The trail of the serpent
innumerable flights of stairs; till, very high up, he stops at a low
door, on the other side of which there is evidently a rather noisy
party. This door the porter opens without ceremony, and he and Monsieur
Marolles enter a long low room, with bare white-washed walls, scrawled
over with charcoal caricatures of prima donnas and tenors, with
impossible noses and spindle legs. Seated at a deal table is a group of
young men, shabbily dressed, playing at dominoes, while others look on
and bet upon the game. They are all smoking tiny cigarettes which look
like damp curl-papers, and which last about two minutes each.
“Pardon me, Monsieur Moucée,” says the porter, addressing one of the
domino players, a good-looking young man, with a pale dark face and
black hair--“pardon me that I disturb your pleasant game; but I bring a
gentleman who wishes to make your acquaintance.”
The chorus-singer rises, gives a lingering look at a double-six he was
just going to play, and advances to where Monsieur Marolles is standing.
“At monsieur’s service,” he says, with an unstudied but graceful bow.
Raymond Marolles, with an ease of manner all his own passes his arm
through that of the young man, and leads him out into the passage.
“I have heard, Monsieur Moucée, that you possess a talent for mimicry
which is of a very superior order. Are you willing to assist with this
talent in a little farce I am preparing for the amusement of a lady? If
so you will have a claim (which I shall not forget) on my gratitude and
on my purse.”
This last word makes Paul Moucée prick up his ears. Poor fellow! his
last coin has gone for the half-ounce of tobacco he has just consumed.
He expresses himself only too happy to obey the commands of monsieur.
Monsieur suggests that they shall repair to an adjoining _café_,
at which they can have half an hour’s quiet conversation. They do so;
and at the end of the half-hour, Monsieur Marolles parts with Paul
Moucée at the door of this _café_. As they separate Raymond looks
at his watch--“Half-past eleven; all goes better than I could have
even hoped. This man will do very well for our friend Elvino, and the
lady shall have ocular demonstration. Now for the rest of my work; and
to-night, my proud and beautiful heiress, for you.”
As the clocks strike ten that night, a hackney-coach stops close to the
entrance of the Bois de Boulogne; and as the coachman checks his horse,
a gentleman emerges from the gloom, and goes up to the door of the
coach, which he opens before the driver can dismount. This gentleman is
Monsieur Raymond Marolles, and Valerie de Lancy is seated in the coach.
“Punctual, madame!” he says. “Ah, in the smallest matters you are
superior to your sex. May I request you to step out and walk with me
for some little distance?”
The lady, who is thickly veiled, only bows her head in reply; but she
is by his side in a moment. He gives the coachman some directions, and
the man drives off a few paces; he then offers his arm to Valerie.
“Nay, monsieur,” she says, in a cold, hard voice, “I can follow you, or
I can walk by your side. I had rather not take your arm.”
Perhaps it is as well for this man’s schemes that it is too dark for
his companion to see the smile that lifts his black moustache, or the
glitter in his blue eyes. He is something of a physiologist as well
as a mathematician, this man; and he can tell what she has suffered
since last night by the change in her voice alone. It has a dull and
monotonous sound, and the tone seems to have gone out of it for ever.
If the dead could speak, they might speak thus.
“This way, then, madame,” he says. “My first object is to convince you
of the treachery of the man for whom you have sacrificed so much. Have
you strength to live through the discovery?”
“I lived through last night. Come, monsieur, waste no more time
in words, or I shall think you are a charlatan. Let me hear from
_his_ lips that I have cause to hate him.”
“Follow me, then, and softly.”
He leads her into the wood. The trees are very young as yet, but all
is obscure to-night. There is not a star in the sky; the December
night is dark and cold. A slight fall of snow has whitened the ground,
and deadens the sound of footsteps. Raymond and Valerie might be two
shadows, as they glide amongst the trees. After they have walked about
a quarter of a mile, he catches her by the arm, and draws her hurriedly
into the shadow of a group of young pine-trees. “Now,” he says, “now
listen.”
She hears a voice whose every tone she knows. At first there is a
rushing sound in her ears, as if all the blood were surging from her
heart up to her brain; but presently she hears distinctly; presently
too, her eyes grow somewhat accustomed to the gloom; and she sees a few
paces from her the dim outline of a tall figure, familiar to her. It is
Gaston de Lancy, who is standing with one arm round the slight waist of
a young girl, his head bending down with the graceful droop she knows
so well, as he looks in her face.
Marolles’ voice whispers in her ear, “The girl is a dancer from one of
the minor theatres, whom he knew before he was a great man. Her name,
I think, is Rosette, or something like it. She loves him very much;
perhaps almost as much as you do, in spite of the quarterings on your
shield.”
He feels the slender hand, which before disdained to lean upon his arm,
now clasp his wrist, and tighten, as if each taper finger were an iron
vice.
“Listen,” he says again. “Listen to the drama, madame. I am the chorus!”
It is the girl who is speaking. “But, Gaston, this marriage, this
marriage, which has almost broken my heart.”
