Jezebel's Daughter

'I wished to speak to you of your conditions,' Madame Fontaine resumed, after a pause. 'Your conditions are impossibilities. I entreat you, in Minna's interests—oh! not in mine!—to modify them.'

The tone in which those words fell from her lips was so unnaturally quiet, that Mrs. Wagner suddenly turned again with a start, and faced her.

'What do you mean by impossibilities? Explain yourself.'

'You are an honest woman, and I am a thief,' Madame Fontaine answered, with the same ominous composure. 'How can explanations pass between you and me? Have I not spoken plainly enough already? In my position, I say again, your conditions are impossibilities—especially the first of them.'

There was something in the bitterly ironical manner which accompanied this reply that was almost insolent. Mrs. Wagner's color began to rise for the first time. 'Honest conditions are always possible conditions to honest people,' she said.

Perfectly unmoved by the reproof implied in those words, Madame Fontaine persisted in pressing her request. 'I only ask you to modify your terms,' she explained. 'Let us understand each other. Do you still insist on my replacing what I have taken, by the morning of the sixth of this month?'

'I still insist.'

'Do you still expect me to resign my position here as director of the household, on the day when Fritz and Minna have become man and wife?'

'I still expect that.'

'Permit me to set the second condition aside for awhile. Suppose I fail to replace the five thousand florins in your reserve fund?'

'If you fail, I shall do my duty to Mr. Keller, when we divide profits on the sixth of the month.'

'And you will expose me in this way, knowing that you make the marriage impossible—knowing that you doom my daughter to shame and misery for the rest of her life?'

'I shall expose you, knowing that I have kept your guilty secret to the last moment—and knowing what I owe to my partner and to myself. You have still four days to spare. Make the most of your time.'

'I can do absolutely nothing in the time.'

'Have you tried?'

The suppressed fury in Madame Fontaine began to get beyond her control.

'Do you think I should have exposed myself to the insults that you have heaped upon me if I had not tried?' she asked. 'Can I get the money back from the man to whom it was paid at Wurzburg, when my note fell due on the last day of the old year? Do I know anybody who will lend me five thousand florins? Will my father do it? His house has been closed to me for twenty years—and my mother, who might have interceded for me, is dead. Can I appeal to the sympathy and compassion (once already refused in the hardest terms) of my merciless relatives in this city? I have appealed! I forced my way to them yesterday—I owned that I owed a sum of money which was more, far more, than I could pay. I drank the bitter cup of humiliation to the dregs—I even offered my daughter's necklace as security for a loan. Do you want to know what reply I received? The master of the house turned his back on me; the mistress told me to my face that she believed I had stolen the necklace. Was the punishment of my offense severe enough, when I heard those words? Surely I have asserted some claim to your pity, at last? I only want more time. With a few months before me—with my salary as housekeeper, and the sale of my little valuables, and the proceeds of my work for the picture-dealers—I can, and will, replace the money. You are rich. What is a loan of five thousand florins to you? Help me to pass through the terrible ordeal of your day of reckoning on the sixth of the month! Help me to see Minna married and happy! And if you still doubt my word, take the pearl necklace as security that you will suffer no loss.'

Struck speechless by the outrageous audacity of this proposal, Mrs. Wagner answered by a look, and advanced to the door. Madame Fontaine instantly stopped her.

'Wait!' cried the desperate creature. 'Think—before you refuse me!'

Mrs. Wagner's indignation found its way at last into words. 'I deserved this,' she said, 'when I allowed you to speak to me. Let me pass, if you please.'

Madame Fontaine made a last effort—she fell on her knees. 'Your hard words have roused my pride,' she said; 'I have forgotten that I am a disgraced woman; I have not spoken humbly enough. See! I am humbled now—I implore your mercy on my knees. This is not only my last chance; it is Minna's last chance. Don't blight my poor girl's life, for my fault!'

'For the second time, Madame Fontaine, I request you to let me pass.

'Without an answer to my entreaties? Am I not even worthy of an answer?'

'Your entreaties are an insult. I forgive you the insult.'

Madame Fontaine rose to her feet. Every trace of agitation disappeared from her face and her manner. 'Yes,' she said, with the unnatural composure that was so strangely out of harmony with the terrible position in which she stood—'Yes, from your point of view, I can't deny that it may seem like an insult. When a thief, who has already robbed a person of money, asks that same person to lend her more money, by way of atoning for the theft, there is something very audacious (on the surface) in such a request. I can't fairly expect you to understand the despair which wears such an insolent look. Accept my apologies, madam; I didn't see it at first in that light. I must do what I can, while your merciful silence still protects me from discovery—I must do what I can between this and the sixth of the month. Permit me to open the door for you.' She opened the drawing-room door, and waited.

Mrs. Wagner's heart suddenly quickened its beat.

Under what influence? Could it be fear? She was indignant with herself at the bare suspicion of it. Her face flushed deeply, under the momentary apprehension that some outward change might betray her. She left the room, without even trusting herself to look at the woman who stood by the open door, and bowed to her with an impenetrable assumption of respect as she passed out.

Madame Fontaine remained in the drawing-room.

She violently closed the door with a stroke of her hand—staggered across the room to a sofa—and dropped on it. A hoarse cry of rage and despair burst from her, now that she was alone. In the fear that someone might hear