Two guests kept the others waiting, but their official duties excused them both. One was M. du Coudrai, registrar of mortgages; the other, M. Choisnel, had once acted as land-steward to the Marquis de Gordes. Choisnel was the notary of the old noblesse, and received everywhere among them with the distinction which his merits deserved; he had besides a not inconsiderable private fortune. When the two late comers arrived, Jacquelin, the manservant, seeing them turn to go into the drawing-room, came forward with, “ ‘They’ are all in the garden.”
The registrar of mortgages was one of the most amiable men in the town. There were but two things against him—he had married an old woman for her money in the first place, and in the second it was his habit to perpetrate outrageous puns, at which he was the first to laugh. But, doubtless, the stomachs of the guests were growing impatient, for at first sight he was hailed with that faint sigh which usually welcomes last comers under such circumstances. Pending the official announcement of dinner, the company strolled up and down the terrace by the Brillante, looking out over the stream with its bed of mosaic and its water-plants, at the so picturesque details of the row of houses huddled together on the opposite bank; the old-fashioned wooden balconies, the tumbledown window sills, the balks of timber that shored up a story projecting over the river, the cabinetmaker’s workshop, the tiny gardens where odds and ends of clothing were hanging out to dry. It was, in short, the poor quarter of a country town, to which the near neighborhood of the water, a weeping willow drooping over the bank, a rosebush or so, and a few flowers, had lent an indescribable charm, worthy of a landscape painter’s brush.
The Chevalier meanwhile was narrowly watching the faces of the guests. He knew that his firebrand had very successfully taken hold of the best coteries in the town; but no one spoke openly of Suzanne and du Bousquier and the great news as yet. The art of distilling scandal is possessed by provincials in a supreme degree. It was felt that the time was not yet ripe for open discussion of the strange event. Everyone was bound to go through a private rehearsal first. So it was whispered:
“Have you heard?”
“Yes.”
“Du Bousquier?”
“And the fair Suzanne.”
“Does Mlle. Cormon know anything?”
“No.”
“Ah!”
This was gossip piano, presently destined to swell into a crescendo when they were ready to discuss the first dish cf scandal.
All of a sudden the Chevalier confronted Mme. Granson. That lady had sported her green bonnet, trimmed with auriculas: her face was beaming. Was she simply longing to begin the concert? Such news is as good as a goldmine to be worked in the monotonous lives of these people; but the observant and uneasy Chevalier fancied that he read something more in the good lady’s expression—to wit, the exultation of self-interest! At once he turned to look at Athanase, and detected in his silence the signs of profound concentration of some kind. In another moment the young man’s glance at Mlle. Cormon’s figure, which sufficiently resembled a pair of regimental kettledrums, shot a sudden light across the Chevalier’s brain. By that gleam he could read the whole past.
“Egad!” he said to himself, “what a slap in the face I have laid myself out to get!”
He went across to offer his arm to Mlle. Cormon, so that he might afterwards take her in to dinner. She regarded the Chevalier with respectful esteem; for, in truth, with his name and position in the aristocratic constellations of the province, he was one of the most brilliant ornaments of her salon. In her heart of hearts, she had longed to be Mme. de Valois at any time during the past twelve years. The name was like a branch for the swarming thoughts of her brain to cling about—he fulfilled all her ideals as to the birth, quality, and externals of an eligible man. But while the Chevalier de Valois was the choice of heart and brain and social ambition, the elderly ruin, curled though he was like a St. John of a procession-day, filled Mlle. Cormon with dismay; the heiress saw nothing but the noble; the woman could not think of him as a husband. The Chevalier’s affectation of indifference to marriage, and still more his unimpeachable character in a houseful of workgirls, had seriously injured him, contrary to his own expectations. The man of quality, so clear-sighted in the matter of the annuity, miscalculated on this subject; and Mlle. Cormon herself was not aware that her private reflections upon the too well-conducted Chevalier might have been translated by the remark, “What a pity that he is not a little bit of a rake!”
Students of human nature have remarked these leanings of the saint towards the sinner, and wondered at a taste so little in accordance, as they imagine, with Christian virtue. But, to go no further, what nobler destiny for a virtuous woman than the task of cleansing, after the manner of charcoal, the turbid waters of vice? How is it that nobody has seen that these generous creatures, confined by their principles to strict conjugal fidelity, must naturally desire a mate of great practical experience? A reformed rake makes the best husband. And so it came to pass that the poor spinster must sigh over the chosen vessel, offered her as it were in two pieces. Heaven alone could weld the Chevalier de Valois and du Bousquier in one.
If the significance of the few words exchanged between the Chevalier and Mlle. Cormon is to be properly understood, it is necessary to put other matters before the reader. Two very serious questions were dividing Alençon
