Eight days after the ball, he had paid a visit to M. Dambreuse. The financier had offered him twenty shares in a coal-mining speculation; Frederick did not go back there again. Deslauriers had written letters to him, which he left unanswered. Pellerin had invited him to go and see the portrait; he always put it off. He gave way, however, to Cisy’s persistent appeals to be introduced to Rosanette.
She received him very nicely, but without springing on his neck as she used to do formerly. His comrade was delighted at being received by a woman of easy virtue, and above all at having a chat with an actor. Delmar was there when he called. A drama in which he appeared as a peasant lecturing Louis XIV and prophesying the events of ’89 had made him so conspicuous, that the same part was continually assigned to him; and now his function consisted of attacks on the monarchs of all nations. As an English brewer, he inveighed against Charles I; as a student at Salamanca, he cursed Philip II; or, as a sensitive father, he expressed indignation against the Pompadour—this was the most beautiful bit of acting! The brats of the street used to wait at the door leading to the side-scenes in order to see him; and his biography, sold between the acts, described him as taking care of his aged mother, reading the Bible, assisting the poor, in fact, under the aspect of a Saint Vincent de Paul together with a dash of Brutus and Mirabeau. People spoke of him as “Our Delmar.” He had a mission; he became another Christ.
All this had fascinated Rosanette; and she had got rid of Père Oudry, without caring one jot about consequences, as she was not of a covetous disposition.
Arnoux, who knew her, had taken advantage of the state of affairs for some time past to spend very little money on her. M. Roque had appeared on the scene, and all three of them carefully avoided anything like a candid explanation. Then, fancying that she had got rid of the other solely on his account, Arnoux increased her allowance, for she was living at a very expensive rate. She had even sold her cashmere in her anxiety to pay off her old debts, as she said; and he was continually giving her money, while she bewitched him and imposed upon him pitilessly. Therefore, bills and stamped paper rained all over the house. Frederick felt that a crisis was approaching.
One day he called to see Madame Arnoux. She had gone out. Monsieur was at work below stairs in the shop. In fact, Arnoux, in the midst of his Japanese vases, was trying to take in a newly-married pair who happened to be well-to-do people from the provinces. He talked about wheel-moulding and fine-moulding, about spotted porcelain and glazed porcelain; the others, not wishing to appear utterly ignorant of the subject, listened with nods of approbation, and made purchases.
When the customers had gone out, he told Frederick that he had that very morning been engaged in a little altercation with his wife. In order to obviate any remarks about expense, he had declared that the Maréchale was no longer his mistress. “I even told her that she was yours.”
Frederick was annoyed at this; but to utter reproaches might only betray him. He faltered: “Ah! you were in the wrong—greatly in the wrong!”
“What does that signify?” said Arnoux. “Where is the disgrace of passing for her lover? I am really so myself. Would you not be flattered at being in that position?”
Had she spoken? Was this a hint? Frederick hastened to reply:
“No! not at all! on the contrary!”
“Well, what then?”
“Yes, ’tis true; it makes no difference so far as that’s concerned.”
Arnoux next asked: “And why don’t you call there oftener?”
Frederick promised that he would make it his business to go there again.
“Ah! I forgot! you ought, when talking about Rosanette, to let out in some way to my wife that you are her lover. I can’t suggest how you can best do it, but you’ll find out that. I ask this of you as a special favour—eh?”
The young man’s only answer was an equivocal grimace. This calumny had undone him. He even called on her that evening, and swore that Arnoux’s accusation was false.
“Is that really so?”
He appeared to be speaking sincerely, and, when she had taken a long breath of relief, she said to him:
“I believe you,” with a beautiful smile. Then she hung down her head, and, without looking at him:
“Besides, nobody has any claim on you!”
So then she had divined nothing; and she despised him, seeing that she did not think he could love her well enough to remain faithful to her! Frederick, forgetting his overtures while with the other, looked on the permission accorded to him as an insult to himself.
After this she suggested that he ought now and then to pay Rosanette a visit, to get a little glimpse of what she was like.
Arnoux presently made his appearance, and, five minutes later, wished to carry him off to Rosanette’s abode.
The situation was becoming intolerable.
His attention was diverted by a letter from a notary, who was going to send him fifteen thousand francs the following day; and, in order to make up for his neglect of Deslauriers, he went forthwith to tell him this good news.
The advocate was lodging in the Rue des Trois-Maries, on the fifth floor, over a courtyard. His study, a little tiled apartment, chilly, and with a grey paper on the walls, had as its principal decoration a gold medal, the prize awarded
