passion and that she had been wrong to encourage it in the countess, but she had been moved by the poor woman's tears and saw her above all as a victim. She could not, no, she really could not have left a friend of her family, a fellow countrywoman and especially a woman of that age to the tender mercies of the owners of gambling houses or of the moneylenders of the town, who would have pounced only too readily on the improvident creature's remarkable jewel.
After watching her visitor's departure from the doorway, Marianne walked slowly back to her bed. Sitting down on the edge of it, she took the diamond drop in her fingers and watched the play of light upon it. It was certainly a very wonderful stone and she caught herself thinking that she would not be averse to keeping it if the countess failed to recoup her losses.
If that happened she might offer her a further sum to make up for her loss, but on no account would she ever sell such a treasure.
At the same time, staring at the diamond and remembering the magnificent earrings trembling in the countess's ears the day before, she felt her curiosity awaken. Who were these Gachets who possessed such princely jewels and how had the woman managed to retain them after twenty years of exile, when so many other emigres had been and still were reduced to dire extremities of need? Had gambling come to her rescue?
It was hard to credit, for those to whom whist, faro or any other game of hazard had brought lasting prosperity were few indeed. Besides, not even Madame de Gachet herself knew whether her winnings with the thousand rubles left over after her debt was paid would be enough to cover the initial loan.
The more Marianne thought about it, the more depressed it made her. She had not yet reached the point of regretting her generous impulse but she had to admit that she had been a trifle hasty. Perhaps after all she would have been wiser to send for Jolival and have discussed it with him. But then the countess had been so insistent that the matter be kept a secret between her and her friend's daughter, and that was surely natural enough. At all events, she had given her promise to say nothing.
Finding no satisfactory answer to any of these problems, Marianne stowed the diamond away safely in her reticule and turned her attention to getting dressed. For some reason she was suddenly in a hurry to find Jolival and discover whether he had learned any more about the widow of the late Comte de Gachet.
When she was dressed, she left her own room and went along the passage to her friend's, which was at the far end. At this point there were two doors side by side, both opening into the passage, and since she had forgotten Jolival's number she knocked first on one and, receiving no reply, moved on to the next. When this too produced no answer, she returned again to the first.
Thinking that Jolival must be still asleep, she turned the handle.
The door opened easily, revealing a disordered room. Since the feminine character of the belongings thus revealed was enough to inform her that she had made a mistake, Marianne withdrew her head and turned to find herself face to face with a chambermaid who was eyeing her suspiciously.
'Was Madame looking for someone?'
'Yes. I thought this was the Vicomte de Jolival's room.'
'Madame is mistaken. This room belongs to the Comtesse de Gachet. Monsieur the Vicomte is next door— but I don't think he is there just now.'
'What do you know about it?' Marianne asked crossly, disliking the girl's tone. 'I hardly think he'd tell you where he was going?'
'Oh, no, Madame! It's only that I saw him go out at about eight o'clock. He asked for a horse to be saddled and rode off in the direction of the harbor. Does Madame require anything further?'
'No… that will do, thank you.'
Marianne walked back to her own room, feeling puzzled and out of sorts. Where the devil had Jolival run off to at this hour of the morning? And why had he said nothing to her?
She had grown accustomed to the vicomte's solitary expeditions, for he seemed to possess a peculiar faculty of making himself understood anywhere in the world and of finding out whatever he wanted to know. But here in this city where civilization was as yet only skin deep, a thin varnish on the surface of barbarism, it was uncomfortable to feel herself alone, even if only for an hour or two and in surroundings as typically French as the Hotel Ducroux.
The chambermaid had said that he had ridden toward the harbor. Why? Was he going to look for the
She paced about her room for a while, uncertain what to do. She was longing to go out herself and begin inquiries on her own account but dared not for fear of missing Jolival if he should return with any news. As time passed she grew increasingly bored and discontented at being obliged to remain indoors when she wanted so badly to go out and start her own search for Jason. She unpacked her boxes and packed them again, did her hair afresh, put on a hat to go out after all, then took it off again and cast herself into a chair, took up a book and threw it down, and finally donned her hat once more with the intention of going down at least as far as the front door and finding out from Ducroux whether any word had come for her from the governor's palace.
She was tying the wide sea-green crepe ribbons under her chin when all of a sudden an uproar exploded in the hotel. There were loud shouts and the sound of running feet in the passage, with a shrill voice shrieking in some foreign language, followed by the tramp of heavy-booted feet approaching, accompanied by a clash of arms.
Full of curiosity, Marianne was on her way to her door when it was flung open abruptly. In the opening, his shocked face whiter than his shirt, stood the hotel proprietor. He was accompanied by a law officer and two armed soldiers, and he looked like a man in extreme stages of embarrassment.
Marianne stared indignantly at the intruders.
'May I ask, Maitre Ducroux, what this means?' she asked icily. 'What kind of hotel do you call this? Who gave you permission to enter my room uninvited?'
'Indeed, Mademoiselle, it is not my fault,' the man stammered wretchedly. 'Believe me, I should never dream of… It is these gentlemen—' he finished, indicating the three Russians.
Meanwhile, disregarding both him and Marianne completely, the officer had stalked into the room and was flinging open trunks and boxes and tossing out the contents in such a cavalier fashion that Marianne lost her temper.
'This is your hotel, is it not? Then get these men out of here this instant unless you want me to complain to the governor!
'Indeed, I can't help it. They insist on searching this room.'
'But whatever for? Will you tell me that?'
Racked by the glittering green eyes that seemed able to flay him alive, Ducroux tugged awkwardly at his shirt cuffs and kept his eyes fixed firmly on the ground at Marianne's feet, as though expecting the answer to come from there. A curt command from the officer seemed to force him to a decision at last and he lifted his unhappy gaze to hers.
'There has been a complaint,' he said almost inaudibly. 'A lady, a guest in the hotel, has missed a valuable jewel. She insists on a search of the whole building and—and unfortunately one of the maids saw you, Mademoiselle, coming out of the lady's room this morning.'
Marianne's heart seemed to stop dead and the blood mounted to her cheeks.
'A valuable jewel, did you say? Who is this woman?'
'Madame de Gachet! She has been robbed of a very large, pear-shaped diamond—a teardrop, she calls it. It was an heirloom… she is making a great deal of fuss…'
Inevitably, the diamond was discovered a moment later in Marianne's reticule and, despite her furious protests as she realized too late the trap into which she had fallen out of pure innocence, she was dragged roughly from her room with a soldier on either side and hurried out of the hotel, watched by a large crowd which had been drawn up to the Hotel Ducroux by the uproar.
Without further warning she found herself hustled into a closed carriage, which had been hurriedly fetched, and driven away rapidly in the direction of the citadel, which she had been so anxious to visit only a short while before. They had not given her time to utter so much as a single protest.
