The trail of the serpent
one of his lacquered wings--a pretty design enough, though the sand in
the glass will never move the slower, or wrinkles and gray hairs be
longer coming, because of the prettiness of that patrician timepiece;
for the minute-hand on the best dial-plate that all Paris can produce
is not surer in its course than that dark end which spares not the
brightest beginning, that weary awakening which awaits the fairest
dream.
This little apartment in the pavilion belonging to the house of
the Marquis de Cevennes is furnished in the style of the Pompadour
days of elegance, luxury, and frivolity. Oval portraits of the
reigning beauties of that day are let into the panels of the walls,
and “Louis the Well-beloved” smiles an insipid Bourbon smile above
the mantelpiece. The pencil of Boucher has immortalized those
frail goddesses of the Versailles Olympus, and their coquettish
loveliness lights the room almost as if they were living creatures,
smiling unchangingly on every comer. The chimney-piece is of marble,
exquisitely carved with lotuses and water-nymphs. A wood fire burns
upon the gilded dogs which ornament the hearth. A priceless Persian
carpet covers the centre of the polished floor; and a golden Cupid,
suspended from the painted ceiling in an attitude which suggests such
a determination of blood to the head as must ultimately result in
apoplexy, holds a lamp of alabaster, which floods the room with a soft
light.
Under this light the mistress of the apartment, Valerie de Cevennes,
looks gloriously handsome. She is seated in a low arm-chair by the
hearth--looking sometimes into the red blaze at her feet, with dreamy
eyes, whose profound gaze, though thoughtful, is not sorrowful. This
girl has taken a desperate step in marrying secretly the man she loves;
but she has no regret, for she _does_ love; and loss of position
seems so small a thing in the balance when weighed against this love,
which is as yet unacquainted with sorrow, that she almost forgets
she has lost it. Even while her eyes are fixed upon the wood fire
at her feet, you may see that she is listening; and when the clocks
have chimed the half-hour, she turns her head towards the door of the
apartment, and listens intently. In five minutes she hears something--a
faint sound in the distance, the sound of an outer door turning on
its hinges. She starts, and her eyes brighten; she glances at the
timepiece, and from the timepiece to the tiny watch at her side.
“So soon!” she mutters; “he said a quarter to twelve. If my uncle had
been here! And he only left me at eleven o’clock!”
She listens again; the sounds come nearer--two more doors open, and
then there are footsteps on the stairs. At the sound of these footsteps
she starts again, with a look of anxiety in her face.
“Is he ill,” she says, “that he walks so slowly? Hark!”
She turns pale and clasps her hands tightly upon her breast.
“It is not his step!”
She knows she is betrayed; and in that one moment she prepares herself
for the worst. She leans her hand upon the back of the chair from which
she has risen, and stands, with her thin lips firmly set, facing the
door. She may be facing her fate for aught she knows, but she is ready
to face anything.
The door opens, and the lounger of the morning enters. He wears a coat
and hat of exactly the same shape and colour as those worn by the
fashionable tenor, and he resembles the tenor in build and height. An
easy thing, in the obscurity of the night, for the faithful Finette
to admit this stranger without discovering her mistake. One glance at
the face and attitude of Valerie de Cevennes tells him that she is not
unprepared for his appearance. This takes him off his guard. Has he,
too, been betrayed by the lady’s-maid? He never guesses that his light
step betrayed him to the listening ear which love has made so acute. He
sees that the young and beautiful girl is prepared to give him battle.
He is disappointed. He had counted upon her surprise and confusion, and
he feels that he has lost a point in his game. She does not speak, but
stands quietly waiting for him to address her, as she might were he an
ordinary visitor.
“She is a more wonderful woman than I thought,” he says to himself,
“and the battle will be a sharp one. No matter! The victory will be so
much the sweeter.”
He removes his hat, and the light falls full upon his pale fair face.
Something in that face, she cannot tell what, seems in a faint, dim
manner, familiar to her--she has seen some one like this man, but when,
or where, she cannot remember.
“You are surprised, madame, to see me,” he says, for he feels that he
must begin the attack, and that he must not spare a single blow, for
he is to fight with one who can parry his thrusts and strike again.
“You are surprised. You command yourself admirably in repressing any
demonstration of surprise, but you are not the less surprised.”
“I am certainly surprised, monsieur, at receiving any visitor at such
an hour.” She says this with perfect composure.
“Scarcely, madame,” he looks at the timepiece; “for in five minutes
from this your husband will--or should--be here.”
Her lips tighten, and her jaw grows rigid in spite of herself. The
secret is known, then--known to this stranger, who dares to intrude
himself upon her on the strength of this knowledge.
“Monsieur,” she says, “people rarely insult Valerie de Cevennes
with impunity. You shall hear from my uncle to-morrow morning; for
to-night--” she lays her hand upon the mother-of-pearl handle of a
little bell; he stops her, saying, smilingly--
“Nay, madame, we are not playing a farce. You wish to show me the door?
You would ring that bell, which no one can answer but Finette, your
maid, since there is no one else in this charming little establishment.
