good enough."

"True, with those who know you."

"Everybody knows me."

"Almost everybody; but I am dealing with idiots. Come, sign, sign!"

"No, you might just as well sign it. My word's as good as gold; all the
worse for the man who doubts it."

"Then you will see the creditor take possession of the house at Sèvres.
He will be satisfied then, no doubt, but until then he will doubt my
authority."

"So you have a bad reputation, have you?"

"Apparently."

"The idea of your saying that!"

"What do you want me to say? If I should say no, you would not sign, and
I want to induce you to sign."

"Oh! you do! Why, I should like to know?"

"Because it bores me, tires me and annoys me to return to Sèvres and
wait for them to make up their minds to come to see you, when the
despatch of this paper by my clerk will remove all difficulties and save
me expense and many steps. Do you understand?"

"You do whatever you please with me," replied the armorer, taking his
pen. He dipped it in the ink three times before deciding, read and
reread the document whereby he guaranteed the payment of the last six
thousand francs of his brother's debts, looked Marcel in the eye to see
if he was anxious or impatient, and, seeing that he was unmoved,
regretfully renounced the pleasure of driving him into a passion. He
signed the paper and tossed it in his face, with a wicked laugh, saying:

"Off with you, rascal! You never come to my house unless you want to get
something out of me. You might have guaranteed the debts in my place,
for you're rich enough!"

"If I were, be sure that it would be done already; but I am making the
final payments for my practice, and I cannot deceive Julien any longer
as to the sacrifices I am making for him. He is deeply concerned; his
mother is in despair----"

"Oh! his mother, his mother!" sneered the rich man in a tone of profound
aversion.

"You are not fond of her, as everyone knows; so she will never ask you
for anything, never fear; but I am fond of my aunt, if you have no
objection, and Julien adores her. Between them--between us three, if
necessary--we will have everything paid within two years, and I flatter
myself that you will not have to spend a sou."

"Well, I don't flatter myself that I shall not! No matter! I will do
them this favor, which will be the last."

"And the first, too, my dear uncle!"

And, as the document was signed, folded and safely in his pocket, Marcel
added, resting his elbows on the table and looking his uncle straight in
the face:

"Do you know, my dear uncle of the good Lord, you must be a very mean
fellow to allow your brother's country house to be sold."

"Ah! there we are again!" shouted Monsieur Antoine, rising and smiting
the table a genuine peasant's blow with his fist. "You would like to see
me use my money, earned by the sweat of my brow, to pay for the follies
of a spendthrift! Since when have artists needed to have houses of their
own and fill them with a heap of gimcracks that cost the eyes out of
your head, and make gardens for themselves, with bridges and
summer-houses, when they don't even know how to grow a bit of milkweed?
What difference does it make to me whether my brother's folly is sold,
and his widow doesn't now have any great chefs in her kitchen and great
noblemen at her table? They made all the trouble for themselves when
they chose to receive counts and marquises, and madame would say: 'My
house, my servants, my horses!'--I knew well enough where all that
nonsense would bring them up! And now to-day they find they need the old
rat who lives in his corner like a wise man and a philosopher, despising
society, scorning luxury and giving all his time to useful work! They
lower their crests and put out their paws, and he--he wouldn't give
anything from pity--those people don't deserve it--he gives from pride,
and that's how he gets his revenge. Go and tell that to your aunt, the
beautiful princess in distress: that's the errand your mean dog of an
uncle gives you to do. Go, I say, you dog of a pettifogger! What are you
standing there for, staring at me?"

Marcel was in fact studying his uncle's expression and attitude with his
sharp gray eyes, as if he would search the lowest depths of his
conscience.

"Bah!" he exclaimed abruptly, as he rose, "you are very harsh, very
mean, I say it again; but you are not so cruel as that! You have some
reason for hating your sister-in-law which nobody has ever been able to
understand, which you don't understand very clearly yourself, I fancy,
but which I shall succeed in unearthing, my dear uncle, never fear, for
I propose to go to work upon it, and you know that when I have set my
heart upon a thing, I am like you, I never let go."

As he spoke Marcel kept his eyes fixed on the rich man, and he detected
a notable change in his manner. A sudden pallor drove the coarse flush
from his face, which was already burned afresh by the sun of the new
spring. His lips trembled, he pulled his hat down to his bushy black
eyebrows, turned his back, and went out into his garden without a word.

It was not a garden with little pieces of rockery, little summer-houses,
and little terra cotta cows lying in the grass, like those which were so
common at that period, in imitation of the rustic style adopted at
Trianon. Nor was there an undulating lawn with winding paths, clumps of
trees at regular intervals, and truncated columns reflected in limpid
ponds, like the garden of the hôtel d'Estrelle, one of the first
picturesque attempts at the modern garden _à l'anglaise_. Nor were there
the old-fashioned flower-beds and long regular borders of the time of
Louis XIV.; everywhere the ground was turned up and cut by Monsieur
Antoine's experiments. On all sides were beds in the shape of baskets,
hearts, stars, triangles, ovals, shields and trefoils, surrounded by
green borders and narrow paths forming a perfect labyrinth. There were
flowers of all sorts, beautiful or curious, but deprived of all their
national grace by cages made of rushes, nets of wire, umbrellas of
reeds, supports and props of all sorts, to protect them from being
marred by the dirt, burned by the sun or broken by the wind. His
rosebushes, being constantly trimmed and watered, had an artificial
look, they were so exceedingly tidy and shiny. His peonies were
ball-shaped at the top, like a grenadier's _pompon_, and his tulips
shone like metal in the sun. Around the flower-garden were immense,
melancholy-looking nurseries, like rows of stakes with scraggy bunches
of leaves at the top. All this rejoiced the horticulturist's eyes and
banished his gloom.

A single corner of his garden, nearest the pavilion occupied by Madame
Thierry, afforded a pleasant promenade. That corner he had devoted for
twenty years to the acclimatation of exotic ornamental trees. They were
beautiful now, and cast considerable shade; but Monsieur Antoine, as it
was no longer necessary to take particular pains with them, had almost
lost his interest in them, and much preferred a shoot of pine or acacia
just raised under glass.

His hothouse was wonderfully beautiful. He hurried thither to bury the
bitter memories which Marcel had recalled. He went in and out among his
favorite plants, the lilies, and, after assuring himself of the good
health of those which were in bloom, he halted beside a small porcelain
vase wherein an unknown bulb was just beginning to put forth shoots of a
dark and glossy green.

"What will this be?" he thought. "Will it mark an epoch in the history
of gardening, like so many others that owe their fame to me? It seems a
long while since anything has happened in my garden, and people don't
talk about me so much as they ought to."

Meanwhile Marcel went away, deep in thought, for Monsieur Antoine
Thierry's miserliness was of a very curious sort. The curious thing
about it was that Monsieur Thierry was not miserly. He did not hoard his
money, he did not lend money and never had done so, he denied himself
nothing that caught his fancy, and he even did a good deed sometimes
under the spur of self-love. How did it happen that he had let slip so
excellent an opportunity of purchasing his late brother's property for
his nephew? That generous performance would have given him much more
celebrity than the future _Antonia Thierrii._ That is precisely the
problem which Marcel was trying to solve. He knew that the old armorer
had always been jealous, not of his artist brother's talent, which he
despised, but of his renown and social success; but should not that
jealousy have died with old André? Ought his widow and son to have that
unfortunate inheritance forced upon them?

An idea passed through Marcel's mind; he retraced his steps and
interrupted Monsieur Antoine's horticultural reveries.

"By the way, my gallant uncle," he said in a playful tone, "don't you
want to buy the hôtel d'Estrelle pavilion?"

"The pavilion is for sale, and you didn't tell me, you idiot?"

"I forgot it. Well, how much will you give for it?"

"What is it worth?"

"I have told you a hundred times: to Comtesse d'Estrelle, who has just
accepted it as a gift, it is worth ten thousand francs; to you, who want
it and need it, it is worth twice that. It remains to be seen whether
the countess won't ask three times ten thousand."

"Ah! that's like your great folk! sharper and stingier than the parvenus
they despise!"

"The Comtesse d'Estrelle despises no one."

"Yes, she does! she's a fool like all the others. We are separated by a
wall, and in the four years she's been living in the hôtel d'Estrelle,
she's never had the curiosity to look into my garden."

"Perhaps she doesn't know anything about rare plants."

"Say rather that she would consider herself dishonored if she put her
foot inside a _plebeian's_ door!"

"Bah! do you expect a young woman in mourning to compromise herself by
strolling about in the garden of a bachelor of your age?"

"Of my age? You are joking, I suppose! Am I of an age to make people
talk?"

"Why, who can say? you used to be a volcano once!"

"I! What are you saying, you brute?"

"You cannot make me believe that you were never in love."

"What's that? I have never been in love! No such fool!"

"Yes, you have been in love, a fool if you please, at least once in your
life! Try to insist that you haven't," added Marcel, as he saw that the
horticulturist turned pale and seemed perturbed once more.

"Enough of this nonsense!" retorted the uncle, tapping the floor angrily
with his foot. "You are Madame d'Estrelle's attorney; are you instructed
to sell the pavilion?"

"No, but I have the right to suggest it. How much will you give?"

"Not a sou. Let me alone."

"Then I can offer it to another purchaser?"

"What other?"

"There is no other in view at this moment. I am not given to lying, and
I shall not deal falsely with you in the matters you have placed in my
charge; but you are well aware that the street is being built up, and
that by to-morrow, perhaps to-night, people will be fighting for the
pavilion."

"Let Madame d'Estrelle take the trouble to enter into negotiations with
me."

"Do you want her to receive you? Very good!"

"Would she receive me?" said Monsieur Antoine, and his round eyes
gleamed for an instant.

"Why not?" said Marcel.

"Oh! yes, she would receive me in her courtyard, or at best in her
ante-chamber, standing up, between two doors, as she receives a dog or
an attorney!"

"You are a great stickler for manners, aren't you, for a man who won't
take his hat off his head for anybody? But never fear: Madame d'Estrelle
is as courteous to decent people of our class as to the greatest
aristocrats. To prove it, she is on the best of terms with my aunt
Thierry, and they are almost friends already."

"Ah!--Well, that is because madame your aunt is noble! The nobles
understand each other like thieves at a fair!"

"_Sapristi!_ uncle, once more I ask you what in heaven's name you have
against your sister-in-law?"

"I have--Well, I detest her!"

"So I see; but why?"

"Because she is noble. Don't talk to me about your nobles! They are all
heartless and ungrateful!"

"Did you love her, I wonder?"

This direct question was too much for Monsieur Antoine. He turned
deathly pale, then flushed with anger, swore, tore his hair and shouted
in a frenzy of rage:

"Did she tell you that? She pretends, she dares to say----"

"Nothing at all. I have never been able to extort a word from her about
you; but I have had my suspicions, and now you have confessed. Tell me
everything, uncle; that will be the best way, for it will relieve you,
and you will have had a good heart-searching for once in your life."

Fully half an hour passed before the ex-armorer had exhausted all the
spleen and bile of which his heart was full against Marcel, against
Madame Thierry and against his deceased brother. When Marcel, who
worried him cruelly, had succeeded in exhausting him, he carried his
point, and old Antoine told him what follows, by fits and starts,
forcing his nephew to extract from him bit by bit the secret of his
life, which was also the secret of his character.

Forty years prior to the period of this narrative, Mademoiselle de
Meuil, having eloped with André Thierry, had gone with her fiancé to
seek shelter with Antoine Thierry, who was already rich and still quite
young. Until that time the two brothers had lived on good terms with
each other. While she remained in hiding at the hôtel de Melcy,
Mademoiselle de Meuil had manifested sincere friendship for the armorer
and perfect confidence in him. André, being prosecuted by the Meuil
family and in danger of being consigned to the Bastille, had been
compelled to leave Paris, to avert suspicion from the right quarter,
while certain influential friends of his endeavored to adjust his
affairs and gradually succeeded in so doing.

During this separation of several months, Mademoiselle de Meuil,
constantly beset by the most painful anxiety, was more than once tempted
to return to her parents in order to relieve the man she loved from the
dangers and misfortunes which threatened him. More than once she
discussed the subject frankly with André's brother, setting forth her
fears and asking his advice. Then it was that Antoine conceived a
strange idea, not treacherous and in no wise induced by passion, but in
which his sensitive self-esteem was soon deeply involved. We will allow
him to speak for a moment.

"The girl was ruined, although she had not lived with my brother as his
wife. She was too far compromised to be taken back into the family, and
the very best that she could hope for was to end her days in a convent.
My brother seemed to me even more completely ruined than she was. A
_lettre de cachet_ had been issued against him, and that was no joke in
those days. He might be shut up for twenty years, or for his whole
life--who could say? And as the young lady told me all this herself,
crying out every minute: 'What shall I do, Monsieur Antoine? _Mon Dieu!_
what shall I do?' the idea came into my head of saving them both by
marrying the girl. I was not in love with her, no! the devil take me if
I lie! I should have loved any other woman as much, and I had never
given a thought to marriage. If she had not been of noble birth, which
gave her--not in my eyes, for I have no prejudices--in many people's
eyes a sort of distinction, I shouldn't have paid much attention to her.
Are you laughing? What are you laughing at, you ass of an attorney?"

"I am not laughing," said Marcel. "Go on. You were telling me about the
bright idea that came into your head."

"So it did, and it wasn't any more foolish than my excellent brother's
idea. Was he an eagle in those days, I would ask? No, he was a little
dauber, who hadn't succeeded in laying by four sous, and no one thought
anything of him. Was he any better looking than I was, or younger, or
better bred? We were both brought up just alike; I was five years older,
that's all. I wasn't the ugliest, and he wasn't a beauty by any means!
He knew how to talk; he was always a chatterer. I said less, but what I
said was solid. Neither one of us was more of a plebeian than the other,
for we had the same father and mother. I had already saved nearly a
million which no one knew anything about! With a million a man can do
many things that my brother couldn't do: he can put the law to sleep and
appease angry parents, and obtain patrons who never sleep; with a
million one can even reach the king's ear, and surely one can marry a
girl who has nothing at all. If society makes a fuss, it's because
everyone would like to have the million in his own pocket. In fact, my
million proved that even if I was not quite so fine a talker as my
brother, it wasn't for want of wit and genius. That is what the girl
ought to have understood. I didn't ask her to love me right away, but to
love her André enough to forget him and keep him from going to prison
and rotting there. Very good; instead of appreciating my good sense and
generosity, lo and behold! the prude loses her temper, calls me a boor
and a wicked brother and a dishonorable man, and decamps from my house
without telling me where she's going, staking all to win all, and
leaving a letter for me in which all the thanks she gives me is a
promise never to betray my treachery to Monsieur André! I confess that
I have never forgiven her for that, and that I never shall forgive her.
As for my excellent brother, he behaved in a way that disgusted me
almost as much as madame did. I didn't choose to wait till his prude of
a wife had sold me. When I saw that he was out of his difficulties and
married, I told him the whole story, just as I have told it to you. He
didn't lose his temper; on the contrary, he thanked me for my good
intentions, but then he began to laugh. You know what a frivolous,
weak-brained creature he was! Well, my idea struck him as very comical,
and he made fun of me. Thereupon I broke with him, and I would never see
the wife or the husband again."

"At last!" said Marcel, "now I know where we are. But Julien? Why do you
bear Julien a grudge, for he wasn't born at the time of your grievance?"

"I don't bear Julien a grudge; but he is his mother's son, and I am sure
that he hates me."

"Upon my honor, Julien knows nothing of what you have told me, and he
knows you only by your conduct of late. Do you think that he can
possibly approve it? Shouldn't you have redeemed his mother's house,
when he swore by all that is most sacred that he would devote his life
to the payment of his debt to you?"

"A fine security, the life of a painter! Where did painting land his
father, who was _famous?_"

"And suppose you had lost a matter of fifty thousand francs, you who
certainly have more than----"

"Hush! you should never mention the amount of a man's fortune. When such
figures are in the air, the walls and trees, even the flower-pots, have
ears."

"You agree that the amount is so large that the Sèvres affair would
have been a mere trifle, don't you?"

"Do you propose to make me out a miser?"

"I know that you are not one, but I shall believe that you are cruel,
and that you like to see people suffer whom you believe to be your
enemies."

"Well, isn't that my right? Since when have we been forbidden to seek
revenge?"

"Since we began to be something more than savages."

"Am I a savage then?"

"Yes."

"Be off, you are tiresome after a while! Look out that I don't set
myself against you too?"

"I defy you to do it."

"Why so?"

"Because you know that I am the only person on earth who is just a
little attached to you and devoted to you, in spite of all your
shortcomings."

"You see! You admit now that Julien detests me."

"Make him love you; then you will have two friends instead of one."

"Ah! yes! you want me to redeem the house! Very good, when Julien is an
orphan, I will look after him, on condition that he never mentions his
mother to me."

"Perhaps you would like to have him kill her, would you? I tell you,
uncle, you are mad, nothing more nor less. You are immeasurably vain,
and you have the prejudices of the nobility in a more virulent form than
any of the people who have ancestors. You were not in love with
Mademoiselle de Meuil, I am sure; but her rank made you long to supplant
your brother with her. You were frantically jealous of poor André, not
because of that lovely and lovable young woman, but because of the
parchments which she brought him with her dowry, and because of the sort
of lustre that was reflected on him. In a word, you do not hate the
nobles, you adore them, you envy them, you would give all your millions
to have been _born_ somebody, and your outbreaks of rage against them on
every occasion are simply the spleen of a discarded lover, just as your
hatred of my aunt is the spleen of a wounded and humiliated plebeian.
That is your mania, my poor uncle; every man has his own, they say, but
this one makes you cruel, and I am very sorry for you."

Perhaps the ex-armorer felt that Marcel was right; consequently he was
about to get more angry than ever, but Marcel turned his back on him
with a shrug, and went away, paying no heed to his invectives.

In reality Marcel was very glad to be in possession at last of the ideas
and recollections which underlay his uncle's actions. He promised
himself that he would take advantage of his knowledge to induce him to
mend his ways. Did he succeed? The sequel will tell us.

"Madame," said Marcel to the Comtesse d'Estrelle the next morning, "you
must sell the pavilion."

"Why?" said Julie. "It is so old and such a paltry affair, and of such
trifling value too!"

"It has a value due to its location, which you must not overlook. My
uncle will give you thirty thousand francs for it, perhaps more."

"This is the first time, my dear adviser, that you have advised me ill.
I am very reluctant to extort money from a neighbor. What is it but
speculating on the need he may have of that old building?"

"Wait a moment, my noble client! My uncle does not need the pavilion; he
wants it, which is a very different matter. He is rich enough to pay for
his whims. And what would you say if he were grateful to you for your
extortion?"

"How can that be?"

"Enter into personal relations with him and he will offer you a bonus
over and above the price."

"Fie! Monsieur Thierry! you would have me pay court to his gold?"

"No, but simply bestow upon it a kindly, patronizing smile, and it will
come to you of itself. Moreover, you will do a kind deed."

"Tell me what you mean."

"You will show my uncle that you have much esteem and affection for my
aunt and cousin, and thus you will induce the old Crœsus to assist them
seriously in their distress."

"Then I will do it with all my heart, Monsieur Thierry; but, while I am
already able to appreciate the worth of madame your aunt, what can I say
of your cousin, whom I do not know?"

"No matter, speak of him with perfect confidence. My Julien has a heart
of gold, the high spirit of a man of birth, and a mind above his
condition; he is the best of sons, the truest of friends, the most
honorable of men, and the most reasonable of artists. Say all that,
madame la comtesse, and if Julien's life ever offers the slightest
contradiction to your words, drive me from your presence, and never
again give me your esteem or confidence."

Marcel spoke so vehemently that Julie was impressed. She abstained from
asking questions, but she listened, without losing a word, to what
followed this eulogy, when Marcel entered into details by which only the
hardest of hearts could have failed to be moved. He told of Julien's
care of his mother, of the privations which he endured without her
knowledge, even going without proper food so that she might have enough.
Therein Marcel, like Madame Thierry, unwittingly said what was not true.
Julien had lost his appetite because he was in love, and Marcel, who had
no suspicion of it, thought that he had divined the cause of that
involuntary abstemiousness. But Julien was capable of doing much more
for his mother than holding his appetite in check. He would have given
the last drop of his blood for her; thus, while he did not tell the
exact truth at that moment, Marcel said far less than the truth.

His panegyric of Julien was so generous and so affecting that the
countess authorized Marcel to say to Uncle Antoine from her that she
would like very much to see his rare flowers and inspect his extensive
and interesting grounds. Uncle Antoine received this message with a
haughty and sceptical air.

"I see," said he, "she wants to sell at a high price, and this
condescension will cost me the eyes out of my head."

Marcel allowed him to talk, but was not deceived. The rich man's
gratification was too evident.

On the appointed day Madame d'Estrelle resumed her deep mourning,
entered her carriage and drove to the hôtel de Melcy. Marcel was at the
door awaiting her. He offered her his hand, and as they went up the
steps Uncle Antoine appeared in all his glory, in gardening costume.
That was by no means ill-advised on the part of so stupid a man. He had
duly considered, without mentioning it to Marcel, the plan of appearing
in magnificent array; he was rich enough to have every seam stitched
with gold; but the dread of ridicule deterred him, and, as he prided
himself on being a great horticulturist before everything, he had the
wit to appear in a strictly rustic costume.

Despite the asperity of his disposition and of his ordinary manners,
despite his secret longing to assert his independence of mind and his
philosophical pride before Marcel, he suddenly lost countenance before
the fair Julie's gracious salutation and her sincere and limpid glance,
and for the first time in thirty years removed his three-cornered hat
and, instead of replacing it at once on his head, held it awkwardly, but
respectfully, under his arm throughout the visit.

Julie did not resort to the vulgar ruse of trying to flatter his
caprice; she was really interested in the treasures of horticulture
which were exhibited to her. Herself a flower, she loved flowers. This
is no madrigal,--to use a phrase then in vogue. There is a natural
affinity between all divine creations, and in all ages symbols have been
used to express realities.

The rich man, although he had little of the rose about him, bloomed
resplendent at the sincere admiration bestowed on his beloved plants.
Little by little his assumed haughtiness vanished before the sylph whose
feet hardly grazed his lawns, and who flitted among his flower-beds like
a caressing breeze. He awaited with entire resignation the announcement
of the price fixed for the pavilion.

"Come, my dear uncle," said Marcel, seeing that Madame d'Estrelle had
apparently forgotten the affair, "tell madame la comtesse of your desire
to purchase--"

"True," said the rich man, careful not to commit himself too far, "I
have had some idea of buying the pavilion; but now if madame does not
wish to part with it----"

"I have but one reason for not wishing to part with it. It is occupied
by some people whom I esteem, and whom I would not disturb on any
consideration."

"They have a lease, I suppose?" said Monsieur Thierry, who knew all
about it.

"Why, of course," said Marcel; "you would have to pay them a fair
indemnity in case they should consent to cancel the lease, for you know
they took it very recently."

"A fair indemnity!" repeated the uncle, with a frown.

"I would gladly undertake to pay that," said Madame d'Estrelle, "if----"

"If I would pay more for the place in proportion!"

"That is not what I was about to say," rejoined Julie, in a dignified
tone which cut short all discussion. "I intended to say, and I say now
that, if Madame Thierry, your sister-in-law, has the slightest objection
to leaving that house, I propose to uphold her right to remain
throughout the term of the lease; and that is a condition which the
purchaser cannot evade on any pretext."

"That will delay the transaction and make it less advantageous to
madame," said Monsieur Antoine, who, was consumed with longing to utter
the fascinating title of _countess_, but could not quite make up his
mind to do it.

"I do not say no to that, Monsieur Thierry," replied Julie, with an
indifference which the rich man considered a fair artifice.

"However," he began after a pause, "what price does----"

Marcel was about to reply. Julie, who evidently knew nothing about
business, paid no heed to him, but answered ingenuously:

"Oh! I know nothing about that. You are well-known to be a shrewd and
fair-minded man; you may fix the price yourself."

Regardless of her solicitor's reproachful glance, she continued:

"You cannot believe, Monsieur Thierry, that the purpose of my visit to
your garden was to haggle with you over the price of my small property.
I know that it will probably be of advantage to you to own it, and you
know that I am in straitened circumstances; that is no reason why we
should be unreasonable in our demands upon each other; but in justice to
myself I must tell you this, that I would not for a million francs
consent to distress madame your sister-in-law, because I love and honor
her especially. That being understood, you can think it over and let me
know your decision; for you owe me a call now, my dear neighbor, and I
shall not release you from the debt, whether we come to terms or not."

The countess withdrew, leaving the rich man dazzled by her charms; but,
as he did not choose to allow Marcel to see his emotion, he pretended to
exult for another reason.

"Well, attorney," he said triumphantly, "so you are fairly caught, and
sheepish enough! What did you say about that lady's demands? She has
more sense than you, and is willing to take my valuation----"

"Very good, very good, rejoice at her charming manners," replied Marcel,
"and make the most of the praise which you owe to her politeness; but
try to understand and to rise to the level of the rôle which she
ascribes to you!"

"After all," rejoined Antoine, who was a very shrewd man of business,
"when you say to a man like me: 'Pay what you choose,' it means: 'Pay
like a great nobleman!' Very good, I will pay you a good price, _mordi!_
and the great lady shall see whether I'm an old curmudgeon like her
father-in-law the marquis! There is one thing that surprises me on the
part of a woman who seems to be no fool: and that is the fuss she makes
about my sister-in-law! I am not quite sure whether she meant to be
agreeable to me or to make sport of me when she was talking about her."

"She meant to be agreeable to you."

"Of course, as she needs me; but then my sister-in-law must have made me
out a miser?"

"My aunt has not mentioned you. Act in such a way that she will have no
reason to complain."

"Let her complain if she chooses! what do I care? What do I want of this
countess's esteem and friendship?"

"True," said Marcel, taking his hat, "it is all a matter of the utmost
indifference to you! No matter, don't try to make yourself out a boor,
and let us agree on a day so that I can announce your visit."

Antoine selected the second day thereafter, and they parted; but on the
next day, without a word to Marcel, he took measures, indirectly but
adroitly, to repurchase the house at Sèvres without loss to himself.
Had he decided to make his nephew that present, to give his
sister-in-law that pleasure? No indeed. There never was a more
vindictive man, because nothing had occurred to wear out his passions,
good or evil. There had been nothing in his narrow life of sufficient
importance to soften the asperities of his nature. But a blow had been
dealt at his secret vanity, and Julie d'Estrelle, without artifice,
without scheming to that end, had subdued that savage spirit. He found
in her an irresistible charm and an unaffected tone of equality, which,
to be sure, he attributed to her need of money, but which flattered him
as he had never been flattered in his life before. He had determined
therefore to pretend to feel something like compassion for Madame
Thierry. He was afraid that she would really do him an injury in Julie's
estimation, and by purchasing the house at Sèvres in his own name, he
persuaded himself that he would hold his foe in respect by the hope that
that transaction would prove to be for Julien's benefit.

Meanwhile Marcel continued his efforts to relieve Madame d'Estrelle
gradually from her burden, and on the evening of the day of her visit to
Monsieur Antoine, he called upon her to scold her for her recklessness,
and to insist that she should make the purchaser jump high for the
sugar-plum. He found her disinclined to assent to any manœuvring to
secure the desired result.

"Do as you think best, my dear Monsieur Thierry," she said; "but do not
ask me to assist you. You told me that your uncle was a little vain,
that I could easily gain some influence over him by virtue of my title,
and that, by means of that influence, I could arouse his interest in his
sister-in-law's lot. I made haste to test my power. You tell me that you
hope for some good result; I did what my heart dictated, do not ask me
to do anything more. Why are you in such a hurry to sell the pavilion?
Didn't you tell me that my husband's creditors would be patient when
they found that I was provided with an additional piece of real estate,
that the marquis would never allow the hôtel d'Estrelle to be sold, and
that I might venture to forget my troubles for some time? Keep your word
and let your uncle hover about the pavilion, for that will give me an
excuse for pleading Madame Thierry's cause. I told the truth when I said
that I did not propose that she should be turned out of her present
quarters against her will, and I tell you now that I should regret
exceedingly to lose her as a neighbor."

Marcel, being unable to shake her determination, went to see his aunt
Thierry and told her and Julien of the countess's generous action and of
her kindly feeling for them. Madame Thierry was affected to tears, and,
as Julien was careful to play his part well, so that certain suspicions
might be dissipated, she ventured to express herself freely in praise of
Julie d'Estrelle. Her heart was overflowing with gratitude which she had
with difficulty restrained for two days past. Thus did the poor mother
herself pour oil on the flame.

However, her suspicions came to life again more than once. She watched
Julien furtively at every word that she uttered, and he seemed always
perfectly tranquil; but suddenly there came a revelation. As she was
saying to Marcel that she did not wish to stand in the way of Julie's
selling the pavilion, and that she would pretend not to regret the
necessity of moving, Julien warmly remonstrated.

"Move again?" he said. "We cannot do it. We spent a great deal,
considering our income, in getting settled here."

"Our uncle will attend to that," said Marcel; "if he makes you move, I
will undertake to make him pay----"

"My dear fellow," replied Julien, still very earnest, "you are full of
zeal and kindness for us; but you know very well that my mother does not
like your appeals to Uncle Antoine, that you have made them in a measure
against her will, and that, if my interests were not involved, she would
have peremptorily forbidden them. Whether she is right or wrong in
considering Monsieur Thierry a detestable creature is not for us to
judge. For my own part, however painful it may be to me, I will make all
possible concessions to our kinsman's extraordinary character; but I do
not propose that my mother's pride shall be wounded in her relations
with him."

"No, no! I have no pride," cried Madame Thierry. "I have none now,
Julien! You work too hard, you will surely be sick if we refuse to treat
with Monsieur Antoine. Whatever Marcel does, I approve, and if I must
humble myself, I shall be happy to do it! Let us do our duty, pay all
our debts before everything. Let us say to the countess that it makes
little difference to us whether we live here or somewhere else, so that
she can sell at once; and let Marcel say to Monsieur Thierry that we
demand our rights or that we appeal to his generosity--anything will
satisfy me that will restore your health and peace of mind."

"My health is excellent," replied Julien warmly, "and nothing except
moving again would disturb my peace of mind. I like my studio, I have a
picture under way."

"But you are talking selfishly, my child! You forget that the countess
is having trouble with her creditors as we are, even more than we are
just now."

"And do you think that Monsieur Antoine will save her by buying this old
barrack? Marcel knows better."

"What I think," said Marcel, "is that Uncle Antoine will submit to any
conditions that the Comtesse d'Estrelle chooses to impose on him; he
will pay a high price and he won't turn you out. Leave it to me and I
may bring him to something even better."

"To what, pray?"

"That is my secret. You shall know later, if I do not fail."

"Bless my soul!" said Madame Thierry, abruptly changing the subject, "I
forgot to bring my snuff-box; go and get it for me, Julien."

Julien went upstairs and his mother took advantage of the opportunity to
say hastily to Marcel:

"Be careful, my dear child! a great disaster is hanging over us: Julien
is in love with the countess!"

"Nonsense!" cried Marcel in utter stupefaction; "you are dreaming, my
dear aunt, it isn't possible!"

"Speak lower. It is possible, it is a fact. Arrange for us to leave
these dangerous quarters at once. Find some way without letting him
suspect what I say. Save him and save me! Hush! he is coming down
again!"

Julien had done the errand in a moment. He was in a hurry to resume the
conversation; but he noticed a shade of constraint in his mother's
glance, a suggestion of bewilderment and surprise in Marcel's manner. He
suspected that he had betrayed himself, and he at once assumed a
cheerful and indifferent air, which did not deceive Madame Thierry, but
which reassured the solicitor. So Marcel took his leave, saying to
himself that he would sound his cousin some day, but fully persuaded
that his aunt was losing her wits a little, in the midst of all her
excitement.

But Marcel made a much more astonishing discovery, a discovery so truly
astonishing that we beg our readers to prepare themselves for it a long
while beforehand.

Uncle Antoine paid his visit to Madame d'Estrelle. Madame d'Estrelle,
without preparation or effort, was as charming, perhaps more charming
than at their first interview. She received the horticulturist with
neither more nor less affability than a person of her own station. Being
gifted with a penetration which made up for his lack of experience, he
realized that his reception was unexceptionable, and felt that he had
never been so well treated by a person of such high rank. He recognized,
moreover, that she was entirely indifferent to the question of money,
and that her condescension concealed no ulterior motive, not even the
motive of effecting a reconciliation between himself and Madame Thierry,
as she avowed it frankly and with a most earnest and confident
expression of her desire.

Marcel, seeing the gratification which his uncle derived from that
interview, and which he almost forgot to conceal, realized that perfect
sincerity was in some cases the shrewdest diplomacy, and that Madame
d'Estrelle had accomplished more for her protégés and herself than if
she had attempted to use craft.

"Now," said Monsieur Antoine, without waiting to be questioned, "we must
settle this business of the pavilion. It is worth forty thousand francs
to me, I know; I will give that amount, and as I propose to take
possession at once, I owe it to Madame Thierry to submit to any claims
she may make. I don't propose to have any discussion with that woman. So
tell her that I will pay the six thousand francs for which I made myself
responsible, and release her from any claim on that account; here is my
receipt. And if she needs a few more francs to pay the expenses of
moving, I won't refuse to let her have them. Go, and don't let me hear
any more of her troubles; but, first of all, take the countess my offer,
which I think is rather generous, and tell her of my promise to
indemnify her protégés to their satisfaction."

Marcel, amazed but overjoyed, carried the good news first to Madame
Thierry, who thanked heaven, and was very near blessing her
brother-in-law for his determination to make her move instantly and at
any price.

Madame d'Estrelle was not so well pleased; she had seen the attractive
widow again, and had already become very fond of talking with her;
moreover, she had some scruples; Monsieur Antoine's munificence seemed
to her the foolish act of a parvenu and therefore humiliating to her.

"He will think," she said, "that I schemed to induce him to make this
sacrifice, and that idea is abhorrent to me. No, I will accept only half
of that sum. I much prefer to retain his esteem and my influence in
behalf of the poor Thierrys. Go and tell him that I want but twenty
thousand francs and a renewal of your aunt's lease."

"But my aunt is most anxious to move," Marcel replied. "Remember that a
sum of considerable importance to her is involved."

"In that case give no more attention to her affairs in my name, but take
special care of my dignity, which I place in your hands."

This reply, being duly transmitted to Monsieur Antoine, caused an
explosion which astonished Marcel.

"So she declines my services," cried the rich man, "for I did intend to
do her a service, knowing her embarrassment, and I went to her as a
friend, since she had treated me like a friend! Ah! you see, Marcel, she
is proud, she despises me, and she lied when she told me that she
esteemed me! Very good, if that's how it is, I'll have my revenge. Yes,
I'll have a cruel revenge, and she shall have only what she deserves,
and, death of my life! I'll force her to go on her knees to me!"

Marcel silently scrutinized the angry rich man's still handsome and
decidedly cruel face.

"What is this new mystery?" he said to himself, as he watched the black
eyes, made larger by the fierce wrath which caused them to emit
threatening flames. "Can wounded vanity cause such an outbreak? Can it
be that my uncle is on the verge of madness? Is this solitary,
monotonous, preoccupied life too much for his strength, and has his
persistent turning of his back on everything that gives light and warmth
to the lives of other men finally caused derangement in his brain?"

Antoine continued vehemently, heedless of Marcel's careful study of his
person:

"I see what the game is! She wants my sacrifices to help Madame Thierry.
Well, I tell you that I snap my fingers at Mademoiselle de Meuil! It's a
long time since I ceased to have either hatred or affection for her. Let
her go to the devil, and don't let me hear her name again! I will pay
forty thousand francs for the pavilion, or I won't buy it. That's my way
of thinking."

Matters remained in this position for several days; Madame d'Estrelle
laughing at what she considered an attack of madness on the part of the
old parvenu, and he, without Marcel's knowledge, acting in such a way as
to put the finishing touch to that madness.

He purchased secretly all the debts which were hanging over the Comte
d'Estrelle's widow, and, without saying a word, placed himself in a
position where he could ruin her or save her, according to the attitude
she might assume with respect to him. He purchased on his own account,
but under a fictitious name, and with a deed of defeasance, the house at
Sèvres with all its beautiful and costly contents. He did not let it,
but placed a caretaker there to keep it in order. All this was done in a
few days and without regard to cost; then, having artfully made
inquiries of Marcel as to Madame d'Estrelle's intimate friends, he
called upon the Baronne d'Ancourt, who received him with her grandest
manner, but condescended to listen attentively when she learned that he
had come to place her in a position to save Madame d'Estrelle from
certain ruin.

Their interview was long and mysterious. The servants at the hôtel
d'Ancourt, who were exceedingly puzzled by such a conference between
their haughty mistress and a man dressed like a peasant, heard the
baroness's shrill tones, then the rustic voice in labored and emphatic
declamation--a dispute, in short, with intervals of raillery or
merriment; for at times the baroness laughed until the windows shook.

An hour later the baroness hurried to Madame d'Estrelle.

"My dear," she said in great excitement, "I bring you five millions or
poverty; choose."

"Ah! an old husband, I suppose?" said Julie; "you cling to your idea, do
you?"

"A very old husband; but five millions!"

"With a great name, of course?"

"Not the faintest shadow of a name! a downright plebeian; but five
millions, Julie!"

"An honorable man, at all events?"

"He is so considered. Have you decided?"

"Yes, I refuse. Wouldn't you do as much? Would you think well of me if I
should accept?"

"I said just what you say: I sent my man about his business, I laughed
at him. He replied obstinately; 'Five millions, madame, five millions!'"

"And he must have convinced you, since you are here?"

"Convinced or not, I was surprised, dazzled. I said, like the queen:
'You persuade me strongly!'"

"Then you advise me to say yes?"

"Don't say yes, say _perhaps_; then you can reflect and I will reflect
for you; for at this moment my brain is a little confused: those
millions intoxicated me. What would you have? The man is old, and before
long you will be free and people will have done crying out against the
misalliance; besides, everybody knows that your own descent is not very
distinguished. You will open a salon which will eclipse all Paris, and
where all Paris will trample upon itself to take part in your
entertainments; for, when all is said, all Paris has only one thing in
its head, which is to be amused and to go where people are amused. You
will give balls, concerts and theatricals; you will have artists, fine
singers and fine talkers; in a word, bright people to stir up and amuse
the people of quality, who are not bright. Ah! if I had millions--if I
had just two--I should know what to do with them! Come, don't think I am
mad, and don't be cowardly. Accept the plebeian and opulence."

"And what about the husband's old age?"

"An additional reason!"

Julie was indignant, Amélie was offended; they had a falling-out.
Madame d'Ancourt had not mentioned the suitor's name--it had not
occurred to Julie to inquire. She placed the matter in Marcel's hands,
desiring that her refusal should be placed beyond question. She was
afraid that her impulsive friend, in her anger, would compromise her by
giving her protégé some reason to hope. Marcel went to Madame
d'Ancourt to learn the name of the man with the five millions.

"Ah! she thinks better of it, does she?" cried the baroness.

"No, madame, quite the reverse."

"Very well, I shall not tell you. I gave my word of honor not to mention
any names, if the offer was rejected."

Marcel went to his uncle; he had a suspicion of the truth, but he had
not dared suggest it to Madame d'Estrelle, thinking justly that she
would reproach him for having brought her into relations with an insane
old man. Moreover, he knew nothing of his uncle's fortune beyond the two
millions which he admitted, and that figure, which had been often
repeated to Julie, and so had prevented her from suspecting the truth,
went far to destroy Marcel's suspicions.

"Well, my little uncle," he said abruptly as soon as he entered the room
"so you have five millions, have you?"

"Why not thirty?" retorted the old man with a shrug; "have you gone
mad?"

Marcel worried him with questions to no purpose; the uncle was
inscrutable. Moreover, a most momentous event had come to pass on his
domain, and his thoughts were completely diverted from his dreams of
marriage. The mysterious lily, at which he had so often gazed, which he
had watched and nurtured and watered so carefully, in the hope of being
able to give it his name, had unexpectedly, during those few days of
forgetfulness and neglect, put forth a sturdy shoot, which was already
laden with swelling buds; indeed, one of the buds had partly opened,
displaying a corolla soft as satin, of an incomparable sheeny white,
with bright red stripes. That exotic plant surpassed in oddity and in
beauty all its congeners, and the frantic horticulturist, endowed with
new life and almost consoled for his matrimonial mishap, exclaimed again
and again, as he paced his hothouse floor in intense excitement, pausing
at intervals to gloat over the budding of his plant:

"There it is! there it is! my reputation is made. That shall be the
_Antonia Thierrii_, and all the collectors in Europe may burst with rage
if they choose."

"Well, well!" said Marcel to himself, "is it the _Antonia_ or the
countess that my uncle is in love with?"




III


Marcel, seeing that his uncle's vanity as a horticulturist had resumed
the upper hand, and thinking that he might exploit his delight to the
advantage of his aunt and cousin, lavished the most fulsome praise on
the future Antonia.

"You intend, of course, to present it to the Royal Garden. The learned
professors will hold you in the greatest esteem!"

"Oh! as to that, not much!" replied Monsieur Antoine; "they can look at
it to their heart's content, describe it in their fine language,
_specificize_ it as they say; but it's the only specimen of its kind,
and I won't part with it until I have a lot of bulbs."

"But what if it dies without offspring?"

"Why, then my name will live in the catalogues!"

"That isn't enough! If I were in your place I would have it painted, in
case of accident."

"How painted? do you mean to say that they paint flowers now? Ah! I
understand, you mean that I ought to have a portrait made of it? I have
thought of that for some of my other rare plants; but I was on bad terms
with my brother, and when I went to other painters I was never satisfied
with their crazy daubing. I paid big prices and then slashed the canvas
or tore the paper."

"And you have never thought of Julien?"

"Bah! Julien! an apprentice!"

"Have you ever seen any of his work?"

"No, nothing, faith!"

"Do you want me to bring----"

"No, nothing, I tell you. We are not on good terms."

"Yes you are! He has always called on you on the first of January every
year, and you have never had any fault to find with his manner toward
you."

"True, he is well brought up, he isn't stupid or bad-looking; but since
I refused to advance him the money to redeem the house at Sèvres----"

"Julien has never uttered a word of blame or dissatisfaction, I give you
my word of honor."

"All that doesn't prove that he has the necessary talent!"

