to Ravil. "You have seen her, then?"
"Not I, but one of my aunts saw the girl at the Convent of the Sacred Heart before Beaumesnil took her to Italy by the physician's order."
"Poor Beaumesnil, to die in Naples from a fall from his horse!"
"And you say that Mlle. de Beaumesnil is very homely?" he continued, while M. de Mornand seemed to grow more and more thoughtful.
"Hideous! I think it more than likely that she's going into a decline, too, from what I hear," responded Ravil, disparagingly; "for, after Beaumesnil's death, the physician who had accompanied them to Naples declared that he would not be responsible for the result if Mlle. de Beaumesnil returned to France. She is a consumptive, I tell you, a hopeless consumptive."
"A consumptive heiress!" exclaimed another man ecstatically. "Can any one conceive of a more delightful combination!"
"Ah, yes, I understand," laughed Ravil, "but it is absolutely necessary that the girl should live long enough for a man to marry her, which Mlle. de Beaumesnil is not likely to do. She is doomed. I heard this through M. de la Rochaiguë, her nearest relative. And he ought to know, as the property comes to him at her death, if she doesn't marry. Perhaps that accounts for his being so sanguine."
"What a lucky thing it would be for Madame de la Rochaiguë, who is so fond of luxury and society!"
"Yes, in other people's houses."
"It is very strange, but it seems to me I have heard that Mlle. de Beaumesnil strongly resembles her mother, who used to be one of the prettiest women in Paris," remarked another gentleman.
"This girl is atrociously ugly, I tell you," said M. de Ravil. "In fact, I'm not sure that she isn't deformed as well."
"Yes," remarked M. de Mornand, awakening from his reverie, "several other persons have said the very same thing about the girl that Ravil does."
"But why didn't her mother accompany her to Italy?"
"Because the poor woman had already been attacked by the strange malady to which she is about to succumb, it seems. People say that it was a terrible disappointment to her because she could not follow her daughter to Naples, and that this disappointment has contributed not a little to her present hopeless state."
"It would seem, then, that Doctor Dupont's musical cure has proved a failure."
"What musical cure?"
"Knowing Madame de Beaumesnil's passionate love of music, the doctor, to mitigate his patient's sufferings and arouse her from her langour, ordered that soft and soothing music should be played or sung to her."
"Not a bad idea, though revived from the times of Saul and David," commented Ravil.
"Well, what was the result?"
"Madame de Beaumesnil seemed benefited at first, they say, but her malady soon regained the ascendency."
"I have heard that poor Beaumesnil's sudden death was a terrible shock to her."
"Bah!" exclaimed M. de Mornand, with a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders, "she never cared a straw for Beaumesnil. She only married him for his millions of millions. Besides, as a young girl she had any number of lovers. In short," continued M. de Mornand, puffing out his cheeks with an air of supercilious dignity, "Madame de Beaumesnil is really a woman of no reputation whatever, and, in spite of the enormous fortune she will leave, no honourable man would ever be willing to marry the daughter of such a mother."
"Scoundrel!" exclaimed a voice which seemed to respond indignantly to M. de Mornand's last words from behind the clump of lilacs.
There was a moment of amazed silence; then M. de Mornand, purple with anger, made a hasty circuit of the clump of shrubbery. He found no one there, however. The path at this place making an abrupt turn, the person who uttered the opprobrious epithet could make his escape with comparative ease.
"There are no more infamous scoundrels than the persons who insult others without daring to show themselves," cried M. de Mornand, in a loud voice.
This strange incident had scarcely taken place before the sound of the orchestra drew the promenaders back to the salon.
M. de Mornand being left alone with Ravil, the latter said to him:
"Somebody who dared not show himself called you a scoundrel. We had better say no more about it. But did you understand me?"
"Perfectly. The same idea suddenly, I might almost say simultaneously, occurred to me, and for an instant I was dazzled – even dazed by it."
"An income of over three millions! What an incorruptible minister you will be, eh?"
"Hush! It is enough to turn one's brain."
The conversation was suddenly interrupted by the arrival of a third party, who, addressing M. de Mornand, said, with the most scrupulous politeness:
"Monsieur, will you do me the favour to act as my vis-à-vis?"
M. de Mornand's surprise was so great that he started back without uttering a word on hearing this request, for the person who had just made it was no other than the Marquis de Maillefort, the singular hunchback, of whom frequent mention has already been made in these pages.
There was also another feeling that prevented M. de Mornand from immediately replying to this strange proposition, for, in the full, vibrating voice of the speaker, M. de Mornand fancied, for an instant, that he recognised the voice of the unseen person who had called him a scoundrel when he spoke in such disparaging terms of Madame de Beaumesnil.
The Marquis de Maillefort, pretending not to notice the air of displeased surprise with which M. de Mornand had greeted the proposal, repeated in the same tone of scrupulous politeness:
"Monsieur, will you do me the favour to act as my vis-à-vis in the next quadrille?"
On hearing this request on the part of the deformed man thus reiterated, M. de Mornand, without concealing his desire to laugh, exclaimed:
"Act as your vis-à-vis, – yours, monsieur?"
"Yes, monsieur," replied the marquis, with the most innocent air imaginable.
"But, – but what you ask is – is – permit me to say – very remarkable."
"And very dangerous, my dear marquis," added the Baron de Ravil, with his usual sneer.
"As for you, baron, I might put a no less offensive and, perhaps, even more dangerous question to you," retorted the marquis, smiling. "When will you return the thousand francs I had the pleasure of loaning to you the other evening?"
"You are too inquisitive, marquis."
"Come, come, baron, don't treat M. de Talleyrand's bon mots as you treat thousand franc notes."
"What do you mean by that, marquis?"
"I mean that it costs you no more to put one in circulation than the other."
M. de Ravil bit his lip.
"This explanation is not altogether satisfactory, M. le marquis," he said, coldly.
"You have an unquestionable right to be very exacting in the matter of explanations, baron," retorted the marquis, in the same tone of contemptuous persiflage; "but you have no right to be indiscreet, as you certainly are at this moment. I had the honour to address M. de Mornand, and you intrude yourself into our conversation, which is exceedingly annoying to me."
Then, turning to M. de Mornand, the hunchback continued:
"You did me the honour, just now, to say that my request that you would act as my vis-à-vis was very remarkable, I believe."
"Yes, monsieur," replied M. de Mornand, quite gravely this time, for he began to suspect that this singular proposal was only a pretext, and the longer he listened to the voice, the more certain he became that it was the same which had styled him a scoundrel. "Yes, monsieur," he continued, with mingled hauteur and assurance, "I did say, and I repeat it, that this request to act as your vis-à-vis was very remarkable on your part."
"And why, may I ask, if you do not think me too inquisitive?"
"Because