I shall not be afraid of Finette, even if you are so imprudent as to
summon her; and I shall not leave you till you have done me the honour
of granting me an interview. For the rest, I am not talking to Valerie
de Cevennes, but to Valerie de Lancy; Valerie, the wife of Elvino;
Valerie, the lady of Don Giovanni.”
De Lancy is the name of the fashionable tenor. This time the haughty
girl’s thin lips quiver, with a rapid, convulsive movement. What stings
her proud soul is the contempt with which this man speaks of her
husband. Is it such a disgrace, then, this marriage of wealth, rank,
and beauty, with genius and art?
“Monsieur,” she says, “you have discovered my secret. I have been
betrayed either by my servant, or the priest who married me--no matter
which of them is the traitor. You, who, from your conduct of to-night,
are evidently an adventurer, a person to whom it would be utterly vain
to speak of honour, chivalry, and gentlemanly feeling--since they are
doubtless words of which you do not even know the meaning--you wish
to turn the possession of this secret to account. In other words, you
desire to be bought off. You know, then, what I can afford to pay you.
Be good enough to say how much will satisfy you, and I will appoint a
time and place at which you shall receive your earnings. You will be
so kind as to lose no time. It is on the stroke of twelve; in a moment
Monsieur De Lancy will be here. He may not be disposed to make so good
a bargain with you as I am. He might be tempted to throw you out of the
window.”
She has said this with entire self-possession. She might be talking to
her _modiste_, so thoroughly indifferent is she in her high-bred
ease and freezing contempt for the man to whom she is speaking. As
she finishes she sinks quietly into her easy-chair. She takes up a
book from a little table near her, and begins to cut the leaves with a
jewelled-handled paper-knife. But the battle has only just begun, and
she does not yet know her opponent.
He watches her for a moment; marks the steady hand with which she
slowly cuts leaf after leaf, without once notching the paper; and
then he deliberately seats himself opposite to her in the easy-chair
on the other side of the fireplace. She lifts her eyes from the book,
and looks him full in the face with an expression of supreme disdain;
but as she looks, he can see how eagerly she is also listening for her
husband’s step. He has a blow to strike which he knows will be a heavy
one.
“Do not, madame,” he says, “distract yourself by listening for your
husband’s arrival. He will not be here to-night.”
This is a terrible blow. She tries to speak, but her lips only move
inarticulately.
“No, he will not be here. You do not suppose, madame, that when I
contemplated, nay, contrived and arranged an interview with so charming
a person as yourself, I could possibly be so deficient in foresight
as to allow that interview to be disturbed at the expiration of
one quarter of an hour? No; Monsieur Don Giovanni will not be here
to-night.”
Again she tries to speak, but the words refuse to come. He continues,
as though he interpreted what she wants to say,--
“You will naturally ask what other engagement detains him from his
lovely wife’s society? Well, it is, as I think, a supper at the
_Trois Frères_. As there are ladies invited, the party will no
doubt break up early; and you will, I dare say, see Monsieur de Lancy
by four or five o’clock in the morning.”
She tries to resume her employment with the paper-knife, but this time
she tears the leaves to pieces in her endeavours to cut them. Her
anguish and her womanhood get the better of her pride and her power of
endurance. She crumples the book in her clenched hands, and throws it
into the fire. Her visitor smiles. His blows are beginning to tell.
For a few minutes there is silence. Presently he takes out his
cigar-case.
“I need scarcely ask permission, madame. All these opera-singers smoke,
and no doubt you are indulgent to the weakness of our dear Elvino?”
“Monsieur de Lancy is a gentleman, and would not presume to smoke in a
lady’s presence. Once more, monsieur, be good enough to say how much
money you require of me to ensure your silence?”
“Nay, madame,” he replies, as he bends over the wood fire, and lights
his cigar by the blaze of the burning book, “there is no occasion
for such desperate haste. You are really surprisingly superior to
the ordinary weakness of your sex. Setting apart your courage,
self-endurance, and determination, which are positively wonderful, you
are so entirely deficient in curiosity.”
She looks at him with a glance which seems to say she scorns to ask him
what he means by this.
“You say your maid, Finette, or the good priest, Monsieur Pérot, must
have betrayed your confidence. Suppose it was from neither of those
persons I received my information?”
“There is no other source, monsieur, from which you could obtain it.”
“Nay, madame, reflect. Is there no other person whose vanity may
have prompted him to reveal this secret? Do you think it, madame, so
utterly improbable that Monsieur de Lancy himself may have been tempted
to boast over his wine of his conquest of the heiress of all the De
Cevennes?”
“It is a base falsehood, monsieur, which you are uttering.”
“Nay, madame, I make no assertion. I am only putting a case. Suppose
at a supper at the _Maison Dorée_, amongst his comrades of
the Opera and his admirers of the stalls--to say nothing of the
_coryphées_, who, somehow or other, contrive to find a place
at these _recherché_ little banquets--suppose our friend, Don
Giovanni, imprudently ventures some allusion to a lady of rank and
fortune whom his melodious voice or his dark eyes have captivated? This
little party is not, perhaps, satisfied with an allusion; it requires
facts; it is incredulous; it lays heavy odds that Elvino cannot name
the lady; and in the end the whole story is told, and the health of