“Ah,” says the doorkeeper, chuckling, “I see monsieur knows a theatre. We have indeed two or three mimics; but one above all—a chorus-singer, a great man, who can strike off an imitation which is life itself; a drunken, dissolute fellow, monsieur, or he would have taken to principal characters and made himself a name. A fellow with a soul for nothing but dominoes and vulgar wine-shops; but a wonderful mimic.”
“Ah! and he imitates, I suppose, all your great people—your prima donna, your basso, your tenor—” hazards Monsieur Raymond Marolles.
“Yes, monsieur. You should hear him mimic this new tenor, this Monsieur Gaston de Lancy, who has made such a sensation this season. He is not a bad-looking fellow, pretty much the same height as De Lancy, and he can assume his manner, voice, and walk, so completely that—”
“Perhaps in a dark room you could scarcely tell one from the other, eh?”
“Precisely, monsieur.”
“I have rather a curiosity about these sort of people; and I should like to see this man, if—” he hesitates, jingling some silver in his pocket.
“Nay, monsieur,” says the porter; “nothing more easy; this Moucée is always here about this time. They call the chorus to rehearsal while the great people are lounging over their breakfasts. We shall find him either on the stage, or in one of the dressing-rooms playing dominoes. This way, monsieur.”
Raymond Marolles follows the doorkeeper down dark passages and up innumerable flights of stairs; till, very high up, he stops at a low door, on the other side of which there is evidently a rather noisy party. This door the porter opens without ceremony, and he and Monsieur Marolles enter a long low room, with bare whitewashed walls, scrawled over with charcoal caricatures of prima donnas and tenors, with impossible noses and spindle legs. Seated at a deal table is a group of young men, shabbily dressed, playing at dominoes, while others look on and bet upon the game. They are all smoking tiny cigarettes which look like damp curl-papers, and which last about two minutes each.
“Pardon me, Monsieur Moucée,” says the porter, addressing one of the domino players, a good-looking young man, with a pale dark face and black hair—“pardon me that I disturb your pleasant game; but I bring a gentleman who wishes to make your acquaintance.”
The chorus-singer rises, gives a lingering look at a double-six he was just going to play, and advances to where Monsieur Marolles is standing.
“At monsieur’s service,” he says, with an unstudied but graceful bow.
Raymond Marolles, with an ease of manner all his own passes his arm through that of the young man, and leads him out into the passage.
“I have heard, Monsieur Moucée, that you possess a talent for mimicry which is of a very superior order. Are you willing to assist with this talent in a little farce I am preparing for the amusement of a lady? If so you will have a claim (which I shall not forget) on my gratitude and on my purse.”
This last word makes Paul Moucée prick up his ears. Poor fellow! his last coin has gone for the half-ounce of tobacco he has just consumed. He expresses himself only too happy to obey the commands of monsieur.
Monsieur suggests that they shall repair to an adjoining café, at which they can have half an hour’s quiet conversation. They do so; and at the end of the half-hour, Monsieur Marolles parts with Paul Moucée at the door of this café. As they separate Raymond looks at his watch—“Half-past eleven; all goes better than I could have even hoped. This man will do very well for our friend Elvino, and the lady shall have ocular demonstration. Now for the rest of my work; and tonight, my proud and beautiful heiress, for you.”
As the clocks strike ten that night, a hackney-coach stops close to the entrance of the Bois de Boulogne; and as the coachman checks his horse, a gentleman emerges from the gloom, and goes up to the door of the coach, which he opens before the driver can dismount. This gentleman is Monsieur Raymond Marolles, and Valerie de Lancy is seated in the coach.
“Punctual, madame!” he says. “Ah, in the smallest matters you are superior to your sex. May I request you to step out and walk with me for some little distance?”
The lady, who is thickly veiled, only bows her head in reply; but she is by his side in a moment. He gives the coachman some directions, and the man drives off a few paces; he then offers his arm to Valerie.
“Nay, monsieur,” she says, in a cold, hard voice, “I can follow you, or I can walk by your side. I had rather not take your arm.”
Perhaps it is as well for this man’s schemes that it is too dark for his companion to see the smile that lifts his black moustache, or the glitter in his blue eyes. He is something of a physiologist as well as a mathematician, this man; and he can tell what she has suffered since last night by the change in her voice alone. It has a dull and monotonous sound, and the tone seems to have gone out of it forever. If the dead could speak, they might speak thus.
“This way, then, madame,” he says. “My first object is to convince you of the treachery of the man for whom you have sacrificed so much. Have you strength to live through the discovery?”
“I lived through last night. Come, monsieur, waste no more time in words, or I shall think you are a charlatan. Let me
