Leonide de Chezelles and Steiner, an ugly little knot against which
Mme Hugon's elderly and amiable serenity stood out in strange
contrast. And Fauchery, having sketched out his article, named this
last group "Countess Sabine's little clique."
"On another occasion," continued Steiner in still lower tones,
"Leonide got her tenor down to Montauban. She was living in the
Chateau de Beaurecueil, two leagues farther off, and she used to
come in daily in a carriage and pair in order to visit him at the
Lion d'Or, where he had put up. The carriage used to wait at the
door, and Leonide would stay for hours in the house, while a crowd
gathered round and looked at the horses."
There was a pause in the talk, and some solemn moments passed
silently by in the lofty room. Two young men were whispering, but
they ceased in their turn, and the hushed step of Count Muffat was
alone audible as he crossed the floor. The lamps seemed to have
paled; the fire was going out; a stern shadow fell athwart the old
friends of the house where they sat in the chairs they had occupied
there for forty years back. It was as though in a momentary pause
of conversation the invited guests had become suddenly aware that
the count's mother, in all her glacial stateliness, had returned
among them.
But the Countess Sabine had once more resumed:
"Well, at last the news of it got about. The young man was likely
to die, and that would explain the poor child's adoption of the
religious life. Besides, they say that Monsieur de Fougeray wold
never have given his consent to the marriage."
"They say heaps of other things too," cried Leonide giddily.
She fell a-laughing; she refused to talk. Sabine was won over by
this gaiety and put her handkerchief up to her lips. And in the
vast and solemn room their laughter sounded a note which struck
Fauchery strangely, the note of delicate glass breaking. Assuredly
here was the first beginning of the "little rift." Everyone began
talking again. Mme du Joncquoy demurred; Mme Chantereau knew for
certain that a marriage had been projected but that matters had gone
no further; the men even ventured to give their opinions. For some
minutes the conversation was a babel of opinions, in which the
divers elements of the circle, whether Bonapartist or Legitimist or
merely worldly and skeptical, appeared to jostle one another
simultaneously. Estelle had rung to order wood to be put on the
fire; the footman turned up the lamps; the room seemed to wake from
sleep. Fauchery began smiling, as though once more at his ease.
"Egad, they become the brides of God when they couldn't be their
cousin's," said Vandeuvres between his teeth.
The subject bored him, and he had rejoined Fauchery.
"My dear fellow, have you ever seen a woman who was really loved
become a nun?"
He did not wait for an answer, for he had had enough of the topic,
and in a hushed voice:
"Tell me," he said, "how many of us will there be tomorrow?
There'll be the Mignons, Steiner, yourself, Blanche and I; who
else?"
"Caroline, I believe, and Simonne and Gaga without doubt. One never
knows exactly, does one? On such occasions one expects the party
will number twenty, and you're really thirty."
Vandeuvres, who was looking at the ladies, passed abruptly to
another subject:
"She must have been very nice-looking, that Du Joncquoy woman, some
fifteen years ago. Poor Estelle has grown lankier than ever. What
a nice lath to put into a bed!"
But interrupting himself, he returned to the subject of tomorrow's
supper.
"What's so tiresome of those shows is that it's always the same set
of women. One wants a novelty. Do try and invent a new girl. By
Jove, happy thought! I'll go and beseech that stout man to bring
the woman he was trotting about the other evening at the Varietes."
He referred to the chief clerk, sound asleep in the middle of the
drawing room. Fauchery, afar off, amused himself by following this
delicate negotiation. Vandeuvres had sat himself down by the stout
man, who still looked very sedate. For some moments they both
appeared to be discussing with much propriety the question before
the house, which was, "How can one discover the exact state of
feeling that urges a young girl to enter into the religious life?"
Then the count returned with the remark:
"It's impossible. He swears she's straight. She'd refuse, and yet
I would have wagered that I once saw her at Laure's."
"Eh, what? You go to Laure's?" murmured Fauchery with a chuckle.
"You venture your reputation in places like that? I was under the
impression that it was only we poor devils of outsiders who--"
"Ah, dear boy, one ought to see every side of life."
Then they sneered and with sparkling eyes they compared notes about
the table d'hote in the Rue des Martyrs, where big Laure Piedefer
ran a dinner at three francs a head for little women in
difficulties. A nice hole, where all the little women used to kiss
Laure on the lips! And as the Countess Sabine, who had overheard a
stray word or two, turned toward them, they started back, rubbing
shoulders in excited merriment. They had not noticed that Georges
Hugon was close by and that he was listening to them, blushing so
hotly the while that a rosy flush had spread from his ears to his
girlish throat. The infant was full of shame and of ecstasy. From
the moment his mother had turned him loose in the room he had been
hovering in the wake of Mme de Chezelles, the only woman present who
struck him as being the thing. But after all is said and done, Nana
licked her to fits!
"Yesterday evening," Mme Hugon was saying, "Georges took me to the
play. Yes, we went to the Varietes, where I certainly had not set
foot for the last ten years. That child adores music. As to me, I
wasn't in the least amused, but he was so happy! They put
extraordinary pieces on the stage nowadays. Besides, music delights
me very little, I confess."
"What! You don't love music, madame?" cried Mme du Joncquoy,
lifting her eyes to heaven. "Is it possible there should be people
who don't love music?"
The exclamation of surprise was general. No one had dropped a
single word concerning the performance at the Varietes, at which the
good Mme Hugon had not understood any of the allusions. The ladies
knew the piece but said nothing about it, and with that they plunged
into the realm of sentiment and began discussing the masters in a
tone of refined and ecstatical admiration. Mme du Joncquoy was not
fond of any of them save Weber, while Mme Chantereau stood up for
the Italians. The ladies' voices had turned soft and languishing,
and in front of the hearth one might have fancied one's self
listening in meditative, religious retirement to the faint, discreet
music of a little chapel.