"Look! a small specimen tells the story as well as a large one. Take
your magnifying glass and look at this."

Marcel took from his pocket a pretty little tortoise-shell snuff-box, on
the lid of which was a bouquet painted in miniature by Julien. Although
it was not in his regular line of work, he had made a microscopic
reproduction of one of his large canvases to decorate this gift for
Marcel, and it was in truth a little _chef-d'œuvre._

Uncle Antoine did not know enough about painting to appreciate its
artistic qualities; but he knew the structure of every detail of a plant
as well as the most accomplished botanist, and, armed with his
magnifying glass, if he could not count the stamens of each flower and
the veins of each leaf, he could at all events assure himself that, in
the sacrifices which the artist had made in favor of the general effect,
there was involved no error, no caprice of the imagination, no offence,
however slight, against the unchangeable laws of creation.

He looked a long while, then ingenuously inquired if Julien was capable
of painting flowers as large as life, and upon Marcel's replying in the
affirmative he decided that Julien should paint the portrait of the
_Antonia Thierrii_, but that it must be done under his eyes, so that he
could see to it that it was absolutely exact in the smallest details.

"I know what these painters are!" he said; "they always want to invent,
to improve on the original. They talk to you about _style_ and _light_
and _effect!_ Oh! I remember all their foolish words! If Julien chooses
to obey me, between us we may perhaps succeed in producing something
fine! Go and tell him, so that he will be ready to come and pass an hour
here the day after to-morrow; it will be in full flower then."

Marcel went to consult Julien, then returned and told his uncle that he
would require at least two days to study his model, and that he must let
him work at it without making any suggestions until he should ask for
them, when he would comply with them if they seemed judicious to him.

"He is very proud!" said the uncle angrily. "Here he is, raising
objections already, like his father! Does he think that I ask him to do
this as a favor? I intend to pay him, and to pay him as well as any
other man would. What is a day of any gentleman's work worth?"

"He doesn't want to be paid. If you are satisfied with what he does, he
will ask you for your custom."

"I know what that means; he will ask me----"

"Nothing. You can settle everything yourself. We know that you are
generous with people you don't hate, and you won't hate Julien when you
know him better."

"Very well, let him come at once; let him begin."

"No, he has some work that is urgent; he will give you a few hours
to-morrow for a beginning."

On the following day Julien began to study the plant, and made several
sketches of it, taking them from different points of view. Monsieur
Antoine, faithful to the conditions exacted, did not see these sketches
until they were submitted to him. He was more pleased with them than he
chose to say. That conscientious method of studying the structure and
bearing of the plant surprised and gratified him. Julien said little,
but kept his eyes constantly on his model and seemed to love it
passionately. The horticulturist began to feel some esteem for him, and
as Madame Thierry had never mentioned to her son her brother-in-law's
strange conduct toward her, as nothing in the young man's face or
manners betrayed the slightest feeling of aversion, Antoine, who had the
greater longing to become attached to some one as he became more
selfish, conceived a latent, and if we may say so, an underground sort
of friendship for him.

On the second day Julien began to paint; thereupon the uncle ceased to
understand what he was doing and began to be uneasy. It was much worse
when Julien informed him that he must finish the work in his studio,
where the light was arranged as he wanted it, and where he had a
multitude of little things which he could not carry back and forth
without forgetting some of them. It was some distance from the pavilion
to the hôtel de Melcy, and he would have no time to waste going to and
fro the next day, for it was most essential to seize on the wing the
plant's expression when it was in full bloom.

But to transport the model was to put it in peril, to hasten its
blooming, weaken its stalk, deaden its lustre! Uncle Antoine, finding
the artist immovable, determined to carry the priceless _Antonia_ to the
studio himself, with the greatest possible care, even at the risk of
meeting Madame Thierry and being obliged to salute her.

In forcing this unpleasant sacrifice upon Uncle Antoine, Julien was not
governed by the petty crotchets of a finical artist. He was following
Marcel's advice, who was bent upon bringing about some sort of
reconciliation between the relations, and who, having abandoned all hope
of inducing Madame Thierry to make the slightest advance, had considered
it necessary to surprise her by an unexpected meeting with her enemy.

Madame Thierry, whom we have represented to you as perfect in every
respect, and who was as perfect as a woman can be, had nevertheless one
little failing. Although she was not coquettish, although she did not
pretend or believe herself to be still young, she had never said to
herself: "I am an old woman."--What woman in her day was more sensible
or more clear-sighted? Her youth had burst into flower among madrigals
and gallant speech and manners. She had been so pretty, and she was so
well preserved! Her husband, although he ruined her by his recklessness,
had been in love with her to his last day, and it really seemed as if
that old couple were destined to reproduce the legend of Philemon and
Baucis. By dint of being told that she was still charming, which was
perfectly true considering her age, good Madame Thierry still thought
and felt herself to be all a woman, and after thirty-five years she had
not forgotten how deeply the ex-armorer's proposal had wounded her pride
and her self-esteem. That brutal man, who had had the audacity to say to
her: "I am here, I am rich, you may as well love me instead of my
brother," had caused her the only real mortification connected with what
society in those days called "her fault." Later, her charm and loyalty
had caused her husband's admirers to seek her society. She was able to
hold her head erect, to triumph over prejudice, to occupy a place apart,
an exceptional and most desirable place in public opinion. She was happy
therefore except for a single wound, still bleeding, in the depths of
her heart. It seemed to her that her honor had been sullied once in her
life, by Monsieur Antoine's offers and aspirations.

Marcel was unable to penetrate this labyrinth of feminine refinements.
He believed that time had wiped out the last trace of that absurd
episode, and that Madame Thierry told the truth when she declared that
she was ready to forgive everything in order to obtain for Julien his
wealthy kinsman's favor.

Julien was not the man to covet Uncle Antoine's wealth. He had never
said to himself that by fawning upon him he might make sure of a goodly
share of his inheritance. For a long time he had fought against the idea
of asking him for a slight service; but the longing to recover for his
mother, by hard work, the house in which she had been so happy, had
overcome his pride. Determined to devote his whole life, if necessary,
to the task of paying his debt, he no longer blushed at the measures
which Marcel took to induce Antoine to advance the necessary funds.

But, when it was time for his uncle to appear, Julien had some scruples
about deceiving his mother. He was afraid that the surprise would be too
great, and he tried to prepare her for the visit he expected. Madame
Thierry made the best of it; but she had hardly saluted Monsieur Antoine
when she went up to her room on the first pretext that occurred to her,
and there remained, unable to make up her mind to face that antipathetic
individual. Antoine, who had not seen her for thirty years or more, did
not recognize her at once, and had not the presence of mind to
apologize. He had walked across his grounds, which had a servants' gate
opening on Rue de Babylone, near the pavilion. As he would trust no one
but himself to touch his beplumed lily, he had brought it in with his
own hands. He placed it with his own hands on the table in the little
studio. He removed with his own hands the enormous horn of white paper
which protected it; and when he saw that the artist was fairly at work,
he took a newspaper which Madame d'Estrelle sent to Madame Thierry every
morning, and dozed in a corner of the studio.

Julien expected Marcel, who had promised to attempt to effect the
reconciliation which he had planned; but Marcel was detained by
unexpected business and did not appear. Madame Thierry did not come
down. Julien felt that he could not break the ice unassisted by his
cousin; so he did not speak, but worked on, did his best, and thought of
Julie.

Uncle Antoine slept with one eye open. He felt agitated, excited,
constrained, in the house of the woman he hated, and in sight of the
hôtel d'Estrelle, where his new inamorata lived. He rose, walked back
and forth in his squeaking shoes, sat down again, and, forgetting his
lily for a moment, tried to talk with Julien.

"Do you have much work?" he asked.

"A good deal."

"And people pay you well?"

"Well enough. I have no reason to complain."

"How much do you earn a day?"

"About thirty francs, taking one day with another," said Julien, with a
smile.

"That's not very much; but your father at your age didn't earn so much
as that, and you will increase your prices from year to year, I
suppose?"

"I hope so and expect so."

"You lead a temperate and regular life, so I am told?"

"I am forced to do so, uncle."

"You don't go into society, I imagine?"

"I have no time for that."

"But you know some people of quality?"

"Those who were friends of my father have not forgotten me."

"Do you sometimes pay visits?"

"Rarely, and only when it is necessary."

"Do you know the Baronne d'Ancourt?"

"I know her name, nothing more."

"Isn't she a friend of Madame d'Estrelle?"

"I have no idea."

"But you know Madame d'Estrelle?"

"No, uncle."

"You have never seen her?"

"Never."

Julien told this lie with resolution. It seemed to him that everybody
was trying to pry into his secret, and he had determined to conceal it
more securely with a cloak of savage distrust.

"That's funny," continued Uncle Antoine, who may have conceived some
suspicions of his own in order to remain true to his habit of suspecting
everybody. "Your mother passes hours and days in her garden, even in her
salon, they say, and you----"

"I am not my mother."

"You mean that you are not noble?"

"I mean that I am not old enough to call on a person who receives only
older people."

"Perhaps you regret that you are too young, eh?"

"I am very glad that I am young, I assure you!" replied Julien, laughing
at his uncle's peculiar reflections.

The uncle, foiled in his attack, began to pace the floor again with a
jerky, nerve-wearing step; then he said to Julien:

"Will it take you much longer?"

"Two or three hours."

"May I look?"

"If you choose."

"Oho! that's not bad; that begins to look like something. But you're
painting the whole background; where will you put the plant's name? I
want it in big gold letters."

"Then I won't put it anywhere. It would spoil my effect."

"Ah! upon my word! But I will have my name!"

"You can have it put in large black letters on a raised plate at the top
or bottom of the gilt frame."

"Good! that's a good idea! If you give me a masterpiece, I'll invite you
to the ceremony of baptism."

"Pshaw! a ceremony?"

"Oh! yes, the gentlemen from the Royal Garden are coming to breakfast
with me to-morrow. I have invited them. I expect they'll come, and, as
it tires me to sit in one place with folded arms, I'll just go home and
see if everything is going on all right, for I mean to have a sort of
party. Take good care of my lily, don't let anyone disturb you, work
without stopping. I will come back in an hour."

And as each touch of the brush, wielded by Julien with an enthusiastic
and unerring hand, seemed to make the marvellous plant actually live on
the canvas, the uncle was profoundly impressed, smiled, and softened so
far as to pat the young man's shoulder, saying:

"Courage, my boy, courage! Satisfy me, and perhaps you won't be sorry."

He went out, but, instead of returning to his own house, he bent his
steps mechanically in the direction of the hôtel d'Estrelle. A confused
multitude of ideas, alluring, disturbing, audacious, caused a mad whirl
in that poor brain, at once enfeebled and excited by isolation, wealth,
ennui and vanity.

"I made a mistake," he said to himself, "in entrusting my proposal to
that rattle-pated baroness. She went about it the wrong way; she didn't
even mention my name! She said that I was an old _roturier_--that was
all; and the little countess never guessed that she was referring to a
well-preserved man, whom she herself praised for his excellent health
and fine appearance; a man she knows to be generous and big-hearted, and
whose talents as an amateur gardener and producer of varieties are not
to be despised. I propose to straighten matters out. I am going to
declare myself, and find out whether I am to love her or hate her."

He resolutely entered the house, and asked for an interview with the
countess on business. She hesitated a little about receiving him; she
knew that he was queer and she considered him a sort of maniac. She
would have liked Marcel to be present at the interview; but she knew her
old neighbor's sensitiveness, and she was afraid that she might impair
Madame Thierry's interests by refusing to see him. So she bade her
servant show him in. She was alone, but she thought that it would be the
most absurd prudery to take alarm at a tête-à-tête with an old man
whose rigid morals were well-known.

The rich man arrived prepared for a struggle; he imagined that he would
have to fight to obtain this tête-à-tête. When he found that it was
accorded him with no other obstacle than about two minutes of waiting,
when he saw the slightly reserved but always courteous and affable
greeting of his fair neighbor, his courage failed him. Like all those
who have no opportunity to exchange their thoughts and no one to
contradict them, he was as bold as any man could be in his projects; it
was that boldness which had made him rich, and he had full confidence in
it; but as he had never acted except behind the scenes, he was as
incapable of taking a step in his own person on the stage of the world
and of speaking to a lady, as he would have been of commanding a ship
and negotiating with the Algonquin Indians. He turned pale, stammered,
replaced his hat on his head, and fell into such dire confusion that
Madame d'Estrelle, surprised and disturbed, was forced to come to his
assistance by broaching the subject which, in her mind, was the motive
of his visit.

"So we seem to be treading on delicate ground, my dear neighbor," she
said to him in an amiable tone, "with respect to that wretched pavilion,
which, I fondly hoped, was to establish a good understanding between us
and put us on a neighborly footing. Do you know that I consider you
unreasonable and that I am inclined to scold you?"

"I am mad, everyone knows that," rejoined Antoine sulkily. "If people
keep on telling me so, they will end by making me believe it!"

"I ask nothing better than to be proved in the wrong," replied Julie;
"but give me some good reason for accepting the gift you offer. I defy
you to do it."

"You defy me? Then you wish me to speak? The reason is plain enough. I
am interested in you."

"You are very kind!" said Julie, with an imperceptible smile of irony;
"but----"

"But it's a fact, madame la comtesse, that you are made to make people
think about you--and I was thinking about you, deuce take me! I said to
myself: 'It's a pity that a person so--a lady who--in fact, a good woman
should be hunted by bailiffs. I am only a vulgar fellow, but I have an
idea that I'm not such a curmudgeon as the fine gentlemen and ladies of
her family.'--That is why I said what I said; and you took offence at
it, which shows that you look down on me."

"Oh! not that, no indeed!" cried the countess. "Look down on you because
you wanted to do a kind deed? No, a hundred times, no! You know that
that is impossible!"

"Then why refuse?"

"Listen, Monsieur Thierry; will you give me your word as a man of honor
that you fully understand me, that you are quite sure of the sincerity
and unselfishness of my behavior toward you?"

"Yes, madame, I give you my word of honor. If that wasn't so, _mordié!_
do you suppose I would have come to see you again?"

"Very well, then I accept," said Julie, offering him her hand; "but on
one condition, and that is that you give me back your good will."

Old Antoine lost his head when he felt that soft little hand in his hard
dry one. He had a sort of dizzy feeling, and, in his uncertainty what to
do with that hand, which he thought that he ought not to kiss, and which
he dared not press, he let it fall again, and stammered out his thanks
incoherently, but with something like warmth.

"Since you treat me as if you were my debtor," continued Madame
d'Estrelle, "I warn you that I shall be very exacting. As a matter of
fact, I need only twenty thousand francs for the moment. Authorize me to
offer the other twenty thousand to Madame Thierry as from you."

"Oh! that isn't possible!" said Antoine angrily. "She will
refuse.--There's a person who detests me! I have just been to call on
her. She turned tail and ran up into her garret!"

"Is it that you have wronged her in some way then, neighbor?"

"Never! If she chooses to think otherwise--But let her say what she
will, I am an honorable man."

"She has never said that you weren't."

"Has she never spoken to you about me? Come, on _your_ word of honor?"

"On my honor, never!"

"In that case--look you! tell her to respect me as she ought, and don't
talk about giving her money that belongs to you; for, deuce take me! if
you choose to think well of me and not blush at my friendship, I'll toss
her a pretty little present! I'll redeem her house at Sèvres. What
would you say to that, eh?"

"I should say, my dear neighbor," exclaimed Madame d'Estrelle, deeply
touched, "that you are the best of men!"

"The best, honor bright?" said the rich man, flattered to the last
degree in his pride; "the best, you say?"

"Yes, the best rich man whom I know."

"Then it's as good as done! Will you come to breakfast at my house
to-morrow with some scientific men, very famous men of intellect, and
attend a christening? Will you be godmother and stand up with me?"

"Yes, at what hour?"

"Twelve o'clock."

"I will come! but I must come with some one, as you are to have men
there who do not know me. I will come with----"

"With my sister-in-law; I see what you are coming at!"

"Do you forbid me?"

"Forbid you? Do you know that you talk as if I were your master?" he
rejoined, with a fatuous, mysterious air.

"As if you were my father," replied Julie artlessly.

An old man of impure morals would have been wounded by that remark; but
Antoine was virtuous in his madness, and we have no hesitation in
asserting that he was not in love with Julie. The countess alone, not
the woman, was the object of his passion. It mattered little to him
whether she was his adopted daughter or his wife. Provided that he could
show her to his grave and learned guests on the morrow, to Marcel, to
Julien, to Madame Thierry above all, and to all his gardeners, leaning
on his arm or seated at his table, and manifesting a sort of filial
affection for him, undisturbed by any thought of what people might say,
it seemed to him that he should be perfectly happy.

"And if I am not satisfied yet," he mused, speaking to himself of
himself with boundless affection, "I shall be in time to tame her and
lead her on to marriage, to sacrifice her title for the name of Thierry
senior, which will then be quite as illustrious as that of my brother,
Thierry the painter!--Since you are so _polite_," he said to Julie, "I
will not be outdone. I will do all that you want me to do. For instance,
be kind enough to invite Madame André Thierry in my name, and say to
her that if you should fail to keep your appointment to-morrow through
her fault, I will never forgive her as long as I live."

"I will answer for her, neighbor. Until to-morrow, and have no fear!"

"Would it trouble you to say _my friend_?" said Antoine, whose tongue
was loosened under the influence of internal well-being.

"It would not trouble me at all," replied Julie, laughingly; "I will
call you that to-morrow, if you keep your word."

"You will call me that--in public?"

"In public, with all my heart."

The old man took his leave, staggering like a drunken man. In the street
he muttered to himself, with gleaming eyes and vehement gestures. The
people he met took him for an escaped lunatic.

He followed the wall of the Estrelle garden, instinctively turning to
see if Julien was still working and if his lily was uninjured. Suddenly
it occurred to him that Madame d'Ancourt might ruin everything if she
should reveal to Madame d'Estrelle the name of the suitor she had
described. Julie evidently had no suspicion; evidently she saw no
ulterior purpose behind her old neighbor's attachment. There was no
reason why she should not come around gradually to the point of
accepting him for a husband as she had more experience of his
munificence; but he had undertaken to progress too rapidly; he had come
within an ace of spoiling everything. As the baroness was not opposed to
his success, he must hasten to her before thinking of anything else,
tell her how matters had progressed and enjoin silence upon her. He
jumped into an empty cab which happened to pass, and ordered the cabman
to take him to the hôtel d'Ancourt.

Julie was profoundly moved; like every generous heart which has set on
foot and carried through a good action, she was happy in absolute
forgetfulness of self. That forgetfulness of self was so complete that
she threw over her shoulders a light cape of violet silk and ran to the
pavilion, impatient to announce the great news to Madame André, and to
make her promise to chaperone her at the banquet at the hôtel de Melcy.
She was thinking no more of Julien than if he had never existed, or, if
she did think of him, she had no conception of the danger she ran in
meeting him. That danger, of the gravity of which she was entirely
ignorant, seemed to her a trifle in comparison with the great event
which led her to go to his mother. Moreover, she was alone. No one in
her salon, no one in the garden. Would the roses be scandalized by her
action, would the nightingales cry out over the walls that Madame
d'Estrelle was going into a house where there might be a young man whom
she had never seen?

At that moment Julien had no leisure to watch for Julie's approach. He
must paint rapidly and without distraction. The lily could not promise
not to fade and curl at the edges before the last stroke of the brush.
Madame Thierry was in her room with Marcel, who, after exchanging a few
words with Julien, was attempting to confess and convince his aunt by
lecturing her in private, as the subject of his homily had thus far been
kept from the young artist, and it was thought best to keep him in
ignorance of it.

Madame d'Estrelle tapped gently at the door of the pavilion. A huge dray
laden with stone was passing along the street at that moment. The
creaking of the wheels, the shouts of the drayman and the cracking of
his whip drowned the faint sound of her knocking. Being most anxious to
see Madame Thierry before she was informed of what had happened, and
offended by some gruff message from the eccentric Antoine, Madame
d'Estrelle resolutely opened the outer door, then a second one, and
found herself in Julien's studio, face to face with him; for his model
was placed in the light that shone through the window upon that door,
and Julie appeared to the artist in a flood of radiance, as if she had
come to him in a sunbeam.

He was so unprepared for that vision that he nearly fell senseless. All
his blood rushed to his heart and his face turned whiter than Monsieur
Antoine's lily. He could neither speak nor bow; he stood rooted to the
floor, palette in hand, with staring eyes and as if actually turned to
stone.

What analogous process was taking place in the lovely countess's heart
and senses? It is certain that at the sight of that wonderfully
beautiful young man, of a type of beauty wherein nobility of outline was
surpassed only by intelligence of expression, she had a sort of
instinctive feeling of respect; for he was not really a stranger to her.
She knew the whole story of his upright, noble labor, his persistence in
working earnestly and regularly, his filial love, his generous
aspirations, the esteem and affection which he deserved, and which
nobody who knew him could deny him. It may be that she had sometimes
been curious to see him, but if so she had forbidden herself to give way
to curiosity, whether because it seemed childish to her, or because she
had a vague presentiment of some danger to herself.

Let us not attempt to dissect her feelings farther. She was apparently
all ready for the invasion of the sentiment which was to decide her
fate. She received a terrible shock; the confusion which paralyzed
Julien took complete possession of her, and for a moment she was as
silent and motionless as he.

If anyone had seen that beautiful couple, fashioned by the hands of God,
in some region inaccessible to social prejudices, coming together under
the natural and awe-inspiring conditions of the all-governing logic, he
would have said unhesitatingly that logic, born of God, had made
that magnificent man for that fascinating woman, and that sensible,
genuine woman for that high-spirited and earnest man. All was charm and
gentleness in Julie's grace; all was passion and unselfishness in
Julien's beauty. As at last their glances met in the bright radiance of
that May sun, redolent with the fragrance of nature's new light, each
one uttered mentally, as it were an outcry of irresistible love, the
names which chance had given them--_Julie, Julien_--as if they were
destined to have but one name between them.

Thus it required a mighty effort of will for them to remember the
distance that separated them socially.

"Of course, it is the young painter," thought Julie; "I fancied for a
moment that I saw a demi-god."

"Alas!" said Julien to himself, "it is the _grande dame_; I fancied for
a moment that I saw the half of myself."

She bowed first, and asked him if he were Monsieur Julien Thierry. He
bowed to the ground as he said with a hypocritical expression of doubt:

"Madame la Comtesse d'Estrelle?"

What trifling! as if they had any occasion to ask questions before
taking possession of each other.

"Is madame your mother out?"

"No, madame, I will call her."

And he did not stir; his feet seemed to be nailed to the floor.

"She is with my cousin Marcel Thierry," he added; "shall I tell him to
come down and receive his orders?"

"Do not call anybody. I will go up if you will show me the way. But
stay," she added, seeing that Julien was incapable of moving. "Perhaps
it will be well to notify madame your mother. I did not see her
yesterday; perhaps she is not well?"

"She is a little indisposed," said Julien.

"Then--yes, you must prepare her for a--pleasant surprise, thank God!
which might, however, give her too great a shock. Tell her gently that I
bring great and good news from Monsieur Antoine Thierry in relation to
the house at Sèvres."

Julien could not nor did not think that he should resist the desire to
thank Madame d'Estrelle. As he had recovered his presence of mind to
some extent, he blessed her for what she was doing for his mother, in
terms so overflowing with emotion and delicacy of sentiment, that she
was profoundly touched, but not surprised. With such a nature as his and
such an irresistible face Julien could not express himself otherwise.
Thereupon the ice was broken and all the rigid rules of etiquette were
forgotten, as if distrust would have been a mutual insult; and they
talked for a moment with an extraordinary absence of constraint.

"I am overjoyed to have been of assistance to your mother," said Julie,
"as you must know. She cannot have failed to tell you how dearly I love
her!"

"You are quite right to love her, you will never repent it. Her heart is
worthy of yours."

"I should be very glad if I could say that my heart is worthy of her
confidence. Oh! she has told me about you! You adore her, I know; and
God will bless you for that boundless filial love."

"He blesses me already, since it is you who say so."

"And I do say so with all my heart. Why should I not say so to you?
There are so few persons whom one can esteem without reserve!"

"There are some whose esteem is so great a blessing, that, in order to
obtain it one would accept the hatred and contempt of all the rest of
mankind."

"Oh! that is mere politeness; you do not know me well enough----"

"I know you, madame, by your acts of kindness, by the nobleness and
delicacy of your heart. One must needs be deaf not to know you, blind
not to understand you; and the calling down of one more blessing on your
head cannot surprise you, provided that it be done humbly by one forever
prostrate at your feet."

Julie felt that the atmosphere she breathed was beginning to glow. She
instinctively tried to recover her self-possession, but could not find
the necessary courage to run away from that perilous interview.

"Are you also pleased," she said, "to recover the house in which you
grew up?"

"Pleased for my poor mother's sake, oh! yes, madame; but on my own
account--no!"

"Are you attached to Paris?"

"No, not at all; but----"

Julien's glowing, melting eyes said plainly enough what his thoughts
were. Julie understood only too well. She tried to change the subject;
she looked at the artist's pictures, she praised his talent, which was
revealed to her simultaneously with his love, and she thought that she
was telling him that she understood his art; but really it was his
passion that she understood, and each word they uttered betrayed the
all-absorbing thought that was in their minds. They both suddenly became
so confused that they had no idea what they were talking about, and
Madame d'Estrelle pounced upon Monsieur Antoine's lily in order to seem
to be talking about something.

"Ah! what a lovely flower," she said, "and how sweet it smells!"

"Do you like it?" cried Julien.

And with the heedless impetuosity of a lover drunk with joy, he broke
the stalk of the _Antonia Thierrii_, and presented the superb flower to
Julie.

Julie knew nothing whatever of the affair in which that plant played so
important a part; she had not seen Marcel for three days, and as Madame
Thierry carefully avoided any mention of Monsieur Antoine's name,
nothing had been told her. When she was invited to a christening at the
hôtel de Melcy on the following day, she naturally supposed that the
subject was the child of some favorite gardener. In short she was a
hundred leagues from imagining that by breaking that stalk Julien broke
off all relations with his uncle, and cast, it might be, a whole
lifetime of affluence at the feet of his idol.

And yet she uttered a cry of surprise and terror when she saw the
artist's impulsive act.

"Ah! _mon Dieu!_" she exclaimed, "what are you doing? Your model!"

"I have finished," Julien replied hastily.

"No, you have not finished, I can see that plainly enough!"

"I can finish without a model: I know it by heart!"

And as he cast a last glance of mental possession on the lily, yielding
for a moment to his love for his art, Julie replaced it on its stalk and
held it there, saying with playful and utterly unconscious grace:

"I will hold it, finish your work; it will not wither at once. Come,
make haste. The painting is so lovely! I should never forgive myself if
I were the cause of your giving it up. Work away, I insist upon it!"

"You insist?" said the bewildered Julien.

And as there was another fresh piece of canvas behind his picture, he
drew and painted with furious ardor Madame d'Estrelle's shapely and
beautiful hand. The lily did not progress. It stood on its stalk to no
purpose, while the unconscious Julie held it there waiting until it
should droop never to rise again.

O Uncle Antoine! where were you while such a crime was being committed,
fearlessly and remorselessly, under the eye of a drowsing or evil-minded
Providence?

A noise on the stairs recalled Julie to herself; it was Marcel coming
down to tell Julien that his mother had agreed to see Monsieur Antoine
when he returned to the pavilion. Madame d'Estrelle, ashamed to be
surprised in that tête-à-tête and on such extraordinarily familiar
terms with the artist, hurriedly pushed the stalk of the _Antonia_ into
the light, moist earth in the pot. The _Antonia_ seemed to have noticed
nothing and preserved its freshness and beauty, Marcel entered and did
not discover the catastrophe.

The countess's presence was enough of a surprise for him. She felt
exceedingly shamefaced before him, and Julien observed it. He at once,
with true manliness, surmounted all emotion, and with imperturbable
self-possession informed Marcel that madame la comtesse had just arrived
and wished to speak with his mother. At the same time he brought a chair
forward for Julie, as if she had not been seated at all, then left the
room to tell Madame Thierry, saluting his visitor with respectful
dignity.

Madame d'Estrelle was infinitely grateful to the artist for this sudden
resolution. Even that slight indication showed her that he was no child
capable of compromising her by ill-timed ingenuousness, but a man fully
armed and ready to protect her against all the world, to save her at
need from the consequences of her own rashness. She loved him altogether
for it, but she felt at the same time that he was the master of her
destiny, since there was already a secret between them to be concealed
from the searching glances of their common friends.

While she tried to give Marcel a rapid _résumé_ of her conversation
with Monsieur Antoine, Julien entered his mother's room. She saw such a
radiant expression on his face that she cried out:

"_Mon Dieu!_ how beautiful your eyes are this morning! What on earth has
happened?"

"Madame d'Estrelle is downstairs," said Julien. "She brings you joy and
comfort. She has induced Monsieur Antoine to redeem your dear little
_cabin._ Come quickly! put up your hair and come down to thank your good
angel."

Madame Thierry, surprised, overjoyed, and at the same time dismayed--for
the mother's eye could not be deceived, but saw clearly the restrained
passion under Julien's apparent frankness,--was so overwhelmed that she
burst into tears.

"Well, well," said Julien, "what does this mean? Poor mother! you are so
stout-hearted in misfortune; can't you endure joy? Come, let your hair
hang down, if you can't put it up and come down just as you are. Madame
d'Estrelle will see you weeping for joy, and that will not make her feel
hurt, I promise you!"

"Julien! Julien! there is pain blended with my pleasure! yes, and fear
too!"

"You are afraid you will have to thank Monsieur Antoine? Nonsense, you
unforgiving creature! that is too childish!"

Madame Thierry was on the point of swooning. Julien almost lost patience
with her, for her agitation caused him to lose minutes, seconds which he
might have passed with Julie. Marcel, who was delighted by the good news
she had brought, was also vexed by his aunt's delay, and went upstairs
to hurry her. So that Julie was left alone in the studio for several
moments.

Those moments, swiftly as they passed, seemed afterward like a century
in her memory, for the light shone into her heart in a single dazzling
ray. "Your happiness is found," said an inward voice in a tone of
sovereign authority: "it is here. It consists in nothing less than the
possession of a boundless love concealed in the bosom of a narrow,
straitened existence. Julien's mother knew and enjoyed that happiness
throughout her youth. Intercourse with the world and opulence added
nothing to her happiness. They rather diminished it by introducing ideas
foreign to love. Forget society, you will be the better for it. Break
with your whole past, which deceived you and set you at odds with
yourself. Become reconciled to your own beginnings, which are more
nearly connected with the third estate than with the nobility; and to
your conscience, which reproaches you for having listened to the advice
of false glory and for having yielded to the threats of your ambitious
kinsfolk; seek to be received back into favor by the God who abandons
souls which are enamored of false joys; be true, be strong like this
young man who adores you, and who has just revealed to you in a glance
the greatest and noblest passion you will ever inspire!"

As she listened to this mysterious voice in her own heart, Julie looked
about her and was surprised to find that a divine tranquillity succeeded
to the agitation which had overwhelmed her. She thoroughly relished the
charm of a very simple little phenomenon. Short-sighted though she was,
she was able to see everything in a room so much smaller than those to
which she was accustomed. A very humble dwelling was that Louis XIII.
pavilion; but it was embellished by a tastefulness of arrangement which
revealed the artist whose love of refinement was not lessened by
poverty. The building was not ugly in itself. The deep, broad
window-recess where the widow had installed her arm-chair as in a little
sanctum, with her spinning-wheel, her little table and the cushion for
her feet, imparted a sort of homelike Flemish aspect to that part of the
studio; the rest had been recently restored, but with the strictest
economy. Plain gray wainscoting with raised borders to the panels;
straight lines everywhere, but nothing out of proportion; a white
ceiling, rather low, but devoid of any crushing effect; above the doors,
oval spaces with very simple garlands of foliage carved on wood and
painted, as was the beading of the panels, a deeper shade of gray than
the rest; two or three beautiful fruit and flower pieces, highly prized
specimens of André Thierry's work, with several sketches and one or two
small studies by Julien; a large bowl of Rouen porcelain, standing on a
console in front of a mirror, and filled with wild flowers and green
branches gracefully arranged and hanging to the floor; a small rug
before the couch, two or three easels, shells, boxes of insects,
statuettes and engravings on a large table; cane-seated oak chairs, and
a small harp, whose old gilded frame glistened in a dark corner, the
only brilliant object in the whole room: surely there was nothing in all
this to denote great affluence; but over it all there was a varnish of
exquisite neatness, an atmosphere of freshness and a soft light most
conducive to revery. The studio was darkened a little by the lilacs in
the garden, which were too near and too dense; but there was a strange
fascination in that greenish light, and there was in the air an
indefinable invitation to rapt contemplation, which Julie felt most
profoundly. What more did one need than that humble and unpretentious
retreat to taste the pure joy and unending bliss of moral security? Of
what benefit was it to Julie to have magnificent furniture, a thousand
trinkets on her what-nots at which she never looked, blue ceilings
starred with gold over her head, Gobelin carpets under her feet, Sèvres
vases to hold her bouquets, lackeys in gold lace to announce her
friends, her pockets full of Chinese fans, and her jewel-cases of
diamonds? All those things had amused her but a single day, and what
playthings can divert a heart that is bored? Julien's austere and
laborious life, his pathetic, never-ending tête-à-tête with his
mother, his love, concealed and prostrate as he himself had said,--these
were surely purer and nobler than the existence, surrounded by flattery,
of a frivolous or blasé nobleman.

A sparrow which Julien had tamed, and which lived among the neighboring
trees, entered the studio and lighted familiarly on Julie's shoulder.
She was surprised for a moment and thought that it was a miracle, a
presage of happiness or of victory. She was really bewildered with
emotion.

At last Madame Thierry appeared, sorely perturbed and deeply moved. She
had insisted upon being left alone with the countess for an instant. She
threw herself at her feet, and, being at once compelled by her to rise,
spoke thus to her:

"You are as kind as the angels, my lovely neighbor. I bless you a
thousand times! But I must tell you of my sorrow as well as my joy: my
son, my dear Julien, is lost if he does not abandon all hope of ever
seeing you again. He loves you, madame, he loves you madly! He deceived
me, he told me that he had hardly seen you in the distance; but he sees
you every day, he gazes at you stealthily, he is driving himself wild,
he is killing himself, by looking at you. He doesn't eat, he doesn't
sleep, he has lost all his cheerfulness, his eyes are hollow, his voice
rings with fever. He has never loved before, but I know how he will
love, how he loves already. Alas! he has an excitable temperament, with
a mind of extraordinary constancy. Discourage him if possible, madame,
by not looking at him, by not speaking to him, by never seeing him
again. Have mercy on him and on me, and do not come to our house again!
In a few days we shall go away; absence will cure him perhaps. If it
does not cure him, I do not know what I shall do to avoid dying of
grief."

Madame Thierry sobbed bitterly, and there was in her tears an eloquence
born of conviction which dealt Julie the last blow. Her whole dream of
happiness seemed destined to vanish in face of this mother's despair.
That delicious revery which had poured such balm into her heart was a
mere vagary at which she herself would smile when she returned home. Had
she decided to break all social bonds in order to throw herself into the
arms of a man whom she had just seen for the first time? That was a most
absurd idea, and Madame Thierry was a thousand times right in looking
upon it as impossible. Julie made an effort to agree with her and to
drive away the vertigo that had assailed her; but the charm must have
been exceedingly potent, for it seemed to her that reason had torn the
heart out of her breast, and, instead of devising some dignified and
sensible response to encourage the poor mother, she threw herself into
her arms and followed her example by bursting into tears.

These tears so surprised Madame Thierry that she nearly lost her head.
She dared not ask for an explanation of them; nor indeed had she any
time to do so, for Julien and Marcel entered the room.

"Come, come, my dear mother," said the former, "you weep too much, and I
am sure that you have forgotten to thank madame and make up your mind
what to do. Marcel tells me that you ought also to thank Monsieur
Thierry in person, and to go to his house to-morrow to----"

At that moment Julien, who was trying to see Julie's face, which was
turned toward the window, detected the furtive movement she made to
conceal and wipe away her tears. He forced back an exclamation, and
involuntarily stepped toward her. Marcel, who saw the extraordinary
confusion of the two women, but could not understand it at all, unless
it meant that Madame Thierry had had an attack of hysterics and had said
something too affecting to the countess, tried to take up Julien's
interrupted sentence and continue the conversation.

"Yes, yes," he said, "to-morrow we are to attend the christening of----"

But he followed Julien's example, and stood with staring eye and parted
lips, unable to utter another word; for he had glanced, not at Julie,
but at the plant which he was about to name, and saw that it was reduced
to a parcel of leaves from which protruded a broken stalk, wet with the
sap that dropped from it like tears.

"Where is it?" he cried in dismay. "Great God, Julien, what have you
done with it? where is the _Antonia?_"

Nobody answered. Madame Thierry looked at Julien, who looked at nobody
but Madame d'Estrelle, and Madame d'Estrelle, who knew nothing about the
lily, did not know what to think of her solicitor's unaffected dismay.

"What are you looking for, pray?" she said, rising.

And as she rose she dropped at her feet the _Antonia_, which, when she
was left alone, she had taken from the vase again and laid lovingly on
her knees.

Madame Thierry understood at once. Marcel simply noticed the fact; he
had no suspicion of the real explanation.

"Ah! madame," he exclaimed, "to any other than you I should say that you
have ruined us! But what can I say to you? And, after all, why need we
fear, when you are the culprit? Uncle Antoine cannot possibly be angry
with you, as you did not know. Did not Julien tell you?"

"Evidently Julien did not explain matters to our benefactress," said
Madame Thierry; "but she must see that everybody here is not in his
right mind, and that, by seeking to assist us, she runs the risk of
adding to our woes."

"You are the one who is not in her right mind, mother," cried Julien,
vehemently. "Really I don't understand you to-day! You are over-excited;
your words betray your thoughts. It seems that, instead of thanking
Madame d'Estrelle, you have been confiding to her some dreams or other."

Julien continued to scold his mother, who began to weep afresh. Marcel,
observing Madame d'Estrelle's stupefaction, led her aside and gave her
in three words the key to the mystery, and with it tangible proof, so to
speak, of the young artist's ardent passion. She was profoundly affected
at first, but she recovered her presence of mind and summoned all her
strength to turn aside the blow which threatened the family.

[Illustration 03: _A DISTURBED CONFERENCE_
_Julien roughly enjoined silence on Marcel, grasping
his arm and whispering_:
"_For God's sake, hush! there is somebody outside
listening!_"]

"Leave it to me," she said to Madame Thierry, striving to be cheerful;
"I take everything on myself. It was I who committed the sin, it is for
me to repair it."

"The sin! What sin?" cried Julien.

"Yes, yes, I took a fancy to that flower and asked you for it! No, no!
what am I saying? I am losing my mind! It was I who broke it, a foolish
caprice--in a fit of absent-mindedness! You were not here. I am awkward,
I can't see very well--However, I will explain it all to your uncle.
_Mon Dieu!_ what do you expect that he will do? He won't beat me. I will
humbly beg his forgiveness; he is not so hard-hearted!"

"Alas!" said Madame Thierry, "unfortunately he is very hard-hearted when
he is injured, and if he knew that Julien had committed this
sacrilege----"

"So it was really Julien who did it?" said Marcel, utterly dumbfounded.
"This is very strange!"

"Well, yes, it was I, I alone!" replied Julien, vehemently, "and there
is nothing strange about it."

"Yes indeed there is!" said Marcel in an undertone, his eyes suddenly
opened to the secret of the catastrophe. "You are a little too mad, my
boy, and your heart must be as fickle as your brain to sacrifice your
mother's future and your own in this way; to say nothing of the fact
that Madame d'Estrelle is too kind, and that she would have done much
better to teach you your place."

"Hush, Marcel, hush!" said Julien, "you are talking nonsense; you don't
understand."

"I understand too well," replied Marcel, "and, on my word, I agree with
your mother now, I say that you are losing your wits!"

This dialogue in undertones was carried on in the window-recess, while
the two women stood together near the vase in which Madame Thierry was
trying to replant the stalk of the beheaded lily, talking at random, and
saying nothing which had the slightest meaning; for her greatest source
of perturbation was not the _Antonia_, but the storm of passion which
had caused its destruction. Suddenly Julien, who was in the habit of
handling the curtain and examining the slit through which he looked into
the garden, roughly enjoined silence on Marcel, grasping his arm and
whispering:

"For God's sake, hush! there is somebody outside listening!"




IV


There was someone there in truth, and it was too late to keep silent.
Uncle Antoine had overheard all. How he came to be there, prowling about
and spying, in Madame d'Estrelle's garden, we shall soon learn. Marcel
felt Julien's gesture, discovered the slit in the curtain, and, looking
out in his turn, saw the ogre listening. He left the window and warned
Madame d'Estrelle. They talked together for a moment in pantomime. They
had not been able to decide what course they should pursue, when
Antoine, hearing nothing more, knocked at the garden door.

It was a good deal like the arrival of the statue at Pierre's festival.
Julien was about to open the door, when Madame d'Estrelle, with a rapid
forecast of the absurd scene to which her presence would give rise and
of the deplorable outbreak which might follow if she were not present,
instantly made up her mind as to her own course, detained Julien
authoritatively by placing her hand on the young artist's quivering arm,
and, motioning to him and to the others not to stir, she went into the
vestibule, opened the door herself, and found herself face to face with
Monsieur Antoine. Although he had prepared his part, he was a little
surprised himself, whereas he expected to surprise everybody.

"You, neighbor?" said Julie, feigning astonishment. "What are you doing
here? Did you come back to my house? Who told you where I was? and what
induced you to pass through my garden?"

And, without waiting for his reply, she passed her arm through the
horticulturist's and led him some distance from the pavilion to the
shore of the little pond in the centre of the lawn in front of the
mansion.

"Why--I was going to the pavilion," stammered Monsieur Antoine.

"So I assume, as I found you at the door."

"I was going there--with kindly intentions; but----"

"Who doubts it? Not I certainly, my friend."

"Ah! at last you call me what I want you to call me! Very good, then you
are willing to talk with me alone, I see--The same with me; I want to
talk to you about an idea of mine----"

"Let us sit down on this bench, neighbor, and I will listen to you; but
first you must listen to me, for I have a confession to make to you."

"Pshaw! pshaw! I know what your confession is; you plucked my lily,
didn't you?"

