The Clique of Gold, Emile Gaboriau [if you liked this book .txt] 📗

would not obtain another word from him, unless he changed his tactics. He held him back, therefore, a moment; and, as he opened the door, he said,—

“Maxime, you must pardon me a very innocent deception, which was suggested by your own words. It is not I who am in love with Miss Sarah Brandon.”

Brevan was so much surprised, he could not stir.

“Who is it, then?” he asked.

“One of my friends.”

“What name?”

“I wish you would render the service I ask of you doubly valuable by not asking me that question,—at least, not to-day.”

Daniel spoke with such an accent of truth, that not a shadow of doubt remained on Maxime’s mind. It was not Daniel who had fallen in love with Sarah Brandon. Brevan did not doubt that for a moment. But he could not conceal his trouble, and his disappointment even, as he exclaimed,—

“Well done, Daniel! Tell me that your ingenuous people cannot deceive anybody!”

However, he said nothing more about it; and, while Daniel was pouring out his excuses, he quietly went back to the fire, and sat down. After a moment’s silence, he began again,—

“Let us assume, then, that it is one of your friends who is bewitched?”

“Yes.”

“And the matter is—serious?”

“Alas! He talks of marrying that woman.”

Maxime shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, and said,—

“As to that, console yourself. Sarah will never consent.”

“So far from that, she herself has made the suggestion.”

This time, Maxime raised his head suddenly, and looked stupefied.

“Then your friend must be very rich.”

“He is immensely rich.”

“He bears a great name, and holds a high position?”

“His name is one of the oldest and noblest in the province of Anjou.”

“And he is a very old man?”

“He is sixty-five.”

Brevan struck the marble slab of the mantlepiece with his fist so that it shook, and exclaimed,—

“Ah, she told me she would succeed!”

And then he added in a very low tone of voice, as if speaking to himself with an indescribable accent of mingled admiration and hatred,—

“What a woman! Oh, what a woman!”

Daniel, who was himself greatly excited, and far too busy with his own thoughts to observe what was going on, did not notice the excitement of his friend; he continued quietly,—

“Now you will understand my great curiosity. In order to prevent the scandal of such a marriage, my friend’s family would do every thing in the world. But how can you attack a woman of whose antecedents and mode of life nothing is known?”

“Yes, I understand,” said Brevan,—“I understand.”

His features betrayed that he was making a great mental effort. He remained for some time absorbed in his thoughts; and at last he said, as if coming to a decision,—

“No, I do not see any way to prevent this marriage; none at all.”

“Still, from what you told me”—

“What!”

“About the cupidity of this woman.”

“Well?”

“If she were offered a large sum, some eighty or a hundred thousand dollars?”

Maxime laughed out loud; but there was not the true ring in his laughter.

“You might offer her two hundred thousand, and she would laugh at you. Do you think she would be fool enough to content herself with a fraction of a fortune, if she can have the whole, with a great name and a high position into the bargain?”

Daniel opened his lips to present another suggestion; but Maxime, laying aside his usual half-dreamy, mocking manner, said, as if roused by a matter of great personal interest,—

“You do not understand me, my dear friend. Miss Brandon is not one of those vulgar hawks, who, in broad daylight, seize upon a poor pigeon, pluck it alive, and cast it aside, still living, and bleeding all over.”

“Then, Maxime, she must be”—

“Well, I tell you you misapprehend her. Miss Brandon”—

He stopped suddenly, and looking at Daniel with a glance with which a judge examines the features of a criminal, he added in an almost threatening voice,—

“By telling you what little I know about her, Daniel, I give you the highest proof of confidence which one man can give to another. I love you too dearly to exact your promise to be discreet. If you ever mention my name in connection with this affair, if you ever let any one suspect that you learned what I am going to tell you from me, you will dishonor yourself.”

Daniel, deeply moved, seized his friend’s hand, and, pressing it most affectionately, said,—

“Ah, you know Daniel Champcey is to be relied upon.”

Maxime knew it; for he continued,—

“Miss Sarah Brandon is one of those female cosmopolitan adventurers, whom steam brings nowadays to us from all the four quarters of the world. Like so many others, she, also, has come to Paris to spread her net, and catch her birds, But she is made of finer stuff than most of them, and more clever. Her ambition soars higher; and she possesses a real genius for intrigues. She means to have a fortune, and is willing to pay any price for it; but she is also desirous to be respected in the world.

“I should not be surprised if anybody told me Miss Sarah was born within ten miles of Paris; but she calls herself an American. The fact is, she speaks English like an Englishwoman, and knows a great deal more of America than you know of Paris. I have heard her tell the story of her family to a large and attentive audience; but I do not say that I believed it.

“According to her own account, M. Brandon, her father, a thoroughbred Yankee, was a man of great enterprise and energy, who was ten times rich, and as often wretchedly poor again in his life, but died leaving several millions. This Brandon, she says, was a banker and broker in New York when the civil war broke out. He entered the army, and in less than six months, thanks to his marvellous energy, he rose to be a general. When peace came, he was without occupation, and did not know what on earth to do with himself. Fortunately,