"Yes!" And in an accent that caused a shiver to run over the white shoulders of Mme. de Thaller, "Whatever may have been," he uttered, "Vincent Favoral's crime; whether he has or has not stolen, the twelve millions which are wanting from the funds of the Mutual Credit; whether he is alone guilty, or has accomplices; whether he be a knave, or a fool, an impostor, or a dupe, - Mlle. Gilberte is not responsible."
"You know the Favoral family, then?"
"Enough to make their cause henceforth my own.
The agitation of the baroness was so great, that she did not even attempt to conceal it.
"A nobody's daughter!" she said.
"I love her."
"Without a sou!
Mlle. Cesarine made a superb gesture.
Why, that's the very reason why a man may marry her!" she exclaimed, and, holding out her hand to M. de Traggers, What you do here is well," she added, "very well."
There was a wild look in the eyes of the baroness.
"Mad, unhappy child!" she exclaimed. "If your father should hear!"
And who, then, would report our conversation to him? M. de Traggers?
He would not do such a thing. You? You dare not."
Drawing herself up to her fullest height, her breast swelling with anger, her head thrown back, her eyes flashing, Cesarine," ordered Mme. de Thaller, her arm extended towards the door - "Cesarine, leave the room; I command you."
But motionless in her place the girl cast upon her mother a look of defiance.
"Come, calm yourself," she said in a tone of crushing irony, "or you'll spoil your complexion for the rest of the evening. Do I complain? do I get excited? And yet whose fault is it, if honor makes it a duty for me to cry 'Beware!' to an honest man who wishes to marry me? That Gilberte should get married : that she should be very happy, have many children, darn her husband's stockings, and skim her Pot-au-fue, - that is her part in life. Ours, dear mother, - that which you have taught me - is to laugh and have fun, all the time, night and day, till death."
A footman who came in interrupted her. Handing a card to Mme. de Thaller, "The gentleman who gave it to me," he said, "is in the large parlor."
The baroness had become very pale.
"Oh!" she said turning the card between her fingers, - "oh!"
Then suddenly she ran out exclaiming, "I'll be back directly."
An embarrassing, painful silence followed, as it was inevitable that it would, the Baroness de Thaller's precipitate departure.
Mlle. Cesarine had approached the mantel-piece. She was leaning her elbow upon it, her forehead on her hand, all palpitating and excited. Intimidated for, perhaps, the first time in her life, she turned away her great blue eyes, as if afraid that they should betray a reflex of her thoughts.
As to M. de Tregars, he remained at his place, not having one whit too much of that power of self-control, which is acquired by a long experience of the world, to conceal his impressions. If he had a fault, it was certainly not self-conceit; but Mlle. de Thaller had been too explicit and too clear to leave him a doubt. All she bad said could be comprised in one sentence, "My parents were in hopes that I would become your wife: I had judged you well enough to understand their error. Precise because I love you I acknowledge myself unworthy of you and I wish you to know that if you had asked my hand, - the hand of a girl who has a dowry of a million - I would have ceased to esteem you.
That such a feeling should have budded and blossomed in Mlle.
Cesarine's soul, withered as it was by vanity, and blunted by pleasure was almost a miracle. It was, at any rate, an astonishing proof of love which she gave; and Marius de Tregars would not have been a man, if he had not been deeply moved by it. Suddenly, "What a miserable wretch I am!" she uttered.
"You mean unhappy," said M. de Tr6gars gently.
"What can you think of my sincerity? You must, doubtless, find it strange, impudent, grotesque."
He lifted his hand in protest; for she gave him no time to put in a word.
And yet," she went on, this is not the first time that I am assailed by sinister ideas, and that I feel ashamed of myself. I was convinced once that this mad existence of mine is the only enviable one, the only one that can give happiness. And now I discover that it is not the right path which I have taken, or, rather, which I have been made to take. And there is no possibility of retracing my steps."
She turned pale, and, in an accent of gloomy despair, Every thing fails me," she said. "It seems as though I were rolling into a bottomless abyss, without a branch or a tuft of grass to cling to. Around me, emptiness, night, chaos. I am not yet twenty and it seems to me that I have lived thousands of years, and exhausted every sensation. I have seen every thing, learned every thing, experienced every thing; and I am tired of every thing, and satiated and nauseated. You see me looking like a brainless hoyden, I sing, I jest, I talk slang. My gayety surprises everybody. In reality, I am literally tired to death. What I feel I could not express there are no words to render absolute disgust. Sometimes I say to myself, 'It is stupid to be so sad. What do you need? Are you not young, handsome, rich? But I must need something, or else I would not be thus agitated, nervous, anxious, unable to stay in one place, tormented by confused aspirations, and by desires which I cannot formulate. What can I do? Seek oblivion in pleasure and dissipation? I try, and I succeed for an hour or so; but the reaction comes, and the effect vanishes, like froth from champagne.
The lassitude returns; and, whilst outwardly I continue to laugh, I shed within tears of blood which scald my heart. What is to become of me, without a memory in the past, or a hope in the future, upon which to rest my thought?"
And bursting into tears, "Oh, I am wretchedly unhappy!" she exclaimed; "and I wish I was dead."
M. de Tregars rose, feeling more deeply moved than he would, perhaps, have liked to acknowledge.
