“If the Elder Branch were to return,” said he to an old statesman of seventy, “what politicians would they find?”—“Berryer, alone on his bench, does not know which way to turn; if he had sixty votes, he would often scotch the wheels of the Government and upset Ministries!”—“The Duc de Fitz-James is to be nominated at Toulouse.”—“You will enable Monsieur de Watteville to win his lawsuit.”—“If you vote for Monsieur Savarus, the Republicans will vote with you rather than with the Moderates!” etc., etc.
At nine o’clock Albert had not arrived. Madame de Watteville was disposed to regard such delay as an impertinence.
“My dear Baroness,” said Madame de Chavoncourt, “do not let such serious issues turn on such a trifle. The varnish on his boots is not dry—or a consultation, perhaps, detains Monsieur de Savarus.”
Rosalie shot a side glance at Madame de Chavoncourt.
“She is very lenient to Monsieur de Savarus,” she whispered to her mother.
“You see,” said the Baroness with a smile, “there is a question of a marriage between Sidonie and Monsieur de Savarus.”
Mademoiselle de Watteville hastily went to a window looking out over the garden.
At ten o’clock Albert de Savarus had not yet appeared. The storm that threatened now burst. Some of the gentlemen sat down to cards, finding the thing intolerable. The Abbé de Grancey, who did not know what to think, went to the window where Rosalie was hidden, and exclaimed aloud in his amazement, “He must be dead!”
The Vicar-General stepped out into the garden, followed by Monsieur de Watteville and his daughter, and they all three went up to the kiosk. In Albert’s rooms all was dark; not a light was to be seen.
“Jérôme!” cried Rosalie, seeing the servant in the yard below. The Abbé looked at her with astonishment. “Where in the world is your master?” she asked the man, who came to the foot of the wall.
“Gone—in a post-chaise, mademoiselle.”
“He is ruined!” exclaimed the Abbé de Grancey, “or he is happy!”
The joy of triumph was not so effectually concealed on Rosalie’s face that the Vicar-General could not detect it. He affected to see nothing.
“What can this girl have had to do with this business?” he asked himself.
They all three returned to the drawing-room, where Monsieur de Watteville announced the strange, the extraordinary, the prodigious news of the lawyer’s departure, without any reason assigned for his evasion. By half-past eleven only fifteen persons remained, among them Madame de Chavoncourt and the Abbé de Godenars, another Vicar-General, a man of about forty, who hoped for a bishopric, the two Chavoncourt girls, and Monsieur de Vauchelles, the Abbé de Grancey, Rosalie, Amédée de Soulas, and a retired magistrate, one of the most influential members of the upper circle of Besançon, who had been very eager for Albert’s election. The Abbé de Grancey sat down by the Baroness in such a position as to watch Rosalie, whose face, usually pale, wore a feverish flush.
“What can have happened to Monsieur de Savarus?” said Madame de Chavoncourt.
At this moment a servant in livery brought in a letter for the Abbé de Grancey on a silver tray.
“Pray read it,” said the Baroness.
The Vicar-General read the letter; he saw Rosalie suddenly turn as white as her kerchief.
“She recognizes the writing,” said he to himself, after glancing at the girl over his spectacles. He folded up the letter, and calmly put it in his pocket without a word. In three minutes he had met three looks from Rosalie which were enough to make him guess everything.
“She is in love with Albert Savarus!” thought the Vicar-General.
He rose and took leave. He was going towards the door when, in the next room, he was overtaken by Rosalie, who said:
“Monsieur de Grancey, it was from Albert!”
“How do you know that it was his writing, to recognize it from so far?”
The girl’s reply, caught as she was in the toils of her impatience and rage, seemed to the Abbé sublime.
“I love him!—What is the matter?” she said after a pause.
“He gives up the election.”
Rosalie put her finger to her lip.
“I ask you to be as secret as if it were a confession,” said she before returning to the drawing-room. “If there is an end of the election, there is an end of the marriage with Sidonie.”
In the morning, on her way to Mass, Mademoiselle de Watteville heard from Mariette some of the circumstances which had prompted Albert’s disappearance at the most critical moment of his life.
“Mademoiselle, an old gentleman from Paris arrived yesterday morning at the Hôtel National; he came in his own carriage with four horses, and a courier in front, and a servant. Indeed, Jérôme, who saw the carriage returning, declares he could only be a prince or a milord.”
“Was there a coronet on the carriage?” asked Rosalie.
“I do not know,” said Mariette. “Just as two was striking he came to call on Monsieur Savarus, and sent in his card; and when he saw it, Jérôme says Monsieur turned as pale as a sheet, and said he was to be shown in. As he himself locked the door, it is impossible to tell what the old gentleman and the lawyer said to each other; but they were together above an hour, and then the old gentleman, with the lawyer, called up his servant. Jérôme saw the servant go out again with an immense package, four feet long, which looked like a great painting on canvas. The old