"Ah! _mon Dieu!_ how did you know it?"

"I overheard a few words and I guessed the rest. Why need you have
broken the poor flower? Couldn't you have asked me for it? couldn't you
wait till to-morrow? I intended to give it to you."

"But--suppose I did not do it on purpose?"

"You didn't do it on purpose?"

Julie felt that she was blushing, for Antoine scrutinized her closely,
and there was a half bitter, half tender irony in his little black eyes.

"Really," she replied, trying to save herself by a Jesuitical expedient,
"the accident happened against my desire."

"Good," rejoined Antoine, still staring at her, "put it that way, I like
that better."

"You like that better--than what?"

"_Mordié!_ yes, I like it better. Come, abandon the worthless cause you
are trying to plead; condemn Master Julien's madness and disloyalty
without reserve; let me punish him as I think best."

"But what makes you think that Master Julien----"

"Oh! don't try to lie any more," cried Monsieur Antoine, springing to
his feet as if impelled by the quivering of his whole irritable and
passionate little being; "it isn't becoming in you to lie, you know! And
then it's no use, for I tell you I heard everything, and as I'm no fool
I concluded--Julien has taken a fancy to you, and the rascal would tell
you so if he dared!"

"What do you say, Monsieur Thierry?"

"I say--I say things as they are. Mademoiselle de Meuil was as proud as
you can possibly be; my brother André told her fairy stories, and he
ended by making her listen to him. All men and all women are made of the
same stuff, I tell you! There's only one question of any importance now:
does Julien take your fancy, yes or no?"

"Monsieur Thierry, if I did not know that you have a kind heart, your
wretched manners would disgust me! Be kind enough to adopt a different
tone, or I shall leave you."

"Ah! you propose to be angry, do you? Your pride has taken hold of you
again, and you are going to turn your back on me? Why? All this is no
concern of yours! Julien did the crazy thing, it is for him to pay for
it."

"No, Monsieur Thierry, that is my place. My bungling caused the
accident; if I had not admired and praised the flower too
enthusiastically--He felt obliged to offer it to me--courtesy----"

"Poor reasons, poor reasons, my fair lady! The rascal knew perfectly
well that I would have thrown the flower, the plant, the garden, aye,
and the gardener to boot, at your feet. If he didn't know it, he should
have guessed it, and, in any event, he had no right to play the gallant
with my property; it's kidnapping, it's an abuse of confidence and a
theft. He will live to rue it and his dear mamma will find out what it
costs to have an ill-bred son play the courtier to great ladies at just
the wrong time."

"Come, come, my good neighbor," cried Madame d'Estrelle, deeply
distressed and annoyed, "surely you do not propose to withdraw your
favor from them; you are not going to give me the lie, for I placed you
on a pedestal; you are not going to break off the friendship which you
and I contracted to-day, just for a flower more or less in your
collection? Your fortune makes a loss so easily repaired of little
consequence."

"You talk very jauntily about it! There are some things which millions
can't replace, and which a man of taste considers beyond all price!"

"Oh! _mon Dieu! mon Dieu!_ who could have guessed that?"

"Julien knew it."

"Impossible!"

"I tell you he knew it."

"Then he is mad; but that is not his mother's fault: she was not there."

"It is his mother's fault! She encourages him to love you, she scrapes
acquaintance with you in order to induce you to do what she did for her
husband."

"No! as to that, I give you my word of honor you are wrong, Monsieur
Thierry! She is in despair----"

"At what? Ah! you see, she has spoken to you about it, and you knew of
the young man's presumption."

Madame d'Estrelle struggled to no purpose. All the prudence of her sex,
all the pride of her rank, all her natural shrewdness, and all her
familiarity with society went for naught against the rich man's narrow
and uncompromising logic. She was as if caught in a vise, and felt
shamefaced, awkward, helpless, at the end of a no thoroughfare. What
should she do? Turn out this boor who forced her to submit to a
distasteful examination, and thereby abandon the cause of the poor
Thierrys and turn them over to his vengeance; or restrain herself,
defend herself as best she could, and submit to the humiliation of the
most untimely of reprimands?

"It seems," she said with sorrowful resignation, "that I made a very
great mistake in going into that pavilion! I was very far from having
any such idea, I had never seen Master Julien Thierry, and I started out
with my mind full of your fine promises, to carry joy to his poor
mother! I am well punished now for being so enthusiastic about you,
Monsieur Thierry, since you consider that you are entitled to lecture me
as if I were a little girl, and to call me to account for the most
innocent if not the most honorable step that one woman can take toward
another!"

"For that reason you are not the one whom I blame," replied Monsieur
Antoine, softened in one direction and proportionately more irritated in
the other; "the true culprits are the ones I blame without appeal. Do
you know what would have happened if I had entered just at the moment
when Master Julien was breaking my lily? Why, I would have broken Master
Julien! Yes, as sure as I am talking to you, the head of this cane would
have broken his painter's head!"

Madame d'Estrelle was alarmed by Monsieur Antoine's excited, vindictive
manner; she was really afraid of him and involuntarily looked about her,
as if in search of protection in case his wrath should turn against
herself. She fancied that she could hear a rustling in the dense foliage
behind the bench, and although it might have been only a bird hopping
among the branches, she felt vaguely reassured.

"No, my good neighbor," she rejoined with courageous mildness, "you
cannot make me believe that you are a bad man, and you will do nothing
unkind to anyone. You may vent your wrath on me alone, within the limits
of your rights in that direction. You may scold me--and I will accept
the rebuke. I will promise you what I have already promised myself,
never to set foot in that pavilion again. What more can I do? Come, tell
me."

At that moment the foliage stirred again, and Julien's tame sparrow came
and perched on Madame d'Estrelle's shoulder, as if sent by him to ask
her forgiveness. She was more deeply moved by that little incident than
she chose to admit, and she took the little creature, which was already
on familiar terms with her, in her hand, with a sort of affection.

"_Hum!_" said Monsieur Antoine, whose piercing eyes seemed to possess
the power of divination; "that's a strange kind of a companion! Is it
yours?"

"Yes," replied Julie, fearful of some revengeful act against Julien.

"A sparrow! Vile beasts! they do nothing but harm. If it wasn't
yours--Did Julien give it to you?"

"Nonsense! you think of nothing but Julien!" said Madame d'Estrelle,
losing patience; "really I don't know what direction our explanation is
taking. I am very, very sorry for what has happened, I regret extremely
that I was the cause of it; but can you not tell me how I can repair it,
instead of hurling all these offensive insinuations at my head?"

"Do you want me to tell you?"

"Yes! have I not promised to go to your house to-morrow to attend a
family festival?"

"The christening of my poor _Antonia!_ That is out of the question now.
The child is dead, or at all events disfigured. I ought to invite my
friends to a funeral. And then, you see, this idea of inviting Madame
André and making the best of a bad business with her son--that isn't to
my liking--that is to say it is no longer to my liking, unless----"

"Speak," said Madame d'Estrelle eagerly, for she began to think that the
rich man, repenting of his munificence, might contemplate a reduction in
the price he had offered for the pavilion. "I agree to anything that
will indemnify and pacify you."

Master Antoine's vanity was immeasurable. Madame d'Ancourt, whom he had
seen an hour earlier, had, in her spite against Julie, puffed him up by
confirming his presumptuous hopes. He had returned with the intention of
offering himself. Not finding Julie in her salon, he had mustered
courage to surprise her in the garden. The incident of the broken lily
seemed to hasten forward the opportunity. His brain whirled with insane
conceit and he made his declaration.

"Madame," he said, "you force me to it with your pretty words and your
gentle manners; I am going to stake all to win all, and if you are angry
at what I say, the fault is your own. Let us see! you are not rich, and
I know that you weren't born on the steps of a throne. I believe that
you are not proud either, since you go to a poor painter's studio and
accept his attentions--at my expense!--a good joke, eh? But no matter;
let us laugh over it, but let us come to something reasonable at last.
It makes no difference if Julien has ancestors on his mother's side,
he's my nephew, he's a plebeian. Do you despise him for that?"

"No indeed!"

"Then his crime is being poor, eh? But suppose he was rich, very rich,
then what would you say to him?"

"Do you propose to give him a dowry, so that I can marry him?" cried
Madame d'Estrelle in utter amazement.

"Who said anything about that?"

"Excuse me! I thought----"

"You thought that I was suggesting an idiotic performance to you! What
is an artist? It would be of no use for me to give him a dowry; money I
had earned wouldn't raise him in your eyes, I fancy. Consideration
belongs of right to those who have carved out their own lot in life and
have earned success by their shrewdness in business. Come, you
understand what I mean! I offer you an excellent match, a good-sized
fortune, and a name that makes some noise in the world. The man is one
who will gratify all your wishes as long as he lives and leave you all
his property after his death; who has no former mistresses nor unlawful
children, nor debts, nor worries, nor ties of any sort. Lastly he is a
man who might be your grandfather, and whom no one will ever accuse you
of choosing from caprice or coquetry, but who will do credit to your
good sense and your honorable feelings; for you have debts, more debts
than property. I know the amount of 'em! It is pretty big, and if Marcel
were a good calculator, he wouldn't tell you to go to sleep. Reflect on
what I say! Great annoyances are in store for you if you say no, while
everybody will congratulate you on making a sensible match. You seem
tremendously surprised, and yet your friend the baroness told you--but
perhaps she didn't tell you the amount?"

"Five millions, isn't it?" replied Julie, who had become pale and
reserved. "So it was you she referred to, and you are talking about
yourself?"

"Very well, what then? It scandalizes you, it insults you, does it?"

"No, Monsieur Thierry," Julie replied with a mighty effort. "On the
contrary I am highly honored by your offers, but----"

"But what? my age? Do you suppose I propose to play the lover? No! thank
God, I never had that weakness, and I don't propose to make myself
ridiculous at my age. I simply propose to be your father by contract,
and to employ marriage as a means of making you my heiress. Well, that's
enough of talk. You must say yes or no, for I am not of a disposition to
remain in doubt, and I don't choose to be humiliated, do you
understand?"

Monsieur Antoine spoke in a curiously imperious tone; Julie was afraid
that a refusal would exasperate him.

"You go too fast," she said; "as it happens, I am naturally hesitating
and timid. You must give me time to reflect."

"Then you don't say no?" rejoined the old man, evidently flattered by
the hope that he was allowed to retain.

"I say nothing," replied Madame d'Estrelle, who had risen and was
walking toward her house with some anxiety. "At this moment I am utterly
bewildered by an offer which I did not expect. Give me a few days to
think, to consult my feelings.--Really, I am deeply moved, deeply
touched by your friendship, and also very much alarmed, for I had sworn
to remain free! Adieu, Monsieur Thierry, leave me! I really long to be
left alone with my conscience, and I do not want you to try to take it
by surprise by your kindness."

Julie made her escape, and Uncle Antoine left the garden, forgetting the
pavilion, the picture, the lily, everything, and in the throes of a
fever of hope which made him act more like a madman than ever; but, when
he found himself on Rue de Babylone, in front of the pavilion, he was
seized with a fierce longing to torment and puzzle and confound his
relations. He rang and was admitted by Marcel, who was anxiously
awaiting the result of his interview with Julie.

"Well," he said abruptly, "where is my plant? has Master Julien finished
my picture?"

"Go into the studio," said Marcel; "you will see your picture all
finished, and your lily as fresh as if nothing had happened to it."

"Oh! yes," muttered Antoine satirically, "of course it did it good to be
broken!"

And he entered the studio with his hat on, without glancing at or seeing
his sister-in-law, who was sitting in her little straw arm-chair in the
window-recess, thoughtful and downcast. He walked straight to his lily,
examined the fracture, and looked carefully at the flower, which was
still blooming in the moist earth. Then he looked at the picture of the
_Antonia_ and said:

"I am satisfied with it; but you shan't have my custom, I tell you!"

Then he walked across the studio, passed close to Madame Thierry and saw
her, put his hand to the brim of his hat, saying in a surly tone: "Your
servant, madame!" returned to Marcel, laughed in his face for no
apparent cause, like a crazy man, and at last strode toward the door,
frantic because he could find nothing to say to satisfy his thirst for
revenge, without sacrificing the good opinion of his conduct which he
wished his _fiancée_ to retain.

Marcel, seeing his agitation, detained him.

"Come, come, uncle," he said, "we must find out where we are! Has the
Comtesse d'Estrelle obtained our forgiveness, or must I sell my office
to pay for the damage?"

"The Comtesse d'Estrelle," replied the old man, "is a judicious person,
who knows how to tell the difference between people without brains and a
man of sound sense. You will see the proof of it some day or other."

Madame Thierry, who could not endure her brother-in-law's overbearing
manner, and who fancied that he meant to defy her, rose to go up to her
room. Antoine bowed very slightly and added:

"I didn't say that for your benefit, Madame André. I have nothing to
say to you."

"Nor I to you," retorted the widow, in a tone whose disdainful
bitterness she strove in vain to stifle, as a matter of prudence.

And with a courtesy to Monsieur Antoine she withdrew.

Julien chafed at his bit in silence, incapable of humiliating himself by
apologies, and Marcel followed with a keen glance the horticulturist's
awkward and excited movements.

"What's the matter, uncle?" he said when Madame Thierry had gone out.
"You are brooding over something good or something evil. Tell us the
truth, that will be the better way."

"The truth, the truth," rejoined Monsieur Antoine, "we shall see the
truth, aye, and know it when the time comes! And perhaps everybody won't
laugh at it!"

Julien, who was still painting, lost his patience. He put down his
palette, and, removing the carelessly twisted handkerchief which the
painters of that time wore in the studio instead of a cap, he walked
straight to Monsieur Thierry and forcibly interrupted his noisy, excited
promenade. Then, with a serious and determined expression, he asked him
to explain his vague threats.

"Monsieur my uncle," he said, "you act as if you propose to drive me to
extremities; but I shall not on that account fail in the respect I owe
you. Consider simply, I beg you, that I am not a child who can be made
to tremble by contracting the eyebrows and assuming a deep voice. You
would do better to observe and understand the real fact, that is to say
the sorrow which I really feel for having offended you. Do not ask me
how that disaster happened: oblivion of one's surroundings,
absent-mindedness cannot be explained; but, since the thing is done,
what do you propose to do to punish me, or what do you require me to do
to atone for it? I am ready to prove my repentance or to submit to the
consequences of my wrong-doing. Decide and do not threaten any more;
that will be more worthy of you and of me."

Monsieur Antoine stopped short, apparently unmoved, but in reality
greatly mortified by the superiority of the defendant's attitude over
the judge's at that moment. He was afraid in a measure of appearing
ridiculous, and a diabolical idea suggested itself to his mind as a
means of putting an end to his embarrassment.

"Everything depends on Madame d'Estrelle," he said. "If she wishes, if
she demands it, I will do all that I had promised to do for your mother,
and I will even forgive you, notwithstanding the wicked thing you did;
but I will do it on the condition that she comes to my house to-morrow
with the rest of you, as she promised."

"But," said Marcel, "if everything is made up between you, didn't you
remind her just now of the appointment?"

"I am not speaking to you, attorney," retorted Antoine; "do me the favor
to leave the room, I want to talk with Master Julien alone."

"Go on, go on," said Marcel. "I am just going, for someone has been
waiting in my office for me fully an hour. I will return and find out
what you have decided."

When Julien and his uncle were alone, the latter assumed an even more
comical air of solemnity.

"Listen," he said, "I want you to do an errand for me. You must go to
the hôtel d'Estrelle."

"Excuse me, uncle, I shall not go there, for I should not be admitted."

"I count on your not being admitted. You will carry a letter, wait for
the answer in the antechamber, and bring it back to me."

"Very well," said Julien, thinking that he could stop at the porter's
lodge. "Where is the letter?"

"Give me something to write with."

"Here," said Julien, opening the drawer of his table. The horticulturist
sat down and wrote rapidly; then he called Julien, who dissembled his
impatience by removing his working jacket and putting on his coat, which
he had dropped on a chair.

"Will you have a seal?" he inquired.

"Not yet. I want you to correct my note. I don't pride myself on my
knowledge, and I may have made mistakes in spelling. Read it over for
me, read it aloud, and then correct it, periods, commas and everything."

Julien, feeling that a trap was being set for him, cast a rapid glance
over the few lines which his uncle had written in a firm hand. His head
swam, and he was very near tearing the paper in his indignation; but he
thought that he was being subjected to a test by that crabbed, eccentric
mortal. He restrained his wrath, met without flinching the ferociously
searching gaze that was fixed upon him, and read in a firm voice the
contents of the note:


"Madame and friend:

"We were so confused just now that we parted without making arrangements
for to-morrow. I do not conceal from you that I shall regard your
presence at my little party as a fresh ground of hope, and your refusal
as a rupture or a regrettable delay of settlement. I have told you that
I did not propose to be fooled, and you promised to be sincere. The
night brings counsel. I am sure that to-morrow you will confirm me in
the pleasant thoughts you allowed me to take away from your presence.

"Your friend and servant, who is impatient to call himself your fiancé,

"ANTOINE THIERRY."


"Well," queried the old man when Julien had finished reading, "are there
any mistakes?"

"Yes, a great many, uncle," said Julien tranquilly, taking the pen.

"Gently! I don't want her to see the corrections. Fix it neatly."

"It is done. Now seal it and write the address."

"Well, what do you say to that?" continued the uncle, writing Madame
d'Estrelle's name on the envelope.

"Nothing," replied Julien. "I don't believe in it."

"Will you believe in it if you deliver the letter?"

"Yes."

"Then what will you say?"

"Nothing. It's your affair."

"Damnation! you are interested in it too!"

"How so, please?"

"The purchase of your house at Sèvres and its presentation to you
depend on that letter."

"Very good, uncle. In that case, many thanks,"

"You have an air----"

"I have no air at all. Look at me."

Antoine could not support Julien's piercing and fearless glance.

"Come, off with you!" he said angrily; "take my letter."

"I will go at once," said Julien.

He took up his hat.

"Where shall I bring you the reply?"

"In the street, in front of the house, where I will wait for you. Let us
both go."

They went out together. Julien went straight to the porter, closely
watched by his uncle, who did not lose sight of him; but, instead of
entrusting the letter to that functionary, as he had determined at
first, he said to him that he wished to speak to the _valet de chambre_,
and walked rapidly across the courtyard without turning. When he reached
the antechamber Julien delivered the letter and sat down on the waiting
bench, with the manner of one who does not expect to be received; but he
said to the valet:

"Please inform madame la comtesse that, if there is any reply, Monsieur
Antoine Thierry's nephew is waiting here to carry it to him."

Julien waited three minutes. The servant returned and said:

"Madame la comtesse desires to ask you some questions. Take the trouble
to walk this way."

He opened a door at one side of the room and walked ahead. Julien
followed him through a dark corridor; then the servant opened another
door, placed a chair for him and withdrew.

Julien was alone in a handsome dining-room, the main door of which was
opposite him. A moment later that door opened and Madame d'Estrelle
appeared. She was very pale and excited.

"I receive you here," she said, "because I have visitors in my salon,
and I cannot express myself before anyone on the subject which brings
you here. Did Monsieur Antoine himself hand you this letter?"

"Yes, madame."

"And you know nothing of its contents, of course?"

"I do, madame."

"And yet you undertook to deliver it?"

"Yes, madame."

"Why so?"

"In order to find out whether my uncle is mad enough to be locked up, or
fiendishly cruel."

"In other words--you were not sure--you wished to know if I had given
him any right to write such a letter?"

"I did not believe it, and I expected that you would order me to be
turned away without a reply."

"Then--as I receive you, you conclude----?"

"Nothing, madame, except that you can do nothing more cruel than leave
me in uncertainty."

"Why should you take such a great interest in my affairs? Am I
responsible to anyone?"

"Oh! madame, do not speak to me in that tone," cried Julien, fairly
beside himself. "Either my uncle's wealth has imposed silence on your
repugnance, and in that case I have absolutely nothing to say to you, or
else you submitted to his impertinent offers with a patience which
misled him; and if you were so patient, so kind as that to him, I can
easily guess the reason. You were afraid that Monsieur Antoine's
resentment would fall on us!"

"That is true, Master Julien; I thought of your mother, I avoided giving
him an answer, I asked for time to reflect, I hoped that, in order to
please me, he would first keep the promise he made me to restore Madame
Thierry to happiness and comfort. That was wrong perhaps, for I was not
frank, and that is contrary to my nature. Indeed, could I believe that
that irascible, ill-mannered old man would begin by trying to compromise
me? And yet that is just what is happening, and God knows what
disagreeable consequences this may have for me! but I am wrong to think
about it. When I see my endeavors to assist you come to naught, I am
selfish to complain, and really my greatest sorrow consists in my being
unable to be of any service to you after being the cause of your
disaster. And what am I to do with a man who takes my fear for coquetry
and my silence for an avowal?"

Julien knelt on one knee, and as Madame d'Estrelle, surprised and
terrified, was about to fly, he said:

"Fear nothing from me, madame; this is no stage declaration; I am not
mad, and I am absolutely serious in thanking you on my knees in my
mother's name. Your kindness is of the sort which men adore and which no
words can describe. Now," he added, rising, "I have the right to say to
you that I am a man, and that I should despise myself if, even for love
of the most loving of mothers, I should accept the sacrifice of your
pride for a single instant. No, madame, no! Monsieur Antoine Thierry
must not be spared, he must not believe for another instant that he can
aspire--Poor man! he is mad; but madmen need to be held in check like
inconvenient and dangerous children. I will take charge of him, and with
your permission I will go at once and disabuse his mind forever."

"Ah! _mon Dieu!_ you will go yourself?" said Julie. "No! do not drive
him to extremities; I will write."

"But I do not choose that you shall write," replied Julien with a proud
vehemence which did not displease Madame d'Estrelle. "Do you think that
I am a child to be afraid of his anger, or a coward to leave you exposed
to his importunities? Do you think that my mother would be any more
willing than myself to accept favors which would cost you the shadow of
a falsehood? Is it for you to deal tenderly with anyone, and suffer for
our sake, who would give our lives to spare you the slightest suffering?
No, madame, learn to know us better. My mother's sentiments are as lofty
as your own; she accepted Monsieur Antoine's benefactions with the very
greatest reluctance. To-day she would blush to do it; she will detest
the mere thought when she knows what they cost you. And as for me--I am
of no consequence in your eyes and shall never be anything in your life;
but permit a man, who feels that he is a man of spirit, to tell you that
he fears neither poverty, nor vengeance, nor any sort of persecution. I
have done my duty and I will continue to do it; I will support my mother
until she draws her last breath, and if it is necessary to contend
against the whole world, I shall be able to do it for her. Let this
reassure you touching the fate of her you love so dearly. If only your
friendship were concerned, she would prefer it to all Monsieur Antoine's
wealth, and for my own part, though I had but this moment on earth to
tell you that I love you, I should esteem myself happy and proud to have
been able to say it to you without offence and without presumption; for
I speak to your heart, and there is not a shadow of a sentiment in my
heart that is unworthy of you. Adieu, madame! live happily and at peace;
and if you ever need a man to do something for you that is beyond the
power of all other men, remember that such a man exists, poor, humble,
hidden in a corner, but capable of moving mountains; for when his
mother's welfare is at stake, he is determination and faith
personified."

Julien left the room without asking or waiting for another word from
Madame d'Estrelle, and in a twinkling he was in the street. Antoine was
awaiting him with feverish impatience; he was on the point of bursting
into the hôtel like a bomb when Julien reappeared.

"Well, the answer must be at least four pages long!" he cried. "Where is
it?"

"Come, monsieur," said Julien, offering him his arm to cross the street.
"There is too much noise here for us to hear each other."

They entered into an open field where there was a sign: _For Sale_; and
Julien began thus:

"Monsieur my uncle, Madame d'Estrelle read your letter and summoned me
to her presence so that I might bring you her verbal response."

"Verbal?"

"Yes, word for word."

"Let us hear it!"

"Madame la comtesse, considering that your mind must have been disturbed
when you asked for her hand, was afraid to be alone with you and put an
end to the interview by a promise to reflect; but she had already
reflected, and this is her decision. She regrets that she will be unable
to come to your house to-morrow, and she informs you that from this
moment she will no longer be at home."

"She is going away! Where is she going?"

"It is not for me to interpret, but for you to understand."

"I understand! this is my formal dismissal, is it?"

"Everything tends to make me think so."

"And you are the person she employs to tell me so?"

"No! I took it upon myself without asking her consent."

"Why? I insist upon knowing!"

"You do know, monsieur. Didn't you tell me that my mother's fortune and
my own depended on Madame d'Estrelle's encouragement of your matrimonial
plans? That is why I grasped so eagerly the excuse you gave me to go to
her house, hoping that the extraordinary nature of your letter would
induce her to receive me. That is something you did not anticipate."

"Yes, I did, _mordieu!_" cried Monsieur Antoine; "I said to myself that
that thing would happen if----"

"If what, monsieur?"

"If I had guessed right. I understand."

"But I do not understand."

"That makes no difference to me."

"Excuse me, you want me to guess. You thought that I was foolish enough,
impertinent enough, mad enough to aspire to that lady's favor?"

"And now I am sure of it! You told her of your sentiments, and I see
your air of triumph. At the same time you are rubbing your hands because
you have shown me the door! You will go and tell your dear mother this,
of course! You will say to her: 'The rich man gobbled the bait! He
thought that by tossing us a crust of bread and taking a young wife, he
would make sport of us and disinherit us! Well, he has succeeded simply
in covering himself with shame. He will grow old alone, he will die
unmarried, and we shall be rich in spite of him.'"

"You are mistaken, monsieur," rejoined Julien with perfect
self-possession. "I formed no such contemptible schemes, and I shall
never do anything of the kind. You may marry to-morrow, if you choose,
and whom you choose, and I shall be overjoyed, provided always that my
mother's dignity and mine are not at stake in your undertaking. This is
what I desired to say to Madame d'Estrelle, and what I say to you. And
now I have only to remember that you are my uncle, and humbly to present
you my respects."

Julien was about to go away after bowing low to Monsieur Antoine. But he
recalled him in an imperious tone.

"What about my lily? Who will pay me for it?"

"Put a price on it, monsieur."

"Five hundred thousand francs."

"Are you speaking seriously?"

"Am I speaking seriously?"

"I must believe you, knowing that you are incapable of deceiving a
person who relies upon you."

"Flattery! fawning!"

The blood rose in the young artist's cheeks; he gazed earnestly at
Monsieur Antoine, trying to persuade himself that he was really so
irresponsible that his invectives should not affect a self-possessed
man. Antoine divined his thought and made an effort to be calmer.

"Well, let us say no more about that!" he said. "I will go and pick up
the ruins and the picture; I have lost my outlay of kindness of heart
and confidence. It will teach me not to depart from my ideas and
principles again! Walk first and don't say another word!"

They returned to the studio. There Monsieur Antoine, silent as hatred,
took the flower, the plant, the picture, and refusing to accept anyone's
assistance, without looking at Julien, without moving his lips, he left
the pavilion and did not appear again.

Marcel soon returned and asked Julien what had taken place. Julien told
him frankly and unhesitatingly in Madame Thierry's presence.

"Now," he added, "my inconsiderate conduct alarmed you, I know. You
thought that I was as mad as Uncle Antoine, and my mother is terrified
by a sentiment which she thinks is likely to be disastrous to me.
Undeceive yourself and be calm, my dear mother, and do you, Marcel, give
me back the esteem which you should entertain for a man of sense. One
may be such a man, even if he has been guilty of an imprudence, and I
realize that I was very reckless when I offered our benefactress a thing
which did not belong to me. That was an impulse of gratitude, sadly
misplaced, it is true, but which did not scandalize her, because she saw
in it nothing more than an emotion that was worthy of her and consistent
with the respect that is her due. I flatter myself that she is even more
convinced of it since she granted me an interview, and I swear to you
both, by all I hold most sacred, by filial love and faithful friendship,
that there shall be nothing unpleasant to Madame d'Estrelle, nothing
distressing to you, nothing unbecoming on my part in my future conduct.
Let us not regret the house at Sèvres, my dear mother: we could not
obtain it unless Madame d'Estrelle became Madame Antoine Thierry, and
you certainly do not think that could ever have come to pass. As
for you, my dear Marcel, I bless you for all the trouble you have taken,
but surely you are convinced now that it was all thrown away, and that
Uncle Antoine gives nothing for nothing. Let us be calm now, let us take
up our lives where we dropped them when this evil dream of wealth began.
I still have arms to work with and a heart to love you, and indeed, from
this day forth, I feel more zealous, braver and surer of the future than
I have ever been."

This time Julien was speaking the truth and not simply forcing himself
to be brave in order to comfort his mother. He felt, not perfectly
tranquil, but strong; his two interviews with Julie in quick succession
had given his heart a new direction, a more unerring impulse. He had
found in her presence the inspiration which gave full play to the
seriousness and the generosity of his passion. He was sure that he had
laid bare his heart to her, and that he had neither terrified nor
insulted her. Did he believe that she loved him? No, but it may be that
he had a vague feeling that she did, and there was a mysterious
enjoyment in his reverie. He had attained a perfect understanding of his
mission in the life of exalted and unselfish sentiment which was really
his normal life. What he had said, he proposed to do, and he had
strength to do it. To love in silence, to seek nothing, to obtain
nothing by surprise, and to seize nothing except an opportunity to
devote himself unreservedly to his mission, such was his plan, his
determination, his profession of faith, so to speak.

"And now," he thought, "it may be that I shall suffer terribly despite
my determination; but I shall so enjoy suffering nobly and holding my
peace for love of her, that I shall triumph over my suffering, and my
mother will not again feel its rebound. I must be very strong in the
struggle between my instincts and my duties. And why should I not? I
have always loved lofty ideas and sentiments which are beyond the reach
of the common herd. As I am obliged to be a man, and as I am persuaded
that duty is found in family ties, I shall doubtless do some day as
Marcel has done: I shall marry a virtuous woman, who will be thereafter
my best friend. Until then I propose to remain free and chaste. I
propose to love without hope, and if possible, without desire, this
nobly born Julie who can never be mine; I will overcome the desire, I
will carry fraternal feeling to the point of sublimity, and I will
nourish all my faculties with the sublime. I will be to other people
only a very patient, very amiable young working man, seeking grace and
charm in baskets of roses; but by dint of studying the divine mystery of
purity in the hearts of flowers, one may obtain a revelation of sanctity
in love. It seems to me a fine thing to say to oneself that one might
scheme to surprise the virtue of the woman one loves, and that one loves
her too well to attempt it. The life of which I dream is all meditation
and sentiment. Very well; I will live it as long as possible. I will
live by my thoughts as other people live by their acts, and it may be
that I shall be the happiest of men! I shall feel that I am sustained by
an enthusiasm which will not be worn to shreds by disappointments. I
shall live and breathe alone and every moment in the beautiful, the pure
and the great, with even more satisfaction than my poor father, who was
conscious of a craving for it, but who thought that he could gratify his
craving amid luxurious surroundings or in the society of this or that
great personage. I shall need nothing of that sort, and I shall be far,
far richer, having no other desire than to be satisfied with myself."

In soaring thus resolutely into the regions of the ideal, Julien was in
truth following a secret tendency which had developed in him early in
life. He had received an exceedingly good education, and, while studying
his art assiduously, had read a great deal; but, being naturally
inclined to enthusiasm of an austere sort, he did not indulge his tastes
in all directions or plunge into all sorts of pleasure. Of all that his
youth had fed upon, he had revelled in the great Corneille with the most
satisfaction and benefit. There he had found, in the loftiest form, the
strongest and most daring aspirations to heroism. He preferred teaching
of that sort put in action, those noble virtues manifesting and giving
expression to themselves, to the discussions of contemporary philosophy.
This is not equivalent to saying that he despised the spirit of his
time, or that he held aloof from the extraordinary upheaval of ideas
then in progress. On the contrary he was one of the sturdiest products
of that period which is unique in all history in respect to its
magnificent illusions pending the formation of awe-inspiring
resolutions. Those were the last days of the monarchy, and very few
people then thought of overturning it. At all events Julien was not one
of those who thought of it; he went very far beyond anticipation of any
event whatsoever in politics. He was intoxicated with the discoveries
and dreams of science, moral and physical, recently set free, _en masse_
so to speak, from the clouds of the past. Lagrange, Bailly, Lalande,
Berthollet, Monge, Condorcet and Lavoisier were already revolutionizing
thought. When we reflect upon that rapid succession of fortunate
experiments which, in a few years, produced astronomy from astrology,
chemistry from alchemy, and replaced blind prejudice by experimental
analysis all along the line of human knowledge, we realize that by
making war on superstitions, the philosophers of the 18th century freed
individual genius from its fetters simultaneously with the religious and
social conscience of nations. What presumption then, what excitement,
what intoxication in these first reachings out toward the future! The
human intellect has hailed the bright sun of progress, and already it
thinks to take possession of all its rays. No sooner has the first
balloon arisen on its wings of flame, than two men risk the crossing of
the Straits of Dover. Instantly mankind cries: "We are masters of the
roads through the air, we are the inhabitants of the sky!"

At the period in which the action of our story happens to be laid, this
noble beginning of the new ideas had found its formula in the word
_perfectibility._ It was Condorcet who eloquently outlined the doctrine,
and taking no account of human weakness, predicted for it a boundless
destiny. He believed in infinity so absolutely that he hoped to find the
secret of the destruction of death, and everybody who used his mind,
everybody who read was beginning to believe with him in the indefinite
prolongation of physical life. Parmentier believed moreover that he
could banish forever the spectre of famine by acclimatizing the potato.
Mesmer believed that he had discovered a mysterious agent, the source of
all marvels. Saint-Martin proclaimed the rehabilitation of the human
soul and illumined the terrors of the old-fashioned dogmas with the
dogma of infinite light. Cagliostro pretended to revive ancient magic in
a natural and comprehensible way; in a word the vertigo of the future
had set every brain in a whirl, from the most prosaic to the most
romantic, and, at the height of that intense excitement, the present was
a trifling obstacle which no one deigned to notice. The old monarchy,
the unbending clergy, were still on their feet, striving to retain their
crumbling power; but liberty had been inaugurated in America, and France
felt that her day was at hand. She had no thought of bloodshed; pleasant
chimeras exclude ideas of revenge; on the eve of the terrible storm
men's minds were making holiday, and an indescribable feverish grasping
for the ideal paved the way for the magnificent outburst of '89.

Julien was full of that faith and determination which seems to descend
to earth providentially at the moment fixed for mighty struggles; but
with it all there was a certain calmness due to the direction, the habit
and the temperament of his thought. There was a certain philosophical
mysticism, not in the stage of discussion but in the stage of instinct,
and a sort of craving to love. If he had not loved a woman, he would
have loved liberty to fanaticism. Love consecrated him to
self-sacrifice. As soon as Julie's image filled his heart, he no longer
thought of himself except as a force which might serve to protect Julie.
Did he entertain the idea that she could or would be likely to belong to
him? Yes, he undoubtedly did, a confused idea, sometimes imperious, but
valiantly combated. He had no prejudices; he was not, like his uncle
Antoine, dazzled by rank, title and show; he knew that Julie was born in
modest station and that her fortune was much impaired. Moreover, he felt
that he was her equal, for he was one of those men of the third estate,
who, being filled with a legitimate and tenacious pride, were beginning
to say to one another: "The third estate is everything," just as they
said later: "The people are everything," and just as they will say some
day: "Everyone is everything," denying no kind of nobility, whether due
to the sword, the toga, the factory or the plough. Thus Julien did not
look upon the Comtesse d'Estrelle as a woman placed above him by
circumstances, but by personal merit. That merit he exaggerated possibly
in his own mind; it is the privilege of love to tend constantly toward
the loftier regions of the soul, and to believe that it is summoned to
the conquest of divinities. So that in his passion admirable humility
was combined with boundless pride.

"I am not worthy of such a woman," he said to himself; "I must become
so, and when, by dint of patience, unselfishness, self-denial and
respect, I have succeeded--why, then perhaps I shall feel that I have
the right to say to her: 'Love me.'"

But he sometimes wondered if that day would come before the unforeseen
events of the future had disposed of Julie's fate; then he would say to
himself:

"Very well; I shall possess her esteem, perhaps her friendship, and the
time I shall have devoted to governing myself with dignity will not be
wasted."

Madame Thierry was surprised and overjoyed therefore to find that his
cheerfulness and all the symptoms of physical and moral well-being
reappeared suddenly, on the very day of this momentous episode.

"My friend," she said to Marcel when they were alone for a moment, "I
dare not tell you what is passing through my mind; but he has such a
happy look! _Mon Dieu!_ do you believe it is possible?"

"What?" said Marcel. "Oh! yes, you are speaking of his visit to Madame
d'Estrelle! Well, such things have been known, my dear aunt; he is
good-looking enough and agreeable enough to please a great lady; but she
is ruined and can extricate herself only by a wealthy marriage, which it
is our duty to desire for her, on the condition that the man is not too
old. I do not believe she is as bold and courageous as you were, and,
moreover, the plan that succeeded with you is generally ruinous; a great
passion is a number that wins only once in a hundred thousand times in
the lottery of destiny! Let us not wish that for Julien and for _her!_"

"No, I don't wish it; it is too dangerous, as you say; but if she does
take a fancy to him, what will happen?"

"I have no idea; but she is virtuous and he is an honorable man; they
will both suffer. It would be better to separate them if possible."

"To be sure! that is what I said to you in the beginning. But what a
pity! They are both so handsome, so young and so good! Ah! fate is very
unjust sometimes! If my poor husband had left Julien the fortune we once
had, he might have been a suitable match for her, as she is poor and
without family pride! Alas! may God forgive me! this is the first time I
ever blamed my André. Let us say no more about it, Marcel, let us say
no more about it!"

"We must think about it, none the less," replied the solicitor, "and not
let Julien's heart burn too fiercely. To-day, it is fireworks, because
he probably has some hope; but to-morrow it may be a conflagration."

"What shall we do, Marcel?"

"I don't know. I would like to be able to confess Madame d'Estrelle, and
Uncle Antoine above all, for I am not deceived by his philosophy, and I
am afraid--"

"What are you afraid of?"

"Everything. Should we not be prepared for everything with him?"

Madame d'Estrelle had been almost made ill by all the excitement of the
day. Julien's visit had proved to be the finishing touch; but, as soon
as he left her, the sort of fever which Monsieur Antoine's performance
had caused gave place to a not unpleasant feeling of lassitude.

"I have a friend," she said to herself, "a most agreeable friend, that
is certain, though the whole world should make sport of me for trusting
so implicitly in the word of a man whom I did not know a few hours ago;
but should I accept this zealous friendship? is it not dangerous to him
and to me? To be sure, he did not ask me to accept it. He went away like
a man who is dependent on nobody and who loves without permission. Since
he says that he has no hope, has he not a right to love? And what could
I do to prevent him?"

Julie was perfectly well aware, in her inmost conscience, that she
should not have received Julien after Madame Thierry's revelation
concerning his feeling for her.

"After all," she said, "why did I receive him, when my first impulse was
to send him that simple yet conclusive message: 'There is no reply!'
That would have rid me of uncle and nephew at one stroke. But did the
nephew deserve to be humiliated? Did he not come simply to rescue his
honor from a detestable snare laid by his uncle? Had he not the right to
say to me thereupon all that he did say to me, and was I offended by
what he took the liberty of adding on his own account, although it was
perhaps a little too sentimental? ought I to have been offended? It is
of no use for me to ask the question, I cannot answer it. He offered
himself, he gave himself to me, without asking for anything. He made me
a present of his heart and his life, whether I would or not. He did not
speak to me like a lover, no, indeed! but like a slave and a master at
once. All this is very strange, and my brain is in a whirl. I do not
know what it is that I feel for him. The only thing that is certain is
that I believe in him."

It seemed to Julie as well as to Madame Thierry and Marcel that the
morrow of that strange day would probably be fraught with important
events. In vain did they question themselves concerning Monsieur
Antoine's wrath: to their great amazement neither the morrow nor the
days following brought about any change in their respective situations.
The horticulturist went into the country, no one knew where. There was
no place for him to go, at least within the knowledge of Marcel, who
thought that he knew all his business, but who really knew only a part
of it. When he was thoroughly convinced of his uncle's absence, he
became anxious about him; but he was shown orders written by his own
hand, which his head gardener received each morning, detailing minutely
the nature and extent of the care to be bestowed on certain delicate
plants. These horticultural bulletins were undated and without stamps.
They were brought by the ex-armorer's valet, an old sailor, who was the
slave of his orders, obedient as a negro, dumb as an old stump.

"Well!" said Marcel to Madame Thierry, "he is in the sulks, that is
certain; or else he is ashamed of his madness and has gone into hiding
for a little time. Let us hope that he will return cured of his
matrimoniomania, and that he will consider his honor involved in
carrying out a certain bargain relative to this pavilion. You need the
indemnity, and I do not conceal from you that Madame d'Estrelle is
greatly in need of the promised amount. I don't know what vicious insect
is pricking her creditors, but suddenly they all begin to display the
most extraordinary impatience and anxiety. They go so far as to threaten
to transfer their claims to one principal creditor, who would surely
speculate on my client's embarrassment, and that is the worst thing that
could possibly happen."

"I am not at all easy in my mind," he said two days later to Madame
d'Estrelle, who had just been to visit her father-in-law, who was ill;
"I am afraid monsieur le marquis may die unexpectedly before he has
settled up your affairs."

"I place no reliance on his good-will toward me," replied Julie; "but I
cannot believe that he will leave me at the mercy of the count's
creditors, when only a few last steps are needed to settle with them. Of
course we must expect the childish fear of robbing himself which always
haunts selfish old men; but after him----"

"After him?" echoed Marcel. "The devil is after him, I mean at his
heels. His wife is a good-for-nothing; I am afraid of her; she doesn't
love you, and she is nothing to you, since your husband was not her
son."

"_Mon Dieu!_ you look at the dark side of everything, my dear solicitor!
The marquis is neither very old nor very ill. He must have made his
will. The marchioness is very pious, and what she would not do from
affection, she will do as a matter of duty. Do not you discourage me,
who have always encouraged me."

"I should not be discouraged myself if I could put my hand on my
singular old uncle! Let him buy the pavilion and pay for it, and that
gives us two or three months' respite. We shall have time to sell the
little farm in the Beauvoisis or make it over to the creditors at an
agreed price, otherwise we shall be brutally sold out and lose a hundred
per cent. of these poor scraps, which are of some value to-day!"