“Was a sacrifice to our love, my Rosette. For your sake alone would I
have made such a sacrifice. But this haughty lady’s wealth will make us
happy in a distant land. She little thinks, poor fool, for whose sake
I endure her patrician airs, her graces of the old _régime_, her
caprices, and her folly. Only be patient, Rosette, and trust me. The
day that is to unite us for ever is not far distant, believe me.”
It is the voice of Gaston de Lancy. Who should better know those tones
than his wife? Who should better know them than she to whose proud
heart they strike death?
The girl speaks again. “And you do not love this fine lady, Gaston?
Only tell me that you do not love her!”
Again the familiar voice speaks. “Love her! Bah! We never love these
fine ladies who give us such tender glances from opera-boxes. We never
admire these great heiresses, who fall in love with a handsome face,
and have not enough modesty to keep the sentiment a secret; who think
they honour us by a marriage which they are ashamed to confess; and who
fancy we must needs be devoted to them, because, after their fashion,
they are in love with us.”
“Have you heard enough?” asked Raymond Marolles.
“Give me a pistol or a dagger!” she gasped, in a hoarse whisper; “let
me shoot him dead, or stab him to the heart, that I may go away and die
in peace!”
“So,” muttered Raymond, “she has heard enough. Come, madame. Yet--stay,
one last look. You are sure that is Monsieur de Lancy?”
The man and the girl are standing a few yards from them; his back is
turned to Valerie, but she would know him amongst a thousand by the
dark hair and the peculiar bend of the head.
“Sure!” she answers. “Am I myself?”
“Come, then; we have another place to visit to-night. You are
satisfied, are you not, madame, now that you have had ocular
demonstration?”
CHAPTER V.
THE KING OF SPADES.
WHEN Monsieur Marolles offers his arm to lead Valerie de Cevennes back
to the coach, it is accepted passively enough. Little matter now what
new degradation she endures. Her pride can never fall lower than it has
fallen. Despised by the man she loved so tenderly, the world’s contempt
is nothing to her.
In a few minutes they are both seated in the coach driving through the
Champs Élysées.
“Are you taking me home?” she asks.
“No, madame, we have another errand, as I told you.”
“And that errand?”
“I am going to take you where you will have your fortune told.”
“_My_ fortune!” she exclaims, with a bitter laugh.
“Bah! madame,” says her companion. “Let us understand each other. I
hope I have not to deal with a romantic and love-sick girl. I will
not gall your pride by recalling to your recollection in what a
contemptible position I have found you. I offer my services to rescue
you from that contemptible position; but I do so in the firm belief
that you are a woman of spirit, courage, and determination, and----”
“And that I can pay you well,” she adds, scornfully.
“And that you can pay me well. I am no Don Quixote, madame; nor have
I any great respect for that gentleman. Believe me, I intend that you
shall pay me well for my services, as you will learn by-and-by.”
Again there is the cold glitter in the blue eyes, and the ominous smile
which a moustache does well to hide.
“But,” he continues, “if you have a mind to break your heart for an
opera-singer’s handsome face, go and break it in your boudoir, madame,
with no better confidante than your lady’s-maid; for you are not worthy
of the services of Raymond Marolles.”
“You rate your services very high, then, monsieur?”
“Perhaps. Look you, madame: you despise me because I am an adventurer.
Had I been born in the purple--lord, even in my cradle, of wide lands
and a great name, you would respect me. Now, I respect myself because
I am an adventurer; because by the force alone of my own mind I have
risen from what I was, to be what I am. I will show you my cradle some
day. It had no tapestried coverlet or embroidered curtains, I can
assure you.”
They are driving now through a dark street, in a neighbourhood utterly
unknown to the lady.
“Where are you taking me?” she asks again, with something like fear in
her voice.
“As I told you before, to have your fortune told. Nay, madame, unless
you trust me, I cannot serve you. Remember, it is to my interest to
serve you well: you can therefore have no cause for fear.”
As he speaks they stop before a ponderous gateway in the blank wall
of a high dark-looking house. They are somewhere in the neighbourhood
of Notre Dame, for the grand old towers loom dimly in the darkness.
Monsieur Marolles gets out of the coach and rings a bell, at the
sound of which the porter opens the door. Raymond assists Valerie to
dismount, and leads her across a courtyard into a little hall, and up
a stone staircase to the fifth story of the house. At another time her
courage might have failed her in this strange house, at so late an
hour, with this man, of whom she knows nothing; but she is reckless
to-night.
There is nothing very alarming in the aspect of the room into which
Raymond leads her. It is a cheerful little apartment lighted with
gas. There is a small stove, near a table, before which is seated a
gentlemanly-looking man, of some forty years of age. He has a very pale
face, a broad forehead, from which the hair is brushed away behind
the ears: he wears blue spectacles, which entirely conceal his eyes,
and in a manner shade his face. You cannot tell what he is thinking
of; for it is a peculiarity of this man that the mouth, which with
other people is generally the most expressive feature, has with him no
expression whatever. It is a thin, straight line, which opens and shuts
as he speaks, but which never curves into a smile, or contracts when he
frowns.
He is deeply engaged, bending over a pack of cards spread out on the
green cloth which covers the table, as if he were playing _écarté_
without an opponent, when Raymond opens the door; but he rises at the
sight of the lady, and bows low to her. He has the air of a student