The trail of the serpent
mistress is generally concluded by twelve; after twelve, the porter
thinks monsieur may succeed in seeing Mademoiselle Finette--before
twelve, he thinks not.
The stranger rewards the porter with a five-franc piece for this
valuable information; it is very valuable to the stranger, who is the
lounger of the last night, to discover that the name of the girl who
held the lamp is Finette.
The lounger seems to have as little to do this morning as he had last
night; for he leans against the gateway, his cane in his hand, and a
half-smoked cigar in his mouth, looking up at the house of the marquis
with lazy indifference.
The porter, conciliated by the five-franc piece, is inclined to gossip.
“A fine old building,” says the lounger, still looking up at the house,
every window of which is shrouded by ponderous Venetian shutters.
“Yes, a fine old building. It has been in the family of the marquis for
two hundred years, but was sadly mutilated in the first revolution;
monsieur may see the work of the cannon amongst the stone decorations.”
“And that pavilion to the left, with the painted windows and Gothic
decorations--a most extraordinary little edifice,” says the lounger.
Yes, monsieur has observed it? It is a great deal more modern than the
house; was built so lately as the reign of Louis the Fifteenth, by a
dissipated old marquis who gave supper-parties at which the guests
used to pour champagne out of the windows, and pelt the servants in
the courtyard with the empty bottles. It is certainly a curious little
place; but would monsieur believe something more curious?
Monsieur declares that he is quite willing to believe anything the
porter may be good enough to tell him. He says this with a well-bred
indifference, as he lights a fresh cigar, which is quite aristocratic,
and which might stamp him a scion of the noble house of De Cevennes
itself.
“Then,” replies the porter, “monsieur must know that Mademoiselle
Valerie, the proud, the high-born, the beautiful, has lately taken it
into her aristocratic head to occupy that pavilion, attended only by
her maid Finette, in preference to her magnificent apartments, which
monsieur may see yonder on the first floor of the mansion--a range of
ten windows. Does not monsieur think this very extraordinary?”
Scarcely. Young ladies have strange whims. Monsieur never allows
himself to be surprised by a woman’s conduct, or he might pass his life
in a state of continual astonishment.
The porter perfectly agrees with monsieur. The porter is a married
man, “and, monsieur----?” the porter ventures to ask with a shrug of
interrogation.
Monsieur says he is not married yet.
Something in monsieur’s manner emboldens the porter to say--
“But monsieur is perhaps contemplating a marriage?”
Monsieur takes his cigar from his mouth, raises his blue eyes to the
level of the range of ten windows, indicated just now by the porter,
takes one long and meditative survey of the magnificent mansion
opposite him, and then replies, with aristocratic indifference--
“Perhaps. These Cevennes are immensely rich?”
“Immensely! To the amount of millions.” The porter is prone to
extravagant gesticulation, but he cannot lift either his eyebrows or
his shoulders high enough to express the extent of the wealth of the De
Cevennes.
The lounger takes out his pocket-book, writes a few lines, and tearing
the leaf out, gives it to the porter, saying--
“You will favour me, my good friend, by giving this to Mademoiselle
Finette at your earliest convenience. You were not always a married
man; and can therefore understand that it will be as well to deliver my
little note secretly.”
Nothing can exceed the intense significance of the porter’s wink as he
takes charge of the note. The lounger nods an indifferent good-day, and
strolls away.
“A marquis at the least,” says the porter. “O, Mademoiselle Finette,
you do not wear black satin gowns and a gold watch and chain for
nothing.”
The lounger is ubiquitous, this winter’s day. At three o’clock in the
afternoon he is seated on a bench in the gardens of the Luxembourg,
smoking a cigar. He is dressed as before, in the last Parisian fashion;
but his greatcoat is a little open at the throat, displaying a
loosely-tied cravat of a peculiarly bright blue.
A young person of the genus lady’s-maid, tripping daintily by, is
apparently attracted by this blue cravat, for she hovers about the
bench for a few moments and then seats herself at the extreme end of
it, as far as possible from the indifferent lounger, who has not once
noticed her by so much as one glance of his cold blue eyes.
His cigar is nearly finished, so he waits till it is quite done; then,
throwing away the stump, he says, scarcely looking at his neighbour--
“Mademoiselle Finette, I presume?”
“The same, monsieur.”
“Then perhaps, mademoiselle, as you have condescended to favour me with
an interview, and as the business on which I have to address you is of
a strictly private nature, you will also condescend to come a little
nearer to me?”
He says this without appearing to look at her, while he lights another
cigar. He is evidently a desperate smoker, and caresses his cigar,
looking at the red light and blue smoke almost as if it were his
familiar spirit, by whose aid he could work out wonderful calculations
in the black art, and without which he would perhaps be powerless.
Mademoiselle Finette looks at him with a great deal of surprise and
not a little indignation, but obeys him, nevertheless, and seats
herself close by his side.
“I trust monsieur will believe that I should never have consented to
afford him this interview, had I not been assured--”
“Monsieur will spare you, mademoiselle, the trouble of telling him why
you come here, since it is enough for him that you are here. I have
nothing to do, mademoiselle, either with your motives or your scruples.
