Never in his life had he felt so embarrassed, or so dissatisfied with himself. In vain had Papa Ravinet and Mrs. Bertolle brought up all possible arguments to convince him, that, with a woman like Sarah Brandon, all reprisals2 were fair; he would not be convinced.
Unfortunately, he could not refuse to go without risking the peace of his Henrietta, her confidence, and her whole happiness; so he went as bravely as he could.
A clerk whom he asked told him that the president was in his rooms,—in the third story on the left. He went up. The maid who came to open the door recognized him. It was the same Clarissa who had betrayed him. When he asked for the count she invited him in. She took him through an anteroom, dark, and fragrant3 with odors from the kitchen; and then, opening a door, she said;—
“Please walk in!”
Before an immense table, covered with papers, sat Count Ville-Handry. He had grown sadly old. His lower lip hung down, giving him a painful expression of weakness of mind; and his watery4 eyes looked almost senile. Still his efforts to look young had not been abandoned. He was rouged5 and dyed as carefully as ever. When he recognized Daniel, he pushed back his papers; and offering him his hand, as if they had parted the day before, he said,—
“Ah, here you are back again among us! Upon my word, I am very glad to see you! We know what you have been doing out there; for my wife sent me again and again to the navy department to see if there were any news of you. And you have become an officer of the Legion of Honor! You ought to be pleased.”
“Fortune has favored, me, count.”
“Alas! I am sorry I cannot say as much for myself,” replied the latter with a sigh.
“You must be surprised,” he continued, “to find me living in such a dog’s kennel7, I who formerly8—But so it goes. ‘The ups and downs of speculations,’ says Sir Thorn. Look here, my dear Daniel, let me give you a piece of advice: never speculate in industrial enterprises! Nowadays it is mere9 gambling10, furious gambling; and everybody cheats. If you stake a dollar, you are in for everything. That is my story, and I thought I would enrich my country by a new source of revenue. From the first day on which I emitted shares, speculators have gotten hold of them, and have crushed me, till my whole fortune has been spent in useless efforts to keep them up. And yet Sir Thorn says I have fought as bravely on this slippery ground as my ancestors did in the lists.”
Every now and then the poor old man passed his hand over his face as if trying to drive away painful thoughts; and then he went on in a different tone of voice,—
“And yet I am far from complaining. My misfortunes have been the source of the purest and highest happiness for me. It is to them I owe the knowledge of the boundless11 devotion of a beloved wife; they have taught me how dearly Sarah loves me. I alone can tell what treasures are hid in that angelic heart, which they dared to calumniate12. Ah! I think I can hear her now, when I told her one evening how embarrassed I had become in my finances.
“‘To have concealed13 that from me!’ she exclaimed,—‘from me, your wife: that was wrong!’ And the very next day she showed her sublime14 courage. She sold her diamonds to bring me the proceeds, and gave up to me her whole fortune. And, since we are living here, she goes out on foot, like a simple citizen’s wife; and more than once I have caught her preparing our modest meals with her own hands.”
Tears were flowing down the furrowed15 cheeks, leaving ghastly lines on the rouged and whitened surface.
“And I,” he resumed in an accent of deepest despair,—“I could not reward her for such love and so many sacrifices. How did I compensate16 her for being my only consolation17, my joy, my sole happiness in life! I ruined her; I impoverished18 her! If I were to die to-morrow, she would be penniless.”
Daniel trembled.
“Ah, count,” he exclaimed, “don’t speak of dying! People like you live a hundred years.”
But the old man lowered his voice, and said,—
“You see, I have not told you all yet. But you are my friend; and I know I can open my heart to you. I did not have the—the—cleverness to overcome all the restrictions19 which hamper20 this kind of business. I was imprudent, in spite of all Sir Thorn’s warnings. To-morrow there will be a meeting of the stockholders; and, if they do not grant me what I shall have to ask of them, I may be in trouble. And, when a man calls himself Count Ville-Handry, rather than appear in a police-court—you know what I mean!”
He was interrupted by one of the clerks, who brought him a letter. He read it, and said,—
“Tell them I am coming.”
Then, turning again to Daniel, he added,—
“I must leave you; but the countess is at home, and she would never forgive me if I did not take you in to present your respects to her. Come! But be careful and don’t say a word of my troubles. It would kill her.”
And, before Daniel could recover from his bewilderment, the count had opened a door, and pushed him into the room, saying,—
“Sarah, M. Champcey.”
Sarah started up as if she had received an electric shock. Her husband had left them; but, even if he had been still in the room, she would probably not have been any more able to control herself.
“You!” she cried, “Daniel, my Daniel!”