Julie, who, at other times, had been much distressed concerning her
situation, had reached that stage of lassitude which takes the place of
courage. Her philosophy surprised and irritated Marcel.

"Deuce take me!" he whispered to Julien's mother, "one would say that
she asks nothing better now than to be turned into the street!"

Was that, in truth, Madame d'Estrelle's secret thought? Did she say to
herself that, being poor, and abandoned by her husband's family, she no
longer owed so much consideration to the name she bore, and that she
could disappear from the world's stage to live as she chose and marry
according to her inclination?

Yes and no. At times she dreamed again that dream of a happiness
hitherto unknown, which had come to her like a fascinating vision in
Julien's studio. At other times she became the Comtesse d'Estrelle once
more, and asked herself in dismay how she could break with all her
surroundings and her habits, and whether she could endure blame and
contempt, after having been so loudly praised and so respected up to
that day by a limited but select circle of persons highly considered in
society.

It is well known that period was marked by a violent and determined
reaction in certain aristocratic circles against the invasion of the
democracy. Perhaps no other period in history presents such strange
contrasts. On the one hand public opinion, queen of the new world,
proclaimed the doctrines of equality, contempt for social distinctions,
the philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire and Diderot; on the
other, the ruling powers, terrified by a progress which they dared not
oppose, attempted a tardy resistance which was destined to hurl them
into the abyss; but to one whose horizon was narrow, to whom the morrow
was not revealed, that resistance assumed formidable proportions, and a
weak and gentle woman like Madame d'Estrelle was certain to be alarmed
by it. Like all of her caste she fancied that she could read the destiny
of France in the conduct of the court; and there were times when the
king, in dire dismay, tried to resuscitate the monarchy of Louis XIV.;
distressing and vain efforts, which, however, when looked at from a
certain point of view, seemed serious enough to irritate the people and
to increase the arrogance of the privileged classes. The court and city
had acclaimed Voltaire's triumph; on the morrow of that triumph the
clergy refused him a tomb. Mirabeau had written a masterpiece against
the arbitrary use of _lettres de cachet._ The king had said of
Beaumarchais: "If his play--_the Marriage of Figaro_--is acted, we may
as well destroy the Bastille!" The third estate grew in enlightenment,
in ambition, in real worth; the court reëstablished privileges in the
army as well as among the clergy, and decided--which Cardinal de
Richelieu would not have dared to do--that, in order to be a military
officer or a prelate, an applicant must prove four generations of noble
blood. The American Constitution had just proclaimed the principles of
Jean-Jacques's _Social Contract_; Washington and Lafayette were dreaming
of the enfranchisement of the slaves; the French ministry granted
additional facilities to the slave trade; the lower clergy became more
democratic from day to day; the Sorbonne tried to pick a quarrel with
Buffon, and the upper clergy demanded a new law to _repress the art of
writing_; public opinion was aroused against capital punishment, the
_preliminary torture_ was still in use. The queen had protected
Beaumarchais; Raynal was forced to go into exile.

These attempts at reaction in the midst of the onward rush of the age
found an echo in the religious coteries; and the greater nobility,
generally speaking, upbraided those of its members who had allowed
themselves to be fascinated by the seductions of the new philosophy. In
the conservative salons, the king and queen were overwhelmed with
maledictions and sarcasm when they seemed inclined to abandon the theory
of the royal _good pleasure._ The aristocrats clung to that theory, they
believed that everything was safe when they added a stone to the
powerless dam erected to stem the revolutionary spirit, and yet no one
suspected the swift motion of the flood nor the imminence of the
inundation. Everything was translated into bitter satire, ballads and
caricatures. They pretended to despise the danger to the point of
laughing pityingly at it.

Those persons who were of Julie's immediate circle were of the same mild
and timid disposition to which her own mild timidity naturally inclined
her; but outside of that little circle, where extravagance in any form
was frowned upon, she felt the pressure of a large and more formidable
circle, that of the Comte d'Estrelle's family, an arrogant family,
irritated by her dumb resistance to absolute opinions; and again,
outside of that dreaded circle, which she carefully avoided, there was a
still more powerful and threatening one, that of the Marquis
d'Estrelle's second wife. That circle, composed exclusively of bigots,
opposed to all progress, bitterly contemptuous of philosophers, openly
hostile to the omnipotent Voltaire himself, permeated with all the
prejudices of birth, fiercely tenacious of its alleged right, was to
Julie a subject of terror, puerile perhaps but profound and increasing.
The marchioness was well-known to be a covetous, evil-minded,
dishonorable woman, and we have seen that the Baronne d'Ancourt, despite
her own retrograde ideas, spoke of her, as well as of her environment,
with great aversion. Julie was very slightly acquainted with her, and
strove to believe that she was sincere in her piety; but she was afraid
of her, and, when she questioned herself concerning the state of dread
and depression in which she was living, she saw before her the
disgusting spectre of that gaunt person, with the greenish eye and
pitiless tongue. At such times, from very excess of terror, she tried to
apologize for her when she spoke of her, or to impose silence on those
of her friends who ventured to call her a harpy or a bird of evil omen.

Naturally poor Julie abhorred the opinions of the marchioness and her
circle; but she had not had enough experience, she did not sufficiently
appreciate the general tendency of her time to realize the utter
puerility of the persecutions she would have had to undergo if she had
resolved to live in accordance with the dictates of her heart and her
conscience. In that cage of prejudice she was like a bird which thinks
that the world has formed itself into a cage about him, and which no
longer understands the breath of the wind among the leaves and the
flight of other birds through space.

"There may be happy people," she said to herself, "but how far away they
are. And how can I join them?"

In like manner, on the eve of a terrible revolution, the prisoners of
the past wept over their chains and believed that they were riveted upon
them for all eternity. Nevertheless Julie, the greater part of the time,
forgot this whole matter of external facts to lose herself in vague
contemplations and in secret preoccupations of a new sort. We shall soon
see what the subject of them was, and how great difficulty that generous
but timid heart had in coming to terms with itself.

A fortnight had passed since the disaster to the _Antonia_, and Madame
d'Estrelle had neither seen nor heard of Julien. She might have believed
that he had never existed and that their two interviews were a dream.
Madame Thierry had not set foot in the garden, and when Julie, surprised
at her continued absence, sent to inquire for her, the answer was that
she was a little indisposed--nothing alarming--but forced to keep her
room.

Marcel, when she questioned him, evaded her questions, confirmed the
statement as to his aunt's slight indisposition, but went into no
details. Julie dared not insist; she divined that her neighbor was
determined to break off every sort of relation, every pretext for
communication, even indirect, between her and Julien.

At last, one morning, Madame Thierry reappeared, when Julie least
expected her. In reply to Julie's reserved and timid questions, she said
effusively:

"My dear countess, you must forgive me for a bad dream I had, which has
vanished now. I judged too hastily, I was foolishly alarmed, and I
frightened you with my chimeras. I thought that my son had the
presumption to love you, I was so sure of it that it has taken this past
fortnight to disabuse me of the idea. So forget what I said to you and
give back to my poor child the esteem which he has never ceased to
deserve. He does not raise his eyes or his thoughts to you. He venerates
you as he ought, and if you should need someone to die for you, he would
grasp the opportunity; but there is no romantic passion in his devotion,
simply fervent and heartfelt gratitude. He has sworn to me that it is
so. I doubted his word at first, but I was wrong. I have watched him; I
have done better than that, I have played the spy for a fortnight, and
now I am reassured. He eats, he sleeps, he talks, he goes in and out,
and works cheerily; in a word, he is not in love: he does not try to see
you, he speaks of you with tranquil admiration, he does not seem to
desire an opportunity to attract your eyes, nor will he ever seek it.
Forgive my folly, and love me as before."

Julie accepted this perfectly sincere declaration of Madame Thierry with
gracious satisfaction. They talked of something else and remained
together an hour; then they parted, congratulating each other on having
no further subject of discomfort, and on being able to renew their
relations without agitation or danger to anyone.

How did it happen that when she was alone once more, Julie was
overwhelmed by an inexplicable depression? She sought the cause to no
purpose, and vented her spleen on the next visitors who came. Her old
friend Madame Desmorges seemed intolerably loquacious; the old Duc de
Quesnoy as dull and tiresome as a blacksmith's hammer; her cousin,
Madame la Présidente Boursault, prudish and hypocritical; the
abbé--there was always an abbe in every private circle in those
days--conceited and insipid. And, when Camille came to dress her hair at
the usual hour, she pettishly dismissed her, saying:

"What is the use?"

Then she recalled her, and, impelled by a sudden caprice, asked her if
the usual period for semi-mourning had not expired within three days.

"Why, yes, madame," said Camille, "it is all over! and madame la
comtesse does very wrong not to stop wearing it. If she continues to
wear it, it will have a very bad effect."

"How so, Camille?"

"People will say that madame is prolonging her grief for economy, to
wear out her gray gowns."

"That is most excellent reasoning, my dear, and I bow to it. Bring me a
pink dress at once."

"Pink? No, madame, it is too soon for that. People would say that madame
wore mourning reluctantly, and that she changed her mind with her dress.
Madame should wear a pretty dress of royal blue with white flowers."

"Very good! But haven't all my dresses gone out of style in the two
years I have been in mourning?"

"No, madame, for I have looked after them! I have cut the sleeves over
and changed the trimming on the waist. With bows of white satin and a
lace head-dress, madame will be as stylish as possible."

"But why make me beautiful, Camille, when I do not expect anybody?"

"Has madame said that she was not at home?"

"No; but you remind me that I do not wish to receive any visitors."

Camille looked at her mistress in surprise. She did not understand, she
thought it was an attack of the vapors, and began to _arrange_ her, as
the phrase went in those days, afraid to break the silence. Julie,
depressed and distraught, allowed herself to be dressed. And when her
maid had retired, carrying away the gray dresses which became her
property, she looked at herself from head to foot in a long mirror. She
was fascinatingly dressed, and as lovely as an angel. That is why, as
her heart continued to ask: _What is the use?_ she hid her face in her
hands and began to cry like a child.




V


If Julien had been a libertine, he could have adopted no better plan to
arouse Madame d'Estrelle's passion. The days succeeded one another, and
no chance brought them face to face for an instant. And yet Julie,
whether from excess of confidence or from heedlessness, lived much more
in her garden than in her salon, and preferred a solitary stroll among
the shrubbery to the conversation of her intimate friends. There were
evenings when she denied herself to callers on the pretext of
indisposition or weariness, but on those evenings she dressed none the
less carefully, as if she expected some unusual visit; then she would go
to the further end of the garden, hurry back in alarm at the faintest
sound, then return to see what had frightened her, and fall into a sort
of panic-stricken revery when she found that everything was quiet and
that she was really alone.

One day she received a declaration of love, in well-turned language,
without a signature and without a private seal. She was deeply offended
at it, thinking that Julien had broken all his promises to her, and
saying to herself that it deserved no other treatment than cold disdain.
On the following day she discovered that this effusion came from the
brother of one of her friends, and her first impulse was one of joy. No,
of course Julien would not have written in such terms; Julien would not
have written at all! The letter, which, in the confusion of uncertainty,
had seemed to her not lacking in delicacy, now seemed to be in the worst
possible taste; she tossed it scornfully into the fire. But what if
Julien had written! Doubtless he knew how to write as well as talk. And
why did he not write?

Julie had no sooner given way to this inward weakness than she was
bitterly ashamed of it.

"Of what use are my strength and my common sense," she said, "when my
heart rushes outside of me thus, to grasp an affection which eludes me?
Upon my word, it is only the indifference with which I am regarded which
preserves me, and yet the shame of that thought does not cure me. Am I
guided by a spirit of contradiction? It seemed to me at first that any
advance on that young man's part would have disgusted me and that I
should have repelled him proudly; and lo and behold! his resignation
irritates me, his silence distresses me, and I am angry with him for
thinking no more of me! Evidently my mind is badly diseased."

One day when she was at her perfumer's, she met Julien going out. He had
no right to bow to her in public, and he pretended not to see her. She
found on the counter a very pretty fan which he had painted for his
mother, and had just brought to the shop to be made up. She imagined
that it was intended for her, and made up her mind to refuse it;
however, she awaited the little gift with intense impatience.

"He will send it to me mysteriously," she thought; "it will be an
anonymous offering, and in that case----"

But the gift did not arrive; so it was not for her after all. What folly
to think that he intended it for her! Julien was in love with some other
woman--some petty bourgeoise or some society woman of easy
morals--perhaps an actress! She did not sleep for two nights; then she
happened to see the fan in Madame Thierry's hand, and she breathed
again.

In spite of her determination, she could not avoid speaking of Julien to
his mother, and she resorted to every sort of detour to bring him into
the conversation. She wished to know about the sort of life led by a
young painter, of which she had no idea; and, although she dreaded to
learn some unpleasant or painful details, she continued to ask
questions, at first concerning the tastes and habits of artists, in
general; then of a sudden she asked:

"Your son, for example; did he not lead a brilliant, dissipated, or at
least an enjoyable life before the death of his father and your
subsequent troubles?"

"My son has always been of a serious turn of mind," replied Madame
André, "and I must say that the young men of all ranks seem to me very
different to-day from those whom I used to see in my youth. My dear
husband was a type of those men with fertile, ingenious and easily
impressed imaginations, whose lives were filled with unexpected
pleasures, and whose aim seemed to be the enjoyment of everything that
was agreeable, rather than the ambitious pursuit of renown. He painted
_chefs-d'œuvre_ for amusement, and no anxieties ever disturbed his
mind. To-day the modern artists are tearing themselves to pieces to do
better than their predecessors. Criticism has been invented. Monsieur
Diderot, whom my husband used to see very often, taught him to have a
higher opinion of himself than he would have thought of doing, and my
little Julien would listen to that great intellect, devouring him with
his searching, inquisitive great eyes. Then Monsieur Diderot would say:
'There's a child who has the sacred fire!' But my husband didn't want to
have too many ideas put into his head. He thought that the beautiful
should be keenly _felt_ and not studied overmuch. Was he right? He
sought to embellish the imagination, not to overburden it. Julien was
gentle and placid; he read and mused a great deal. His painting is more
highly esteemed than his father's by genuine connoisseurs, and when he
is talking of art you can see that he understands everything; but his
work isn't so universally liked, and he doesn't care at all for society.
His mind is full of all kinds of subjects of meditation, and when I say
to him: 'You don't laugh, you are not in good spirits, you haven't the
enthusiasm of your years,' he answers: 'I am happy as I am. I never feel
the need of excitement. There are so many things to think about!'"

These outpourings of Madame Thierry's heart gradually revealed Julien to
Madame d'Estrelle, and the sort of instinctive respect which had taken
her by surprise when she first saw him, became a sort of awe which made
her love him all the more. It was no longer possible for her to look
upon him as an inferior, and yet the young artist was one of the class
whom her associates referred to as _those people!_ She made an effort
sometimes, when she was talking with her friends, to plead for the
strong and the intelligent in whatever class they might be found. Her
friends were sufficiently far advanced to reply to her: "You are a
thousand times right, birth is nothing, merit alone is of consequence;"
but those were simply maxims for the benefit of enlightened persons, and
nothing more. The actual practice of equality had in no wise been
incorporated in the national morals, and the same persons were not at
all backward, a moment later, in blaming the Duke of So-and-So for
fertilizing his estates with a plebeian dowry, or Princess Blank for
falling in love with a wretched adventurer to the point of wanting to
marry him, to the great scandal of _virtuous folk._ A young woman,
unmarried or widowed, might fall in love with a man of noble birth, even
though he were poor; but, if he _had no birth_, it was a disgraceful
infatuation, an indecent attachment; she sacrificed her principles to
her passions; marriage failed to justify her and she became an object of
public contempt. Julie, who had lived in the esteem and regard of her
friends, her only compensation for her unhappy youth, had ice-cold
shivers when she heard that sort of talk; and if the object of her
secret passion had chanced at such a moment to enter her little circle,
apparently so tolerant and good-humored, she would have been compelled
to rise and say to him: "Why have you come here, monsieur?"

But the little party separated at nine, and ten minutes later Julie was
in the garden; she gazed at the light in the pavilion, twinkling like a
green star through the foliage, and she fancied that, if Julien should
appear at a bend in the path, she should not be able to fly.

Throughout all this period of agitation on poor Julie's part, Julien was
almost calm; his purpose was so upright, so sincere, that his mind had
recovered its health sufficiently to deceive itself.

"No," he thought, "I did not lie to my mother. What Madame d'Estrelle
inspires in me is a very strong, lofty, exquisitely delicate friendship;
but it is not, as I thought at first, a frantic and disastrous passion;
or, if I had an attack of that fever at the beginning, it disappeared on
the day when I saw that simple, kindly, trustful woman close at hand,
when I heard her sweet, chaste voice, when I realized that she was an
angel and that my aspirations were not worthy of her. No, no, I am not
in love, according to the common understanding of the term; I love with
a full heart, that is all, and I will not allow my imagination to
torment me. The earth has hardly closed over my poor father; I have not
an hour to waste if I wish to save my mother. No, no, I have no right, I
have no time to give way to passion."

Marcel noticed Julien's tranquillity and was unable to understand the
mental perturbation which made itself manifest in Madame d'Estrelle's
behavior. He found her one day just returned from a visit to her
father-in-law the marquis. His life was thought to be no longer in
danger, and Marcel might hope to talk with him again before long
concerning his client's pecuniary embarrassments.

"Oh! _mon Dieu_, you put yourself to very great trouble for me," said
Julie; "but is it worth while? I give you my word that I am quite
willing to be poor; I should probably be no more bored than I am now."

"And yet you are beautifully arrayed and intending to pass the evening
in company."

"No, I am going to change my dress; I don't expect to go out. With whom
should I go out, pray? I am at odds with Madame d'Ancourt, the only
person to whose house I might venture to go alone in the evening, as she
was my schoolmate at the convent. I am not intimate enough with any of
the others to appear at their houses without a chaperone; Madame
Desmorges, who might act in that capacity for me, is indolent beyond
words; my cousin the _présidente_ is not received in aristocratic
society, and the Marquise d'Orbe is in the country. Really I am terribly
bored, Monsieur Thierry, I am too much alone, and there are days when I
can do nothing, having no heart for anything."

It was the first time that Julie had complained of her situation. Marcel
looked at her attentively and reflected.

"You must divert your mind a little; why don't you go to the play
sometimes?"

"But I haven't a box anywhere now; you know very well that I can no
longer afford it."

"An additional reason for going wherever you please. A box by the year
is downright slavery; it puts you on exhibition and makes a chaperone a
necessity. There are some small pleasures which the bourgeois indulge in
at small expense and without inconvenient display. To-day, for instance,
I am to take my wife to the Comédie-Française. We have hired a closed
box on the ground floor."

"Ah! what a pleasure it must be to go there! You are not seen at all,
are you? You enjoy the play, you can laugh or cry without being hooted
by the gallery. Have you a place for me, Monsieur Thierry?"

"I have two; I intended to offer one to my aunt."

"And the other to her son? In that case----"

"That makes no difference; he can go some other day; but what will
people think to meet you on your solicitor's arm in the foyer? Or if
some one should recognize you sitting beside Madame Marcel Thierry, what
would they say?"

"They may say what they please, and they will be very absurd if they
find anything reprehensible in it."

"That is my opinion; but people are absurd, and they will say that you
keep beggarly company; I soften the word out of respect for my wife, for
they will say low company."

"The folly of society is shameful! Your wife is very attractive, I am
told, and highly esteemed. I will go to see her to-morrow, for I know
that to go to occupy a seat in her box unceremoniously, before asking
her permission, would not be proper. Yes, yes, I will call to make her
acquaintance, and we will go to the theatre together another day."

Marcel smiled, for he thoroughly understood the cowardice which had
taken possession of his noble client at the idea of being accused of
mixing with low company. She considered it cruel, unfair, insulting,
absurd; but she was afraid none the less: fear does not reason.

"Very well, very well," Marcel replied; "I recognize your delicacy of
feeling and your kind heart. My wife will be grateful to you for the
intention, and she will be flattered to offer you her box this very
evening; but take my advice, madame la comtesse, and do not go outside
of your own circle to-night, nor to-morrow, nor ever, unless for some
well-matured and well-digested reason. We must eat when we are hungry,
but not force ourselves when we have only a suspicion of an appetite.
The society to which you belong wants no mixture, and you must not defy
it except for some great personal advantage or to do some very good
deed. No one will understand that you do something outside of the
conventional solely for the pleasure of doing it. They will be surprised
first of all, and then they will look for motives, concealed or
serious."

"And what will they find?" said Julie, uneasily.

"Nothing," replied Marcel; "but they will invent, and what people invent
is always malicious."

"The result being that I am condemned to solitude?"

"You have accepted it courageously thus far, and you know well that it
will cease when you choose."

"Yes, by marriage; but where am I to find a husband to fill the
conditions demanded by the world and by me? Consider: he must be
wealthy, so you yourself say, noble, according to my friends, and I
myself insist that he must be agreeable and a man made to be loved! I
shall not find him, you know, and I shall do better----"

Julie dared not finish her thought. Marcel thought that he ought not to
question her. There was a pause, embarrassing to them both, then Julie
exclaimed abruptly:

"Ah! _mon Dieu_, do not think that I am tempted to be false to my duty
and to enter into a frivolous liaison!--I was thinking--I must tell
you--I was thinking that I should do better to desire an obscure
marriage in which I might find happiness."

"Obscure?" said Marcel. "That depends on what you mean by the word. You
must insist upon wealth in any event; for, I warn you that if you hold
your rank cheap, the Estrelle family will abandon you to your
destruction."

"Well, what then?"

"What then? Why, if the husband of your choice is poor and you bring him
debts----"

"Ah! yes, you are right; I increase his poverty with all my wretchedness
and all the dangers that are hanging over me. I did not think of that.
You see what a weak head mine is! Look you, Monsieur Thierry, there are
days when I would like to be dead, and you do wrong not to take me to
the play. I feel very depressed this evening, and I would like to be
able to forget that I exist."

"Is it as bad as that?" rejoined Marcel hastily, terrified by her
distressed expression. "In that case put on a very thick black veil and
a very full black cape; I have a cab below; we will call for my wife, to
whom I will explain your whim in two words, and we will go to hear
_Polyeucte_, which will change the current of your thoughts. Hurry! for
if anyone comes you won't be able to go out."

Julie jumped for joy like a child. She quickly transformed herself into
a nun, dismissed her servants for the evening, and went with Marcel,
half pleased, half frightened, and as excited as if this escapade with a
solicitor and his wife were an adventure big with fate.

"And Madame Thierry?" she said when they were in the cab.

"Madame Thierry--we will leave her where she is," said Marcel. "Nothing
has been said to her about going, and she would delay us while dressing.
Besides, I should prefer--if you are to be recognized in spite of all
our precautions--that you should not be seen with a woman who has a
grown-up son--of whom, I may say parenthetically, Uncle Antoine has been
exceedingly jealous. Mine is only a little law-student in embryo, barely
twelve years old; we will take him, and that will make our bourgeois
and--patriarchal party complete."

They arrived at Marcel's house. He ran upstairs, leaving Julie alone in
the tightly closed cab. He soon came down again with his wife and son.
Madame Marcel Thierry was very much frightened; but, like a sensible
woman, she made no apologies and in a very few moments felt entirely at
ease with the amiable Julie, who, on her side, found her a pleasant and
sensible companion. They left the cab just before they reached the line
of people waiting to purchase tickets, walked to the theatre, and passed
in without meeting any spying or inquisitive persons. They were ushered
into a very dark box, where Madame Marcel and her little boy took their
places in front to conceal Madame d'Estrelle and the solicitor. They
enjoyed the tragedy extremely. Julie had never taken so much pleasure in
a performance. She had a feeling of greater mental freedom, and that
middle-class family interested her deeply. She watched them curiously as
types entirely unfamiliar to her, and, although they were a little
self-conscious in her presence, she surprised divers little loving
tokens between the husband and wife and child, which went to her heart.
At the interesting passages in the play, Madame Marcel would turn to her
husband and say in an undertone:

"Can you see, my dear? my bonnet isn't in your way?"

"No, no, my girl; don't worry about me. Enjoy yourself all you can."

And the child applauded when he saw the pit applaud. He would clap his
little hands with an air of importance, then suddenly throw himself on
his mother and kiss her, which meant that he was enjoying himself
immensely and that he thanked her for bringing him there.

All those simple ways of middle-class life, the familiar form of
address, the endearing epithets, vulgar if you please, but sacred,
aroused in Julie sometimes an inclination to laugh, sometimes a wave of
emotion which brought tears to her eyes. Of course it would all be
considered execrable form in her circle; it was the way that inferior
people talked and acted. Marcel, when in Madame Estrelle's salon,
readily adopted the manners and language of a man who is able to conform
to what is considered proper in all ranks of society. In his own family
he laid aside that conventional manner, and, without ever being vulgar,
he resumed the familiar tone of happy domesticity. Thus Julie surprised
him oblivious of his ceremonious manner and living for his own enjoyment
a sweet, trustful, unconstrained life. She was distressed and delighted
at the same time, and little by little she reached the point where she
said to herself that those people were in the right, and that all
husbands and wives ought to call each other _thou_, all children to
throw their arms about their mothers' necks, and all spectators to be
interested in the performance. In the circle in which she lived people
always addressed one another as you, they had no simple phrases that
came from the heart, they emasculated every noble sentiment. Refinement
was the most essential point in speech, and dignity in endearments. The
heart entered into them only in a subordinate capacity, and its
effusions must be concealed beneath a certain frigid or absurdly
symbolical gloss. Admiration for genius must never become enthusiasm.
They enjoyed, or appreciated, their words were carefully confined within
certain bounds. In short they made it a point not to display emotion on
any subject, and with the perpetual little smile of the grace that
accompanies noble birth, they became so charming that they ceased to be
human.

Madame d'Estrelle realized all these things for the first time, and was
deeply impressed by them. Little _Juliot_, who was so called to
distinguish him from Master Julien, whose godson he was, had an
interesting face. He was a funny little rascal, with a shrewd face,
turned-up nose, keen eye and sly mouth, and had the artless and cunning
self-possession of a schoolboy in vacation. Had he been disguised as a
great nobleman, he would never have been confounded with the too pretty
and too polished little men who are all covered with the same
aristocratic varnish. Juliot had his coating of caste, to be sure, but
of that peculiar shading which the bourgeoise mind does not seek to
efface, because in that social stratum every one has to exist by his own
exertions, and to make a place for himself with the aid of the means
which are at his command. Thus the child had the biting wit, combined
with a certain innocent curiosity, which denoted the freshly ground
Parisian, inquisitive and loquacious, credulous and shrewd all at once.
In order not to expose Madame d'Estrelle's name to the possible
consequences of his chatter in the office, he had been told that she was
a client from the country newly arrived in Paris, who had never been to
the theatre before; and, as Julie enjoyed questioning him, he did the
honors of the capital city and the stage, between the acts. He pointed
out the king's box to her, and the pit and the chandelier; he even
explained the play and the relative importance of all the characters.

"You are going to see a beautiful play," he informed her before the
curtain rose. "Perhaps you won't understand it very well, because it's
in poetry. I have read it with my godfather Julien, and he explained it
all to me just as if it was in prose. When you don't understand,
mademoiselle, you must ask me."

"You chatter like a magpie," said his mother. "Don't you suppose madame
knows Corneille better than you do?"

"Oh! perhaps she does; but I don't believe she knows as much as my
godfather!"

"Much madame cares about your godfather's knowledge! You fancy that the
whole world knows him!"

"Oh well! if you don't know him," said Juliot to Madame d'Estrelle,
"I'll show him to you. He isn't far away, you know!"

"What!" said Marcel, much annoyed, "is he here? do you see him?"

"Yes, I've seen him quite awhile. He likes _Polyeucte_ so much! He has
seen it more than ten times, I am sure! See, look in the pit, the third
row. His back is turned to us; but I recognize him, _pardi!_ He has on
his black coat and his _chapeau à gances._"

Madame d'Estrelle's heart beat very fast. She looked at the bench which
the child indicated, and recognized no one there. Marcel scrutinized it
closely. Juliot had made a mistake. The person he had taken for Julien
turned his face toward them. It was not he; he was not there. As a
matter of fact, he was in one of the upper galleries, just over the box
in which Julie was hiding, and he was a hundred leagues from suspecting
that by going down to the ground floor, he might at least have made an
attempt to see her. Indeed, if he had known it, he would have kept his
place. He was fully determined not to seek any more furtive
opportunities to meet her. As an artist he was entitled to admission at
the Français. He listened to _Polyeucte_ meditatively, as a pious
person listens to the sermon, and he went out before the end, fearing
that his mother would sit up for him. As he passed through the
vestibule, he was very much astonished to find himself face to face with
Uncle Antoine. It was Uncle Antoine's invariable rule to go to bed at
eight o'clock, and it was probable that he had never set foot in a
theatre. Julien accosted him frankly; that was the better way, even
though he were to be ill received.

"So you are found at last?" he said. "We were anxious about you."

"Who are _we?_" rejoined the uncle in a surly tone.

"Marcel and I."

"You are very good! Did you think I had gone to the Indies, pray, that
you are so surprised to see me?"

"I confess that I hardly expected to see you here."

"And I, on the contrary, was sure of meeting you here!"

And without explaining that reply, which to Julien was absolutely
enigmatical, he turned his back on him.

"Well, well! his mind is really unhinged," thought Julien.

And he passed on, but not without turning two or three times to see if
the amateur in gardens went in or out, and if it were not the case that
he had come there unconsciously; but every time that he looked he saw
Monsieur Antoine standing motionless at the foot of the staircase, and
looking after him with a mocking expression, in which however there was
no sign of mental derangement.

Uncle Antoine disappeared in the crowd, which invaded the peristyle a
few moments later. One of the first groups that he saw consisted of the
solicitor's family, with a stranger taller than Madame Marcel, and
completely concealed by her black silk headgear. He stole down to the
street and took the number of the cab which that group entered, then
despatched in pursuit of that cab the same shrewd and nimble-footed spy
who had notified him that Madame d'Estrelle had gone out with her
attorney, and who had been keeping watch outside the D'Estrelle mansion,
and inside it at times, for a month past, under disguises of all sorts
and on all sorts of pretexts.

In those days the play came to an end early enough to allow people to
sup. Julie had returned home by ten o'clock, after dropping Madame
Marcel on Rue des Petits-Augustins. Marcel, who had escorted Julie to
her door, was about to go away without entering, when she called him
back. Her concierge had just told her some very serious news. The old
marquis, her father-in-law, had died at eight o'clock that evening, just
when they believed that he was cured. Julie had been sent for, so that
she might be present at the administration of the sacrament. Her
absence, which was very hard to explain by reason of the situation which
she herself had explained to Marcel, might have disastrous consequences.

"Ah! you see how it is!" said Marcel, sorrowfully, in a low tone (they
were on the stoop); "I told you how it would be. I foresaw some trouble;
but there is no time to be wasted in lamentation. The most disturbing
thing of all is the old man's too sudden end. Come, madame, you must
show yourself at that death-bed. You must take a cab once more. I will
escort you to your mother-in-law's house. I shall not appear there, for
it would not be proper for you to be seen to arrive under the escort of
your solicitor. To-morrow I will take the field in your interest, and we
will find out the contents of the will, if there is a will, which God
grant!"

Julie, sorely disturbed, reëntered the cab.

"Stay," said Marcel, "I can't wait for you at the dowager's door; her
servants would see me, and I have an idea that they report everything to
her. I will alight before you drive into the courtyard, and as I should
not enjoy the idea of your returning alone in this vehicle, you must
order your people to harness at once and send your carriage to the
house."

"You think of everything for me," said Julie; "I don't know what would
become of me without you."

She gave her orders and they started.

"Think of this also," said Marcel. "You will not find the widow in
tears, but at prayer. Do not allow that appearance of sanctity to
encourage you as to her frame of mind. Be sure that she has noticed your
absence and that she will arrange to make you undergo an examination in
the very midst of her devotions. Do not forget that she hates you, and
that, in order to justify herself in robbing you all that she possibly
can, she will think of nothing but finding you at fault."

Julie tried to think how she could best explain the innocent escapade of
the evening.

"You can find nothing better than the truth," replied Marcel. "Say that
you have been at my house----"

"At your house, very good; but what about the play? Going to the play is
a horrible sin in my step-mother's eyes, with or without you."

"Then--say that my wife was sick, that you are interested in my
wife--because--because she has done you a service at some time--because
she is charitable, and assists you in charitable work! Throw a slight
varnish of piety over it; then what can she say to you?"

They reached their destination. Marcel ordered the cabman to stop; then
he alighted, and Julie entered the courtyard of the hôtel D'Ormonde, on
Rue de Grenelle-Saint-Germain, in a cab! That mansion belonged to the
dowager D'Ormonde, who had married for her second husband the Marquis
d'Estrelle, who had thereafter occupied her first husband's house with
her.

The dowager was very rich; her establishment had a grand air of
ceremonious inhospitality: few servants, small outlay, a frigid,
deathlike splendor. The house consisted of several wings, and the
mistress's apartments were located on a rear courtyard planted with
trees and secured from intrusion by a wicket at which Julie had to ring
and wait; but, being certain that she would be admitted, and knowing
that Marcel would have to return on foot unless she sent the cab after
him at once, she dismissed the cabman when she saw that the wicket was
about to be opened.

Instead of opening it, the porter entered into a strange parley with
her. Monsieur le marquis could not receive visitors because he was dead.
The priests had come to administer the sacrament and to keep watch
through the night; madame la marquise was closeted with them and the
dead man. She gave _audience_ to nobody at such times. Julie insisted to
no purpose, on the ground that she was a very near relation. The porter,
leaving her outside, purposely or through inadvertence, went to make
inquiries, and returned to say that no member of the household was
allowed access to madame.

As these negotiations had lasted a considerable time the Comtesse
d'Estrelle understood perfectly well that some one had gained access to
the marchioness, and that she refused to see her. Her duty was done, so
she insisted no longer. She judged that her carriage, travelling much
more rapidly than the cab, must have arrived: so she retraced her steps,
crossed the outer courtyard and passed through the street gate, which
was kept by the porter's wife and was closed behind her instantly, with
indecent precipitation. A carriage was there; but Julie, notwithstanding
her defective sight, saw at once that it was only a cab.

Thinking that it was the one that had brought her, and that the driver
had misunderstood her orders, or that Marcel had sent it back for her by
way of precaution, she called the driver, who was sound asleep on his
box. It was impossible to wake him except by pulling the skirt of his
coat. They who remember what cab-drivers were forty years ago, can judge
what they were forty years earlier than that. This one was so dirty that
Julie hesitated to touch him with her gloved hand. She carefully
gathered up her ample silk skirt to avoid brushing the dirty wheels.
Never before had she been in such an embarrassing plight; she was
afraid, too, to be alone in the street near midnight. The occasional
passers-by stopped to stare at her, and she trembled lest, from good
nature or malice, they should attempt to interfere in her affairs.

The driver woke at last and answered that he did not know her, that he
had brought two priests of the parish to attend the dying man, and that
his orders were to wait for them. He would not stir at any price. Julie
glanced anxiously about her. Her carriage did not appear. She raised the
heavy knocker on the gate, intending to return to the courtyard of the
hôtel. The gate did not open, whether because special orders had been
given with respect to her, or because the general orders were
inflexible.

Extreme terror took possession of her; the idea of returning alone, on
foot, could not be entertained; nor was it possible to remain standing
in front of that gate. There was not a single shop on the street, and
she must wait for her carriage somewhere, no matter where, provided it
was not in the street. The outbuildings of the hôtel D'Ormonde were
some distance away, at the right and left. In one direction was an
abbey, in the other the Convent of the Visitation, where she might seek
shelter; but it was at least ten minutes' walk, and there again she
would have to parley before obtaining admission. She noticed on the
opposite side of the street a high gate at the end of a passage between
the hôtel De Puisieux and the hôtel D'Estrées. She thought that if
she gave a louis to the gate-keeper, he would allow her to wait in his
lodge. She crossed the street, but, when she attempted to ring, she
found that there was neither keeper nor bell. It was simply a servants'
gate for both houses. Julie was rapidly losing heart, when she suddenly
saw close beside her, as if he had risen from the ground, a man who
terrified her so that she almost fainted; but he instantly named
himself, and she uttered a joyful exclamation: it was Julien. She
explained her misadventure in a few somewhat incoherent words. Julien
understood because he was already half informed, and he was not there by
chance.

"It is useless for you to wait here for your carriage," he said; "it
probably will not arrive for some time."

"How do you know?"

"I was at the Comédie-Française this evening."

"Did you see me there?"

"Were you there, madame? I did not know it."

"In that case----"

"In that case I can understand my meeting with Monsieur Antoine Thierry
and his words. He must have known that you were to be there. He was on
the watch; he made an ironical remark which I did not understand, but
which gave me something to think about. As I returned to the pavilion, I
stopped, being somewhat uneasy, in front of your hôtel. Your servants
were in great commotion. It seems that your coachman could not be found.
I accosted the concierge, who knows my face, and, seeing that he was
greatly disturbed, I asked him if any accident had happened to you. He
told me of the Marquis d'Estrelle's death, and that you had driven here
with my cousin Marcel. Your coachman appeared at last, dead drunk and
unable to understand any of the orders you had left for him. The
concierge left me, saying that when Bastien was once on his box, he
would go all right. That did not seem very reassuring to me. I am not so
phlegmatic as your concierge, and I came here as fast as I could. I
hoped to find Marcel still here and to tell him not to trust you
unattended to the care of a drunken coachman; but I arrived a few
moments too late. You are alone and you have been frightened."

"It is all over," said Julie, "and I am calm again; take me home on
foot. You are my Providence!"

"On foot, it is too far," replied Julien, "and you are not properly shod
for walking. This cab here will take us, willingly or by force, I give
you my word, and I will get up behind and accompany you."

Julien returned with Madame d'Estrelle to the cab. He put her in and
ordered the driver to start. The driver refused. Julien jumped up beside
him and seized the reins, swearing that he would throw him into the
gutter if he resisted. The young man's manly bearing and determined air
awed the cab-driver, who submitted; but he had not driven a hundred
yards when he stopped, yelling _thief_ and _murder._ A party of men had
just come out of a house, and the poor devil hoped to find some aid
against the violence he was undergoing.

As luck would have it these men were young dandies fresh from a
sumptuous supper, and a little the worse for wine. The adventure
presented itself at that moment of excitement when one gladly
constitutes himself a redresser of wrongs, especially when the odds are
four to one in his favor. They abruptly stopped the horses, and one of
them opened the door, for the cabman was yelling at the top of his
voice:

"Help! here's a villain carrying off a nun!"

"Let us see if she's worth the trouble!" replied the party with one
voice.

[Illustration 04: _JULIEN ESCORTS MADAME D'ESTRELLE_
_Julien defended  himself with his cane, and used it with
such self-possession, skill and  strength, that one of
the assailants fell and the others retreated._]

Before the door was open Julien was on his feet and vigorously repelled
the most zealous of the intruders. The young man thus roughly treated
drew his sword, calling him a clown, and his companions followed his
example. Julien did not take the time to draw his. He defended himself
with his cane, and used it with such self-possession, skill and
strength, that one of the assailants fell and the others retreated.
Julien, who had not left the step, took advantage of this respite to
enter the cab and take Julie out by the opposite door. He took her in
his arms and carried her some distance. Then he turned to await his
adversaries; but, whether because some one of them had received a
serious wound, or because the approach of the watch sobered them, they
made off as rapidly as possible in the opposite direction.

"Let us walk, madame," said Julien. "Let us avoid the curiosity of the
police."

Julie walked rapidly and well. If fear had paralyzed her for an instant,
the sight of the danger to which her protector was exposed had restored
her energy. After taking a somewhat roundabout course to throw the watch
off the scent, they arrived safely on the _Nouveau Cours_, now Boulevard
des Invalides. It was completely deserted and dimly lighted by lanterns.
Julie did not notice a stain on her glove, but she felt the moisture of
blood on her wrist, and stopped abruptly, exclaiming:

"Oh! _Mon Dieu!_ you are wounded!"

Julien felt nothing, he was very sure that nothing serious had happened
to him; he wrapped his bruised hand in his handkerchief and offered
Julie his other arm.

"I swear to you that I am not wounded," he said; "and suppose I were!
Unfortunately those fellows were not very formidable, and I deserve
little credit for ridding you of them. Coxcombs, dandies! And they bear
titles of nobility in all likelihood!"

"Do you detest the nobility so very bitterly?"

"I, detest them? No! but I abhor impertinence, and as such fellows are
not always willing to fight a duel with plebeians, I am very glad to
have beaten them as a bargeman might have done."

"Alas!" said Julie, thinking aloud, "nevertheless they are at liberty to
insult and trample on the weak!"

"The weak! Who are the weak, pray?" rejoined Julien, mistaking the
meaning of her words. "People without a name? Undeceive yourself,
madame; they are the ones to whom the future belongs, because they have
the right, true justice on their side, and, withal, the determination to
put an end to the abuses of the past."

Julie did not understand, but she trembled anew; this time, however, she
was not afraid of disagreeable encounters, but of an indefinable
mysterious force which seemed to emanate from Julien. She glanced
furtively at him; she fancied that she could see his face glow in the
darkness, and that her feeble hand was resting on the arm of a giant.

But Julien was a simple-hearted youth, an artist without ambition in the
practical affairs of life on his own account. He did not feel called
upon to play a conspicuous part in the revolutionary tempests; he looked
forward to no other labor for himself than that of studying the charms
of nature all his life. That awe-inspiring power with which he was
endowed in Julie's eyes was simply the reflection of the divine power on
the mind of the new class. He was one of the hundred thousand among the
millions of disappointed and soured men who were about to say on the
first opportunity: "The cup is full, the past has had its day." The
brief allusion he had just made to this general frame of mind among men
of his class--a subject which was in every mouth at that time--seemed to
Madame d'Estrelle a most impressive prophecy from the lips of an
exceptional man. It was the first time that she had ever heard anyone
speak defiantly and contemptuously of what she had always considered
invincible. The species of superstitious terror which she felt was
blended with fervent trust, with a longing to lean the more heavily on
that sturdy arm which, under the impulsion of a noble heart, had fought
alone, in her cause, against four swords.

"So you think," she said, still walking rapidly, "that one can shake off
the yoke of this unjust world which oppresses men's consciences, and
condemns true principles? I would like to agree with you that is
likely to happen!"

