triumphant scream from Madame Hamelin.
'Heaven be praised! He is alive!'
' 'Course he alive,' Jonas said scornfully. 'He only fainted from exhaustion and loss of blood. Don't you maul him like dat, Madame Fortunee. Monsieur le Ba'on he do ve'y well. You see —'
The injured man was endeavouring to raise himself on one elbow. He groaned but managed to smile at his mistress.
'I must be getting old,' he said. 'Dupont got me this time, damn him, but I'll be even with him.'
'Dupont again!' Fortunee exclaimed wrathfully. 'You never set eyes on the man but you must fight him! How long is it? Ten years? Twelve?'
Fournier grinned. 'Fifteen. And since we are well matched with swords, this will not be the last. Haven't you anything to offer a wounded man who —' He broke off as his gaze went past Madame Hamelin to where Marianne was standing with folded arms staring into the fire, waiting for these first transports to be over. 'But – I know you!' he said, clearly searching his memory for a recollection which could not be long in coming. 'Surely, you are —'
'Well, I do not know you,' Marianne declared firmly. 'But I should be grateful if you would spare Fortunee to me for a moment, since I ask nothing better than to leave you to one another's company.'
'Oh my God, my poor darling, I was forgetting you! The shock —' She sprang up and fled with equal impetuosity back to her friend and flung her arms about her. 'I have spoken to Ouvrard,' she whispered. 'I think he will agree but he wants to talk to you. Will you go down to him? He is waiting in the little drawing-room. Jonas, go with Mademoiselle Marianne and bring me a decanter of brandy for the general.'
Without further urging, Marianne turned on her heel, glad to be out of range of Fournier's gaze, in which she could now read a very evident mockery. It seemed that he had recognized her and felt not the slightest shame at the memory of his unforgivable effrontery. As she left the room, she heard him remark thoughtfully to Fortunee: 'I am not acquainted with the name of your charming but strait-laced friend, and yet, I don't know how it is, but I have a vague feeling that I stand somehow in her debt…'
'You are feverish, dearest,' cooed Fortunee. 'I can assure you, you have never met my dear Marianne before. You can't have done.'
Marianne restrained herself from comment with an effort. The wretch knew very well that she could never bring herself to tell her friend the truth about their stormy meeting and, besides, it was of no importance because she was determined that matters should go no further between them. It was not necessary for her to know that this man, with his odious self-assurance, hated the Emperor. She had already ranged him among the people she had no wish to meet again, and she was determined that it should be so. Curiously, as if he had read her thoughts, Jonas murmured in her ear as they went down the stairs: 'If de general stay here some time, Mademoiselle Marianne, we not see much of madame. De last time she and de general not leave their room for mo' dan a week.'
Marianne frowned but said nothing. She was not shocked by the length of time itself, but it seemed to her that such behaviour could not be much to the taste of the banker Ouvrard, Fortunee's lover of the moment. It would be disastrous for her, Marianne, if the man on whom she depended should take serious offence in the days to come.
Sighing, she made her way to join the banker in the little room that was already familiar to her as one of Fortunee's favourite apartments because it was lined with tall Venetian mirrors set in moulded frames of grey and gold in which she could contemplate her own charming image multiplied to infinity. Pleasantly reflected likewise were the dull pink drapes and the soft glow of the delicate directoire furnishings, and the single note of brilliant colour in the room, the huge turquoise-blue Chinese vase filled with tulips and irises. The presence of the mistress of the house lingered in the faint scent of roses that mingled with the smell of a wood fire.
Coming into the room and seeing Ouvrard leaning against the chimney-piece, Marianne reflected that, for all his fortune, the man did not fit into his surroundings. Apart from his money, she could see little in him to attract women. He was in his early forties, short, foxy-faced and greying, dressed with extreme care and rather exaggerated opulence. Yet Gabriel Ouvrard was popular with women, and not only with Fortunee, who made no attempt to conceal her love of money. It was rumoured that the divinely languorous Juliette Recamier herself had bestowed her favours on him, and other beauties besides.
Although feeling herself no more drawn to this second lover of Madame Hamelin's than she had to the first, Marianne forced herself to smile in a friendly fashion as she advanced to meet the banker, who had turned at the sound of the door. With a satisfied 'Ha!', Ouvrard took both her hands in his and placed a kiss on each before leading her over to the pink sofa on which, when she had nothing better to do, Fortunee was in the habit of lying for hours at a time nibbling sweets and devouring the few novels which passed the strict imperial censorship.
'My dear, dear lady,' he said on a note of earnest familiarity filled with reproach, 'why did you not come to me at once. You should not have troubled our friend with such a trifle.'
Marianne appreciated the mention of a 'trifle'. Twenty thousand livres seemed to her a considerable sum and she supposed that only a banker could talk so airily, yet it gave her fresh heart. However, Ouvrard had not finished.
'You should have come to me, to my house, at once. It would have saved a great deal of trouble.'
'Indeed – I should not have dared,' Marianne confessed, endeavouring to extricate her hands from the banker's kneading grasp.
'Not dared? A pretty woman like you? Surely you have heard that I am a slave to beauty? And who in Paris is more beautiful than the Emperor's Nightingale?'
'The Emperor's Nightingale?'
'But yes, adorable Maria Stella, that is what they are calling you. Did you not know?'
'No, indeed,' Marianne said, feeling that her companion was lavishing all too fulsome praise on someone preparing to borrow a large sum of money from him. But Ouvrard was continuing.
'I was present at your performance at the Feydeau. Ah, a miracle indeed! Such a voice, such grace, such beauty! I can truthfully say I was in transports! I fell beneath your spell! The exquisitely moving tone, the purity of the sounds that sprang from that delicate throat, those rosy lips! Who would not be at your feet? Myself—'
'You are too kind,' Marianne said quickly, beginning to feel some alarm in case the banker should suit the action to the words and go down on his knees before her, 'but I beg you, say no more about that evening, it – it was not all I could have wished.'
'Ah, to be sure, your accident! That was —'
'Extremely disagreeable and the consequences are by no means finished. I ask you to forgive me if I seem rude and impatient, but I have to be sure. You can imagine how reluctantly I have been compelled to appeal for assistance —'
'From a friend – a loyal and devoted friend. I hope you do not doubt that?'
'I should not be here else. And so – I may count on such a sum, the day after tomorrow perhaps?'
'Indeed you may. In the afternoon, shall we say?'
'No, that will not be possible. I am to sing at the Tuileries before – before their majesties.'
She stumbled on the plural but she got it out somehow. Ouvrard listened with a beatific smile.
'In the evening, then? After the reception? I will expect you at my house. That will be even better. We can talk – get to know one another.'
The colour flamed in Marianne's cheeks. She rose quickly, snatching back her hands which the banker still held. It had dawned on her suddenly on what conditions Ouvrard was prepared to advance her the money. Quivering with anger, she burst out: 'Monsieur Ouvrard, I do not think we understand one another correctly. This is a loan merely. I will repay you the twenty thousand livres within three months.'
The banker's pleasant face was crossed by a momentary frown. He shrugged.
'Who spoke of a loan? A woman such as you may make what demands she pleases. I will give you more if you wish.'
'I do not want any more – and that only as a loan.'
The banker sighed and getting to his feet moved heavily to where Marianne had prudently retreated to the chimney-piece. His voice had lost its honeyed tones and there was a strange flicker in his eyes.
'Leave such matters to men, my dear, and take what is offered you in good faith.'
'In return for what?'