And turning to Mrs. Brian, who was sitting by the window, she said,—
“Leave us.”
“Your conduct is perfectly21 shocking, Sarah!” began the grim lady. But Sarah, as harshly as if she had been speaking to a servant, cut her short, saying,—
“You are in the way, and I beg you will leave the room.”
Mrs. Brian did so without saying a word; and the countess sank into an arm-chair, as if overcome by a sudden good fortune which she was not able to endure, looking intensely at Daniel, who stood in the centre of the room like a statue.
She had on a simple black merino dress; she wore no jewelry22; but her marvellous, fatal beauty seemed to be all the more dazzling. The years had passed over her without leaving any more traces on her than the spring breeze leaves on a half-opened rose. Her hair still shone with its golden flashes; her rosy23 lips smiled sweetly; and her velvet24 eyes caressed25 you still, till hot fire seemed to run in your veins26.
Once before Daniel had been thus alone with her; and, as the sensations he then felt rose in his mind, he began to tremble violently. Then, thinking of his purpose in coming here, and the treacherous27 part he was about to act, he felt a desire to escape.
It was she who broke the charm. She began, saying,—
“You know, I presume, the misfortunes that have befallen us. Your betrothed28, Henrietta? Has the count told you?”
Daniel had taken a chair. He replied,—
“The count has said nothing about his daughter.”
“Well, then, my saddest presentiments29 have been fulfilled. Unhappy girl! I did what I could to keep her in the right way. But she fell, step by step, and finally so low, that one day, when a ray of sense fell upon her mind, she went and killed herself.”
It was done. Sarah had overcome the last hesitation30 which Daniel still felt. Now he was in the right temper to meet cunning with cunning. He answered in an admirably-feigned tone of indifference,—
“Ah!”
Then, encouraged by the joyous31 surprise he read in Sarah’s face, he went on,—
“This expedition has cost me dear. Count Ville-Handry has just informed me that he has lost his whole fortune. I am in the same category.”
“What! You are”—
“Ruined. Yes; that is to say, I have been robbed,—robbed of every cent I ever had. On the eve of my departure, I intrusted a hundred thousand dollars, all I ever possessed32, to M. de Brevan, with orders to hold it at Miss Henrietta’s disposal. He found it easier to appropriate the whole to himself. So, you see, I am reduced to my pittance33 of pay as a lieutenant34. That is not much.”
Sarah looked at Daniel with perfect amazement35. In any other man, this prodigious36 confidence in a friend would have appeared to her the extreme of human folly37; in Daniel, she thought it was sublime.
“Is that the reason why they have arrested M. de Brevan?” she asked.
Daniel had not heard of his arrest.
“What!” he said. “Maxime”—
“Was arrested last night, and is kept in close confinement38.”
However well prepared Daniel was by Papa Ravinet’s account, he could never have hoped to manage the conversation as well as chance did. He replied,—
“It cannot be for having robbed me. M. de Brevan must have been arrested for having attempted to murder me.”
The lioness who has just been robbed of her whelps does not rise with greater fury in her eyes than Sarah did when she heard these words.
“What!” she cried aloud. “He has dared touch you!”
“Not personally; oh, no! But he hired for the base purpose a wretched felon40, who was caught, and has confessed everything. I see that the order to apprehend41 my friend Maxime must have reached here before me, although it left Saigon some time later than I did.”
Might not M. de Brevan be as cowardly as Crochard when he saw that all was lost? This idea, one would think, would have made Sarah tremble. But it never occurred to her.
“Ah, the wretch39!” she repeated. “The scoundrel, the rascal42!”
And, sitting down by Daniel, she asked him to tell her all the details of these attempted assassinations43, from which he had escaped only by a miracle.
The Countess Sarah, in fact, never doubted for a moment but that Daniel was as madly in love with her as Planix, as Malgat, and Kergrist, and all the others, had been, she had become so accustomed to find her beauty irresistible44 and all powerful. How could it ever have occurred to her, that this man, the very first whom she loved sincerely, should also be the first and the only one to escape from her snares46? She was taken in, besides, by the double mirage47 of love and of absence.
During the last two years she had so often evoked48 the image of Daniel, she had so constantly lived with him in her thoughts, that she mistook the illusion of her desires for the reality, and was no longer able to distinguish between the phantom49 of her dreams and the real person.
In the meantime he entertained her by describing to her his actual position, lamenting50 over the treachery by which he had been ruined, and adding how hard he would find it at thirty to begin the world anew.
And she, generally, so clearsighted, was not surprised to find that this man, who had been disinterestedness51 itself, should all of a sudden
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