"You believe it already, since you desire to believe it."

"Possibly; but when will it happen?"

"No one can say when or by what means; what is just and right cannot
fail to happen; but what does it matter to you, madame, whether all this
lasts fifty or a hundred years longer? Are you not one of those who
profit innocently by the misfortunes of others?"

"Oh! I profit by nothing. I have nothing of my own, and I am nobody in
society."

"But you are of society, you belong to it, it owes you protection, and
it will never wound you in your own person."

"Who knows?" said Julie.

Then, fearing that she had said too much, she changed the subject by
recurring to the scene which had just taken place.

"When I think," she said, "that a great disaster might have happened to
you just now! Ah! your poor mother--how she would have cursed me if I
had been the cause--"

"No, madame, that could not have happened," replied Julien; "I had right
on my side."

"And you believe that Providence interposes in such cases?"

"Yes, since Providence is with us. It gives us strength and presence of
mind. A man who defends a woman's honor against scoundrels has all the
chances on his side. Courage comes very easy to him; he feels that he
cannot succumb."

"What faith you have!" exclaimed Julie, deeply touched. "Yes, I remember
you said at my house _the other day_ that faith would move mountains,
and that you were faith personified."

"_The other day!_" Julien repeated ingenuously. "That was more than a
month ago."

Julie dared not pretend not to know how many days and nights had passed
since that brief interview. So she said nothing. Julien carried his
respect for her so far as not to continue the conversation himself, and
the longer the silence endured the less able was Julie to summon the
presence of mind to break it without betraying the emotion she felt. At
last they reached the pavilion.

"Do you not think," he said, "that you should take your arm from mine
now, so that your people may not see me? then I will follow you at a
little distance until I have seen your door close behind you."

"Yes," she replied; "but what will my people think to see me returning
alone and on foot at such an hour? The best way is for me to go through
the pavilion and through my garden; then they will think that Monsieur
Marcel brought me back that way."

That seemed in truth the best plan. Julien had his key in his pocket.

"I will go and wake my mother," he said, "and tell her to get up; for I
told her, as I passed, not to sit up for me. She thinks that I have been
to take supper with Marcel."

"Don't wake her, I forbid it. To tell her all our adventures would take
too long now. She would be distressed, perhaps, being half asleep.
To-morrow you can tell her everything. Open the garden door for me, and
I will run home without making any noise. Thanks, and adieu!"

To pass through the narrow passage way leading from the street door to
the garden door, inside the pavilion, they had to walk several seconds
in absolute darkness. In that straitened household no lamps were kept
burning needlessly, and Babet came for the day only and did not sleep in
the house. Julien went first, opened the garden, bowed low to Madame
d'Estrelle and immediately closed the door, to prove to her that he
never used it and that he should not presume to follow her, even with
his eyes, along the paths through which she glided like a ghost.

Such perfect discretion, such unswerving respect, such delicate,
thoughtful, untiring, really serviceable devotion touched Madame
d'Estrelle profoundly. It was a magnificent June night. She knew that by
knocking on the window of her bedroom, which was on the ground floor,
looking on the garden, she could summon Camille, who was sitting up for
her. She knew too that Camille's vigil consisted in enjoying a good nap
on the best couch in the apartment. She thought that she might without
unkindness allow her to keep vigil in that way a few moments more; and
feeling that her heart was overflowing with emotion, her mind fairly
drowned by conflicting thoughts, she could not resist the temptation to
sit down beside the basin in which the moon was reflected, clear and
motionless, as in a Venetian mirror.

The nightingale had ceased to sing. It was sleeping on its young brood.
All was still, and the young zephyr (the night breeze of those days) was
slumbering so sweetly that it did not even stir a blade of grass. Paris
too was asleep, at all events the tranquil quarter of which the hôtel
D'Estrelle marked the outer limit. The sounds of the country were more
audible there than those of the city; at that hour they were confined to
an occasional cock-crow and the barking of a dog in the distance at long
intervals. The clocks rang out in clear tones, answering one another
from convent to convent; then everything relapsed into blissful silence;
and if one could hear the distant rumbling of a carriage on the pavement
of the real Paris, it resembled the dull murmur of the waves rather than
a sound produced by human activity.

Julie, tired out and slightly bewildered, breathed deep of the
tranquillity of the night, of that perfume of solitude, with the keenest
pleasure. She fixed her eyes on a great white star, which shone near the
moon and was reflected in the same basin. At first she sat there without
thinking, oblivious of everything, enjoying absolute repose; soon her
heart began to beat so violently that it pained her; first she felt hot,
then cold. She rose to go away. She went to her bedroom window, but she
did not knock. She returned to the stone bench. She sat down and wept.
Then she rose and walked around the basin like a soul in torment; at
last she stopped, smiling like a soul at peace. She consented to
question herself, and when her heart replied: _I love_, she was
frightened and forbade it to speak. Then she called her conscience to
account for that terror, that shrinking austerity, opposed to the laws
of nature and useless to God. Her conscience replied that it had nothing
to do with it, and that the obstacle was not due to it but to the
_reason_, a sort of artificial conscience wherein God and nature gave
precedence to conventional ideas, fear, selfish scheming, precautions
due to misapprehension of one's real interests. In this order of
reasoning everything was expressed in terms of six-franc pieces. Marcel
had reason on his side in view of the actual facts. So the heart must be
sacrificed to the most sordid of facts, to the implacable menace of
poverty.

"No," said Julie to herself, "that shall not be! If necessary I will
sell everything, I will have nothing of my own, I will work; but I
_will_ love, even though I have to ask alms! Besides, _he_ will work for
three, he who works now for two! He will undertake that burden, he will
be overjoyed to do it if he loves me! In his place, I should be so
overjoyed!"

Julie began to walk again with increasing agitation.

"Does he love me as much as that? Does he love me with the passion that
I thought that I detected the first day?--Ah! that is the question that
I ask myself incessantly, that is all that troubles me, that is
something that neither my conscience nor my reason, nor my heart can
tell me. Perhaps he has only a friendly feeling for me, for he is a good
son, and he is grateful to me for what I tried to do for his mother. He
owes me gratitude and he proves his gratitude by admirable devotion. And
what then? Why should he love me madly? why should he want to pass his
life at my feet? He has no craving for it, for he is never at hand
except on occasions when I may need him. The rest of the time he gives
his mind to his real duties, his work, his mother, perhaps to some girl
of his own station who will bring him a comfortable dowry--whereas I, a
poor, ruined--But am I ruined?--If my husband's father has provided for
my future, I am still a _grande dame_--and in that case--in that case
everything in my dream is changed; I forget this young man who is not
suited to me, I marry a man in society, at my choice, I am proud and
happy, I love without perplexity and without shame.--Oh, yes! But now it
is _he_, no stranger, no other than he, whom I love; it is he alone, and
I do not know whether one can be cured of that. I do not know if one
ever forgets. I fear not, since the more I try, the more utterly I fail;
the more I defend myself, the more completely I am beaten. My God, my
God! in all this there is but one real fear, one real torture: and that
is the fear that he does not love me! How shall I find out? Perhaps I
shall never find out. Can I live without it?"

Tormenting herself thus, she found herself quite near the pavilion,
having no idea how she came there. The door was open, a black figure
stood in the doorway. Julien, as if he had overheard her thoughts, as if
he were irresistibly impelled to answer them, came straight to her side.

Julie at once recovered her reason and her pride. Taken by surprise, she
was about to speak in the character of an insulted queen. He did not
give her time.

"Why are you here, madame?" he said. "Can you not get in? Are your
servants asleep, or are they all expecting you to come from the street?
You cannot pass the night in the garden, dressed as you are. It is two
o'clock. The dew is falling, you will be frozen, you will be ill. And
your hood is over your shoulder, your head bare, your arms hardly
covered. Here, take this heavy mantle of my mother's at once, and
forgive me for being here."

"But how did you know?"

"I heard you walking on the gravel--a very light step which could be
nobody's but yours, and constantly stopping and going on again. I was in
the studio, then I came here and held the door ajar, saying to myself:
'She is still out-of-doors, she can't get in, she will take cold, she is
tired, she is suffering, perhaps she is afraid!' I could not stand it
any longer; indeed, it was my duty. And this must not go on, you know;
whatever people may say or think, I do not propose that you shall kill
yourself; no, I do not!"

Julien was profoundly moved, his voice trembled, and so did his hands as
he placed his mother's cloak over Julie's shoulders; but he did not
struggle against the surprises of passion; he chided rather, like a
father who sees his child in danger. It did not occur to him that he
could be accused of selfish love or of a treacherous exploit. So that he
forgot all considerations of propriety, and there was in his solicitude
a passionate intonation which overpowered Julie. She grasped both his
hands and, carried away herself by an outburst of exalted passion, the
first in her life, the least expected and the most unconquerable, she
exclaimed wildly:

"You love me, you love me, I am sure! Then tell me so, that I may hear
it and know it! You love me--as I want to be loved!"

Julien stifled a cry, lost his head completely and carried Julie into
his studio; but she had led so chaste a life that the alarm of her
modesty inevitably caused her lover's respect, momentarily submerged, to
rise again to the higher regions of his heart. He fell at her feet and
covered the tips of her ice-cold fingers with kisses, imploring her to
have perfect confidence in him.

"Confidence!" he exclaimed, "confidence! I have sworn that I would be
your brother. It is your brother who is here beside you, do not doubt
it, and your confidence will save me. I told you that I adored you; that
is truer than I can possibly tell you, stronger than you can dream, more
terrible than I myself imagined; but I will not cause you to shed a
tear, I would kill myself first! Have no fear; you shall never need to
blush for having ordered me to love you."

Could he have kept his word? He believed that he could, even at the
height of his delirious joy. Julie increased his strength by her own
boldness.

"No, I do not propose to blush," she said, with the frankness of a
serious resolution; "I propose to be your wife, for to be your mistress
would degrade you. Commonplace love affairs are not becoming to a man
like you; to a woman like me, dissolute conduct is impossible. I too
would kill myself first! Julien, let us take our oath here and now to
marry, whatever happens, whether I am rich or destitute, for there is as
much chance of one as of the other. If I am poor, your determination
will never weaken, you will sustain and support me. If I am rich, you
will have no vain pride, you will share my destiny. This must be
decided, agreed upon, sworn to. I am not brave, I warn you; that is why
I insist upon pledging myself irrevocably, and then I know that I shall
look neither to the right hand nor to the left. My love will become a
duty; then I shall be strong, resolute and self-possessed. I was able to
endure despair in marriage, because I have principles and true piety;
with all the more reason I shall accept happiness, and I will struggle
to be happy as I struggled formerly not to desire to be. Swear, my
friend; we must be everything to each other, or we must never meet
again; for this is certain, we love each other and our love is stronger
than we are. Society can have nothing to say. For a fortnight past I
have ceased to live, I have felt that I was dying. To-day, I went mad; I
should have run after you just now if you had said to me: 'I do not love
you.'--Or no, I should have thrown myself into the basin, with the moon
and the star that shine in its depths. Julien, I am losing my mind, I
never said such things before, I did not think that I should ever dare
to say them, but here am I saying them to you, and I am not sure that it
is myself who speaks. Have pity on me, sustain me, preserve my honor,
which is yours, preserve your wife's purity for your own sake."

"Yes, my wife! yes, I swear it!" cried Julien, in an ecstasy of joy.
"And do you too, Julie, swear it before God!"

"_Mon Dieu!_" said Julie, bewildered and suddenly becoming a little
cowardly, "we have known each other a month----"

"No, not a month," replied Julien. "Only an hour; for we met a month ago
for a quarter of an hour here, a quarter of an hour at your house, and
this evening in the street for half an hour. We may as well say, Julie,
that, so far as appearances go, we do not know each other at all, and
yet we love each other. God above hears us and knows it well, for it was
He who wished it, who still wishes it!"

"Yes, you are right," she replied excitedly, for she felt recreated by
her lover's exalted faith; "we know nothing of each other but our love.
Is not that enough? is not that everything? What is all the rest? You
are a clever artist, an estimable young man, a good son; that is what
everybody knows about you; but is it because of those things that I love
you? I am a virtuous person, not ungenerous and of a gentle disposition,
or so you may have heard; but that is not what made you love me. There
are other good men, other estimable women, to whom we should never have
thought of becoming attached; we love each other because we love each
other, that is the whole story!"

"Yes, yes," said Julien, "love is like God, it is because it is, it is
the alkahest! What does it matter that we discover in each other this or
that peculiar development of mind or character? The great, the only
business of our lives is to love, and since we possess each other's
love, we have known each other a hundred years, forever--our love has
neither beginning nor end!"

They hyperbolized thus for more than an hour in the studio, talking in
low tones, by the vague light of the moon shining through the trees;
Julie seated, Julien on his knees, hand in hand, but refraining from the
kiss which would have been their ruin. Suddenly the moon, which was
sinking toward the horizon, seemed to shine so brightly, that they were
forced to conclude that the dawn was lending its light. Julie rose and
fled, after making Julien swear a hundred times that their union was
indissoluble.

Camille was greatly surprised, when she opened the door for her
mistress, to find that it was nearly three o'clock.

"Are the servants still waiting for me?" inquired Madame d'Estrelle.

"Yes, madame; they think that madame has decided to pray all night by
monsieur le marquis's body. The carriage went to fetch madame. Madame
must have found it at the gate of the hôtel D'Ormonde?"

"No, I did not wait for it; it was too slow in coming. Monsieur Marcel
Thierry brought me home by way of the pavilion, where I had to stop and
talk business with him. Tell the servants to go to bed; the carriage
will return when the coachman is sober."

"Ah! _mon Dieu!_ so madame knows? Poor Bastien! I can take my oath,
madame, that he got tipsy from vexation because madame had taken a cab."

If this explanation made Julie smile, her own explanations seemed
strange to the soubrette; but she suspected nothing wrong. Julie's life
was so regular and so pure! Camille concluded simply that her financial
position must be in great danger, since she passed the night talking
with the solicitor; and she imparted her solicitude to the other
servants, who were distressed by it, even while thinking that they must
not allow their wages to go unpaid. The footman, who was a friend of
Camille, and as such inclined to shield Bastien, went to the hôtel
D'Ormonde, but did not find him there. Bastien had understood that his
orders were to go back to the wineshop, and thither he had gone; he was
sleeping the sleep of the angels, the only slumber supposed to be
delicious enough to be compared with that of a drunken man. The carriage
was waiting for him at the door, and the groom, his subordinate, had
consented to watch the horses on condition that he was supplied with
something to warm him on the box every fifteen minutes. The rascals did
not reappear at the hôtel until daylight and did not recover their
senses for twenty-four hours. Under other circumstances Julie would have
dismissed them; but she foresaw that the bacchanalian episode would
introduce confusion into the accounts of the romantic episode, in the
gossip of the servants' hall and the porter's lodge. That is what
actually happened, and as the people in Madame d'Estrelle's service were
not ill-disposed toward her, it seemed that nothing was likely to
transpire of her actions during that extraordinary night.

On the next night, as a matter of prudence the lovers held aloof from
each other; but on the night following that, although they had made no
appointment, they found themselves once more among the shrubbery in the
garden, and repeated with renewed delight all that they had said two
days before. They continued in this way, undisturbed and without
apparent danger, nothing being easier than for Madame d'Estrelle to
steal out of her apartments, even without very great precaution, her
people being accustomed to see her go out alone for a breath of fresh
air, at a late hour on summer nights.

What a delightful existence if it could have lasted! Those meetings had
all the charm of mystery, with no remorse to disturb their joys. Both
perfectly free, and aspiring only to the most sacred union, sustained by
a love strong enough to be able to wait, they sat there in the darkness,
amid bushes laden with flowers, in the splendor of the early summer
which retains all the charm of spring; they were like two fiancés, who
are permitted to love each other, and who, without abusing the
permission, keep out of sight in order to arouse no jealousy. It was the
honeymoon of sentiment preceding the honeymoon of passion. Passion was
already awake, but they fought against it, or rather held it in reserve,
by mutual consent, for the time when they would be forced to fight and
display their courage; for well they knew what they would have to face,
and Julien said to his friend:

"You will suffer terribly for my sake, I know; and I shall suffer to see
you suffer; but then we shall belong to each other, and love will afford
us ineffable joys which will make us invulnerable to assaults from
outside. Even if you were not guarded here by your own modesty and my
veneration, it seems to me that my selfish interests, rightly
understood, would enjoin upon me not to exhaust all my happiness at
once."

At other times Julien was more agitated and less resigned to wait. Then
Julie would pacify him by imploring him to remember what he had said the
day before.

"I have been so happy since we have loved each other thus!" she would
say to him. "Let us not change this blissful condition of affairs.
Remember that on the day when I shall say to you aloud that I have
chosen you for my life companion, people will laugh and cry out and
accuse me of a vulgar infatuation; and I know virtuous women who will
say to me cynically: 'Keep him for a lover, since you must have a lover;
but see him in secret and don't marry him!' With what sort of a
countenance could I endure such impertinences, if my conscience were not
clear, and if I no longer felt that I had the right to reply: 'No, he is
not my lover! he is my fiancé, whom I love, and who has proved his
respect for me as no other man could ever have proved it!' Let us keep
all our weapons, Julien; truth is the most powerful of all weapons in
the struggle against false ideas."

Julien submitted, because he was entirely devoted to her, and also
because his spirit was loyal to that indefinable strain of heroism which
had guided his life and restrained the first impulses of his youth. He
was still able to conquer his passions, having never allowed them to
dominate him entirely. Moreover, this romance of pure love, in the
perfume-laden darkness, appealed to his imagination, and to the artist
those poetic nights were intoxicating festivals. That garden had dark
recesses and imposing masses of foliage, such as we see in Watteau's
pictures. The appearance of Julie, charmingly dressed, not over tall,
and of graceful outline in her simple gown, was in harmony with that
distinctive savor which makes of Watteau a serious painter, a realistic
and thoroughly alive Italian, amid conventional surroundings and in an
age of affectation. There was a secluded nook where a tall white marble
urn, standing high upon an ivy-wreathed pedestal, stood forth vaguely in
the darkness, like a spectre, against the black background of the trees.
Bluish, indistinguishable lights flitted over the foliage, and the
shadows of the branches played about the marble, whose outlines
constantly disappeared, although its shape was always graceful and
majestic.

Thither Julien repaired to wait for Julie, as soon as his mother had
gone to bed, and, when she approached, as smiling and tranquil as
happiness itself, with her silk petticoats shimmering in the darkness
and her lovely bare arms holding up her skirts, Julien fancied that he
was looking upon some modern muse who ruled his destiny, bringing him
promises of future bliss with all the charms and fascinations of present
real life.

They must enjoy the present without giving too much thought to the
morrow, for the uncertainty of future events made it impossible for them
to form definite plans. They did not know yet whether they could live on
thus, deserted by society, forgotten and at peace in that garden which
had become an earthly paradise for love; or whether, ejected from the
pavilion by inexorable creditors, they would go to seek an attic chamber
in some suburb, with a garden on the window-sill. They proposed to face
everything together; that was the only absolute certainty, the only
irrevocable determination.




VI


Two weeks had passed since the Marquis d'Estrelle's death, and, after
search had been made in every conceivable place, there was no trace of a
will. It was generally believed that there was one; no one dared say
aloud that the marchioness had persuaded him not to make one. There were
divers indications that Marcel believed that to be a fact, but it was of
no use to suspect, they could prove nothing, and the consequences were
enforced with overbearing placidity; that is to say, the marchioness,
while holding fast to the rights guaranteed by her marriage contract,
also inherited all the property of the deceased, and made no suggestion
of any sum being set aside to pay the late count's debts. And yet such
a provision seemed to be implied by the terms of Julie's marriage
contract. It was a matter for judicial settlement, and Marcel advised
Julie to appeal to the courts, if for no other purpose than to delay the
suits with which she was threatened. Julie would not consent. It was her
idea that lawsuits were always lost by both parties, and Marcel agreed
that she was not very far astray.

"I am well aware," she said, "that the marchioness does not love me, and
it is very possible that she owes me nothing; but she is a very great
lady, and it is not possible that, rich as she is, she will allow a
person who bears her name to be entirely denuded. Let us wait a little
longer. It would not be becoming to begin so soon to talk to her about
money, and it would be most imprudent, as you yourself said, to appear
to be in too much of a hurry. When the time has come, I will take that
step, let it cost what it may; you must advise me of the fitting
opportunity."

"Go there at once," said Marcel to her one day. "There is no time to
lose, your creditors propose to take action to-morrow."

Julie, undeterred by the ill-success of her first visit, had called upon
the dowager on the morning following the marquis's decease. On that
occasion she was received very coldly, but courteously. Perhaps, the
marquis's testamentary provisions having been put out of the way, her
presence was no longer dreaded. There was a sort of bitter-sweet comment
upon the worldly pleasures in which Madame d'Estrelle indulged at the
close of her period of mourning, in allusion to her absence from home on
the preceding evening. Julie had given the explanation agreed upon with
Marcel. It was received with a decidedly incredulous air of curiosity,
and then the marchioness observed:

"I am very sorry for you, countess, but you are obliged to wear mourning
again!"

Julie had paid other visits to the dowager, without mentioning her
pecuniary troubles. When the moment had come to do so, she summoned all
her courage, began the interview with her usual gentleness of manner,
and laid bare her position in a few words, which she could not succeed
in making very humble.

"I beg your pardon, madame," the marchioness replied, "but I do not at
all understand these matters of business, as I have not enjoyed the
advantage of living on terms of intimacy with solicitors. If you will be
good enough to send your solicitor to my notary, he will be informed of
my rights as well as my duties, and will be convinced that you are not
included among the burdens left for me to bear."

"That is not the reply which I expected from your sense of honor, madame
la marquise. It may be that you owe me nothing; it must be so, since you
so declare."

"I thought that for family reasons----"

"I have not the honor to be of your family," rejoined the marchioness
dryly.

"You mean," replied Julie, excited by the sneer, "that Monsieur le Comte
d'Estrelle made something of a misalliance when he married a young woman
of a family whose nobility was partly of the sword and partly of the
gown. That does not wound me, for I am not ashamed of those of my
ancestors who were magistrates, and I do not consider myself inferior to
anyone; but I did not come here to discuss my right to the honor of
bearing the name which you also bear. It is a fact that I am the
Comtesse d'Estrelle; am I to lose the status which was promised me, and
which seemed to be secured to me? If monsieur le marquis forgot me when
he was dying, does it not result from the intentions which he must have
communicated to you, that you will pay his son's debts, in part, at
least?"

"No, madame, that does not follow from any intention that he ever made
known to me. I simply know his opinion, and it was this: that you must
absolutely abandon your dower, since it is insufficient to pay the debts
in question, and that he would then attend to the balance."

"That has often been proposed to me, madame, and I have asked whether,
in exchange for that sacrifice, any allowance would be made me."

"Are you absolutely penniless? did your family leave you nothing?"

"Twelve hundred francs a year, madame, no more, as you know."

"Well, one can live with that, my dear; that is enough to enable one to
ride in cabs, to see the play from a closed box, consort with
solicitors' wives, and walk about the streets at midnight on a
sign-painter's arm. Those are your tastes, I am told; gratify them,
renounce your rights, or allow the property which you hold from the
Estrelle family to be sold at any price; it makes little difference to
me! All that I desire is that you should marry somebody or other, so
that your name will be changed and I shall never be confounded with you
by those who do not know us."

"You shall have that satisfaction, madame, for I am more anxious than
you to avoid that unpleasant confusion."

She bowed and went out.

Marcel was waiting at her house. When she returned with pale cheeks and
eyes blazing with indignation, he said:

"All is lost, I can see that! Speak quickly, madame, you frighten me."

"My dear Thierry, I am hopelessly ruined," she replied; "but that is not
what is suffocating me with rage. She insults me, she tramples me under
her feet; at the very outset, without any presumption or provocation on
my part, she hurls insults in my face! I am surrounded by spies, who
carry tales to her and poison the most innocent things. Thierry," she
added, sinking into a chair, "you are an honest man; I swear to you that
I am an honest woman."

"Only a miserable villain could deny that!" cried Marcel. "Come, have
courage, tell me what you mean."

When Marcel knew everything, excepting only the understanding between
Julien and the countess, for they had thought it best to keep their
secret temporarily, even from Madame André Thierry, he was much cast
down and considered the situation very desperate.

"Here you are," he said, "between sudden, absolute destitution, a
terrible thing to a woman with your habits, and a lawsuit of which the
result is very doubtful. I no longer know what to advise you. I see that
my anticipations are being realized. She can strip you bare and obtain
the approval of society, by trying to besmirch your reputation. She has
weapons all sharpened for you, she laid in a store of them when she saw
that the marquis was sinking, and, feeling sure that he was on his
death-bed, she used them; she has manœuvred in cold blood to ruin you,
she has set spies upon you and had you followed."

"One moment, Monsieur Thierry; hasn't Monsieur Antoine had a hand in all
this?"

"Julien thinks so; I still doubt it; I will find out, and, if necessary,
I will set up a counter-system of espionage; but the most urgent thing
is not to find out who is betraying you, but to determine what you will
do."

"No lawsuits, in any event!"

"No; but let us not make that announcement; we will threaten to make
trouble; I will attend to that. They insist that you shall abandon your
dower; I propose that they shall purchase that sacrifice, and I will
make a stout fight over the conditions."

"Meanwhile," said Julie, "I am at odds with my husband's family, for you
can imagine that I shall never set foot inside the marchioness's doors
again."

"In view of her very evident determination to drive you to extremities,
I do not pretend to advise you to be patient. War is declared, the
hostilities are not of our making. Our proper course is to avoid
retreating."

But Marcel had no time to fight. He had at his heels two or three
solicitors of decidedly unsavory renown, who talked of selling at
auction, and who would grant no further delay. He thought that they must
submit to the marchioness's demands. He went to Julie and told her so.

"They are robbing you," he said; "indeed I fear that they may force you,
in case you resist, to part with the slender capital you inherit from
your own family. It is absolutely certain that the count's debts, with
the accumulated interest, will absorb much more than what you still
retain of his fortune. The Marquise d'Estrelle desires to occupy, or at
all events to own, the hôtel D'Estrelle."

"And its appurtenances?" queried Julie; "the pavilion too?"

"The pavilion too. My aunt must have something to indemnify her for
moving; another point to fight over, but one in which you are not
interested."

Julie made no reply, but became profoundly sad. The idea of being
ruined, of being reduced to twelve hundred francs a year, had not
hitherto presented itself very clearly to her mind: but to leave forever
that lovely house and that delightful garden, which had become so dear
to her in the past few weeks; to lose that proximity to the pavilion,
the fascination and the perfect security of those nocturnal
interviews--that was a genuine catastrophe! A whole world of bliss
crumbled to dust behind her. One phase of the purest happiness she had
ever known was brutally closed, before she had any time to prepare for
it.

Marcel returned at once to the marchioness's notary. He found him very
domineering in face of the countess's concessions--not as a man, for he
was a most gallant individual, but as the agent engaged to contest his
client's cause foot by foot. Moreover he had been warned against Julie,
and he saw in her only a foolish young woman, determined to sacrifice
everything to illicit passions. Marcel could not contain himself; he
lost his temper, swore on his honor that there were no secret relations
between the countess and his cousin, that they hardly knew each other,
and that Julie was the purest of women and the most worthy of respect
and compassion. Marcel had the reputation of an exceedingly upright man:
the warmth of his convictions shook the notary; but, recurring to the
marchioness's rights, he showed that she was mistress of the situation,
and that the countess would be very fortunate to extricate herself in
any way that the other chose to allow.

However, he promised to do his utmost to bring her to a more generous
frame of mind toward her stepson's widow. The next day he announced, in
a letter to Marcel, that the marchioness desired to inspect the hôtel
D'Estrelle, which she had not entered for a long time. She desired to
see for herself the condition of the property and then to have an
appraisal made and discussed in her presence by her advisers and the
countess's. It was easy to see, from the tone of this letter, that the
notary had displeased his client by pleading the moral side of Julie's
cause, as he had promised to do, and that he himself was far from
pleased with the dowager's suspicions and harsh dealing.

He appeared with her on the same day. Julie, preferring not to see her
heartless enemy again, locked herself into her boudoir, leaving the
doors of all the other rooms open.

The Marquise d'Estrelle was a shrewish Norman. In Madame d'Ancourt's
circle she was called _Madame de Pimbeche, Orbeche_, etc. She was
accused of borrowing money by the year to lend secretly at usurious
rates. This may have been an exaggeration; but it is certain that, if
she expended a considerable sum to set Julie free, she proposed to
recoup herself on the details. The promptness with which she came to
make this sort of expert inspection demonstrated that purpose.

She went through the house, examined everything with a keen, unerring
eye, made her comments and her deductions on account of the slightest
crumbling of the walls, cried down the furniture and the fixtures as
much as she possibly could, and talked and acted with a cynicism born of
avarice and aversion, which fairly sickened Marcel and made the notary
blush more than once. When she came to the boudoir where Julie had taken
refuge, she demanded that the door be opened. It was opened instantly.
Julie had heard her approaching, and being unwilling to undergo the
supreme affront of receiving a hateful visitor against her will, she had
gone out through the garden, bidding Camille open the door as soon as
the demand was made. Camille was proud, she could point to sheriffs
among her ancestors! She could not resist the temptation to give the
dowager a lesson: she walked to a chest of drawers in which she had
hastily and designedly placed a few trifles, and said in a tone of
sarcastic resignation:

"Perhaps madame desires to count the linen? There are some of my
mistress's ribbons and neckerchiefs here."

The dowager cared little for the chatter of a lady's maid; but her
hatred of Julie was lashed into fury. She cast a rapid glance through
the window and saw Madame d'Estrelle crossing the garden toward the
pavilion.

Doubtless that was a great mistake on Julie's part; but she too was
exasperated. She felt as if she were driven from her house, from her
bedroom, from her most sacred retreat, by the shamelessness of
persecution. She longed for a refuge, her brain was in a whirl, and she
bent her steps, without reflection, as if by instinct, toward Madame
Thierry and Julien.

"She will not come to their house to rout me out," she thought; "she
will not dare. I am still the owner of the place, and I alone have the
right to enter the premises of my lessees. Moreover, it is time for me
to acknowledge my friendly relations with Madame Thierry, and after
to-day I propose to go to her house as I go to the houses of other women
who have sons or brothers."

As she resolutely entered the pavilion, the marchioness, impelled by a
no less sudden resolution, rushed from the boudoir into the garden.

"Where are you going, madame?" asked Marcel, who had not seen Julie
fleeing, but who distrusted the gleaming eyes and the jerky gait of the
vigorous and active old woman.

The marchioness did not deign to answer, but hopped on like a plucked
magpie. Marcel and the notary followed her, being unable to stop her.

She knew the place very well, although she had not shown herself there
for a long while, having had a falling-out with her step-son the count
at the time of her second marriage. She arrived at the pavilion a few
minutes after Julie, and entered the studio like a bombshell.

Julien was alone; he was not even aware that Madame d'Estrelle had come
in and gone up to his mother's room. Since he had been seeing Julie in
secret, he had ceased to be on the lookout for her. They were so
entirely agreed that they would not meet by chance! He was working and
singing over his work. Julie, as she passed through the little porch,
had had an indefinable sudden presentiment of the danger of being
followed; so she had gone upstairs, convinced that the widow's bedroom
was an inviolable refuge.

Surprised by the sudden appearance of the old dowager, Julien, who had
never seen her, rose from his chair, thinking that she had come from the
street and that she wished to give him an order. That red-faced, panting
apparition, angular and repellent, caused him more displeasure than
hope.

"Here is a person who will haggle like a pawnbroker," he thought
rapidly, "unless indeed she is a female pawnbroker herself."

The lady's shabby costume in nowise indicated her rank and her wealth.

"Are you alone here?" she asked, without any sort of salutation.

Marcel and the notary appeared, and Julien's wondering eyes questioned
the former, who made haste to reply:

"Madame desires to purchase this pavilion, and----"

"I don't need to be introduced to this gentleman," retorted the
marchioness, sharply, "and I am quite able to explain myself."

"In that case, madame," laughed Julien, "this _gentleman_ awaits your
orders."

"I asked you a question," continued the marchioness in nowise
disconcerted; "I will make it more distinct. Where did the Comtesse
d'Estrelle go?"

Julien started back; Marcel, seeking to avoid an absurd scene, hastily
motioned to him and touched his forehead with his finger, to indicate
that the woman's mind was deranged.

"Ah! very good," said Julien, speaking in the tone which one adopts with
children and madmen. "Madame la Comtesse d'Estrelle? I don't know her."

"A silly answer, master painter, and altogether useless. I desire to
speak to that lady, and I know that she lives here--from time to time!"

"Marcel," said Julien, turning to his cousin, "was it you who brought
_this lady_ to me?"

Marcel, in dire distress, shook his head.

"Then it was you, monsieur?" Julien asked the notary.

"No, monsieur," the notary replied with decision; "I followed madame,
and I have absolutely no idea why she came here."

"Then you would have done better not to have followed me," replied the
marchioness with calm asperity; "I had a reason for coming to this
picture-shop, you have none. Do me the favor to allow me to conduct
myself here as I please."

"I wash my hands of the affair," replied the notary, saluting Julien
with much courtesy; and he took his leave, cursing the shrewish and
capricious humor of his client.

"As for you, monsieur le procureur,--" said the marchioness to Marcel.

"As for me, madame," retorted Marcel, "this house is occupied by members
of my own family, and I receive orders from no one except the mistress
of the house, who is my aunt."

"I know all that. I know your relationship and the understanding between
you as between good friends, and your neighborly relations with the
Comte d'Estrelle's widow. Remain if you choose, or turn me out if you
dare."

"Let us have done with this, madame," said Julien, losing patience. "I
am not in the habit of failing in respect to a woman, however
_extraordinary_ her conduct may appear to me; but I am an artist, a
mechanic if you choose; I am on my own premises, in my picture-shop, as
you well describe it; I am working, I have no time to waste. You talk to
me of subjects which I do not understand and of a person whom I have not
the honor to receive; if you have no other motive for interrupting me,
permit me to leave you."

With that he picked up his palette and his sketch and left the studio,
with an expressive glance at Marcel, which seemed to say: "Get me out of
this as best you can."

"Very good!" said the marchioness, not at all crushed by this dismissal
in due form. "I will remember the shepherd's ballad. Let us look about
this hovel a bit. I will spare you nothing; I want to see the whole
pavilion, inside, upstairs and down, as I saw the hôtel."

"Come, madame," said Marcel, "since you insist upon it. Simply allow me
to warn my aunt, who lives upstairs!"

"No, not at all," replied the dowager, walking toward the door, "I will
warn her myself, and if she turns me out--why, I shall be very well
pleased, monsieur le procureur!"

"Ah! this is enough to drive one mad!" cried Marcel involuntarily; "is
it possible that you really believe that Madame d'Estrelle is in hiding
here? In that case, come, madame; I will show you the way. When your
mind is at rest--"

Marcel was a hundred leagues from imagining that Julie was in his aunt's
room. Suddenly, as he hastily opened the studio door, he saw Madame
d'Estrelle and Madame Thierry before him, and stood still, in the most
painful attitude one can attribute to disappointment.

Julie had heard the marchioness's noisy arrival in the studio. Julien
had gone up to tell his mother that a madwoman was below talking
nonsense. He had been first of all amazed to see Julie, then sorely
distressed by her presence, on learning from her that the madwoman was
the dowager in person. Julie recognized her at last, and knew that she
would ferret her out if she had to go to the garret. She at once made up
her mind what to do, and, taking Madame Thierry's arm, said to her:

"Come! it is not becoming for me to be surprised in your room, like a
guilty person in hiding; I prefer to brave the storm, and I feel that I
can do it because it is my duty."

Julien, bewildered and ready to explode, remained at the top of the
stairs, listening and wondering if Marcel single-handed could save the
two women whom he loved and respected above all the world from being
insulted by a fury.

But, strangely enough, as soon as the dowager saw those two women before
her, her countenance brightened and her anger seemed to vanish. What was
her real purpose? To ascertain with her own eyes that she had not been
deceived by those who told her that Julie had formed a friendship with
the widow Thierry, and consequently that she was her son's mistress. The
consequence was slightly forced; but, as Julien had told the marchioness
that he did not know Julie, the marchioness had some excuse for
believing what she wished to believe. This satisfaction appeased her, as
the possession of a victim appeases the excitement of the vulture. She
laughed a wicked laugh, glancing at Marcel triumphantly; and said to
him, without bowing to anyone, without waiting to be spoken to:

"Come, monsieur le procureur, I am satisfied; I have seen all I want to
see here; let us go about our business."

Julie felt the sarcasm and was about to reply to it. She was
desperate--so desperate that she desired to tell her secret in presence
of everybody. In her view that was the opportunity, or it would never
come. Since the tongue of calumny chose to call her a degraded sinner,
she proposed to reassert her dignity by avowing a serious passion soon
to be consummated by marriage. It was a most courageous act on the part
of a woman who had never known how to be brave; so that she was not
perfectly cool when she formed that extreme resolution, hastily and
without Julien's knowledge.

But she was not allowed to carry it out in that way. Marcel and Madame
Thierry each grasped one of her hands, saying almost in unison:

"Don't answer; let the insult fall at your feet!"

And, while they detained her thus, the dowager passed on without
deigning to look at her, and took the path leading to the hôtel, while
the honest notary, who was awaiting her outside, and accompanied her,
saluted Julie with most significant deference.

"You see," said Marcel, "her own adviser protests against the
unworthiness of such conduct; and now that woman has taken off her
mask, no one will be on her side against you; but, in God's name,
madame, how did you allow yourself to be caught here, where you never
come? You are most imprudent I am bound to tell you!"

"My dear Thierry, I have something to say to you," replied Julie. "Go
and arrange matters with the marchioness; yield everything in the matter
of money, but save my own tiny fortune. I will wait for you here."

"Why here?" said Marcel.

"I will tell you that when you return," Julie replied.

"Really, madame," said Julien, as soon as Marcel had gone, "by what
unlucky chance do you honor my mother with a visit on the very day when
your deadly enemy is watching you? And why do you remain here now, as if
to confirm her in her extraordinary suspicions?"

Despite Julien's affectionate and respectful tone, his words contained a
sort of rebuke which surprised Madame Thierry.

"Julien," said Madame d'Estrelle earnestly, "the moment to be sincere
has arrived. It has arrived sooner than I expected, but it cannot be
avoided, and I do not propose to retreat before my destiny. My excellent
friend," she cried, throwing her arms about Madame Thierry's neck,
"listen to the whole truth. I love Julien. I am bound to him by the most
sacred pledges. Embrace and bless your daughter."

"O _mon Dieu!_" cried Madame Thierry in utter bewilderment, pressing
Julie to her heart, "are you married?"

"Surely not, never without your consent," said Julien, embracing his
mother in his turn; "but we solemnly promised each other to ask your
consent when the time came that there would be nothing in this
disclosure likely to alarm your affection. Julie has spoken sooner than
I could have wished, but she has spoken, and what can I add? I deceived
you, dear mother, I love her madly, and I am the happiest of men because
she loves me too!"

Madame Thierry was so profoundly moved by these revelations that it was
a long time before she was able to speak. She overwhelmed Julie and
Julien with the most loving caresses, and, trembling from head to foot,
with cold hands and streaming eyes, she felt a curious mixture of terror
and joy. The first feeling was the more powerful, perhaps, for her first
words were to ask Julien why, amid his happiness, he seemed to reproach
Julie for acting a little too quickly.

"Ah! there you are!" said Julie. "Last evening--for we talk together
every evening, dear mother--we agreed to await the final decision as to
my fate before revealing our secret to our friends and to you. I saw
that I was marching to my destruction. Julien was content. But he would
have liked, for my sake, that all the wrong should be on the
marchioness's side; and it is quite certain that my resolution, when
known and published, will give her numerous partisans in her circle of
pious hypocrites and evil-tongued prudes; but for my part I cannot
endure the thought of being represented to be a lewd woman, and that
would happen if I were afraid to tell the whole truth."

"Yes, of course," replied Julien; "now, we must tell it; but you put
forward the hour, my dear Julie! For that rash act I adore you more than
ever; but it was my duty not to assent to it. Love and destiny carried
the day over my prudence; they made my devotion entirely useless. A
truce to reflections! Bless your children, dear mother; Julie has said
it, Julie wishes it, and I know that you wish it as much as she does."

While the occupants of the pavilion were thus pouring out their hearts,
the marchioness, installed in the salon of the hôtel, proceeded to make
a rigidly exact appraisal of both properties. Marcel fought, the notary
made sincere but vain efforts to adjust the respective claims. At last
they reached a conclusion intensely disappointing to Marcel--that Julie
could not hope to save her furniture from the enemy's clutches. It was a
great concession to allow her to retain her diamonds and her laces. She
had no choice but to submit to those harsh terms, because otherwise she
might get nothing; nobody had appeared to outbid the marchioness. Marcel
had written to Uncle Antoine, hoping that he would feel a longing for
the garden and would not haggle overmuch, for all his wrath; but Uncle
Antoine had held aloof.

After a final half hour of discussion concerning the articles, which
were already drawn up, divers erasures were made and divers blank spaces
filled up. The dowager signed, and as Marcel, still complaining and
protesting, started to take the document and submit it to Julie for her
ratification, the dowager demanded roughly:

"Why isn't she here? The matter is of sufficient importance for her to
leave her dear pavilion for a few moments!"

"You will admit, madame," rejoined Marcel, "that you are not treating
the Comtesse d'Estrelle so generously as to make her feel inclined to
come into your presence."

"Bah! she is very susceptible! Go to fetch her, Master Thierry! I am in
haste to be off, and if, on reading the document, she makes any fuss
over it, I am not one of the sort to wait for her. Let her come and
state her views here, that will be the shortest way. What is she afraid
of? I have nothing more to say to her about her conduct, which I care
very little about now, and which I didn't reprove her for after all. Did
I say a single word to her just now? If I did touch her a little the
other day, it was because she undertook to appeal to feelings which I do
not owe her; but let her abstain from recriminations, and I will agree
not to humiliate her."

"If you authorize me to go to her with words of peace, and to repeat
them in mild and becoming sentences," said Marcel, "I will try to bring
her here."

"Moreover," observed the notary, "madame la marquise doubtless has
something to say to her outside of the terms of the contract. Madame
certainly intends to give her time to find somewhere to go on leaving
the hôtel?"

