The Chouans, Honoré de Balzac [red queen ebook txt] 📗

“What an infamy!” cried Hulot, contracting his brows.

“The fault lies with monsieur le comte,” said Marie, addressing Hulot. “I have no doubt the Gars meant to keep his word, but this gentleman told some calumny about me which confirmed those that Charette’s mistress had already invented—”

“Mademoiselle,” said the count, much troubled, “with my head under the axe I would swear that I said nothing but the truth.”

“In saying what?”

“That you were the—”

“Say the word, mistress of—”

“The Marquis de Lenoncourt, the present duke, a friend of mine,” replied the count.

“Now I can let you go to execution,” she said, without seeming at all agitated by the outspoken reply of the count, who was amazed at the real or pretended indifference with which she heard his statement. “However,” she added, laughing, “you have not wronged me more than that friend of whom you suppose me to have been the—Fie! monsieur le comte; surely you used to visit my father, the Duc de Verneuil? Yes? well then—”

Evidently considering Hulot one too many for the confidence she was about to make, Mademoiselle de Verneuil motioned the count to her side, and said a few words in her ear. Monsieur de Bauvan gave a low ejaculation of surprise and looked with bewilderment at Marie, who completed the effect of her words by leaning against the chimney in the artless and innocent attitude of a child.

“Mademoiselle,” cried the count, “I entreat your forgiveness, unworthy as I am of it.”

“I have nothing to forgive,” she replied. “You have no more ground for repentance than you had for the insolent supposition you proclaimed at La Vivetiere. But this is a matter beyond your comprehension. Only, remember this, monsieur le comte, the daughter of the Duc de Verneuil has too generous a spirit not to take a lively interest in your fate.”

“Even after I have insulted you?” said the count, with a sort of regret.

“Some are placed so high that insult cannot touch them. Monsieur le comte,—I am one of them.”

As she said the words, the girl assumed an air of pride and nobility which impressed the prisoner and made the whole of this strange intrigue much less clear to Hulot than the old soldier had thought it. He twirled his moustache and looked uneasily at Mademoiselle de Verneuil, who made him a sign, as if to say she was still carrying out her plan.

“Now,” continued Marie, after a pause, “let us discuss these matters. Francine, my dear, bring lights.”

She adroitly led the conversation to the times which had now, within a few short years, become the “ancien regime.” She brought back that period to the count’s mind by the liveliness of her remarks and sketches, and gave him so many opportunities to display his wit, by cleverly throwing repartees in his way, that he ended by thinking he had never been so charming; and that idea having rejuvenated him, he endeavored to inspire this seductive young woman with his own good opinion of himself. The malicious creature practised, in return, every art of her coquetry upon him, all the more adroitly because it was mere play to her. Sometimes she let him think he was making rapid progress, and then, as if surprised at the sentiment she was feeling, she showed a sudden coolness which charmed him, and served to increase imperceptibly his impromptu passion. She was like a fisherman who lifts his line from time to time to see if the fish is biting. The poor count allowed himself to be deceived by the innocent air with which she accepted two or three neatly turned compliments. Emigration, Brittany, the Republic, and the Chouans were far indeed from his thoughts. Hulot sat erect and silent as the god Thermes. His want of education made him quite incapable of taking part in a conversation of this kind; he supposed that the talking pair were very witty, but his efforts at comprehension were limited to discovering whether they were plotting against the Republic in covert language.

“Montauran,” the count was saying, “has birth and breeding, he is a charming fellow, but he doesn’t understand gallantry. He is too young to have seen Versailles. His education is deficient. Instead of diplomatically defaming, he strikes a blow. He may be able to love violently, but he will never have that fine flower of breeding in his gallantry which distinguished Lauzun, Adhemar, Coigny, and so many others! He hasn’t the winning art of saying those pretty nothings to women which, after all, they like better than bursts of passion, which soon weary them. Yes, though he has undoubtedly had many love-affairs, he has neither the grace nor the ease that should belong to them.”

“I have noticed that myself,” said Marie.

“Ah!” thought the count, “there’s an inflection in her voice, and a look in her eye which shows me plainly I shall soon be on terms with her; and faith! to get her, I’ll believe all she wants me to.”

He offered her his hand, for dinner was now announced. Mademoiselle de Verneuil did the honors with a politeness and tact which could only have been acquired by the life and training of a court.

“Leave us,” she whispered to Hulot as they left the table. “You will only frighten him; whereas, if I am alone with him I shall soon find out all I want to know; he has reached the point where a man tells me everything he thinks, and sees through my eyes only.”

“But afterwards?” said Hulot, evidently intending to claim the prisoner.

“Afterwards, he is to be free—free as air,” she replied.

“But he was taken with arms in his hand.”

“No,” she said, making one of those sophistical jokes with which women parry unanswerable arguments, “I had disarmed him. Count,” she said, turning back to him as Hulot departed, “I have just obtained your liberty, but—nothing for nothing,” she added, laughing, with her head on one side as if to interrogate him.

“Ask all, even my name and my honor,” he cried, intoxicated. “I lay them at your feet.”

He advanced to seize her hand, trying to make her take his passion for gratitude; but Mademoiselle de Verneuil was not a woman to be thus misled. So, smiling in a way to give some hope to this new lover, she drew back a few steps and said: “You might make me regret my confidence.”

“The imagination of a young girl is more rapid than that of a woman,” he answered, laughing.

“A young girl has more to lose than a woman.”

“True; those who carry a treasure ought to be distrustful.”

“Let us quit such conventional language,” she said, “and talk seriously. You are to give a ball at Saint-James. I hear that your headquarters, arsenals, and base of supplies are there. When is the ball to be?”

“To-morrow evening.”

“You will not be surprised if a slandered woman desires, with a woman’s