I told you in my note that I required you to do me a service, for
which I could afford to pay you handsomely; that, on the other hand,
if you were unwilling to do me this service, I had it in my power to
cause your dismissal from your situation. Your coming here is a tacit
declaration of your willingness to serve me. So much and no more
preface is needed. And now to business.”
He seems to sweep this curt preface away, as he waves off a cloud of
the blue smoke from his cigar with one motion of his small hand. The
lady’s-maid, thoroughly subdued by a manner which is quite new to her,
awaits his pleasure to speak, and stares at him with surprised black
eyes.
He is not in a hurry. He seems to be consulting the blue smoke prior to
committing himself by any further remark. He takes his cigar from his
mouth, and looks into the bright red spot at the lighted end, as if it
were the lurid eye of his familiar demon. After consulting it for a few
seconds he says, with the same indifference with which he would make
some observation on the winter’s day--
“So, your mistress, Mademoiselle Valerie de Cevennes, has been so
imprudent as to contract a secret marriage with an opera-singer?”
He has determined on hazarding his guess. If he is right, it is the
best and swiftest way of coming at the truth; if wrong, he is no worse
off than before. One glance at the girl’s face tells him he has struck
home, and has hit upon the entire truth. He is striking in the dark;
but he is a mathematician, and can calculate the effect of every blow.
“Yes, a secret marriage, of which you were the witness.” This is his
second blow; and again the girl’s face tells him he has struck home.
“Father Pérot has betrayed us, then, monsieur, for he alone could tell
you this,” said Finette.
The lounger understands in a moment that Father Pérot is the priest who
performed the marriage. Another point in his game. He continues, still
stopping now and then to take a puff at his cigar, and speaking with an
air of complete indifference--
“You see, then, that this secret marriage, and the part you took with
regard to it, have, no matter whether through the worthy priest, Father
Pérot----” (he stops at this point to knock the ashes from his cigar,
and a sidelong glance at the girl’s face tells him that he is right
again, Father Pérot _is_ the priest)--“or some other channel, come
to my knowledge. Though a French woman, you may be acquainted with the
celebrated aphorism of one of our English neighbours, ‘Knowledge is
power.’ Very well, mademoiselle, how if I use my power?”
“Monsieur means that he can deprive me of my present place, and prevent
my getting another.” As she said this, Mademoiselle Finette screwed
out of one of her black eyes a small bead of water, which was the best
thing she could produce in the way of a tear, but which, coming into
immediate contact with a sticky white compound called pearl-powder,
used by the lady’s-maid to enhance her personal charms, looked rather
more like a digestive pill than anything else.
“But, on the other hand, I may not use my power; and, indeed, I should
deeply regret the painful necessity which would compel me to injure a
lady.”
Mademoiselle Finette, encouraged by this speech, wiped away the
digestive pill.
“Therefore, mademoiselle, the case resolves itself to this: serve me,
and I will reward you; refuse to do so, and I can injure you.”
A cold glitter in the blue eyes converts the words into a threat,
without the aid of any extra emphasis from the voice.
“Monsieur has only to command,” answers the lady’s-maid; “I am ready to
serve him.”
“This Monsieur Elvino will be at the gate of the little pavilion
to-night----?”
“At a quarter to twelve.”
“Then _I_ will be there at half-past eleven. You will admit me
instead of him. That is all.”
“But my mistress, monsieur: she will discover that I have betrayed her,
and she will kill me. You do not know Mademoiselle de Cevennes.”
“Pardon me, I think I do know her. She need never learn that you have
betrayed her. Remember, I have discovered the appointed signal;--you
are deceived by my use of that signal, and you open the door to the
wrong man. For the rest I will shield you from all harm. Your mistress
is a glorious creature; but perhaps that high spirit may be taught to
bend.”
“It must first be broken, monsieur,” says Mademoiselle Finette.
“Perhaps,” answers the lounger, rising as he speaks. “Mademoiselle,
_au revoir_.” He drops five twinkling pieces of gold into her
hand, and strolls slowly away.
The lady’s-maid watches the receding figure with a bewildered stare.
Well may Finette Léris be puzzled by this man: he might mystify wiser
heads than hers. As he walks with his lounging gait through the winter
sunset, many turn to look at his aristocratic figure, fair face, and
black hair. If the worst man who looked at him could have seen straight
through those clear blue eyes into his soul, would there have been
something revealed which might have shocked and revolted even this
worst man? Perhaps. Treachery is revolting, surely, to the worst of
us. The worst of us might shrink appalled from the contemplation of
those hideous secrets which are hidden in the plotting brain and the
unflinching heart of the cold-blooded traitor.
CHAPTER III.
THE WRONG FOOTSTEP.
HALF-PAST eleven from the great booming voice of Notre Dame the
magnificent. Half-past eleven from every turret in the vast city of
Paris. The musical tones of the timepiece over the chimney in the
boudoir of the pavilion testify to the fact five minutes afterwards.
It is an elegant timepiece, surmounted by a group from the hand of a
fashionable sculptor, a group in which a golden Cupid has hushed a grim
bronze Saturn to sleep, and has hidden the old man’s hour-glass under