"Yes, yes, to be sure," said the marchioness; "that is my intention. Go,
Master Thierry!"

Marcel ran to the pavilion and persuaded Julie to return with him. It
had seemed to him that the marchioness, satisfied with her bargain,
proposed to try to make some slight amends for her harshness; and it
would be more generous of Julie, and perhaps more prudent as well, not
to reject that sort of patching up process with which society is
accustomed to be content.

Time was pressing, and Marcel was not admitted to the secret at the
pavilion; but Julie whispered to Madame Thierry:

"You know now what my marriage portion is; I bring a very small income;
but by selling my jewels, we may be able to buy the house at Sèvres. So
I am a suitable match for Julien, and everything can be arranged in that
direction as nicely as possible."

The marchioness concealed the impatience caused by having to wait a few
moments. She was almost polite as she requested Julie to read and sign.
Julie took the pen; but as she found that the conciliatory words which
Marcel had led her to expect were not forthcoming, she hesitated an
instant and glanced at the notary, as if to ask his opinion. Her
deferential air did not escape the keen eye of the lawyer, who had a
decidedly sympathetic feeling for her.

"This would be the fitting moment," he said to his pitiless client, "to
inform madame of your generous intentions with regard to the question
still left open."

"Oh! yes, of course," replied the marchioness, "I wish to enter into
possession of the hôtel at once, to-morrow at the latest; but I will
allow madame to retain the pavilion for two or three months."

"The pavilion?" said Marcel in amazement. "Why, the pavilion is let!
Surely madame la marquise knows that it is let for nine years?"

"But the lease is void, Master Thierry, for I did not sign it, and by
the provisions of our matrimonial agreements, Monsieur le Marquis
d'Estrelle was not empowered to do any act without my express assent."

"So that Madame Thierry will be compelled to give up her lease without
indemnity?"

"I am very sorry for her; but you know my contract by heart; look at the
lease and you will be satisfied that it is of no validity."

She produced the lease, which was in her pocket, and showed it. There
was nothing to be said.

"What difference does this make to you?" said the marchioness, laughing
at Marcel's consternation. "Madame la comtesse is still in a position to
compensate Madame Thierry for this annoyance. We don't count the expense
with our friends!"

"You are right, madame," replied Julie with dignity, "and I thank you
for the opportunity you give me of showing my devotion to Madame
Thierry. But I decline your gracious offer. Madame Thierry and I will go
from your house together in an hour."

"Together?" said the marchioness. "So much frankness was not necessary,
madame!"

Julie was about to reply when a loud ring in the antechamber made the
marchioness start.

"Come, no useless quarrels!" she said, suddenly changing her tone; "here
are visitors. Sign, my dear; let us have done!"

And, as the footman was about to announce someone, she called to him:

"Say that we are not receiving yet; let the person wait!"

"Excuse me, madame," said Julie, offended by this authoritative tone in
her presence, "I am still still in my own house."

Marcel, who had noticed the marchioness's sudden impatience, was
conscious of an ill-defined but imperative impulse. He took the pen from
Julie's hand. The marchioness turned pale, Marcel kept his eyes upon
her.

"Shall I announce the visitor?" the footman asked Julie.

"Yes," replied Marcel, hastily, for he had seen the visitor's face
through the open door.

"Yes," echoed Julie, impelled by Marcel's excitement.

"Monsieur Antoine Thierry!" said the servant in a loud voice.

Julie rose with a gesture of surprise. The marchioness, who was
standing, sat down again with an angry exclamation. The horticulturist
entered, embarrassed, awkward as usual, but none the less holding his
head erect, with the irascible countenance which always presented such a
curious contrast to his timid manners. Without a direct salutation to
anyone, he walked forward in a zigzag line, but very quickly, to the
table, to the document, to the inkstand, and, looking at Julie, said in
a sullen tone, in which an indefinable trace of anxiety could be
detected:

"Have you concluded anything?"

"Nothing is concluded, since you are here," replied Marcel. "Do you
happen to have come to make a bid, monsieur my uncle?"

"No one can bid," said the marchioness, in great excitement. "Everything
is settled. I appeal to the good faith of----"

"Good faith is safe enough," retorted Marcel. "We were subjected to
harsh conditions. No one ever blamed a man condemned to death, however
resigned he might be, for accepting a pardon when it came to him as a
surprise. Come, monsieur my uncle, speak! You want the hôtel
D'Estrelle. I say more, you need it; you can pull down the wall and make
a fine addition to your garden. The hôtel De Melcy is old and dismal
and depressing and badly located. This one is cheerful, cool in summer,
warm in winter. You want it, you claim it, do you not?"

"This is an outrageous proceeding!" cried the marchioness. "Madame's
consent is equivalent to a signature, and an agreement is never
retracted at the last moment."

"I beg your pardon, madame," rejoined Marcel, "you were warned. I
resisted to the very last minute, and I said to you three times during
the discussion: if the door should open at this moment, and a new bidder
appear, I don't care who he might be, I would tear up this draft of an
agreement which I consider most lamentable for my client. I submitted, I
did not consent; I invoke the testimony of my colleague here present.
Uncle, everyone knows that you are infallible on questions of honor;
tell me, have I the right to object to my client's signing before you
have spoken?"

"To be sure," replied Monsieur Antoine, "especially as my rights
antedate madame la marquise's. Let us look over this paper!"

He ran his eye over it and said:

"That is not my appraisal, madame la marquise; you pluck your victim too
close, and you compel me to remind you of our little agreements."

"Go on, monsieur, overbid me!" replied the dowager. "I am unable to
contend against you who have millions. I throw the whole thing over and
give up my place to you."

"Wait, wait!" replied Antoine, "we can still agree with a word, madame!
I can act here in a way to satisfy everybody. It depends on you!"

"Never!" cried the marchioness indignantly; "you are a lunatic and I am
ashamed to have accepted your services!"

She went out, forgetting her notary, and Antoine stood abashed, with
contracted brows, buried in mysterious meditation, and with eyes fixed
on the door.

"They had agreed to act against me," Julie whispered to Marcel; "now
what are they going to do?"

"Be patient," Marcel replied; "I think that I can guess."

He had no time to explain himself. Monsieur Antoine emerged from his
reverie and said, addressing the notary:

"Well, how far have we gone, and what is our decision?"

"For my own part, monsieur," replied the notary, putting his papers
together and looking for his spectacles, "what took place between the
marchioness and yourself is a mystery. My client apparently abandoned
the object she was pursuing, and I shall await further orders from her
before taking part in this affair."

"It is between us two then?" said Monsieur Antoine to Julie, while the
notary made his exit.

"No, monsieur," she replied, pointing to Marcel; "I ask your permission
to leave you together."

"Why so," said Antoine, with a peculiarly distressed air, putting out
his hand to detain her, but not daring to touch her sleeve. "You bear me
a grudge, Madame d'Estrelle! You are wrong; everything that I have done
is in your interest. Why don't you want me to tell you?"

"Yes, indeed," said Marcel, "why should she refuse to find out what you
have on your stomach? Pardon the expression, madame la comtesse, for I
am a little irritated; but, pray set me the example of patience. Let us
listen, since this is the day to defy the enemy all along the line."

Julie resumed her seat, with a cold and severe glance at Monsieur
Antoine, which put the finishing touch to his confusion. He stuttered
and stammered, and was incomprehensible.

"Come, come," interposed Marcel, "you don't succeed in making your
confession, my poor uncle! It becomes my duty to question you. Let us
proceed in order. Why did you leave Paris mysteriously on the day
following a certain tragic adventure which happened to one of your
plants?"

"Ah! you propose to talk about that, do you?" cried the horticulturist,
his little eyes glaring wrathfully.

"Yes, I propose to talk about everything! Answer, or I take the judge
away, and your condemnation stands."

"Condemnation to what?" said Antoine, glancing at Julie; "to her
hatred?"

"No, monsieur, to my reprobation and my pity," replied Madame
d'Estrelle, despite the mute remonstrances of Marcel, who wished to
induce his uncle to mend his ways.

"Your pity, pity for me!" he retorted in high dudgeon. "No one ever used
that word to me before, and if you were not a woman!"--Then he turned to
Marcel. "Pity! why that is contempt! If it was you who advised her to
talk like that, you shall pay me for it!"

"Justify yourself if you can," retorted Marcel, boldly; "for if you have
behaved as you seem to have done, you are a detestable fellow, and every
honorable woman insulted by you has the right to tell you so."

"In what have I insulted her? I have insulted nobody. I saw that she was
ruining herself; I tried to prevent her from----"

"From ruining herself! You are talking nonsense, my dear uncle. There
are some dangers which a woman like her in whose presence we are does
not know and never will know."

"Ah, yes! that is all talk! I am not to be put off with phrases learned
in books, I tell you! When a woman makes appointments with a young
man----"

"Appointments? Where did you pick up such foolish stuff? The man who
told you that lied in his throat!"

"You are the one who lies! you are the confederate--the obliging
friend!"

"Be careful, uncle! Death of my life, you'll make me lose my temper!"

"Lose your temper, if you choose. I saw you myself coming out of the
theatre."

"Well, what then? My wife----"

"Oh! your wife--your wife's a fool! I saw Julien come out too."

"Julien was not with us; he had no more idea that we were downstairs
than we had that he was in the gallery. Besides, even if he had been
with us, what is this mania of yours for incriminating----"

"_Encriminating!_" interposed Monsieur Antoine, all whose errors in
language we do not attempt to reproduce; "I _encriminate_ what is
_encriminatable!_ And what about the long walk at night, arm-in-arm,
from the hôtel d'Ormonde to the pavilion, where madame remained, by the
way, till three o'clock in the morning? Madame André may have been
present at the conversation. I don't deny that; but that's another
reason for _encriminating,_ as you call it, you ass of an attorney! And
all the meetings in the garden in the evening, when madame never goes in
till two o'clock--often later?"

"Where do you pick up this servants' gossip?" cried Marcel,
indignantly--"these antechamber slanders?"

"I don't go into antechambers, and I don't get my information from
servants; I have my own little police. I am rich enough to pay shrewd
ones who watch and tell me the truth. As to that, I don't make any
secret of it. I wanted to find out madame's sentiments, the reasons for
the affront she put upon me by employing Master Julien to show me the
door; that was my right; and, if I revenged myself as I could, that,
too, was my right."

Madame d'Estrelle, being determined to tell everything and to take all
the consequences, listened to Uncle Antoine with proud impassibility.
The brutality of his language, which she attributed to chronic madness,
and excused because of his lack of education, did not wound her like the
premeditated, deliberate impertinence of the marchioness. Marcel, who
watched her during his uncle's fine discourse, mistook the disdainful
serenity of her smile for a denial more eloquent than any words could
be.

"Why, look at her," he cried, shaking the rich man to make him hold his
peace; "observe the paltry effect of the fables and lies you have been
made to swallow! You cannot bring the faintest flush to her brow, and
her silence confounds your brutal eloquence!"

"I will speak in a moment," said Julie; "let Monsieur Thierry go on. As
you see, he does not anger me, and I am waiting until he has finished
his account of my conduct and has given me an account of his. You are
under the ban of my indignation, Monsieur Antoine Thierry, do not forget
it. You claim that you do not deserve it; it remains for you to prove
that to my satisfaction."

The old man was confounded for a moment; then, having determined upon
his course, he replied:

"Very well, despise me if you choose; I don't care much about that. I
have my own esteem and that's enough for me! I was angry, true! I talked
about you angrily, vindictively, I don't deny it--and yet I don't hate
you, and it rests with you whether you will have me for a friend."

"Confess before imploring absolution," said Marcel; "what has happened?
what have you done? Tell us!"

"What has happened? this is what has happened, _Mordi!_ chance helped me
to vent my bile. The dowager Madame d'Estrelle sent to beg a favor of
me. Two or three days before her husband's death, they sent to ask me to
come to her house. I had known her a long while, because she once sold
me some land, none too dear. She wasn't so shrewd in business then as
she is to-day. She said to me: 'My husband won't last long; I inherit
his property; but I don't pay his son's debts unless the countess turns
over her dower to me; and to force her to do it I propose to buy up the
claims. Lend me the money and you shall have part of the plunder. I will
pay you well for obliging me.'--'Excuse me, madame,' I said, 'I want to
make that lady feel that I have her in my power; but I want to be able
to forgive her if it suits me.'--At that it was: 'Aha! what
have you got against her?'--And to that I answered; 'I have what I
have!'--'Indeed!'--'No.'--'Tell us,' etc., etc. In short from one thing
to another, from one word to another, I unbosomed myself, I told her
that I tried to be your friend and that you treated me like a pirate,
and all because you had let yourself be drawn into the intrigues of
Madame André Thierry, who wanted to marry her son to a great lady from
vanity, and to have somebody else do as she did, like the _wolf_ in the
fable who had his tail cut off, so they say. And the marchioness was
very glad to learn of the adventure, and made me say more than I meant
to perhaps, although I took pleasure in telling it to her. At last, to
wind up, she said: 'Monsieur Thierry, you must let this fine marriage go
on, it suits me!'--'But it don't suit me!' said I.--'Bah! you are in
love with her at your age!--Spite, jealousy, can you think of such
things?'--'No, madame, I am not in love at my age; but at any age it
makes a man angry to be fooled, and I have been fooled. I am not a bad
man, but I am powerful, and I propose that they shall find it out. It
isn't proper for me to persecute her myself, but when you have worried
her well, since it amuses you, I propose to pardon her, if she asks me
to.'--'Very well! very well!' said the marchioness. 'I swear to deal
fairly with you as a good friend. Lend me the money. Here's my note, and
you have my word.'--The lady sent for me again after the marquis was
buried. I knew some fine stories about the goings-on here, and I told
her everything, and it relieved us both to _slaughter_ the countess.
Then the dowager said to me: 'Revenge yourself. I am going to hunt her
down to the last ditch.'--And I still said: 'All right, but let me know.
I intend to redeem, if she mends her ways.'--Now, the excellent dowager
deceived me; but I arrived in time. Everything's at an end between us;
she's a crafty woman, she shall pay me for it; that's all I say!"

"You don't tell us everything, uncle. There was something else between
you. You said to her just now: 'It depends on you whether everything is
settled!'"

"That's my affair, it doesn't concern you."

"Pardon me; she answered _never_ with such evident temper----"

"She's an old fool!"

"But what question did that answer?"

"Oh! go to the devil! why do you put your nose in?"

"Come, admit that the affair is complicated by another scheme----"

"No, I tell you!"

Marcel persisted.

"Uncle," said he, "the thing is clear enough to me; as you were unable
to marry a countess, you concluded to marry a marchioness. Well, that
scheme was more sensible than the other; your ages and your fortunes are
more in harmony; but I see that you failed there also. She led you on by
some sort of hope in order to get a little of your money, but she went
on working on her own account, underhandedly and without your knowledge,
to obtain possession of the countess's property, and if you had arrived
a minute later, the thing would have been done and you would be neither
married nor revenged."

Antoine listened to this homily with his head dropped on his breast, in
the attitude of meditation, but furtively watching the smile of surprise
and irony which Madame d'Estrelle could not hide.

"As far as not being married to that old shark goes," he said, rising,
"I thank the good Lord with all my heart; but, as to the revenge I
propose to have here, why, I'll have it, and the devil himself should
not deprive me of it."

"Tell us about your revenge," said Julie with the utmost tranquillity.

"Who told you that it concerned you?" cried Uncle Antoine, whose tongue
always became loosened sooner or later. "Look you, there are three of
you women who have gulled me as if I was a little boy. Women can't do
anything else! The first was Madame André long ago, who called me her
brother and her friend, and that gave me confidence; the second was you,
who called me your good friend and excellent neighbor, so as to coax me
to give your lover something to marry on; the third--oh! she called me
her dear monsieur and her generous creditor, but she's the worst of the
three, because she only wanted to pluck me, like the avaricious vixen
she is: so she will have to pay for the other two. As for you, Madame
d'Estrelle, I excuse you and forgive you. Love makes people do idiotic
things, but at all events it's love, a thing which, so far as I can see,
muddles the brain and makes the reason limp. Well, let it go; give me
back your friendship, and let us hear no more of marriage, with me or
with the _other_. I still wish you well, and I will prevent you from
taking my nephew the painter, because my nephew the painter betrayed me,
and because it isn't suitable for you to marry a painter."

"Come, come!" said Marcel, interrupting him, "you were beginning to talk
sense; but now your mania is taking hold of you again. That seems to be
a fixed idea with you! Where the devil did you fish up that fancy?"

"Stay!" said Julie, "let us put an end to this. You and I are at cross
purposes, Monsieur Marcel; I am tired of pretending, when my heart is
sincere, and when I have already told the marchioness my intentions
clearly enough, in your presence. So let me speak now, and inform you
both that my marriage to Julien Thierry is a thing determined and that
we are irrevocably pledged to each other. Yes, Marcel, you will be my
cousin; and you, Monsieur Antoine, will be my uncle. You have been very
accurately informed, and you can pay your spies handsomely. Now that my
statement is made, you will see that I am forced to withdraw the
expressions I used to characterize your conduct toward me. Whatever you
may do henceforth, my respect for our relationship must close my mouth.
You are at liberty to abuse me, to slander me and to ruin me. I shall no
longer say a word in reply to you, but I shall not implore your favor
either; I have nothing to ask at your hands, and the more you oppress
me, the more you will increase my gratitude and esteem for the man who
is willing to bear the burden of my destiny."

Surprise had struck Marcel dumb. His uncle, who had glanced at him at
first with an air of triumph and had seen that his amazement was
entirely sincere, became gloomy and irritated anew when Madame
d'Estrelle defied him thus to his face.

"So it's all over, is it?" he said, rising; "you have made up your mind
and you don't choose to listen to my last propositions?"

"Yes, indeed!" replied Marcel, "say on. I do not myself approve of all
Madame d'Estrelle's ideas, and I notify her in your presence that I
shall fight against the idea of this marriage. So speak, supply me with
arguments."

"You are on the right side this time," rejoined Monsieur Antoine. "Very
well; as she turns her head away with an air of obstinacy and
contempt--for she is a contemptuous creature, that she is! a niece who
will treat me as my honored sister-in-law did--do you tell her what I
will do if she will give up her dauber of tulips. I will take care of
all her debts, I will let her keep her hôtel, her garden, her pavilion,
her diamonds, her farm in Beauvoisis, in fact everything she has left
now."

"Wait, wait a moment!" said Marcel to Julie, seeing that she was about
to reply.

"No," said Julie; "I will accept nothing from the man who treats Julien
and Madame Thierry with such disdain and aversion. I care nothing for
his insults to me personally. I forgive monsieur for having exposed me
to the sarcasms and slanders of the marchioness and her set; but the
enemies of those whom I love can never be my friends, and any
benefactions from them are an affront which I spurn."

"Wait, I tell you!" cried Monsieur Antoine, stamping on the floor; "have
you the devil in you? Do you think that I propose to ruin your friends?
Not at all. I will give them the house at Sèvres, which is mine to-day,
if you please! I will make them an allowance, I will assure them a good
share of my property when I am dead, for I propose to divide it between
you and Julien and this ass of an attorney here! So, you see, I make you
all rich and happy, but on one condition: that the pavilion is to be
vacated instantly, and that you swear on your honor, and put your oath
in writing, that Madame d'Estrelle will never see Monsieur Julien
again."

This time Julie was speechless. Even if that inexorable old man were
really mad, there was a sort of wild grandeur in that munificence, which
recoiled at no sacrifice in the effort to assure the triumph of his
jealousy. It was a shrewd move, too, to put Madame d'Estrelle in a
position where her refusal would sacrifice Julien's interests, Madame
Thierry's and Marcel's. The last-named at once expressed his views in
noble language.

"Uncle," he said, "you can take what measures you please with regard to
my future. You know me too well to believe that prospects of that sort
will ever have any influence on my conscience! I said just now that I
was opposed to Madame d'Estrelle's determination: I have some ideas
thereupon which it is my duty to submit to her even now; but understand
this, that if she does not feel disposed to yield to them, I shall never
remind her that her resistance may injure me in your mind, that I shall
never allow my dealings with her to be influenced by my personal
interests, and finally that, if madame and Julien persist in their
purpose of marrying, I shall assist them with my advice and my services,
and shall be their friend, kinsman and servant for all time."

Julie silently offered the solicitor her hand. Tears came to her
eyelids. She looked at Antoine and saw immovable obstinacy written on
his shrivelled, sunburned face.

"Let us go back to Madame Thierry and Julien," she said, rising; "it is
for them to decide."

"No!" cried Monsieur Antoine; "I don't propose to have you take them by
surprise. At first blush I know very well that the painter will play the
great man, and his mother will put on her grand manners, especially in
my presence. And then they'll be on their honor before madame, they
won't want to be left behind in the matter of pride; they will say just
what she did, with the right to repent an hour later; but I will wait to
see what you all say to-morrow morning! I will come again. Take then my
last word, attorney; do you reflect, also, my fine fellow, and then we
shall see if the four of you will agree in refusing my present gifts and
what I leave behind me hereafter. _Au revoir_, Madame d'Estrelle.
To-morrow, at twelve o'clock, here!"

Julie, when he had gone, fell back, pale and crushed, on her chair. He
turned as he was leaving the salon, and satisfied himself that he had
succeeded in shaking that haughty courage. Then he went away in triumph.




VII


By nature, as by profession, Marcel was a foreseeing man. A man may be
both practical and generous. Under the inspiration of those two
qualities he considered the situation of the lovers and talked to Julie.

"Madame," he said, taking both her hands with an affectionate kindliness
in which there was nothing offensive, "begin by disregarding me entirely
in this matter. If Julien and his mother are as brave and
self-sacrificing as you, I shall admire the sacrifice instead of
dissuading them. And first of all do not exaggerate the future
consequences of your action. Monsieur Antoine is a man of his word, that
is certain; in good as in evil, he does what he promises. But the matter
of his last will is a great problem, because he is now on the downward
slope of marriage. Surely it is a most extraordinary thing to see that
old bachelor, a confirmed foe of women and of love, rush headlong into
this matrimonial caprice in his declining years; as it bears the stamp
of monomania, no promise, no resolution that he may make can protect him
from it. He will find what he is seeking, be sure of that: some titled
woman or other, young or old, virtuous or not, beautiful or ugly, will
allow herself to be tempted by his cash and will swallow all his
property. So this simplifies the question, and you may put aside the
consideration of our inheritance. There is nothing certain beyond the
present facts, and you see I am not at all interested. So let us
consider these present facts which are submitted for our consideration.
They are of very serious consequence. I know Uncle Antoine; what he
proposes to do, he does in twenty-four hours or never. To-morrow he will
be here with documents all prepared, drawn up by himself in more or less
barbarous style, but with not a dot over an _i_ missing that would make
them good and binding, incontestable in the eye of the law, which he
knows better than I do myself. These documents will not set forth in any
form of words the strange provision, unforeseen in legislation, that you
shall formally break off relations with a certain person; but they may
very well impose the condition that you are not to marry again without
Monsieur Antoine's assent, and that they shall be revocable at once in
case of rebellion on your part. So we must not hope to evade the
stipulation which he demands; moreover, your character is an assurance
that you would not think of doing so."

"You are right, monsieur," said Julie with a sigh, "I shall never make a
promise and not keep it."

"Here we are then," continued Marcel, "face to face with an incredible,
but very real, closely impending fact, conclusive concerning the
existence of two persons who are dear to you, my aunt and Julien, since
my reasoning places me outside of the reckoning. You must reflect
seriously. Do you wish me to leave you alone for that purpose, or will
you allow me to say to you at once what I would have said to you an hour
ago if you had taken me for a confidant before Monsieur Antoine
appeared?"

"Say it now, Marcel; you must tell me everything."

"Very well, madame; let us suppose that, despite his anger, Monsieur
Antoine outbids the marchioness; see how straitened your circumstances
will be; two or three thousand francs a year! You marry Julien, who has
nothing in the world but his arms, and soon you will be a mother, with
Madame Thierry to support and care for, a servant for her, and a nurse
for yourself, and a manservant, unless Julien lays aside his brushes
when the heavy work of the household is to be done, however modest it
may be. You will certainly live honorably, for he will work; Madame
Thierry will knit all the stockings for the family, and you will be
economical. You will have a single silk dress and will wear calicoes.
You will always walk when you go out, and you will not indulge yourself
in a bit of ribbon without counting on your fingers to see if your
little savings will stand it. That is how my wife began life when I
purchased my office. Well, I can tell you, madame, that we were not very
happy then, and yet we loved each other dearly; my wife was not vain, we
had never been well-to-do, and we did not know what luxury was. We knew
how to go without; but we were anxious,--my wife because I worked half
the night and trotted about, tired out and with a cold in my head, at
all hours and in all weathers; and I, because she had to go without
fresh air and good food, forever harnessed to household duties and the
labors of maternity. Each of us suffered from constant, painful
solicitude for the other. I give you my word that the more dearly we
loved each other, the more worried we were and the more we lacked real
happiness. We lost two children; one that we had to put out to nurse in
the country where he was not well cared for; the other we decided to
keep at home, and the foul air of Paris, combined with the poor health
he inherited from his mother, prevented him from developing. If we have
succeeded in raising the third, it is only because we were in somewhat
easier circumstances by dint of economy and industry. To-day we are very
happy and free from anxiety; but we are forty years old and we have
suffered terribly! Our earlier years were a constant struggle, and often
a martyrdom. Such is the life of the petty bourgeois of Paris, madame la
comtesse; that of the poor artist is even worse, for his profession is
less reliable than mine. People constantly have matters in dispute,
which cause them to have recourse to the solicitor; but they don't
always need pictures, and most people never need them. They are pure
luxuries. Julien will not make a small fortune, as his father did. His
character and talent are even more highly esteemed perhaps; but he has
not the attractive frivolity, the taste for society and the brilliant
external qualities which cause a certain sort of people to become
infatuated with an artist, bring him out, sing his praises, and make him
shine resplendent. Let me tell you that my Uncle André's talent,
genuine as it was, would never have extricated him from poverty, if he
had not been a fine table-singer, a great man for clever remarks and
piquant anecdotes, and if certain influential but volatile ladies had
not from time to time made him unfaithful to his wife, whom he adored
none the less, but of whom he said under his breath, innocently enough,
that he must needs deceive her a little, in her own interest.--You lose
color!--Julien will not follow that example of a time which has gone by;
but it will be of no use for Julien to produce masterpieces, he will
remain poor. Society does not become infatuated with modest merit, and
does not travel about in quest of unknown virtue. His marriage with you
will make a certain noise, a little scandal which will bring him into
notice. His father's marriage had that result at the time; but, once
more I say, times have changed: the world is more austere or more
hypocritical to-day than in La Pompadour's day. Then, too, the same sort
of adventure doesn't succeed twice. People will say that youngster
is very presumptuous to try to mimic his father; and you will raise up
more enemies than patrons for him. There will be a great outcry against
you. I don't suppose that the marchioness will try to have you put in a
convent and him in the Bastille, for the crime of misalliance: she has
no rights over you; but she will injure you much more by crying you
down, and you will not have the rigors of persecution to make you
interesting. People know you, they know that you are rigidly virtuous;
the reaction will be all the more violent and implacable, the old prudes
will go about everywhere saying that as such marriages threaten to
become common in society, they cannot be endured and must be severely
condemned. Even the liberally-minded--some of whom are Julien's patrons
now--will not dare to defend you. They too belong to society to-day.
They are no longer persecuted but are caressed and flattered, and Paris
is still quivering over the triumph awarded Monsieur de Voltaire after
his long exile. People laugh at Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who believed that
he was still a victim of the machinations of bigots, and who might have
lived in peace and honor, so they say, if his heart had not been soured
and his mind diseased. The philosophers have the upper hand to-day; they
are no longer over-solicitous to fight against prejudice, and the
remnant of the great crusade of free-thinkers will not mend its pen and
sharpen its tongue to sustain your cause against the outcry of the
salons. All these cowardly blows, all these insults will eventually fall
on Julien's heart. He will live in never-ending anxiety, always on the
quivive; he will fall out with all his friends; he may fight with some
of them----"

"Enough, enough, Marcel," said Julie, weeping. "I see that I have been
mad, that I have been led by the counsel of a selfish passion, or by my
absolute ignorance of social necessities. I see that Julien's life would
be made burdensome by public reprobation, that life would be a
never-ending source of danger and unhappiness.--Ah! Marcel, you have
broken my heart; but you have done your duty, and I esteem you the more.
Let us go and tell Julien that I mean to break--_Mon Dieu!_ how shall I
tell him that?"

"Julien will not believe you! He will laugh at your generous pretence;
he will tell you that he longs to suffer for you. He is courageous and
strong, and I have no doubt that he adores you. If you consult him, his
first exclamation will be: 'Love at any price, love and persecution,
love and poverty!'--He does not doubt himself, and his mother, who is
equal to him in the matter of courage and unselfishness, will assist him
to sacrifice everything; but imagine Julien a year or two hence, when he
sees his mother suffer. Only by the most extraordinary efforts is he
able now to shield her from the horrors of poverty, and in spite of him,
in spite of herself, in spite of everything, she suffers on that
account, you may be sure. Madame Thierry is an enthusiast, in nowise a
stoic. She was brought up to do nothing, and she doesn't know how to do
anything but knit and read, sitting comfortably in her easy-chair.
Moreover her health is frail. She is not like my wife, she would not sit
up till midnight mending her son's shirts; her beautiful hands are no
better acquainted with fatigue than yours. What will happen then, when
Julien has a wife and children? He will blame himself for your miseries,
and if remorse ever gains a foothold in that proud heart, farewell to
courage and perhaps to talent!"

"Enough, I tell you, my dear Marcel. Advise me, guide me; command, for I
surrender. Must I not see him or speak to him?"

"No, you certainly must not, my dear countess. He must know nothing of
what has happened, and Monsieur Antoine's gifts must fall into his hands
without any suspicion on his part of the terms on which our uncle became
tractable. Otherwise, he would be quite capable of refusing them."

"Marcel," said the countess, rising and ringing the bell, "I must leave
this house instantly and never return!"

A servant appeared.

"Send for a cab," she said, "and send Camille to me."

"I shall carry nothing away," she said to Marcel. "You must pay my
servants, collect my most necessary effects and send them to me."

"But where are you going?"

"To a convent, outside Paris, I don't care where, provided that nobody
but you knows where I am."

Camille appeared. Julie bade her fetch her cloak, and, when she had left
the room again, continued:

"You see, my friend, if I remain here a moment longer, Madame Thierry,
being anxious on account of what happened at her house, will come to
make inquiries, and even if I should feign before her--this evening, ah!
yes, this evening Julien would wait for me in the garden, and when I
failed to appear, he would not be able to refrain from coming to my
window and tapping on it.--I should not have the strength to leave him
in the grasp of mortal anxiety, and I could not lie to him. No, no, let
us go! I hear the cab coming into the courtyard. Come, do not give me
time to lose what little courage I have!"

Marcel felt that she was right; he offered her his arm.

"Come, madame," he said, "God inspires you and He will support you!"

They drove about at random at first, the countess having given the
cabman the address of one convent, then of another, having no idea where
she really wished to go. At last Marcel persuaded her to go to the
Ursulines at Chaillot, where he had a cousin who was a nun; and he
waited until she was settled there, himself paying the price of her
lodging and board for a week, reserving the right to prolong the
arrangement if the countess were properly treated. Julie took the name
of Madame d'Erlange, and Marcel's cousin, whom he enjoined to commend
her warmly to the superior, was not taken into the secret. As Julie took
refuge in the convent as a lodger, she was allowed to detain Marcel in
her room in order to give him her instructions.

"I absolutely refuse," she said, "to accept Monsieur Antoine's
benefactions in any shape; they were hateful to me, and I no longer need
any consideration at his hands. Let him pay himself in full, as he is
now my only creditor, as he has everything of mine in his hands. I have
nothing left but my twelve hundred francs a year, and, as I must live
alone hereafter, I need nothing more. Do not let him leave me my
furniture; do not let him send me my diamonds; I will not receive them.
He may draw up with his own hands the agreement I am to sign, pledging
myself never to marry. I will sign it in exchange for the gift to Madame
Thierry of the house at Sèvres, and an allowance which you will do your
best, in my name, to make as large as possible. You will also demand
that neither Madame Thierry nor her son be informed of the truth with
respect to my action. You will tell them that I have gone away; that I
cannot, that I do not wish to receive them again, because--Oh! _mon
Dieu!_ what will you tell them! I have no idea! Tell them whatever you
can invent that is least cruel, but most irrevocable, for we must not
leave them any of the hopes deferred which make the heart sick, and
render the final awakening the more bitter.--Tell them--no, tell them
nothing. Alas! alas! I have no strength left to think or decide; I have
no strength left for anything!"

"I will reflect," said Marcel; "I will think it over as I return. I
leave you in despair; but I must go to get your clothes; I must prevent
Julien from being panic-stricken and losing his head at the first
moment, and I must reassure your servants, who would otherwise wait for
you, and perhaps engage in compromising comments or investigations when
you failed to return. Come, madame, be heroic! Calm yourself; I will
return this evening, or sooner if I can. I will try to bring you some
consoling news from the pavilion; I must succeed in deceiving Julien,
although I have no more idea than you how I shall succeed in doing it.
_Au revoir._ Wait for me; do not write to anyone. We must not contradict
each other. You will weep bitterly! I have caused you much suffering,
poor woman! And now I must leave you alone. It is horrible!"

As he spoke, Marcel unconsciously shed tears. Seeing his affliction and
his unselfish devotion, Julie urged him to go, and strove to display an
energy which she did not possess. As soon as she was alone, she locked
her door, threw herself on the poor, shabby bed which had been prepared
for her, buried her face in the pillow, stifling her sobs, wringing her
hands, and abandoning herself to her grief so completely that she lost
all consciousness of the place where she was and all memory of the
events which had driven her thither so abruptly.

Marcel, returning to the cab, wiped his streaming eyes, blamed himself
for his weakness, and argued the facts anew.

"When you decide to do a thing," he said to himself, "you must do it."

He had one last hope which he had thought best not to suggest to Julie,
namely, to prevail upon Monsieur Antoine. He drove to his house first;
but he wasted there all the eloquence of his heart and his reason. The
selfish fellow was happy, triumphant; he was drinking his revenge with
gusto, and he did not propose to leave a drop in the bottom of the
glass. All that Marcel could obtain, after exchanging many reproaches
and invectives, was that Julien and his mother should be left in
ignorance of the bargain by which they were made rich.

"You are trying to do a very difficult thing," he said; "do not make it
impossible. Madame d'Estrelle is the only one who has submitted thus
far. Julien would surely resist; deceive him unless you wish to make
Julie's submission useless to your vengeance."

"You tire me with your Julie!" cried Monsieur Antoine. "She
deserves a great deal of pity, doesn't she, when I am giving her
everything--fortune, social consideration and liberty!"

"Yes, liberty to die of grief!"

"As if people died of that! Pretty twaddle in a lawyer's mouth! Let her
make a good marriage suited to her rank, I won't oppose it; she can
marry anyone she chooses. I bar nobody but the dauber. Within a
fortnight she will open her eyes and thank me. She will recognize my
grandeur of soul and will call me her benefactor. Upon my word, you are
all cracked! I pull hundreds of thousands of francs from my pocket; I
throw them by the handful to ingrates and fools, and they call me cruel
kinsman, hard heart, old hound, old miser and God knows what! The world
is upside down just now, on my word!"

"They won't call you all those names, uncle; they won't call you any
name. There are no names to describe the oddity of your character, and
nobody else in the world could have discovered the secret of causing the
hand that enriches to be cursed!"

"Bah! you are using big words; you fancy you're at the bar! Off with
you, you bore me to death. Tell your Julien whatever you choose; I don't
want to see him or you or anybody. I am going back to the country."

"That is to say that you will shut yourself up here and barricade
yourself against all the strong arguments I can bring forward."

"Possibly! now you know that your strong arguments will be wasted; they
will stay at the door."

Marcel was careful not to tell his uncle that there was a much simpler
and less expensive way to prevent the marriage: namely, to abandon
Madame d'Estrelle to her destruction, and trust to the wise and generous
reflections to which she had opened her mind. Nor did he feel called
upon to tell him that she refused his gifts.

"After all," he thought, "who knows how long this passion will last? In
a short time, perhaps, Julie will have conquered it, and then it will be
very agreeable to her to know that she is free and still rich."

He and Monsieur Antoine drew up a conditional discharge of the whole of
her debt, and he succeeded in procuring the insertion of this important
modification, that Madame d'Estrelle was at liberty to enter into
wedlock with anyone she chose _except an untitled person._ He procured
Monsieur Antoine's signature and seal to the document, and put it in his
pocket, pending an opportune time to hand it to Madame d'Estrelle, that
is to say, when she should be less agitated.

The deed of gift of the house at Sèvres and of an income of five
thousand francs in the public funds was all ready. Marcel had to fight a
terrible battle to prevent the insertion of a restriction analogous to
that to which Julie was expected to submit. He argued that, as Julie had
promised not to marry Julien, it was entirely useless for Julien to
pledge himself not to marry Julie.

"But your Julie can very easily give up her fortune, and then when the
other has made enough to live on, I shall have made a fine mess of it! I
shall have married them! No, no! I propose to have a letter from this
lady pledging herself on her honor and her religion never again in her
lifetime to see this gentleman, with his name all spelled out. Women are
bound tighter by such gilt-edged notes than by all your parchments. They
are more afraid of scandal than of pettifogging. I must have that
billet-doux addressed to me, or I'll not let anything go."

"You shall have it," said Marcel.

And he hurried away to the pavilion.

Julien was intensely agitated; he had not dared to ask any questions at
the hôtel. He had sent his mother to reconnoitre, and she found all the
apartments on the garden side closed. He did not know whether the
dowager was still there, he knew nothing of Monsieur Antoine's visit and
Julie's departure; he was surprised that, after confiding in Madame
Thierry, she could not find time to send her three lines to set her mind
at rest as to the results of the disturbance caused by the dowager. He
anxiously awaited the evening. Black thoughts rushed into his mind.

"Who knows that the dowager and Monsieur Antoine have not plotted
together to have Julie abducted and confined in a convent on the ground
of misconduct?"

At that time it was no longer very easy to obtain _lettres de cachet_;
but by going through formalities, an _ex post facto_ judgment, etc.,
arbitrary incarceration could still be accomplished under the forms of
law, especially as an intrigue with a plebeian might still be looked
upon in official society as a scandal which a family was entitled to put
down.

Julien was going mad when Marcel arrived. Madame Thierry was downcast
and very sad. Marcel saw that was not the moment to be outspoken.

"I have some news for you," he said, forcing himself to assume an
untroubled and even cheerful countenance. "We were about to sign, when
Uncle Antoine appeared like a god from the clouds at the Opera. He lost
his temper and had a row with the dowager, who, up to that time, had
been acting in concert with him against Madame d'Estrelle; but he has
repented of his folly, he proposes to give you a magnificent indemnity;
he takes this opportunity to make amends for all the wrong he has done,
and he does it handsomely, I must say; so be grateful to him for it,
also for his intention to deal handsomely with Madame d'Estrelle. He
will probably leave her twice as much as the dowager intended to leave
her; so she thought that it was her duty to show her gratitude by
yielding at once to a whim he had of turning her out of the hôtel----"

"She has gone!" cried Julien, turning pale.

"Gone! gone! she is going to pass a few days in the country; what is
there so surprising in that?"

"Ah! Marcel," said Madame Thierry, "you see, you don't know----"

"I do not wish to know anything outside of the serious matters which
require all my attention," Marcel replied with decision. "I have heard
to-day many foolish remarks, offensive insinuations and impertinent
comments. I prefer to believe none of them and to remember none of them.
The name of Madame Julie d'Estrelle is sacred to me; but I have advised
her to disappear for a few days."

"To disappear?" echoed Julien, still in dire distress.

"_Parbleu!_ one would think we were in Madrid and that she had been
immuned for life in a convent cell! What is the cause of this tragic
mood? I simply urged her to pretend to be dead for a week or two, long
enough to settle her affairs and find out where she stands. Let us keep
quiet and show neither anxiety nor displeasure on account of her
absence. Let us not stir up the marchioness's evil designs, which
Monsieur Antoine's intervention has blocked to some extent for the
moment. Above all, let us make sure that Julie does not lose the rich
old fellow's protection and esteem. This is no time to puzzle over the
man's strange logic; the devil could not explain it. The thing to do is
to make the most of it, and no one of us three must think of himself or
of anything but Madame d'Estrelle's future."

Thereupon he went into detailed calculations which compelled Julien's
attention. It was a matter of saving a modest competence for Julie by a
little prudence, or of throwing it away by excessive pride. Her
reputation was not yet compromised in society, and it was entirely
unnecessary that it should be. Thus far the plot against her formed by
the marchioness and Monsieur Antoine had not been executed. They had
been waiting for her to provoke the explosion by an attempt to resist
the dowager's claims. It was Monsieur Antoine's duty now to protect
Julie against the charges of which he was the author. He alone could do
it, having in his pocket weapons against the common enemy. He was
inclined to do it, he was penitent after his manner, he hated the
marchioness, he insisted that everything should be left to him to
settle: they must simply bow their heads and wait in silence.

Julien was still ill at ease on one point. Did Monsieur Antoine propose
to take full charge of Madame d'Estrelle's destiny and will-power in
order to bring her to consent to the abominable idea of marrying him?
Marcel was able to reassure him completely in that respect, and he gave
him his word that fancy had permanently moved out of the old
sphinx's brain. Finally, Julien asked Marcel if he would also give him
his word that he had advised Julie to go away suddenly, if she was free
to return when she chose, and if she was thoroughly convinced that her
absence would be of benefit to herself and only to herself. Marcel was
able to swear that all this was true.

"Of course you know where she is?" queried Julien.

"I do know; but I cannot tell anyone; she made me promise. If she
desires to confide her whereabouts to anybody else, she will write; but
as she is very anxious that Monsieur Antoine and the dowager should not
know, I think that it will be best for her to have no other confidant
but me. Now that all this is cleared up, let me tell you what Monsieur
Antoine proposes to give you by way of indemnity for the lease."

"One moment!" said Julien; "was this indemnity demanded, insisted upon
by Madame d'Estrelle? Was it not the price of some new torture inflicted
on her pride, of some sort of sacrifice on her part?"