"Now let's see," murmured Vandeuvres, bringing Fauchery back into
the middle of the drawing room, "notwithstanding it all, we must
invent a woman for tomorrow. Shall we ask Steiner about it?"
"Oh, when Steiner's got hold of a woman," said the journalist, "it's
because Paris has done with her."
Vandeuvres, however, was searching about on every side.
"Wait a bit," he continued, "the other day I met Foucarmont with a
charming blonde. I'll go and tell him to bring her."
And he called to Foucarmont. They exchanged a few words rapidly.
There must have been some sort of complication, for both of them,
moving carefully forward and stepping over the dresses of the
ladies, went off in quest of another young man with whom they
continued the discussion in the embrasure of a window. Fauchery was
left to himself and had just decided to proceed to the hearth, where
Mme du Joncquoy was announcing that she never heard Weber played
without at the same time seeing lakes, forests and sunrises over
landscapes steeped in dew, when a hand touched his shoulder and a
voice behind him remarked:
"It's not civil of you."
"What d'you mean?" he asked, turning round and recognizing La
Faloise.
"Why, about that supper tomorrow. You might easily have got me
invited."
Fauchery was at length about to state his reasons when Vandeuvres
came back to tell him:
"It appears it isn't a girl of Foucarmont's. It's that man's flame
out there. She won't be able to come. What a piece of bad luck!
But all the same I've pressed Foucarmont into the service, and he's
going to try to get Louise from the Palais-Royal."
"Is it not true, Monsieur de Vandeuvres," asked Mme Chantereau,
raising her voice, "that Wagner's music was hissed last Sunday?"
"Oh, frightfully, madame," he made answer, coming forward with his
usual exquisite politeness.
Then, as they did not detain him, he moved off and continued
whispering in the journalist's ear:
"I'm going to press some more of them. These young fellows must
know some little ladies."
With that he was observed to accost men and to engage them in
conversation in his usual amiable and smiling way in every corner of
the drawing room. He mixed with the various groups, said something
confidently to everyone and walked away again with a sly wink and a
secret signal or two. It looked as though he were giving out a
watchword in that easy way of his. The news went round; the place
of meeting was announced, while the ladies' sentimental
dissertations on music served to conceal the small, feverish rumor
of these recruiting operations.
"No, do not speak of your Germans," Mme Chantereau was saying.
"Song is gaiety; song is light. Have you heard Patti in the Barber
of Seville?"
"She was delicious!" murmured Leonide, who strummed none but
operatic airs on her piano.
Meanwhile the Countess Sabine had rung. When on Tuesdays the number
of visitors was small, tea was handed round the drawing room itself.
While directing a footman to clear a round table the countess
followed the Count de Vandeuvres with her eyes. She still smiled
that vague smile which slightly disclosed her white teeth, and as
the count passed she questioned him.
"What ARE you plotting, Monsieur de Vandeuvres?"
"What am I plotting, madame?" he answered quietly. "Nothing at
all."
"Really! I saw you so busy. Pray, wait, you shall make yourself
useful!"
She placed an album in his hands and asked him to put it on the
piano. But he found means to inform Fauchery in a low whisper that
they would have Tatan Nene, the most finely developed girl that
winter, and Maria Blond, the same who had just made her first
appearance at the Folies-Dramatiques. Meanwhile La Faloise stopped
him at every step in hopes of receiving an invitation. He ended by
offering himself, and Vandeuvres engaged him in the plot at once;
only he made him promise to bring Clarisse with him, and when La
Faloise pretended to scruple about certain points he quieted him by
the remark:
"Since I invite you that's enough!"
Nevertheless, La Faloise would have much liked to know the name of
the hostess. But the countess had recalled Vandeuvres and was
questioning him as to the manner in which the English made tea. He
often betook himself to England, where his horses ran. Then as
though he had been inwardly following up quite a laborious train of
thought during his remarks, he broke in with the question:
"And the marquis, by the by? Are we not to see him?"
"Oh, certainly you will! My father made me a formal promise that he
would come," replied the countess. "But I'm beginning to be
anxious. His duties will have kept him."
Vandeuvres smiled a discreet smile. He, too, seemed to have his
doubts as to the exact nature of the Marquis de Chouard's duties.
Indeed, he had been thinking of a pretty woman whom the marquis
occasionally took into the country with him. Perhaps they could get
her too.
In the meantime Fauchery decided that the moment had come in which
to risk giving Count Muff his invitation. The evening, in fact,
was drawing to a close.
"Are you serious?" asked Vandeuvres, who thought a joke was
intended.
"Extremely serious. If I don't execute my commission she'll tear my
eyes out. It's a case of landing her fish, you know."
"Well then, I'll help you, dear boy."
Eleven o'clock struck. Assisted by her daughter, the countess was
pouring out the tea, and as hardly any guests save intimate friends
had come, the cups and the platefuls of little cakes were being
circulated without ceremony. Even the ladies did not leave their
armchairs in front of the fire and sat sipping their tea and
nibbling cakes which they held between their finger tips. From
music the talk had declined to purveyors. Boissier was the only
person for sweetmeats and Catherine for ices. Mme Chantereau,
however, was all for Latinville. Speech grew more and more
indolent, and a sense of lassitude was lulling the room to sleep.
Steiner had once more set himself secretly to undermine the deputy,
whom he held in a state of blockade in the corner of a settee. M.
Venot, whose teeth must have been ruined by sweet things, was eating
little dry cakes, one after the other, with a small nibbling sound
suggestive of a mouse, while the chief clerk, his nose in a teacup,
seemed never to be going to finish its contents. As to the
countess, she went in a leisurely way from one guest to another,
