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

If he expected Daniel, he had not expected him so soon; for his features assumed an expression which seemed to prohibit all confidential talk. But Daniel saw nothing. He shook hands with his friend, and, sinking heavily into a chair, he said,—

“I went to Miss Brandon. She has made me promise all she wanted. I cannot imagine how it came about!”

“Let us hear,” said M. de Brevan.

Then, without hesitation, and with all the minutest details, Daniel told him how Miss Brandon had taken him into her little boudoir, and how she had exculpated herself from all complicity with Malgat by showing him the letters written by that wretched man.

“Strange letters!” he said, “which, if they are authentic”—

M. de Brevan shrugged his shoulders.

“You were forewarned,” he said, “and you have promised all she wanted! Do you not think she might have made you sign your own death-sentence?”

“But Kergrist?” said Daniel. “Kergrist’s brother is her friend.”

“I dare say. But do you imagine that brother is any cleverer than you are?”

Although he was by no means fully satisfied, Daniel went on, describing his amazement when Miss Brandon told him that she did not love Count Ville-Handry.

But Maxime burst out laughing, and interrupted him, saying with bitter irony,—

“Of course! And then she went on, telling you that she had never yet loved anybody, having vainly looked in the world for the man of whom she dreamed. She painted to you the phoenix in such colors, that you had to say to yourself, ‘What does she mean? That phoenix! Why, she means me!’ That has tickled you prodigiously. She has thrown herself at your feet; you have raised her up; she has fainted; she has sobbed like a distressed dove in your arms; you have lost your head.”

Daniel was overcome. He stammered,—

“How did you know?”

Maxime could not look him in the face; but his voice was as steady as ever when he replied, in a tone of bitterest sarcasm,—

“I guess it. Did I not tell you I knew Miss Brandon? She has only one card in her hand; but that is enough; it always makes a trick.”

To have been deceived, and even to have been rendered ridiculous, is one of those misfortunes which we confess to ourselves, however painful the process may be; but to hear another person laugh at us after such a thing has happened is more than we can readily bear. Daniel, therefore, did not conceal his impatience, and said rather dryly,—

“If I have been the dupe of Miss Brandon, my dear Maxime, you see, at last, that I am so no longer.”

“Ah, ah!”

“No, not in the least. And that, thanks to her; for she herself has destroyed my illusions.”

“Pshaw!”

“Unconsciously, of course, having ran away from her like a fool, I was wandering about in the streets near her house, when I saw her come out in her coupe.”

“Oh, come!”

“I saw her as distinctly as I see you. It was four o’clock in the morning, mind!”

“Is it possible? And what did you do?”

“I followed her.”

M. de Brevan nearly let the brush fall, with which he was polishing his finger-nails; but he mastered his confusion so promptly, that Daniel did not perceive it.

“Ah! you followed her,” he said in a voice which all his efforts could not steady entirely. “Then, of course, you know where she went.”

“Alas, no! She drove so fast, that, quick as I am, I could not follow her, and lost sight of her.”

Certainly M. de Brevan was breathing more freely, and said in an easy tone,—

“That is provoking, and you have lost a fine opportunity. I am, however, by no means astonished that you are at last enlightened.”

“Oh! I am so; you may believe me. And yet”—

“Well, yet?”

Daniel hesitated, for fear of seeing another sardonic smile appear on Maxime’s lips. Still making an effort, he replied,—

“Well, I am asking myself whether all that Miss Brandon states about her childhood, her family, and her fortune, might not, after all, be true.”

Maxime looked like a sensible man who is forced to listen to the absurd nonsense of an insane person.

“You think I am absurd,” said Daniel. “Perhaps I am; but, then, do me the favor to explain to me how Miss Brandon, anxious as she must be to conceal her past, could herself point out to me the means to ascertain every thing about her, and even to learn the precise amount of her income? America is not so far off!”

M. de Brevan’s face no longer expressed astonishment; he looked absolutely bewildered.

“What!” he cried out, “could you seriously think of undertaking a trip to America?”

“Why not?”

“To be sure, my dear friend, you are, in all sincerity, too naive for our age. What! have you not yet been able to divine Miss Brandon’s plan? And yet it is patent enough. When she saw you, and had taken your measure, she said to herself, ‘Here is an excellent young man who is in my way, excessively in my way; he must go and breathe a better air a few thousand miles off.’ And thereupon she suggested to you that pleasant trip to America.”

After what Daniel had learned about Miss Brandon’s character, this explanation sounded by no means improbable. Nevertheless, he was not quite satisfied. He objected to it thus:—

“Whether I go or stay, the wedding will still take place. Consequently, she has no interest in my being abroad. Believe me, Maxime, there is something else underneath. Outside of this marriage, Miss Brandon must be pursuing some other plan.”

“What plan?”

“Ah! That is what I cannot find out, to save my life. But you may be sure that I am not mistaken. I want no better evidence of it than the fact that she wrote to me this morning.”

M. de Brevan jumped up, and said,—

“What! She has written to you?”

“Yes; it is that accursed letter, more than any thing else, that brings me here. Here it is, just read it; and, if you can understand it, you are more fortunate than I am.”

At one