Part 20 (1/2)

”Bless me, that is simple enough. The rascal, who knew all the dead man's little secrets, guessed what a fix his master was in from overhearing a few words of the squabble with Madame Cardot. The notary relies on your honor and good feeling, for the affair is settled. The clerk, whose conduct has been admirable, went so far as to attend ma.s.s!

A finished hypocrite, I say--just suits the mamma. You and Cardot will still be friends. He is to be a director in an immense financial concern, and he may be of use to you.--So you have been waked from a sweet dream.”

”I have lost a fortune, a wife, and--”

”And a mistress,” said Madame Schontz, smiling. ”Here you are, more than married; you will be insufferable, you will be always wanting to get home, there will be nothing loose about you, neither your clothes nor your habits. And, after all, my Arthur does things in style. I will be faithful to him and cut Malaga's acquaintance.

”Let me peep at her through the door--your Sancerre Muse,” she went on. ”Is there no finer bird than that to be found in the desert?” she exclaimed. ”You are cheated! She is dignified, lean, lachrymose; she only needs Lady Dudley's turban!”

”What is it now?” asked Madame de la Baudraye, who had heard the rustle of a silk dress and the murmur of a woman's voice.

”It is, my darling, that we are now indissolubly united.--I have just had an answer to the letter you saw me write, which was to break off my marriage----”

”So that was the party which you gave up?”

”Yes.”

”Oh, I will be more than your wife--I am your slave, I give you my life,” said the poor deluded creature. ”I did not believe I could love you more than I did!--Now I shall not be a mere incident, but your whole life?”

”Yes, my beautiful, my generous Didine.”

”Swear to me,” said she, ”that only death shall divide us.”

Lousteau was ready to sweeten his vows with the most fascinating prettinesses. And this was why. Between the door of the apartment where he had taken the lorette's farewell kiss, and that of the drawing-room, where the Muse was reclining, bewildered by such a succession of shocks, Lousteau had remembered little De la Baudraye's precarious health, his fine fortune, and Bianchon's remark about Dinah, ”She will be a rich widow!” and he said to himself, ”I would a hundred times rather have Madame de la Baudraye for a wife than Felicie!”

His plan of action was quickly decided on; he determined to play the farce of pa.s.sion once more, and to perfection. His mean self-interestedness and his false vehemence of pa.s.sion had disastrous results. Madame de la Baudraye, when she set out from Sancerre for Paris, had intended to live in rooms of her own quite near to Lousteau; but the proofs of devotion her lover had given her by giving up such brilliant prospects, and yet more the perfect happiness of the first days of their illicit union, kept her from mentioning such a parting.

The second day was to be--and indeed was--a high festival, in which such a suggestion proposed to ”her angel” would have been a discordant note.

Lousteau, on his part, anxious to make Dinah feel herself dependent on him, kept her in a state of constant intoxication by incessant amus.e.m.e.nt. These circ.u.mstances hindered two persons so clever as these were from avoiding the slough into which they fell--that of a life in common, a piece of folly of which, unfortunately, many instances may be seen in Paris in literary circles.

And thus was the whole programme played out of a provincial amour, so satirically described by Lousteau to Madame de la Baudraye--a fact which neither he nor she remembered. Pa.s.sion is born a deaf-mute.

This winter in Paris was to Madame de la Baudraye all that the month of October had been at Sancerre. Etienne, to initiate ”his wife” into Paris life, varied this honeymoon by evenings at the play, where Dinah would only go to the stage box. At first Madame de la Baudraye preserved some remnants of her countrified modesty; she was afraid of being seen; she hid her happiness. She would say:

”Monsieur de Clagny or Monsieur Gravier may have followed me to Paris.”

She was afraid on Sancerre even in Paris.

Lousteau, who was excessively vain, educated Dinah, took her to the best dressmakers, and pointed out to her the most fas.h.i.+onable women, advising her to take them as models for imitation. And Madame de la Baudraye's provincial appearance was soon a thing of the past. Lousteau, when his friends met him, was congratulated on his conquest.

All through that season Etienne wrote little and got very much into debt, though Dinah, who was proud, bought all her clothes out of her savings, and fancied she had not been the smallest expense to her beloved. By the end of three months Dinah was acclimatized; she had reveled in the music at the Italian opera; she knew the pieces ”on” at all theatres, and the actors and jests of the day; she had become inured to this life of perpetual excitement, this rapid torrent in which everything is forgotten. She no longer craned her neck or stood with her nose in the air, like an image of Amazement, at the constant surprises that Paris has for a stranger. She had learned to breathe that witty, vitalizing, teeming atmosphere where clever people feel themselves in their element, and which they can no longer bear to quit.

One morning, as she read the papers, for Lousteau had them all, two lines carried her back to Sancerre and the past, two lines that seemed not unfamiliar--as follows:

”Monsieur le Baron de Clagny, Public Prosecutor to the Criminal Court at Sancerre, has been appointed Deputy Public Prosecutor to the Supreme Court in Paris.”

”How well that worthy lawyer loves you!” said the journalist, smiling.

”Poor man!” said she. ”What did I tell you? He is following me.”