"There was nothing whatever to dispute about," said Marcel. "Monsieur
Antoine declared his purpose without any demand or concession
whatsoever. He probably always intended to make you this gift, for he is
the owner of the house at Sèvres, and he gives it to you. Here are your
deeds."

"_Mon Dieu!_" cried Madame Thierry, as she looked over the papers, "and
an annuity too? I feel as if I were dreaming, I am happy, and I am
afraid!"

"Yes," said Julien, still suspicious, "there is something under this, a
trap perhaps!"

Marcel had great difficulty in inducing them to accept Monsieur
Antoine's treacherous gift. He had to tell them, to swear to them that
it was Madame d'Estrelle's earnest desire. He left them as tranquil as
possible, Julien struggling not to disturb by his apprehensions the
delight which his mother could not but feel at the thought of returning
to the home where she had lived happily so many years. Marcel then
hurried to the hôtel D'Estrelle and ordered Camille to pack up such
articles as her mistress needed for a brief stay in the country.

"Ah! _mon Dieu!_" said the amazed Camille, "does not madame la comtesse
send for me to join her?"

"It is unnecessary for so short a time."

"But madame can neither dress nor arrange her hair alone! Think of it! a
lady who has always been served according to her rank!"

"She will find servants in the house where she is."

"She must be with some poor people then, since she dislikes to have her
own servants boarded there. Perhaps madame is really ruined herself?
Alas! alas! such a kind and generous mistress!"

Camille began to weep, and, although her tears were perfectly sincere,
she added:

"And my wages, monsieur le procureur; who will pay them?"

"I will pay everything to-morrow," replied Marcel, who was accustomed to
that blending of sentiment and practicalness which is always noticeable
in such disasters; "have all the household accounts prepared, and
meanwhile take the keys. You will be responsible for everything until
to-morrow."

"Very good, monsieur, I will be responsible," said the maid, beginning
to sob afresh; "but are we to leave madame's service? will madame not
return?"

"I did not say that, and I have received no orders to dismiss you."

Marcel wrote to his wife that he had no time for dinner or supper, and
that she need not expect him until ten or eleven o'clock at night. He
returned to the convent. Julie had exhausted all her vitality in tears.
She had risen again, she had bathed her pale face, streaked with the
fire of tears, in cold water. She was calm, downcast, and resembled a
living corpse. She revived a little when she learned that Marcel had
succeeded in deceiving Julien, and in inducing him to accept, without
undue suspicion, the comparative affluence which Monsieur Antoine
bestowed on his mother and him. She wrote a note to Monsieur Antoine at
Marcel's dictation, pledging herself never to see Julien again during
her life, on condition that Julien should never be deprived of the house
at Sèvres or the annuity. She would not make a similar stipulation
concerning her own fortune, and Marcel dared not speak to her as yet of
accepting Monsieur Antoine's discharge of her debts. She made no
complaint; she was thoroughly exhausted, and Marcel, as he shook hands
with her, felt that she was feverish. He persuaded her to see Sister
Sainte-Juste, his cousin, and he urged the sister to have someone sleep
in the next room. He did not go away until he had, with the solicitude
of a father, seen everything arranged as he wished.

Julie passed a quiet night; hers was not one of those obstinate natures
which struggle for a long time. Her conscience told her that she had
done her duty, and the first suffering was so sudden and violent that
she soon yielded to exhaustion and slept. The next morning she thanked
the nun who had passed the night with her, and asked to be left alone.
She dressed herself and arranged her hair, and, realizing that she was
very awkward and unskilful in waiting on herself, she determined to
conquer her habits, to put her room to rights and make her bed, arrange
her clothes, and establish herself in that poor cell as if she were to
pass her life there. She did all this mechanically, without effort and
without reflection. When it was done, she sat down, clasped her hands
about her knee, and looked out through the open window but saw nothing,
listened to the convent bells but heard nothing, and did not dare think
of eating, although she had taken nothing for twenty-four hours. If
lightning had struck in the middle of her room it would not have
startled her.

About noon, Sister Sainte-Juste found her in this state of listless
contemplation, which she mistook for a beatific reverie. Some broken
hearts are still so sweet and gentle that one does not suspect their
suffering; but the sister had noticed, as she passed through the room
used as an antechamber and dining-room, that the breakfast brought by
the servant had grown cold untouched.

"Did you forget to eat?" she asked Julie.

"No, sister," replied the poor unhappy creature, who did not choose to
allow herself to be pitied, "I was waiting for my appetite to come."

The nun urged her to eat, obligingly waited on her, and thought to
divert her mind by her harmless, unmeaning chatter. Julie listened with
inexhaustible good humor, and carried mental submission so far as to
seem interested in all the minutiæ of that recluse's life, all the
details of the regulations of the convent, all the dull little events
which occupied the leisure of the community. What did she care whether
she heard that or something else? It was no longer in the power of
anyone to annoy or tire her. She was like an empty heart through which
everything passes and in which nothing remains.

When Marcel arrived in the afternoon his cousin said:

"Why did you tell me that lady was ill and had reasons for being
unhappy? She slept soundly without saying a word, she breakfasted
reasonably well, although a little late, and she took great pleasure in
talking with me. She is a very amiable person and she has no serious
sorrow. I give you my word that she has not, for I know about such
things!"

Marcel was alarmed by this sorrow without reaction. He came to tell her
what had taken place that morning at the hôtel D'Estrelle. Julie
confined herself to asking him for news of Julien and his mother. When
she learned that they were moving and that they were to pass that night
at Sèvres, she would not listen to anything else.

"I do not propose to hate anyone any more," she said; "it would cause me
more misery and do no good. Do not mention Monsieur Antoine to me for
three or four days. I beg you, my friend, allow me to become accustomed
to my lot as best I can. You see that I do not rebel; that is all that
is necessary."

On the following days Marcel found her calmer and calmer. She was very
pale; but the nun assured him that she slept and ate as much as was
necessary, and that was true. She did nothing during the day and did not
wish to see anyone, declaring that she was not at all bored. That also
was true. She was preoccupied, and sometimes she smiled. Marcel could
not understand it at all; he urged her to consult the convent physician,
who found her pulse a little weak, her complexion a little _phlegmatic_,
as they said in those days to indicate the presence of a certain amount
of lymph in the system. He prescribed quinine and told Marcel that it
would amount to nothing.

[Illustration 05: _JULIE AT THE CONVENT AT CHAILLOT_
_Julie obediently took the quinine, walked about the
garden of the convent, consented to receive visits
from several nuns, impressed them as a very
attractive person._]

It did amount to nothing, except that the heart was dying and the life
fading away with it. Julie obediently took the quinine, walked about the
garden of the convent, consented to receive visits from several nuns,
impressed them as a very attractive person, promised to read some new
books which Marcel brought her and which she did not open, prepared a
piece of embroidery which she did not begin, lived almost unnoticed in
the cloister, thanks to her unobtrusive manners, and continued to waste
away, slowly, without paroxysms, but without remission.

Marcel was deceived by appearances. Seeing that she was so placid
mentally, and mistaking that sudden disappearance of the will for the
symptom of a struggle between a mighty will-power and nature itself, he
sought the remedy where it was not. He turned his attention to her
physical health. He hired a small country house at Nanterre, and, giving
Julie to understand that he had purchased it for her, carried her
thither; then, having made sure of Camille's discretion and devotion to
her mistress, he sent for her. He supplied her with enough money to
enable her to hire a peasant woman who could cook, and he made
arrangements that the countess's table should be daintier and more
substantial than that at the convent. The little house was located in an
airy spot, with a garden of considerable size surrounded by walls, and
with not sufficient shade to keep the sun from doing its healthful work.
He supplied the salon with books, little articles to provide occupation
or amusement, and Julie's harp--every woman in those days performed on
that instrument more or less. Marcel having taught her her lesson,
Camille deceived her mistress as to what had happened at the hôtel
D'Estrelle, and as to the means at her disposal. She made her believe
that everything was extremely cheap at Nanterre, and that she could
afford to live comfortably without exceeding the limits of her small
income. Julie wished to be poor and to owe nothing to Monsieur Antoine.
That was the only point on which Marcel had found her resistance
invincible. He had been forced to lie, and to let her believe that
Monsieur Antoine had taken possession of her house, her diamonds and
everything that belonged to her.

The diamonds were in Marcel's custody, the house was kept in excellent
condition. The horses were in the stable, well cared for, and the
carriages in the carriage-house. The servants had been paid off and
discharged, under orders to return, upon advantageous terms, as soon as
Madame d'Estrelle should return. The concierge took care of the house,
groomed and exercised the horses. His wife dusted the rooms, opened and
closed the windows. Monsieur Antoine's head gardener attended to the
flowers and lawns. Monsieur Antoine himself visited the place every
morning. The pavilion, after Madame Thierry had gone away, was closed
and silent. But nothing was changed in Julie's abode. Every piece of
furniture was in its place, and the sun shone through the windows of her
empty salon.

Two months had passed since the day that Julie left the hôtel. Uncle
Antoine was simply the caretaker and painstaking administrator of the
property. He had retained his privilege of being admitted there, pending
the time when it should please Julie to resume possession. He desired to
return it to her intact, and to reëmploy such of her servants as she
might wish to have about her. The concierge was ordered to inform
visitors that madame continued to own her house for the present, and
that she had gone to inspect her estate in the Beauvoisis and to make
some definite plans for the future; that is to say, Monsieur Antoine, in
concert with Marcel, having in view the _what will people say?_
represented Madame d'Estrelle's situation as the continuation of an
armistice with her creditors; and as she had been in that situation for
more than two years already, that was really the most plausible
explanation. They would see about inventing a perfectly convincing one
when Julie should consent to return.

It is true none the less that Julie's friends, the old Duc de Quesnoy,
madame la présidente, Madame Desmorges, Abbé de Nivières and the
rest, began to be much surprised that they did not hear from her. Her
sudden departure had been accepted with reasonably good grace, thanks to
the hints adroitly strewn about by the solicitor; but why did she not
write? She must be very lazy; or perhaps she was ill? Was she really in
the Beauvoisis?--But the old duke had to go to take the waters of Vichy;
madame la présidente was engrossed by the marriage of her daughter; the
abbé was like the household cat--he forgot everything when the fire on
the hearth died out. Madame Desmorges was indolence personified. The
Marquise d'Estrelle alone would have been likely to investigate the
subject seriously, but her malice was suddenly paralyzed by a sharp
threat from Monsieur Antoine to disclose her conduct and demand his
money, if she ventured to make the slightest investigation or the
faintest derogatory remark concerning Julie.

As will be seen, Monsieur Antoine behaved with extraordinary fairness,
prudence and loyalty, in everything that concerned the reputation, the
comfort and the pecuniary interests of his victim. He listened to
Marcel's advice, discussed it with him as if the question at issue were
what it was best to do for his own daughter, and followed it exactly.
Touching the fundamental question as to which Marcel did his utmost to
bend him, the union of the two lovers, he was inflexible; and as he lost
his temper when Marcel pressed him too hard on that subject, sulked and
shut the door in his face, Marcel was compelled, in his client's
interest, to submit to delays of which he could see no end.

Madame Thierry and Julien were luxuriously established in their pretty
cottage, for the best part of the furniture had been left there, as well
as divers artistic objects of considerable value which Uncle Antoine had
disdained to notice because he had no idea of their value. Julien had no
confidence in this unexpected generosity, for which he had been warned
not to thank Monsieur Antoine, and which was surrounded with
inexplicable circumstances. He was so disturbed about it that, except
for the duty of sacrificing his own pride to his mother's repose, he
would have refused everything. Their position was excellent from a
material standpoint. The income of five thousand francs enabled them to
live modestly without awaiting anxiously the avails of Julien's feverish
labor at the end of each week. Madame Thierry could not help feeling the
most heartfelt delight in being restored to her house, her most
cherished memories, her former habits and connections. The latter were
less numerous than in the days when her table was always laid, but they
were more reliable. Her only true friends came forward once more.
Knowing that she had no more than was absolutely necessary, they exerted
themselves to provide an advantageous market for Julien's pictures. Not
until one has ceased to suffer from poverty can one make the most of his
talent. Julien no longer needed to hurry; his customers came
unsolicited, through the intervention of enlightened and kindly friends.
He consoled his mother for the secret dissatisfaction she still felt in
being Monsieur Antoine's debtor, by saying to her:

"Never fear, I will pay your debt to him, against his will, if need be;
it is simply a question of time. Be happy; you see that I am not
disturbed by Julie's silence, but that I am waiting confidently and
calmly."

Julien had changed neither in bearing, nor manner, nor feature, since
the fatal day of Julie's disappearance. At first he had believed what
Marcel said; but, as no letter arrived from his mistress, and as he knew
beyond doubt, as the result of inquiries he had made secretly, that she
was not in the Beauvoisis, he had gradually detected a part of the
horrible truth. Julie was free, for Marcel had sworn it on his honor,
again and again; but as to certain other points he did not swear. He
asserted nothing; he simply left them to their presumptions. He refused
with shrewd persistence to listen to any confidential communication,
which made it easier for him to evade many questions. Monsieur Antoine's
machiavelian plan was too eccentric to be fathomed by Julien's
straightforward mind. He did not suppose that jealousy was possible
without love, and he would have considered that he insulted Julie's
image by admitting that the old man was in love with her. The old man
was not in love, that is certain; but he was as jealous as a tiger of
Julien, and jealousy without love is the most implacable form of
jealousy. Julien believed that he was mad. Can anyone divine the schemes
of a madman?

But might not those schemes, whatever they were, affect Julie's
determination?

"No!" said Julien to himself, "pecuniary consideration cannot have
influenced that noble heart. Julie wishes to break with me; she chooses
to bring about the rupture in silence. It is painful to her, but she
considers it necessary. She trembled for her reputation; the marchioness
threatened to ruin her, and her friends must have succeeded in
convincing her that she could never rehabilitate herself after marrying
a plebeian. Such is the opinion of society. Julie fancied for a moment
that she was superior to such prejudices; her love for me led her to
presume too far on her strength. She has a noble nature, but her mind is
a little weak perhaps, and now the force of her character is being
exerted to bring about the triumph of the prejudice which kills love.
Poor dear Julie! She must suffer, because she is kind-hearted--because
she understands my suffering. So far as she is concerned, I feel certain
that she desires to forget me."

Marcel had stronger hopes of Julien's mental cure than of Julie's. He
saw him as infrequently and for as short a time as possible. One day,
when he was obliged to go to report to his aunt concerning a small
matter which she had placed in his hands, he found her alone.

"Where is Julien?" he asked; "in his studio?"

"No, he is turning his attention to gardening. Since he has had this
little plot of land to dig and plant, he is more easily consoled for
everything. He has had a great sorrow, Marcel! a sorrow of which you
know nothing. He loved Madame d'Estrelle; I was not mistaken; and, more
than that----"

"Yes, yes!" said Marcel, who desired to avoid any sentimental scene;
"that has gone by, hasn't it? that is all over?"

"Yes," replied the widow, "I think so. If he were deceiving me--But no!
after the hopes he has had it is not possible, is it, my boy? You can't
cheat the eyes of a mother who adores you?"

"No, of course not. Sleep in peace, dear aunt! I will go to bid Julien
good-day.--If he is really deceiving his mother after the failure of his
hopes," he thought as he looked for Julien among the shrubbery, "he must
be a devilishly strong fellow!"

Julien was digging a little hole in which to transplant a tree. He wore
a linen blouse and his head was bare. Standing in the loose earth, with
his hands resting on the handle of his spade, like a laborer taking
breath, he was musing so deeply that he did not hear his cousin's step,
and Marcel, who saw his profile only, was profoundly impressed by the
expression of his face. That manly countenance did not as yet bear the
marks of sorrow which were already impairing Julie's beauty; but it had
the tense, drawn look of despair which Marcel had had an opportunity to
study on her face.

Julien spied his cousin, did not start at sight of him, and greeted him
with a smile. It was precisely the same smile of lifeless affability
with which Julie greeted him, a sweet but terrible smile, like that
which we sometimes see playing about the lips of a dying man.

"This looks bad!" thought Marcel. "He is devilishly strong, no doubt,
but he is probably the sicker of the two."

Marcel in his distress had not the strength to conceal his emotion. He
loved Julien dearly; his prudence deserted him.

"Tell me," he said, "is anything the matter, are you unhappy?"

"Yes, my friend, you know very well that I am unhappy," replied the
artist, dropping his spade and walking with his cousin under the trees.
"How could it possibly be otherwise? You are well aware that I loved a
certain woman, for my mother told you so. That woman has gone away.
Don't tell me that she will return; I know perfectly well that she must
return; but I know too that it is my duty never to seek her presence
again, and to say to myself that she is dead to me."

"And--have you the courage to accept that conclusion?" said Marcel.

"Yes, if it is my duty! You understand, my friend, that a man must
always accept his duty."

"Men submit to it with different degrees of courage: a man----"

"Yes, a man is a man. I am terribly unhappy, Marcel! I propose to endure
it. I could endure it alone, you may be sure of that, but you can help
me a little. Why do you refuse? What you have been doing the last two
months is very cruel."

"How can I help you?" said Marcel, suspecting some stratagem devised by
passion to discover Julie's retreat.

"_Mon Dieu!_" replied Julien, reading his friend's thoughts, "it's a
very simple matter; you can tell me that she is happier than I am, that
is all."

"How can I know?"

"You see her two or three times a week! Come, you have done your duty,
my friend! You have endured my anxiety with wonderful courage. You have
shown very great devotion to her and to me too, perhaps; but I have
discovered several things; I know where she is: I learned yesterday from
your son."

"Juliot doesn't know what he is saying; Juliot doesn't know her!"

"Juliot saw her one day at the play; he hasn't forgotten her. He doesn't
know her name, so he calls her the country client. He has often spoken
to me about her: her sweetness and fascination impressed him."

"Well, what then?"

"What then? Why, last Sunday the child went to the festival at Nanterre
with a comrade of his own age, to whose parents you had entrusted him
for that purpose."

"True!"

"The two boys eluded the watchfulness of the parents for a few moments,
and ran about the village. A tree heavily laden with fruit, hanging over
a low wall, tempted their mischievous instincts. Juliot climbed on his
comrade's shoulders and attacked the tree; and while he was filling his
pockets, he saw a woman whom he recognized pass at his feet. I know the
street, I made him describe the woman. I have been to Nanterre and made
inquiries in the neighborhood: I have learned that a Madame
d'Erlange--that is Julie under an assumed name--lived there with her
maid, that she never went out, that no one was watching her, and that
she lived alone _from inclination_; that she was not supposed to be ill,
although your son thought she had changed. In a word, I know that she is
a prisoner on parole, or that she is afraid of my importunities. Tell me
the real reason, Marcel. If it is the latter, tell her to come back, to
return to her house; tell her to have no fear; tell her that I swear by
all that I hold most sacred that she shall never see me again. Do you
understand, Marcel? Answer me and relieve me of the torture of
uncertainty."

"Well, it is all true," said Marcel after a moment's hesitation. "Madame
d'Estrelle is a prisoner on parole; but it is a parole which she herself
gave, and which no one compels her to observe. She is at liberty to
return; but she cannot see you any more."

"She _cannot_, or she _does not wish to?_"

"She neither can nor wishes to."

"Very good, Marcel, that is enough. Carry her my oath of submission and
bring her back to her own house. She is in dismal quarters now, and that
solitude must be ghastly. Let her come back to her friends, her
comforts, her liberty. Go instantly, go, I say! I don't wish her to
suffer another moment for me."

"All right, all right, I will go," said Marcel. "I am going; but what
about you?"

"As if it made any difference about me!" cried Julien. "What! haven't
you gone?"

And he took Marcel by the shoulders, embraced him and pushed him out of
the gate.

As soon as he had lost sight of him, he returned to his mother.

"Well," he said, with a smiling face, "everything is going better than I
hoped: Madame d'Estrelle is not a prisoner! She will soon return."

He watched his mother closely as he spoke. She uttered a joyful
exclamation, but a cloud passed over her brow at the same time. Julien
sat down beside her and took both her hands.

"Tell me the truth," he said; "the marriage project worries you a
little, doesn't it?"

"How can you think that I do not long most earnestly for anything that
will make you happy? But I thought, that you no longer hoped."

"I was entirely resigned, and you said as I did: 'Let us not be
discouraged, let us wait. Let us not think too much; perhaps she will
forget, and in that case perhaps you would do well to forget also.'"

"And you answered: 'I will forget if necessary.' And now I see that you
rely upon her more than ever."

"But don't you think that I have reason to rejoice. Tell me frankly if I
am under an illusion, for you must try to preserve me from it."

"Ah! my child, what shall I say to you? She is an adorable creature, and
I will adore her with you; but will she be happy with us?"

"You know that Monsieur Antoine proposes to deal almost as generously
with her as with us, that he will leave her a competence. So that
poverty, which terrified you so, is no longer to be dreaded. What is
tormenting you now?"

"Nothing, if she loves you."

"You sigh when you say that. Do you doubt it, pray?"

"I have doubted it hitherto, my child. What can you expect? if I am
unjust to her, it is the fault of you both. You had no confidence in me,
I did not see clearly the birth of your love, I did not follow its
different stages, and when you said to me one morning: 'We love each
other to distraction,' it seemed to me too sudden to be very serious. It
seemed to me that you hardly knew each other!--When I told your father
that I loved him, he had been at work three years decorating our house,
and I used to see him every day. Several good _partis_ had been proposed
to me, but I was very sure that I loved nobody but him. Julie stood in a
different position with respect to you. No marriage appropriate to her
condition and her ideas about love had ever been within her reach. She
was consumed with a craving for love, and was mortally bored without
admitting it. She saw you and esteemed you; you deserved it. You
attracted her, as it was natural that you should. Peculiar circumstances
brought you together, she thought that she loved you passionately. Has
she made a mistake? The future will tell us; but she fled just at the
moment when she said that she proposed to declare herself, she left you
to wait and suffer without sending you a word of consolation. If I have
doubted her, you must agree that appearances are against her!"

"Then you think that prejudice has more power over her than love? you
think that she lied when she talked to me enthusiastically of the modest
life she proposed to adopt, and told me how little she cared for honors
and titles?"

"I do not say that, I say that she may have made a mistake concerning
the strength of her attachment to you, and the reality of her distaste
for society."

"So that if somebody should tell you that you had guessed right, you
would not be surprised?"

"Not very much!"

"And not greatly grieved either?"

"If your regret for her should be very great, my grief would be equally
great, my poor child. If on the other hand you should bravely make the
best of it, I should say that it was better so, and that you can surely
find a more prudent and stronger-willed woman to love."

"Poor Julie!" said Julien to himself, "so her love for me was a mistake
and a weakness even in my mother's eyes!--Well, set your mind at rest,"
he said aloud. "She renounces the dream we dreamed together; she no
longer believes in it, she is afraid that I will remind her of it. All
that you foresaw has proved to be true; Marcel has just told me so. I
have given him my word that I will never see her again."

"Great Heaven!" exclaimed Madame Thierry in dismay, "how calmly you say
that! Is it true that you are really so tranquil in your mind as this?"

"As you see. I was overwhelmed the first few days, and I did not conceal
it from you to any great extent; but as time passed, I understood Madame
d'Estrelle's silence. The tranquillity that you observe to-day is the
result of two months of reflection. So don't be surprised at it, and
believe that I am proud enough and sensible enough to overcome the pain
I may have felt."

Julien's resolution was not feigned, he was perfectly honest in it. But
he suffered too keenly to half confess his suffering. The better way was
to refrain from any confession whatsoever.

In the evening, as it was very warm, Julien went out to take a bath in
the river. Ordinarily he joined a number of young artists employed in
the porcelain factory, whom he advised and instructed. But on this
evening, feeling that he must be alone, he avoided them and went to a
deserted spot on the outskirts of a piece of woodland. It was dull,
lowering weather; Julien jumped into the water mechanically, and
suddenly this thought came to his mind as he was swimming about:

"This is a terrible blow, from which I feel that I can never recover. If
I should stop paddling here for a few moments, the water would swallow
up my grief and keep the secret of my discouragement."

As he reflected thus, Julien ceased to swim and sank rapidly. He thought
of his mother's despair, and when he touched bottom, he pushed himself
up with his foot and returned to the surface. He was a good swimmer and
could play with death thus without any risk; but the temptation was
strong, and the thought of suicide produces a terrible vertigo. Three
times he abandoned himself to the temptation, with increasing
excitement, and three times he recovered himself, with decreasing
resolution. As a fourth paroxysm, more violent than the others, was
impending, Julien rushed ashore, afraid of himself, and threw himself on
the sand, crying:

"Forgive me, mother!"

And he wept bitterly for the first time since his father's death.

Tears did not relieve him. The tears of strong men are horrible cries
and stifling sobs. He blushed to feel that he was so weak, and had to
confess that he would be like that for a long while, perhaps forever. He
returned home, dissatisfied with himself, and almost cursing the days of
happiness he had enjoyed. He raged in his heart, and, wandering alone
through the garden, while his mother slept, and the lightning constantly
set the horizon on fire, he reproached his mother for loving him too
well, and depriving him of liberty to dispose of himself.

"Why!" he exclaimed, "to live always for some other than oneself is
downright slavery! I have no right to die! Why have I a mother? They who
belong to no one are the happiest; they can, if they still love a broken
life, hurl themselves into the dissipation which distracts the mind,
into the debauchery which intoxicates. But I have not even that right!
Nor have I the right to be depressed and ill. I must burn at a slow
fire, smiling all the while; a tear is a crime. I cannot breathe
heavily, dream, utter an exclamation in the night without my mother
rushing to my side, terrified and ill herself. I cannot depart from my
habits, go on a journey, seek oblivion and diversion in motion and
fatigue; anything of that sort would worry her. To live without me would
kill her. I must be a hero or a saint so that my mother may live! Happy
are the orphans and abandoned children! they are not doomed to bear a
burden beyond their strength!"

Julien had no sooner given vent to this revolt against destiny than
other blasphemies entered his mind. Why had Julie disturbed his dream of
self-sacrifice and virtue? Had he not accepted all the duties of his
position? had he not performed those duties faithfully? By what right
did that woman, because she was tired of solitude, take possession of
his solitude? Was it not cowardly and blameworthy of her to give him a
glimpse of the joys of heaven, although he neither hoped nor asked for
anything, and then leave him to the humiliation of having believed in
her?

"You have made me a miserable wretch!" he cried in the depths of his
wrathful heart; "you are the cause that I no longer esteem myself, that
I no longer love my art, that I curse my mother's love, that I no longer
believe in my strength of will, and that I have felt the shameful and
idiotic thirst for suicide. You deserve that I should revenge myself on
you, that I should go to you among your friends and reproach you with
the destruction of my beliefs, my peace of mind and my dignity. I will
do it, I will say it to you, I will trample you under my feet!"

Then he thought of the future which Julie apparently had in mind for
herself, and all the horrors of jealousy rose before him. He saw her in
the arms of another, and he dreamed of the murder of his rival in every
possible form.

He went out into the country and walked at random. He found himself once
more on the shore of the stream. The storm broke and the lightning
struck a tall tree not far from him. He darted in that direction, hoping
that another bolt would strike him. He roamed about in torrents of rain,
unheeding, and did not return until daybreak, ashamed to be seen in that
state of insanity. He slept two hours and woke completely crushed,
horribly frightened by what had taken place within him, and resolved not
to allow himself to be taken by storm again by a violent passion of
which he had not hitherto realized the extreme danger. He had much
difficulty in rising; he breakfasted with his mother.

"I have always believed," he said to her, "that love, being the supreme
blessing, should exalt us and sanctify us. I see now that love is the
very acme of selfishness, and that it may make us bloodthirsty or
idiotic. Love must be conquered; but love cannot be broken like a chain;
it must be allowed to die out little by little."

Julien had a violent attack of fever and delirium; his mother divined
his suffering, and she too cursed poor Julie in her heart.

Meanwhile Marcel had gone to see Julie.

"Madame," he said, "you must return to your own house."

"Never, my friend," she replied, with her heartrending sweetness; "I am
very comfortable here, I live on my little income, I lack nothing, I am
not unhappy, and unless you want to occupy this house----"

"This house is not mine; I deceived you about it; but you are at liberty
to remain here, unless, out of regard for Julien, you will consent to
what I ask."

"For Julien, you say? What do you mean?"

"Julien knows where you are. He knows that you do not propose to see him
again. He swears that he will not try to disobey you. He submits
absolutely to a decision, of the reason for which he is ignorant. You
have, therefore, no further cause for remaining in concealment."

"Ah! very well," said Julie, with a bewildered air; "but in that
case--where shall I go?"

"To your house in Paris."

"I no longer have a house."

"Possibly; but you are supposed to own your hôtel temporarily. People
suppose that you are engaged in arranging a settlement with Monsieur
Antoine. You must show yourself, so that a mysteriously prolonged
absence may not furnish food for slanderous suspicions."

"What do you expect people will say?"

"All that they can say of a woman who has something to conceal."

"What does it matter to me?"

"For Julien's sake you ought to be most careful of your reputation,
which we have succeeded thus far in preserving intact."

"Julien knows perfectly well that I have nothing with which to reproach
myself."

"It is because he knows it that he will fly at the throat of the first
man who presumes to say a word against you."

"Let us go, then," said Julie, ringing for Camille. "I will do whatever
you choose, my friend, provided that I need never see Monsieur Antoine
again!"

"Do not say that, madame; I have a single remaining hope."

"Ah! you still have hope, have you?" said Julie with her heartrending
smile.

"I should lie if I said that it was very well founded," replied Marcel,
sadly; "but I cannot abandon it until the last extremity. Do not deprive
me of the means of breaking down Monsieur Antoine's obstinacy."

"What is the use?" queried Julie. "Didn't you tell me that the marriage
of a titled woman to a plebeian meant unhappiness, persecution and a
horrible struggle for the plebeian?"

"Ah! madame, if the plebeian were very rich, most people would forgive
you."

"Then you would have me ask your uncle to enrich the man I love? I must
dishonor myself in my own eyes--in Julien's too, perhaps--to earn the
forgiveness of a society without honor and without heart? You ask too
much of me, Marcel; you abuse my utter prostration. May God give me
strength to do but one thing,--resist you; for, after that disgrace, I
should feel that I had delayed too long to die."

Poor Marcel was overdone with fatigue and disappointment. He wore
himself out in words and efforts of every sort, and he succeeded only in
rescuing all his friends from poverty and saving the material comforts
of life for them. He could do nothing for their mental condition, and he
said to his wife every night:

"My dear love, there is nothing falser than reality! I am moving heaven
and earth to provide them with the means of living, and I succeed only
in killing them by inches."




VIII


Julie returned to Paris. She found there her luxurious surroundings, her
carriages, her jewels and her servants. Monsieur Antoine had looked
after everything; nothing about her was changed. She paid no heed to
anything. In vain did Marcel hope that she would experience a sort of
satisfaction, even if it were only a matter of instinct, in returning to
her ordinary surroundings. He was alarmed and almost vexed by that
immovable indifference. He had notified those of her friends whom he was
able to reach, in order to force her to be on her guard before them. She
greeted them without warmth, and when they expressed concern at her
pallor and her air of depression, she attributed everything to a cold
she had taken on the journey, which had detained her in the country an
unconscionably long time. It was nothing, she said. She had been much
worse; she was better now. She had preferred not to write in order not
to make her friends anxious. She promised to see her physician and to
get well.

Two days later the Baronne d'Ancourt appeared.

"I did you an ill turn," she said; "I am sorry, and I have come to ask
you to forgive me."

"I bore you no grudge," Madame d'Estrelle replied.

"Yes, I know that you are either a great philosopher or a great saint;
but you are a woman all the same, my friend; you have been persecuted
and you are suffering!"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Oh! _mon Dieu!_ I know that the persecution by your creditors has
lasted long enough for you to have become used to it, but it seems that
the time came when you were within an ace of losing everything. They say
that you obtained another respite, but with much difficulty, and with
the certainty that it was merely falling back so as to jump higher. You
told Madame Desmorges that, didn't you?"

"Yes, it is true. I am only here now pending a final settlement."

"But you will save something?"

"I have no desire to save anything that came from Monsieur d'Estrelle.
It is my duty and my purpose to give up everything."

"Oh! in that case I see why you are so pale and so changed! I had
understood that you displayed wonderful resignation, but that you were
sick with anxiety. Now, my dear, you make a mistake in rejecting the
consolations of your friends. It is a noble rôle that you are playing,
but it will kill you! If I were in your place I would shriek and
complain! That would not remedy anything, but it would relieve me. And
then people would talk about it; society would be interested in me. It
is always a comfort to attract attention; whereas you allow yourself to
be buried alive without saying a word, and society, which is supremely
selfish, forgets you. They were talking about you last night at the
Duchesse de B----'s. 'That poor Madame d'Estrelle,' they said, 'you know
she is really ruined? She won't have enough to hire a cab in which to
pay her visits.'--'What!' said the Marquis de S----, 'we shall see such
a pretty woman as she is splashed with mud like a spaniel! Impossible!
it's sickening. Is she very miserable over it?'--'Why, no,' Madame
Desmorges replied. 'She says that she will get along. She is an
astonishing creature.' Thereupon they began to talk about something
else. The moment that you show that you are brave, no one thinks of
pitying you, especially as it's so convenient to think of no one but
oneself."

Julie contented herself with a smile.

"You have a smile that frightens me!" continued the baroness. "Do you
know, my dear, I believe you are very ill? Oh! I don't believe in
sparing people. If you do that, a person may neglect herself and die, or
else drag along in misery and become ugly; and that is even worse than
dying. Take care of yourself, Julie, don't abuse your health as you are
doing. Your great courage won't carry you as far as you think, I tell
you! Everyone knows that it is not possible to lose everything without a
regret. Look you, I propose to tell you again, even though I make you
angry, that you did very wrong not to marry that rich old fellow, and
perhaps it is not too late to change your mind. No one would blame you
now; when a woman no longer has anything----"

"Are you entrusted with new proposals from him?" queried Julie, with
some bitterness.

"No, I haven't seen him since the day you and I fell out because of him.
He has made several attempts to surprise me, but I had barricaded myself
against his visits. But I don't say this to turn you against him. If he
comes again, don't turn him away, and, if he marries you, be very sure
that I will take it on myself to receive him on your account."

"You are too kind!" said Julie.

"Come, come! you are still distant and haughty with me. And yet I am
your friend; I have proved it. I broke a lance for you not long ago.
Some cowardly wretch of the Marquise d'Estrelle's set ventured to cast
a slur on you because of a little painter; you know, the son of the
famous Thierry, who lived at the end of your garden, by the way. I
imposed silence on him; I said that a woman like you did not dishonor
herself by being of a sociable disposition; and then, all of a sudden, I
was seconded by Abbé de Nivières, who said: 'That young man doesn't
even know her; he has gone to Sèvres to live with his mother. He is an
excellent young man; he says that he never saw Madame d'Estrelle in all
the time that he lived near her, and it is the truth.'--By the way, you
are interested in those people, aren't you, the mother especially? Do
you ever see her now?"

"She no longer needs me, I have no reason to see her."

"Then I see that everything is all right, except your health, which
disturbs me. Will you come to Chantilly with me? I am going to pass a
month there; we shall see plenty of society, and perhaps it will set you
up; then, if you recover your lovely coloring, perhaps we shall find a
husband for you."

Madame d'Ancourt departed at last, chattering volubly, offering her
services, and sympathizing with her friend to the very step of her
carriage, abusing egotists, and in reality caring for nothing on earth
but herself.

"She is too proud and too suspicious, that Julie," she said to herself.
"Faith, I'll not go to see her again very soon! She is distressing. If
she needs me, she will know where to find me."

It was almost the same story with all Madame d'Estrelle's acquaintances.
She had never understood so well the abandonment which befalls all those
who abandon themselves, and she abandoned herself the more completely in
that she felt that her heart was becoming withered.

When she had passed several days without apparently giving any thought
to the subject of her future action, she roused herself one morning to
say to Marcel:

"I have done what you wished me to do; I have shown myself and explained
my absence; I have said that I am to go away before long. It is time to
have done with it and to turn over the house to Monsieur Antoine. It is
my purpose to go to live in the provinces, in some lonely place where I
shall be entirely forgotten. I shall take nobody but Camille. Do me the
favor to advise me in the selection of an out-of-the-way place and a
very modest dwelling."

"There is one great difficulty," said Marcel, "and that is that Monsieur
Antoine will not assent to any settlement, that his receipt in full is
in my wallet, and that he has not yet any idea that it has not been
accepted."

"You took that receipt from him!" exclaimed Julie indignantly. "He
believes that I will accept it! You had not the courage to tear it up
and throw the pieces in his face! Oh! I beg your pardon, Marcel, I
forget that he is your kinsman, that for your own sake you must treat
him gently. Very well, give me the receipt, and bring Monsieur Antoine
to me. This must be settled to-day; I will undertake to settle it."

"Take care, madame," said Marcel, in whose breast a faint hope revived,
as he discovered the vulnerable point in Madame d'Estrelle, at which
lightning-flashes of energy could still be produced. "Monsieur Antoine
is very irritable too, his self-esteem is bent upon having you for his
debtor. Do not so act with him that he will detest Julien."

"Is not Julien's future assured?"

"Yes, if all the conditions of the arrangement are observed; and I
should lie if I told you that Monsieur Antoine is aware of your refusal
to observe that one in which you are concerned."

"Oh! _mon Dieu!_ what a position you have put me in, Marcel! With your
blind devotion to practical affairs, with your obstinate determination
to save me from poverty, you have degraded me! That man believes that I
have sold my heart, that he has bought it with his money, and Julien
also believes that I have betrayed love for wealth! Ah! you would have
done better to kill me! To-day I feel that I cannot bear it all, and
that I must die!"

Julie sobbed as if her heart would break; it was a long time since she
had wept. Marcel preferred to see her so, rather than changed into a
statue; he hoped for some favorable result from a violent paroxysm. He
tried deliberately to cause it.

"Scold me, curse me," he said to her; "I did it all for Julien."

"That is true of course," replied Julie; "I do wrong to blame you for
it. Forgive me, my friend. Are you perfectly sure that if I offend
Monsieur Antoine by my refusal, everything that he has done for Julien
will be in danger of being undone?"

"Indubitably, and Monsieur Antoine will be justified on equitable
grounds. He is waiting, with an impatience which begins to alarm me, for
you to proclaim his merits and cease to be ashamed of his benefactions.
You must drink this cup, you must drink it for love of Julien, if, as I
suppose, that love is not dead!"

"Let us not talk about that; I will drink the cup to the dregs. But how
shall we explain to the world the generosity which I am forced to
accept? What reason can we give for it? The world will suppose that I
have fawned upon that old man, that I have bewitched him by degrading
coquetries; perhaps they will say something worse."

"Yes, madame," said Marcel, determined to venture upon one supreme test
to make sure of Julie's sentiments, "the evil-minded will say all that,
and I do not as yet see any way to prevent their saying it. We will try
to find a way; but if we cannot, will your devotion to Julien go so far
as the sacrifice I ask?"

"Yes," said Madame d'Estrelle, "I will go on to the end! Tell me, is
there not something to sign?"

And she thought:

"I will kill myself afterward!"

"You have to enter into no new engagements," replied Marcel; "but you
must consent to receive Monsieur Antoine and thank him. I am certain now
that he would really make Julien a rich man if you would agree to a sort
of reconciliation."

"Bring Monsieur Antoine here," said Julie.--"I will kill myself
to-night," she said to herself when Marcel had gone.

Julie's love had made such progress in her despair that she was no
longer capable of sound reasoning. Her love had become an accepted
martyrdom; she lived wholly on the excitement of that martyrdom.

She wrote to Julien:

"Here is the key to the pavilion. Come at midnight; you will find me
there. I am going on a long journey. I want to say adieu to you
forever."

She put the key in the letter, sealed it, ordered the most reliable of
her servants to mount and ride at full speed to Sèvres, and bring her a
reply. It was five o'clock in the afternoon.

She went out into the garden to await Monsieur Antoine and stopped on
the edge of the pond. The water was not very deep; but by lying down at
full length!--One who wants to die can always find a way. The variety of
suicide which had so tempted Julien a few days before, suggested itself
to her with ghastly tranquillity.

"Nobody else on earth cares for me," she thought. "As I cannot be his, I
will not be any man's. An infernal hatred has seized me by the throat
and strangled me in the midst of my life and my happiness. They are not
satisfied to deprive me of love and liberty, they seek to deprive me of
honor too. Marcel himself said that I must consent to be reputed that
old man's mistress. Ah! if Julien knew that, how he would abhor the
comfort in which his mother is living! And if she should suspect
it!--They shall both remain in ignorance of it, I am determined; my
death will be the result of an accident. It will be impossible to
retract the bargain we are about to make. Julien will be rich and
honored. No one will ever guess at what price."

Once more the thought passed through Julie's mind that it was in her
power and Julien's to shake off all these chains and to be united in
spite of poverty.

"He would be happier so," she thought, "and perhaps I am sacrificing
myself to his undoing! But who knows where Monsieur Antoine's hatred
would stop? A raving maniac is capable of anything; perhaps he would
have him murdered. Has he not secret agents, spies, cutthroats, in his
service?"

Her brain was in a whirl, she walked round and round the basin as if she
were impatiently awaiting the fatal hour. And then, when she thought
that she was about to see Julien again, her heart returned to life with
a mighty throb, and beat as if it would burst. She had no feeling of
remorse, no scruple about breaking oaths extorted from her by the most
revolting moral constraint.

"When one is at the point of death," she said to herself, "one has the
right to protest before God against the iniquity of his executioners."

At that moment there was an extraordinary power of reaction in that
woman, naturally so gentle and submissive. It was like the sudden
boiling of a placid lake, caused by a volcanic disturbance, or like the
blazing up of a flame just on the point of dying. She was feverish, she
was no longer herself.

She saw Monsieur Antoine approaching with Marcel, and she mechanically
seated herself, to receive him, on the bench where, three months
earlier, the old man had made the strange and absurd proposition, her
rejection of which had cost her so dear. As on that day, she heard the
foliage rustle and saw the sparrow Julien had tamed flapping his wings
and apparently hesitating whether he should light on her shoulder. The
little creature had taken a liking to freedom. Julien, being unable to
find him as they were going away, had left him behind, hoping that
Julie, whose long absence he did not foresee, would be very glad to find
him there. Since her return, Julie had seen him several times not far
away, friendly but suspicious. She had tried in vain to induce him to
come nearer. But this time he allowed himself to be caught. She was
holding him in her hands when Monsieur Antoine accosted her.

