you see, uncle, how cleverly he returns to the charge?"
The clock in the neighbouring steeple struck eight.
"Eight o'clock!" cried Olivier. "The deuce! My master mason has been waiting for me for an hour. I've got to go, Gerald. I promised to be punctual, – an hour late is a good deal. Good night, uncle."
"You're going to work half the night, again," remarked the veteran, casting a meaning look at Gerald. "I shall wait up for you, though."
"No, no, uncle, go to bed. Tell Madame Barbançon to leave the key with the porter, and some matches in the kitchen. I won't wake you, I'll come in quietly."
"Good-bye, M. Gerald," said the veteran, taking the young duke's hand, and pressing it in a very significant manner, as if to remind him of his promise in regard to Olivier's promotion.
"Good-bye, commander," said Gerald, returning the pressure, and indicating by a gesture that he read the veteran's thought. "You will permit me to come and see you again, will you not?"
"It would give me great pleasure, you may be sure of that, M. Gerald."
"Yes, commander, for I judge you by myself. Good-bye. Come, Olivier, I will accompany you to the door of your master mason."
"I shall have the pleasure of your company a quarter of an hour longer, then. Good night, uncle."
"Good night, my dear boy."
And Olivier, taking up his bundle of papers and pens, left the house arm in arm with Gerald. At the master mason's door they separated, promising to see each other again at an early day.
About an hour after Olivier left his uncle, Madame Barbançon was brought back to the Batignolles in Madame de Beaumesnil's carriage.
The veteran, amazed at the silence of his housekeeper, and at the gloomy expression of her face, addressed her several times in vain, and finally begged her to help herself to the small portion of Cyprian wine that remained. Madame Barbançon took the bottle and started towards the door, then stopped short and crossed her arms with a meditative air, a movement that caused the wine-bottle to fall with a crash upon the floor.
"The deuce take you!" cried the veteran. "Look at the Cyprian wine you've wasted."
"True, I've broken the bottle," replied the housekeeper, with the air of a person just waking from a dream. "It is not surprising. Since I saw and heard Madame la Comtesse de Beaumesnil, – for I have just seen her, and in such a pitiable state, poor woman! – I have been racking my brain to remember something I can not remember, and I know very well that I shall be absolutely good for nothing for a long time."
"It is a good thing to know this in advance," replied the veteran, with his usual placidity of manner on seeing Madame Barbançon again relapse into a deeply preoccupied frame of mind.
CHAPTER V
THE LION OF THE BALL
On the day following Olivier Raymond's chance meeting with Gerald, the mother of the latter gave a dancing party.
The Duchesse de Senneterre, both by birth and by marriage, was connected with the oldest and most illustrious families of France, and though her fortune was insignificant and her house small, she gave every year four or five small but extremely elegant and exclusive dancing receptions, of which she and her two young daughters did the honours with perfect grace. The Duc de Senneterre, dead for two years, had held a high office under the Restoration.
The three windows of the salon where the guests danced opened into a very pretty garden, and the day being superb, many ladies and gentlemen stepped out for a chat or a stroll through the paths bordered with flowering shrubs during the intervals between the dances.
Four or five men, chancing to meet near a big clump of lilacs, had paused to exchange the airy nothings that generally compose the conversation at such a gathering.
Among this group were two men that merit attention. One, a man about thirty-five years of age, but already obese, with an extremely pompous, indolent, and supercilious manner and a lack-lustre eye, was the Comte de Mornand, the same man who had been mentioned at Commander Bernard's the evening before, when Olivier and Gerald were comparing their reminiscences of college life.
M. de Mornand occupied a hereditary seat in the Chamber of Peers.
The other, an intimate friend of the count, was a man of about the same age, – tall, slim, angular, a trifle round-shouldered, and also a little bald, – whose flat head, prominent and rather bloodshot eyes imparted an essentially reptilian character to his visage. This was the Baron de Ravil. Though his means of support were problematical in the extreme when compared with his luxurious style of living, the baron was still received in the aristocratic society in which his birth entitled him to a place, but never did any intriguer – we use the word in its lowest, most audacious sense – display more brazen effrontry or daring impudence.
"Have you seen the lion of the ball?" inquired one of the men of the party, addressing M. de Mornand.
"I have but just arrived, and have no idea to whom you refer," replied the count.
"Why, the Marquis de Maillefort."
"That cursed hunchback!" exclaimed M. de Ravil; "it is all his fault that this affair seems so unconscionably dull. His hideous presence is enough to cast a damper over any festivity."
"How strange it is that the marquis appears in society for a few weeks, now and then, and then suddenly disappears again," remarked another member of the group.
"I believe he is a manufacturer of counterfeit money and emerges from his seclusion, now and then, to put his spurious coin in circulation," remarked M. de Ravil. "This much is certain – incomprehensible as it appears – he actually loaned me a thousand franc note, which I shall never return, the other night, at the card-table. And what do you suppose the impertinent creature said as he handed it to me? 'It will afford me so much amusement to dun you for it, baron.' He need have no fears. He will amuse himself in that way a long time."
"But all jesting aside, this marquis is a very peculiar man," remarked another member of the party. "His mother, the old Marquise de Maillefort, left him a very handsome fortune, but no one can imagine what he does with his money, for he lives very modestly."
"I used to meet him quite frequently at poor Madame de Beaumesnil's."
"By the way, do you know they say she is said to be lying at the point of death?"
"Madame de Beaumesnil?"
"Yes; she is about to receive the last sacrament. At least that is what they told Madame de Mirecourt, who stopped to inquire for her on her way here."
"Her case must, indeed, have been incurable, then, for her physician is that famous Doctor Gasterini, who is as great a savant as he is a gourmand, which is certainly saying a good deal."
"Poor woman! she is young to die."
"And what an immense fortune her daughter will have," exclaimed M. de Mornand. "She will be the richest heiress in France, and an orphan besides. What a rare titbit for a fortune-hunter!"
As he uttered these words, M. de Mornand's eyes encountered those of his friend Ravil.
Both started slightly, as if the same idea had suddenly occurred to both of them. With a single look they must have read each other's thoughts.
"The richest heiress in France!"
"And an orphan!"
"And an immense landed property besides!" exclaimed the three other men in accents of undisguised covetousness.
After which, one of them, without noticing the interchange of glances between M. de Mornand and his friend, continued:
"And how old is this Mlle. de Beaumesnil?"
"Not over fifteen," replied M. de Ravil, "and exceedingly unprepossessing in appearance, sickly and positively insignificant looking, in fact."
"Sickly, – that is not objectionable, by any means, quite the contrary," said one of the party, reflectively.
"And homely?"