She smiled and saluted him with a bewildered air; he spoke to her,
unconscious of what he was saying, for his long exercise of absolutely
despotic power had failed to overcome his timidity at the beginning of
an interview. After his inevitable moment of stammering, he could
succeed in saying nothing more than this:

"Ah! so you still have your sparrow?"

"It is Julien's sparrow and I love it," replied Julie. "Here, do you
want to kill it? Here it is!"

Her manner of speaking, her livid pallor, and the savagely indifferent
air with which she offered him the poor little bird, all warm with her
kisses, made a profound impression on Monsieur Antoine. He looked at
Marcel as if to say: "Is she mad, I wonder?" and instead of twisting the
sparrow's neck as he would have done three months earlier, he pushed it
away, saying stupidly:

"Psha! psha! keep the thing! There's no great harm in it!"

"You are so kind!" rejoined Julie, with the same feverish bitterness.
"You have come to receive my thanks, haven't you? You know that I accept
everything, that I am happy now, that I no longer love anything or
anybody, that you have done me the very greatest service, and that you
can say to God every night: 'I have been good and great like unto
Thee!'"

Monsieur Antoine stood with his mouth open, uncertain whether Madame
d'Estrelle said these things to make sport of him or to thank him; too
cunning to trust, too dull to understand.

"She is going to fly in my face," he whispered to Marcel. "You deceived
me, you rascal!"

"No, uncle," Marcel replied aloud. "Madame la comtesse is thanking you.
She is very ill, as you see; do not ask her to make long speeches."

Marcel had relied on the impression that the alteration in Julie's
features would probably produce on Monsieur Antoine. That impression was
in truth profound. He stared at her with a dazed, cruel, yet terrified
expression, and said to himself with a joy not unmingled with terror:
"That is my work!"

"Madame," he said, after a moment's hesitation, "I said that I would be
revenged on you, that I would force you to ask my pardon for your
insults. Do you want to get through with it and admit that you were in
the wrong? I ask nothing but that."

"What is my offence?" said Julie. "Explain it so that I may know what it
is."

Antoine was sorely embarrassed to reply, and his anger, which had almost
disappeared, reawoke, as always happened when he had no charge to make
which would bear the test of common sense.

"Ah! so you don't think you have insulted me?" he said. "Very good,
_mordi!_ you shall ask my pardon in so many words if you don't want
Julien to have to pay for you."

"Must I ask your pardon on my knees?" queried Julie, with a heartrending
attempt at arrogance.

"Suppose that I should demand that?" retorted the old man, dizzy with
anger when he felt that he was defied.

"Here I am!" said Madame d'Estrelle, kneeling before him.

That was for her the last station on the road of martyrdom, the apology
which the innocent victim was compelled to make, with the rope about the
neck and the torch in the hand, before ascending the scaffold. At that
moment of sublime self-immolation, her angered heart suddenly
overflowed, her face became transfigured, she smiled the ecstatic smile
of the saints, and the ineffable beauty of heaven revealed was reflected
in her eyes.

Antoine did not understand, but he was dazzled. His anger subsided, not
under the influence of emotion, but before a sort of superstitious
terror.

"That is all right," he said. "I am satisfied and I forgive Julien.
Adieu!"

He turned his back and fled.

Marcel said to Julie a few encouraging words, which she did not hear or
did not try to understand; then he ran after Monsieur Antoine.

"Now, my excellent uncle," he said in the boldest and most stinging tone
he had yet adopted with him, "you should be satisfied, indeed; you have
killed Madame d'Estrelle!"

"Killed her?" said his uncle, turning abruptly upon him. "What infernal
nonsense is that?"

"The nonsense would consist in taking her joy and her gratitude
seriously, and you surely are not capable of that. That woman is in
despair, she is dying of grief."

"You lie, you are dodging the question! She is still a little angry, she
is sick on account of the way I have thwarted her lately; but in reality
she is making the best of it, and while she may be chafing at her bit,
she sees well enough that I am saving her in spite of her."

"You save her from the chances of the future, it is true, and you take
the surest means to do it, by depriving her of life."

"Well, well, there's another dodge! She caught cold passing the nights
in the garden with her lover! And then she was bored to death in that
convent at Chaillot, and even more in that barrack at Nanterre, where
she was absolutely alone! You see that it was no use for her to hide, I
know every place she has been to. I never lost track of her. You can't
fool me! I saw the convent doctor: he told me that she had a streak of
melancholy in her disposition, but that she had no serious disease. I
have seen her Paris doctor too; he says that he knows nothing about her
sickness. If it was anything serious he'd know what it was, deuce take
it! _I_ know; she's angry; people don't die of that, and now she'll get
better, I give you my word."

"And I," said Marcel, "give you my word that, with another week of the
despair in which you are plunging her deeper and deeper, she will be
lost beyond recall."

"Oho! so she loves that young dauber of canvas very dearly, does she?
How about him, does he still think of her?"

"Julien's as badly off as she is, and in quite as alarming a frame of
mind. I determined to make sure of it; I forced a confession from him
with much difficulty, for he is not a man to complain. As for her, two
whole months have passed and I haven't succeeded in extorting a word
from her. To-day, I determined to force her to the wall; I succeeded,
and now my mind is made up."

"To what? what do you propose to do?"

"I propose to destroy the two papers I have in my pocket; your receipt,
which I have taken back from Madame d'Estrelle, and her promise never to
see Julien again, which I have not yet delivered to you. You entrusted
both of them to me, telling me to exchange your reciprocal pledges. I
place you on your original footing by destroying them both. We must
start afresh, and as I know your intentions and hers, I tell you now
that Madame d'Estrelle will accept nothing from you, and that you can
take possession of everything that belongs to her. Thus far she has
followed my advice blindly; I have changed my views, and, as I have no
desire to see her die, I advise her to retract her consent to
everything."

"Why, you're a miserable knave!" said Monsieur Antoine, stopping short
in the middle of the street and shouting at the top of his voice. "I
don't know what keeps me from breaking my cane over your shoulders!"

"Knave indeed! when I give you back all your money and recover nothing
for my client but the right to live in poverty! Nonsense! Just sue her
and have the case aired in court, if you want to cover yourself with
ridicule and shame!"

"But Julien! Julien, whom I have made rich, you scoundrel! This is what
I foresaw! You have cheated me----

"Not at all, uncle! Julien has been seriously ill of late, he is still,
and his mother said to me: 'Do whatever you choose. Let us return
everything to Monsieur Antoine, and let Julie be restored to us!' So
there you are, uncle. You don't lose an obolus, you recover principal
and interest, and you leave us at liberty to live as we please, with no
risk of losing our liberty by reason of any stipulation imposed by law
or by private agreement."

"Why, you miserable villain, how you recant! I took you for a sensible
man, you agreed with me entirely, you disapproved of their marriage, you
worked with me to provide for their happiness----"

"True, until the day when I saw that happiness was taking them
straight to the tomb."

"They are mad!"

"Yes, uncle, they are mad; love is a form of madness; but when it is
incurable we must yield to it, and I yield."

"Very good!" retorted Monsieur Antoine, flattening his hat over his eyes
with a vicious blow. "Go and tell that lady to get out of her house,
that is to say my house, instantly. I will go to Sèvres and pack off
the others. If the whole lot of them are not on the street in two hours,
I'll send bailiffs, police agents--I'll set the houses on fire,
I'll----"

His frantic threats became inaudible as he rushed madly away. He left
Marcel in the street and returned home, unconsciously parodying Orestes
pursued by the Furies. Marcel, undismayed, quietly followed him, and
disregarded the orders already given to admit no one; he was determined
to come to blows with the servants if necessary.

"You mean to go to Sèvres, do you?" he said. "I will go with you."

"That's as you choose," said Uncle Antoine, with lowering brow. "Have
you notified Madame Julie to clear out of my house?"

"Yes, that is done," replied Marcel, for he saw that the old man had
lost his head completely, and that he did not know how few were the
minutes passed since their altercation in the street.

"Is she packing up? Is she taking away----"

"She takes nothing," said Marcel; "she leaves everything for you. Are we
going to Sèvres? Have you ordered the cab?"

"My chaise and farm horse will go faster. They are being harnessed."

He sat down on the edge of a table and seemed absorbed by his
reflections. Marcel sat down opposite him, determined not to lose sight
of him, at times fearing for his reason, at times dreading some
diabolical suggestion of his wrath. When they entered the carriage, it
was seven o'clock at night; Marcel broke the silence.

"What are we going to do at Sèvres?" he inquired.

"You will see!" Monsieur Antoine replied.

After about fifteen minutes Marcel spoke again.

"There is no need of your going there," he said. "The documents are in
my office; it is simply a matter of tearing them up, and I will not
allow you to make an absurd scene at my aunt's, I warn you. She is
exceedingly anxious, for Julien is very ill, as I told you."

"And you lied like a dog!" retorted Monsieur Antoine.

As he spoke he pointed to a hired cabriolet which was just passing them.
Julien, pale and downcast, with contracted brow and preoccupied,
determined air, was in the vehicle, and passed close to them without
seeing them. He had received Julie's note; he had forced himself to
rise, and, as he wished to ask Marcel some questions before keeping the
appointment, he was driving in season to Paris.

"If he is the one you want to speak to," said Marcel, "let us turn back;
I will wager that he is going to see me!"

"He is not the one I want to speak to," rejoined Monsieur Antoine,
satirically, "since he is dying."

"Did you think he looked well?" demanded Marcel.

The uncle relapsed into his sullen silence. They went on toward Sèvres.
Did he himself know what he was going to do there? Let us confess the
truth--he had absolutely no idea. He was conscious that his mind was in
great confusion, and his meditation was simply a sort of painful
uneasiness concerning the discomfort he felt.

"With all this," he thought, "I shall be the sickest of the three if I
don't look out. Anger is an excellent thing; it keeps one alive, it
helps out old age, and it is all up with an old man who allows himself
to be led by the nose; but we shouldn't take too big a dose of it at
once, and it would be well for me to cool off a little."

Thereupon, with a strength of will which would have made him a
remarkable man if he had had better instincts or better guidance, he
determined to take a nap, and slept quietly until the carriage entered
the streets of Sèvres.

Marcel was strongly tempted to order the coachman to return to Paris
without his uncle's knowledge; but would the man have obeyed? Moreover,
as Julien was out of the way, would it not be well to find out how
Monsieur Antoine proposed to act with regard to Madame Thierry? He stood
greatly in awe of her. Would he dare to tell her to her face that he
proposed to take back his gifts?

Sleep restored Monsieur Antoine to himself--that is to say to his
chronic state of deliberate aversion, jealous self-love, and brooding
resentment. They found Madame Thierry in front of a fine portrait of her
husband, at which she was gazing earnestly as if seeking in the cheering
serenity of that refined face the confidence in the future which had
always sustained that fascinating man's happy temperament. Marcel had
just time to hurry into the room first and say to her hastily:

"Monsieur Antoine is at my heels; he is in a rage. You can save
everything by much patience and firmness."

"_Mon Dieu!_ what shall I say to him?"

"That you give back what he has given you, but that you thank him for
it. Julie adores Julien. Everything depends on uncle. Here he is!"

"Will you leave me alone with him?"

"Yes, he insists upon it; but I will be close at hand, ready to
interfere if necessary."

Marcel walked quickly into an adjoining cabinet, threw himself into a
chair and waited. Monsieur Antoine entered Madame Thierry's salon by the
other door. He was less timid when he did not feel Marcel's searching
eye fixed upon him.

"Your servant, Madame André," he said on entering. "Are you alone?"

Madame Thierry rose, answered affirmatively, and courteously waved him
to a chair.

Her face, too, was greatly changed. She had passed several nights by her
son's bedside, and, when he insisted upon getting up and going away
despite her entreaties, she realized that the momentous crisis of the
drama of his life was at hand.

"Your son is sick?" Monsieur Antoine began.

"Yes, monsieur."

"Seriously?"

"God grant that he is not!"

"Does he keep his bed?"

"He got up a short time ago."

"Can I see him?"

"He has gone out, monsieur."

"Then he isn't so very sick?"

"He was very sick until last night, when he seemed a little better."

"What was the matter with him?"

"Fever and delirium."

"Sunstroke?"

"No, monsieur."

"Unhappiness, perhaps?"

"Yes, monsieur, great unhappiness."

"Because he's in love?"

"Yes, monsieur."

"But it's a stupid thing to be in love when one might be rich."

"It is of no use arguing about it, monsieur."

"Do you know what proposition I have come to make to you?"

"No, monsieur."

"If you will send your son to America, I will place a considerable sum
of money in his hands, I will direct his operations, and in ten years he
will return with thirty thousand francs a year."

"On what conditions, monsieur?"

"On condition that he says good-bye to a certain lady of our
acquaintance, that's all."

"And if he refuses?"

"If he refuses--and that is what I expect, I have been warned--a certain
agreement between him and me with regard to that lady is null and void."

"Very good, monsieur, I understand! You have a right to do it, and we
submit."

"But you can resist; you weren't consulted about accepting my presents,
you didn't know the conditions agreed upon between Madame d'Estrelle and
me. There is ground for a lawsuit, and I might lose it by means of a
little bad faith on the part of my opponents."

"If you regard my son and myself as your opponents, you may rest easy,
monsieur; we renounce your benefactions, without a shadow of
hesitation."

"Ah! yes, my benefactions! they are a burden to you, they make you
blush!"

"As we did not know that they put fetters on a person who is dear to us,
they did not make us blush; indeed--I may say, monsieur," added Madame
Thierry, with a mighty effort due to her devotion to her son, "your name
would have been blessed in this house, if we had been certain that we
owed that generosity to your solicitude for our welfare. Whatever its
cause, and brief as its duration has been, we have been happy, amid all
our troubles and anxieties, to live in this house once more and to enjoy
to the full our most cherished memories. You bid us leave them, and we
obey; but it remains for me to thank you----"

"You, madame?" said Antoine, gazing fixedly at her.

"Yes, for me to thank you for the two months you have allowed me to pass
here. The idea of never seeing the house again was very painful to me;
it will be less so henceforth, and I shall look back to this brief stay
here as to a last pleasant dream which will count for much in my life
and for which I shall be indebted to you."

Madame Thierry spoke in a sweet voice and with a refined accent which
had always made her very fascinating. In his moments of spleen Monsieur
Antoine sourly called her the _fine talker._ He felt none the less the
ascendancy of that still fresh voice, which caressed his ear with mild
and almost respectful words. He had but little comprehension of
sentimental refinement, but it seemed to him that he had found the
submissive instinct of which he was so greedy.

"Come, Madame André," he said, with the surly manner he always assumed
when his ill humor was beginning to retreat, "you know how to say all
you want to say; but, in reality, you can't endure me, you may as well
admit it!"

"I do not hate any one, monsieur; but you force me to confess that I am
afraid of you."

Nothing could have been more adroit than that reply. To inspire fear was
in Monsieur Antoine's opinion the noblest attribute of power. He
softened as if by a miracle, and said in an almost good-humored tone:

"Why in the devil are you afraid of me?"

Madame André had the penetration of women who have lived much in
society, and the shrewdness of a mother pleading her child's cause. She
saw what a long step forward she had taken; she forgot, and this time
most opportunely, that she was sixty years old, and boldly decided to
play the coquette, although it cost her more dearly to employ that ruse
with Monsieur Antoine than with any other man.

"Brother," she said, "it rested entirely with you to retain my
confidence. I do not reproach you for betraying it; your intentions were
kind, but I misunderstood you. I was very young then, and in a plight
where everything made me suspicious. I had had no experience of life. I
thought that you were advising me to abandon André, whereas----"

"Whereas I said to you in so many words: 'Save him!'"

"Yes, that is true; your action was dictated by affection for him. Well,
you see, I was blind, obstinate, whatever you choose to call it; but
confess that you ought to have forgiven me for that, have treated me
like the child I was, and become my brother once more as in the past."

"You want me to admit that? Why, you always showed me the cold shoulder
after that."

"It was your place to laugh at my coldness, and to take my hand and say:
'Sister, you're a little fool; let us embrace and forget the past.'"

"Ah! you think that I should have----"

"The more entirely one is in the right, the more generous he should be!"

"You talk that way now."

"It is never too late to see what is right and to arrange things that
are out of place."

"So--now you are sorry that you wounded me?"

"I am sorry for it; but, if I ask your pardon, will you grant it?"

"Ah! the deuce! it's not the same thing now, my fine lady! You need me
now!"

"Yes, Monsieur Antoine, I do need you. My son is mad with grief; marry
him to the woman he loves."

"Ah! there we are!" cried Monsieur Antoine, flying into a rage again.

"We have been there all the time," replied Madame Thierry; "I have asked
you for nothing since you have been here except liberty of action for
Madame d'Estrelle."

"Yes, with plenty of money for everybody?"

"No, no money, nothing! the sacrifice is made. Let us remain here as
tenants, we will gladly pay for the privilege. And, if you are not
willing--why, your will shall be done; but turn us away without hatred
and forgive us for being happy, for we shall be, even in poverty, if our
hearts are content with one another, if we can say to one another that
our happiness is no longer a source of affliction to you."

Monsieur Antoine felt that he was beaten; he was ashamed of it and clung
to the last straw.

"That is your pride," he said; "it's always the same thing however you
change it! The rich man's money is the object of your scorn! You snap
your fingers at it!--'Take it all back, we want nothing, we haven't any
needs! we live on air! What is this money? No better than pebbles to
sensible minds!' And yet, my fine lady, money honestly earned by a man
who had nothing on his side but his natural genius, ought to count for
something! It's the working-bee's honey, it's the tropical flower which
is made to bloom in an _artificial_ climate by the patience and skill of
a master gardener. Ah! that is nothing, you think? With all his wit, my
poor brother only succeeded in using up the money he earned by working
like a hod-carrier. But I know how to make a different use of money; I
save it, I add to it every day, and I make people happy when I choose!"

"What are you driving at, Monsieur Antoine?" said Madame Thierry, as she
saw Marcel making unintelligible signs to her through the door behind
Monsieur Antoine.

"I am driving at this, that you are not so good a mother as you think.
You are willing to sacrifice everything to your son except your contempt
for the money that comes from me. In heaven's name, do you think I stole
it, does my gold stink?"

"But why, in heaven's name, do you say such things to me? why do you
suppose that I refuse you the esteem you deserve?"

"Because, if you were a good mother, instead of talking this sort of
nonsense to me, you would say: 'Brother, we are unfortunate and you are
rich; you can save us. We are a little out of our heads, we want to pay
court to Madame d'Estrelle, but that is no reason for leaving us without
bread. Come, forgive us for everything at once! indulge us with love and
with bread to eat; it is humiliating to us, but no matter! We know that
you are a noble-hearted and generous man; you will have pity on us and
grant us all we ask!'--Yes, Madame André, that is what you would say,
what you would ask on your knees, if, instead of being a great lady, you
were really a good mother!"

Madame Thierry was speechless with surprise. She looked at Marcel, who,
unseen by Monsieur Antoine, urged her by most energetic pantomime to
yield to the old fellow's whim. The poor woman had a sinking at the
heart, but she did not hesitate; she slipped from the chair to her
hassock, on which she knelt, and said, taking both Monsieur Antoine's
hands:

"You are right, brother, you teach me my duty. I surrender. Be the
noblest of men, forgive everything and grant everything."

"At last! Good!" cried Monsieur Antoine, rising; "and when people are
reconciled, they embrace, don't they?"

Madame Thierry embraced him, and Marcel entered to congratulate them.

"Well," said the horticulturist, "you're a great fool, aren't you,
master pettifogger? It was very pretty, your scheme of rebellion! to
smash and break everything! What! reduce your client and your family to
want, all rather than give way to the rich man, the powerful man, the
natural enemy of those who have nothing and don't know how to earn
anything! A fine solicitor, on my word, who can't obtain anything for
his clients but love and rye bread! Luckily women are brighter than
that! Here are two who sent me to the devil, and both of them have bent
the knee to me to-night. Well, it is done, madame my sister! I shall
never remind you of this, for I am generous, and when people do what I
want I know how to reward them. Your son shall marry the fair countess,
whom I must turn out of her house because of what the world may say; but
the hôtel D'Estrelle with twenty-five thousand francs a year, shall be
Julien's marriage portion. That's the way I do things, and I know that
you will thank me for it to-morrow in earnest; for I am not deceived by
the politics of the present day; but you have done what I wanted, you
have submitted, I asked nothing but that."

"You shall have more than that," said Madame Thierry, "you shall have
the affection of warm and sincere hearts, and you shall know such
happiness as you might have known long ago; but we will do all we can to
make up for lost time."

"That is mere talk," said Monsieur Antoine. "Happiness is being one's
own master, and I don't need anybody to be mine. I don't like brats and
mawkish sentiment; I wasn't made to be the father of a family, but I
could have governed a country very well, if I had been born a king. It
has always been my whim to command, and I reign over whatever is within
my reach much better than many monarchs who don't know what they are
doing!"

Despite the anxiety which Julien's absence caused her, and her longing
to send Marcel after him, Madame Thierry felt called upon to invite
Monsieur Antoine to supper.

"Oh!" said he, "I sup on a hard crust of bread and a glass of cheap
wine. That is my habit: I have never cared much about eating."

She gave him what he asked for, and Marcel hastened their departure.

"I am sure that Julien is at my house waiting for me," he said to his
aunt. "He must be impatient because I do not return; but my wife is
there, and she will keep him quiet; Juliot will chatter to him, and if
he should be sicker, you may be sure that he is well taken care of."

Julien was frantically impatient in very truth, despite the attentions
which Madame Marcel lavished upon him. He had felt exceedingly weak when
he arrived. He had tried to eat a little and to divert his thoughts with
his godson's pretty prattle; but, as Marcel did not appear, when he
heard the clock strike eleven, he could stand it no longer. He declared
that his mother would be anxious if he had not returned at midnight; he
promised to take a cab to return to Sèvres, and started for Rue de
Babylone on foot, with many detours and precautions, to avoid being
watched and followed, as formerly, by some agent of Monsieur Antoine. He
arrived unmolested. His actions were no longer watched. Monsieur Antoine
had been spying upon Julie too long not to be sure that she no longer
had any relations with Julien.

At midnight, Julien, who had been at the door fifteen minutes, entered
and found Julie, who also had been waiting fifteen minutes in the
pavilion. At the same moment Marcel, Monsieur Antoine, and Madame
Thierry entered Paris by the Barrière de Sèvres. Monsieur Antoine's
frugal supper and slow conversation had lasted a little too long to suit
the widow. Being anxious about her son, she had asked for a seat in the
chaise, that she might join Julien at Marcel's.

As the moment for his meeting with Julie drew near, Julien had summoned
all his courage. He anticipated a painful explanation, he had taken an
inward oath that he would be neither angry nor reproachful nor weak, and
yet, when he opened the door, his hand trembled, a giddiness born of
frenzy and despair made him hesitate and recoil; but, the instant that
she saw him, Julie uttered a joyful cry, threw her arms about his neck,
and strained him passionately to her heart. They were in the dark, they
could not see how changed they both were. They felt that their kisses
were burning, and it did not occur to either of them that it might be
with fever. At that moment the only fever was that fever of love which
gives life. They had forgotten that which causes death.

But that moment of intoxication did not long endure in Julien's case.
More alarmed than exhilarated by Julie's caresses, he hastily pushed her
away.

"Why do you still love me," he said, "if you still intend to leave me?"

"Oh! perhaps it won't be for long!" she replied.

"You wrote me that this was an eternal farewell."

"I don't know what I wrote, I was mad; but there can be no eternal
farewell, it is not possible when two people love as we do."

"Then you are going away, but you will return?"

"If I can, yes! Let us not talk about that. This night is ours, let us
love!"

Amid the transports of love, Julien was again seized with terror. Julie
unguardedly uttered excited words in which there was an indefinably
ominous implication which made his blood run cold.

"Ah!" he exclaimed abruptly, "you are deceiving me! You are going away
forever, or else you think that you are going to die! You are ill, I
know; given up by the doctors it may be?"

"No, I give you my word that the doctors promise to cure me."

"I want to see your face; I can't see you here, let us go out. I am
afraid! It seems to me at times that I am dreaming, and that it is your
ghost that I hold in my arms."

He led her into the garden where it was almost as dark as in the
pavilion.

"I can't see you, _mon Dieu!_ I can't see your face," said Julien,
anxiously. "I can feel that your arms are thinner, that your waist is
smaller. You seem to have become so light that your feet do not touch
the gravel. Tell me, are you a dream? Am I here, by your side, in this
garden where we have been so happy? I am afraid I am mad!"

They drew near to the basin: there, as the moonless sky was without a
cloud and was reflected in the water with all its stars, Julien saw that
Madame d'Estrelle was pale, and the whiteness of the water, reflected on
her face, made her appear even more ghastly than she was. He could tell
that her face had grown thin by the increased size of her eyes, which
shone brightly in the darkness.

"I was sure of it!" he cried; "you are dying, and that is why you sent
for me. Very good; Julie, I will not leave you again; if I am to lose
you, I propose to receive your last breath and then die myself."

"No, Julien, you cannot die! think of your mother!"

"Why, my mother will die with us; what do you expect me to say to you?
She would have liked to die on the day she lost my father; she said so
unconsciously in her first frenzy; and since then, I have fully realized
that she has lived only for me. We will all three go together, since we
have but one soul between us, and we will go to a world where the purest
love will not be a crime. There must be such a world for those who have
never been able to understand the wicked prejudices of this one. Let us
die, Julie, without remorse or vain regret. Give me your breath, give me
your fever, give me your sickness; I swear that I will not survive you!"

"Alas!" said Julie, unable to restrain that outcry of nature; "I might
have been cured!"

"What do you mean?" cried Julien, beside himself. "Have you taken
poison? Answer, tell me! I insist upon knowing!"

"No, no, I have not!" she replied, dragging him away with a sudden,
desperate movement which made a profound impression on him.

She had been leaning over the water, she had seen therein the reflection
of her face and her white dress; she had remembered that, an hour later,
she must be lying there motionless, dead; she had sworn it. That was the
price of her broken oath, that was the price of Julien's happiness; a
ghastly fear of death had made her shudder and start back.

"What are you afraid of?" he asked her; "what did you see in the water?
what were you thinking about? what made you fly? Ah! I can guess, you
intend to die soon, immediately, as soon as I have gone! But I say that
it shall not be; you are my wife. Since you still love me, you belong to
me; I don't know what oath you have taken, I don't know what constraint
has been put upon you; but I, your lover, your husband, your master,
release you from everything! I will carry you off by force; no, I will
take you with me, that is my right. I do not propose that you shall die,
and I propose that my mother shall live to bless you. I have strength
for us both; I don't know what sort of a battle I shall have to fight,
but I will fight it. Come, let us go! If you haven't strength to walk, I
have strength to carry you. Come, I insist! the time has come for you to
acknowledge no other power over your life than mine."

As, while leading her back to the pavilion, he led her in the direction
of the basin, the combat between remorse and love in her heart became so
violent that she uttered a cry of horror, and, clinging to him with all
her strength, she said:

"I pledged my word of honor to leave you, and I am breaking my pledge
and reducing your mother to want! Can you relieve me from that burden?"

"You are mad!" said Julien; "was my mother so very poor when you first
knew her? will my right arm be cut off to keep me from working? Very
well, then I will work with my left arm! Ah! I understand everything
now. This is the revenge threatened by Monsieur Antoine; I ought to have
guessed sooner why our father's house was given back to us. Poor Julie!
you were sacrificing yourself for us; but that is all null and void; I
have not consented; I have accepted nothing. I submitted, knowing
nothing about it. Come, do not tremble any more, I release you from your
promise, and woe to the man who dares to remind you of it! If you
hesitate, if you shrink from anything, I shall believe that wealth is
what you regret, and that you have less courage and love than I!"

"Ah! that is the suspicion I dreaded so!" said Julie. "Let us go, let us
go!--but where shall we go? How shall I dare appear before your mother
and say: 'I bring you sorrow and ruin?'"

"Julie, you doubt my mother, you no longer love us!"

"Let us go!" she repeated, "let us go to her, and let her decide my
fate. Take me, take me away from here!"

Julie was completely crushed by such a multitude of emotions; her
strength failed her, and Julien, as he caught her in his arms, saw that
she had fainted. It was impossible to do anything for her in the
pavilion, so he carried her to her apartment, the garden door being
open, and the room lighted. He deposited Julie on a sofa, and she
speedily recovered consciousness; but when she attempted to rise, she
fell back.

"Ah! my dear," she said, "I cannot stand. Am I going to die here? Is it
too late for you to save me? Hark: someone is knocking on the street
door, I think."

"No," said Julien, who had heard nothing.

But, as he strove to restore her confidence while his own was beginning
to disappear, they were startled by a loud peal of the bell.

"They are coming after me, to carry me away, perhaps!" cried Julie,
wildly, "to put me in a convent!--The marchioness, Monsieur Antoine, I
don't know who!--And I cannot fly! Take me away, hide me, Julien!"

"Wait, wait," said Julien, who had opened an inner door and was
listening; "it is Marcel, calling Camille. Yes, it is some urgent
matter. Admit him yourself!"

"I cannot!" said Julie in despair, after one last effort.

"Very well, I will go," said Julien, resolutely. "He must see me here in
any event, as I do not propose to leave this house without you."

He hurried to the door of the vestibule, where Marcel was ringing as if
he would pull the house down; and before any servant had time to rise
and find out what the matter was, Julien opened the door to Marcel and
Madame Thierry. He admitted them and locked the doors behind them.

"Ah! my child," cried Madame Thierry, "I was very sure that I should
find you here! Victory, Julien, my poor Julien! Ah! I don't know what I
am saying; you will be cured at once, we bring you happiness!"

When Julie learned what had happened at Sèvres, life returned to her as
it returns to a half-dead plant when the rain falls upon it. Her tense
nerves were relaxed by tears of joy. As for Julien, who was almost
dangerously ill the day before, he was cured like those paralytics whom
a beneficent thunderclap causes to walk and leap about.

After an hour passed in an outpouring of emotion which seemed
inexhaustible, Marcel took Madame Thierry home with him to obtain a
little rest, and entrusted Julie to the care of Camille, who undertook
to keep the servants quiet concerning that nocturnal visit. Julien had
already made his escape through the pavilion. Julie slept as she had not
slept for a long while.

Luckily, as we have said, Monsieur Antoine no longer kept spies about
the hôtel D'Estrelle, and, luckily too, the servants were discreet and
devoted to their mistress; for if the rich man had learned of that
interview, he might have been made dangerously angry and have changed
his mind. He had expressed a desire to inform Madame d'Estrelle of her
pardon with his own lips; but he too was tired, relaxed, satisfied,
proud of himself; he slept soundly and rose a quarter of an hour later
than usual. He was no sooner on his feet than he redoubled his ordinary
activity and put his whole household in deadly fear; for he was sharp to
command, quick to threaten, and even quicker to raise his hand, armed
with a cane, against the sluggish. The old hôtel De Melcy was thrown
open, swept and put in order in the twinkling of an eye. Messengers were
despatched in all directions, and at noon a sumptuous dinner was served.
The guests, assembled in the large gilded salon, anticipated some
mysterious event. Marcel brought Madame Thierry and Madame d'Estrelle,
whom he had invited in the master's behalf. Julien too had been
notified, and arrived in due season. Julie was received by Madame
d'Ancourt, Madame Desmorges, her daughter, and her son-in-law. The Duc
de Quesnoy had not returned; but Abbé de Nivières was there,
determined to eat for two. Madame la présidente did not keep them
waiting, and Marcel was commissioned to present to the ladies a
collection of botanists, learned professors and collectors, whom
Monsieur Antoine was wont to convoke on great occasions.

"It is enough to make one die laughing," said the baroness to Julie,
leading her unto a window recess. "The goodman sent a messenger to me at
six o'clock this morning, to invite me to witness the christening of a
rare plant which is to bear his name! You can imagine what a pleasant
awakening it was! I was furious! but I discovered in a postscript that
you were to attend the ceremony, and I decided that I would come. So you
are reconciled to your old neighbor, are you, my dear? Well, so much the
better; you have followed my advice and you will come to it at last, I
tell you! The gardener isn't attractive; but five millions! remember
that!"

Julie's other friends thought differently. They supposed that Antoine
had made an amicable arrangement with her which was satisfactory to them
both, and that they ought to accept his invitation, in order to do their
friend a service. They questioned Julie with that theory in mind, and
Julie did not undeceive them.

As for the professors, the ostentatious christening of a new plant did
not seem particularly absurd to them. Monsieur Thierry had enriched
horticulture with several interesting specimens. He had fostered the
acclimatization of useful trees, and his name well deserved to figure in
the annals of science. A good dinner on such an occasion does no harm,
and the presence of a number of attractive women is not absolutely
inconsistent with the solemn preoccupations of botany.

When everybody had arrived, Monsieur Antoine assumed a modest and
good-humored air, a rare but certain symptom of inward triumph unmingled
with suspicion. He placed everybody round a large table, in the centre
of which an object of considerable height was concealed under a great
bell of white paper. Then he took from his pocket a treatise in
manuscript, luckily very short, but which it was difficult to listen to
without laughing, for in it French and Latin were murdered with the
utmost coolness. That manuscript of his own composition, which began
with _messieurs et mesdames_, and which treated of the importation and
cultivation of the most beautiful lilies known, concluded thus: "Having
had what I consider the advantage of buying, raising and bringing to
perfect bloom the only specimens in France of a lily which exceeds in
size, in fragrance and in splendor all varieties above-mentioned, I call
the attention of the honorable company to my _individual_, and invite
them to give it a name."

Having concluded the reading of his speech, Monsieur Antoine deftly
raised, with the end of a reed, the white paper covering, and Julien
uttered a cry of surprise when he saw the _Antonia Thierrii_ perfectly
fresh and blooming in all its glory. He believed at first that there had
been some trickery--that it was a perfect artificial imitation; but the
plant, when the covering was removed, gave forth a perfume which
recalled to his mind, and Julie's as well, the first day of their
passion; and when the clamor due to sincere or courteous admiration had
made the circuit of the table, Monsieur Antoine added:

"Messieurs les savants, you must know that this plant put forth two
shoots, the first one late in May, a very pretty specimen, accidentally
broken, and preserved in a herbarium close by; the second in August,
twice as large and full as the other. It blossomed, as you see, the
tenth day of said month."

"Christen, christen!" cried Madame d'Ancourt. "I would like to stand
godmother to that lovely lily, but I fancy that another----"

She glanced at Julie with a mixture of irony and goodwill. The
professors paid no heed, but unanimously proclaimed the name of _Antonia
Thierrii._

"You are very kind, messieurs," said Monsieur Antoine, flushing with
pleasure and stammering with emotion, "but I have a slight modification
to suggest to you. It is no more than fair that this plant should bear
my name, but I should like to prefix the name of a person who--of a lady
who--in short, I ask to have it called the _Julia-Antonia Thierrii._"

"That's a little long," said Marcel; "but then the plant is so tall!"

[Illustration 06: _THE CHRISTENING OF THE LILY_
"Julia-Antonia Thierrii _it is," replied the professors
artlessly._]

"_Julia-Antonia Thierrii_ it is," replied the professors artlessly.

"Ah! at last! bravo! so it's decided!" cried the Baronne d'Ancourt,
pointing to Julie, and making the sign indicating union with her plump
white hands.

Every eye was turned upon Julie, who blushed, and thereby recovered all
the splendor of her beauty.

"Excuse me, madame la baronne," said Uncle Antoine, with a sly
expression. "I tricked you by going to your house to beg you to make an
offer of marriage to Madame d'Estrelle in my behalf. I wanted to see
what you would say, and you didn't say no; on the contrary, you advised
that young lady to accept me. That was what led me to propose to her the
man I had in view for her, for I said to myself: 'If an old fellow like
me is eligible because of his money, my nephew, who is young and will
have a good share of my money, may be accepted.'--That is how it
happens, mesdames and messieurs, that, with the consent of Madame
d'Estrelle, I concluded to-day the business troubles we have had by a
marriage between her and my nephew Julien Thierry, whom I do myself the
honor to present to you."

"Psha! the young painter?" cried Madame d'Ancourt, irritated, she knew
not why, by Julien's beauty and impassioned manner.

"A painter?" said the bewildered Madame Desmorges. "Ah! my dear, so it
was true after all, was it?"

"Yes, my friends, it was true," replied Julie, boldly; "we loved each
other before we knew that Monsieur Antoine would rescue us from the
poverty that threatened us both."

"I declare that Monsieur Antoine is a great man and a true philosopher!"
cried Abbé de Nivières. "Suppose we adjourn to the table?"

"Let us go to dinner, mesdames and messieurs," said Monsieur Antoine,
offering Julie his hand. "You will say it is a misalliance, but three
millions for each of my nephews, that helps to rub the dirt off a
family, and my grandnephews will have money to purchase titles with."

This last argument changed the blame of Julie's friends into somewhat
reluctant congratulations. She had to resign herself to the necessity of
appearing to sacrifice vainglory to wealth; but what did it matter to
her after all? Julien knew what to think.

Julie, who was still in mourning for her father-in-law, went to Sèvres
to pass the rest of the summer. Sèvres is a Norman oasis within two
leagues of Paris. The apple-trees give it a rural savor, and the hills,
covered with lovely rustic gardens, were at that time quite as charming
and more unconventional than to-day. I must not, however, speak
slightingly of the lovely villas of Sèvres as it now is, with their
magnificent shade trees and the picturesque inequalities of the region
through which the river boldly cuts its way. The railroad has not
altogether dispelled the poesy of that wooded spot, and it is not
unpleasant to be able to reach, in a quarter of an hour, the grass-grown
paths and fields sloping to the water's edge. From the top of the hill
one can distinguish Paris, an imposing silhouette against the blue sky,
through the clumps of trees in the foreground; three steps away, in the
bottom of the ravine, one can lose sight of the great city, turn away
from the too white villas, and lose oneself in the genuine country,
still unspoiled, although a bit _rococo_, and always lovely with
flowers.

There Julie recovered her health, which was seriously impaired for some
time, and before as after their marriage, Julien was all in all to her,
as she was all in all to him. What society said and thought of their
union, they did not care to know. Their real friends sufficed for them,
and Madame Thierry was the happiest of mothers. Their happiness was
disturbed, it is true, by the political tempests, the approach of which
Julien had watched with no idea that they would be so swift and so
radical. Having a clear conscience and a generous heart, he made himself
very useful in his neighborhood by the pains which he took to relieve
want, and to prevent it, so far as he could, from urging its victims on
to deplorable acts of violence. For a long time he exerted great
influence over the workmen in the factory at Sèvres, and in the
faubourg which surrounded the hôtel D'Estrelle. On some days he was
well-nigh overwhelmed; but nothing could induce him to do anything which
his conscience disapproved, and he was threatened in his turn and was
very near being suspected. The firmness with which he faced suspicion,
the generous personal sacrifices he had made, the confidence he
displayed in the midst of danger, saved him. Julie was as brave as he.
The timid woman was transformed; she felt that her soul had developed
and been tempered anew in its fusion, brought about by love, with a
fearless and upright soul. Her heart was torn, doubtless, when several
of her old friends were struck down by the Revolution, despite all
Julien's efforts to rescue them. She succeeded in saving some of them by
judicious advice and prudent measures. She concealed two in her own
house; but she was unable to save the Baronne d'Ancourt, who ruined
herself by her excessive fright and underwent a most rigorous captivity.
The unfortunate Marquise d'Estrelle could not restrain her rage when the
forced loans encroached on her savings. She died on the scaffold. The
Duc de Quesnoy emigrated. Abbé de Nivières prudently turned Jacobin.

After the Terror, the suppression of the privilege attached to the royal
establishments having enabled Julien to gratify a wish he had often
formed, he labored to disseminate the industrial and artistic
improvements which he had had leisure to study and to experiment upon at
Sèvres. He earned no money by it; that was not his object; in fact he
lost something; but he found therein the means of ameliorating the lives
of many unfortunates. He was not rich, and his wife was overjoyed to see
him continue his artistic work and devote himself lovingly to the
education of his children.

Marcel purchased a cottage near theirs at Sèvres, and the two families
passed together all the holidays and days of rest which the worthy
solicitor was able to steal from his business. He made a little fortune
by honorable methods, and Julien was able to manage his own competence
with the prudence his father had lacked. Well for him that it was so,
for the Revolutionary government confiscated Monsieur Antoine's
property. The old man had continued to live alone, feeling no desire for
family life, as gracious as it was in his power to be to the debtors
whose gratitude flattered his pride, but unwilling to enter into any
social relations which would have upset his habits. He had promised
Marcel to think no more about marriage, and he kept his word; but he was
attacked by another mania. He became, in politics, a reviler of all the
events of the Revolution, whatever they might be. Everybody was mad,
blundering, stupid. The king was too weak, the people too gentle, the
guillotine too lazy and too greedy by turns. And then as that succession
of tragedies disturbed his brain, which was more mad than cruel, he
changed his opinions and passed from the most unbridled sansculottism to
the most laughable dandyism. All this was quite harmless, for he did not
intrigue for place, but contented himself with breaking out in words in
his rare incursions into society; but he was denounced by workmen whom
he had maltreated, and came near paying with his head for his riotous
indulgence in obscure eloquence.

Julien and Marcel, by tireless persistence, succeeded in inducing him to
leave the hôtel De Melcy, where he defied the storm every day. They
kept him out of sight at Sèvres, where he made them very unhappy by his
evil humor, and compromised them more than once by his imprudent acts.
His property was under sequestration, and he recovered only a few
shreds. He endured that terrible blow with much philosophy. He was one
of those pilots who curse during the tempest, but keep cool when it is a
question of salvage. He refused to take back any part of what Julien had
received from him. As his garden had not been injured and he recovered
it almost intact, he resumed his former habits and recovered comparative
good humor. He lived there until 1802, still active and robust. One day
they found him sitting perfectly still on a bench in the sunshine, his
watering pot half full beside him, and on his knees an undecipherable
manuscript, the last lucubration of his wornout brain. He had died
without warning. The night before he had said to Marcel:

"Never fear, you shall have the millions you expected to inherit from
me! Let me live only about ten years, and I shall make a larger fortune
than I ever had. I have a scheme for a constitution which will save
France from ruin; after that I will think a little of myself and go back
to my exporting business."