Baron Trigault's Vengeance, Emile Gaboriau [rom com books to read .txt] 📗

He was so surprised that he stood as if petrified, with his eyes wide open and his hand still extended. “Permit me—allow me to explain,” he stammered. But she declined to listen. “Who has told you that you could address such words to me with impunity?” she continued. “Your parents, I suppose; I daresay they told you to be bold. And that is why they have left us, and why no servant has appeared. Ah! they make me pay dearly for the hospitality they have given me!” As she spoke the tears started from her eyes and glistened on her long lashes. “Whom did you fancy you were speaking to?” she added. “Would you have been so audacious if I had a father or a brother to resent your insults?”

The lieutenant started as if he had been lashed with a whip. “Ah! you are severe!” he exclaimed.

And a happy inspiration entering his mind, he continued: “A man does not insult a woman, mademoiselle, when, while telling her that he loves her and thinks her beautiful, he offers her his name and life.”

Mademoiselle Marguerite shrugged her shoulders ironically, and remained for a moment silent. She was very proud, and her pride had been cruelly wounded; but reason told her that a continuation of this scene would render a prolonged sojourn in the General’s house impossible; and where could she go, without exciting malevolent remarks? Whom could she ask an asylum of? Still this consideration alone would not have sufficed to silence her. But she remembered that a quarrel and a rupture with the Fondeges would certainly imperil the success of her plans. “So I will swallow even this affront,” she said to herself; and then in a tone of melancholy bitterness, she remarked, aloud: “A man cannot set a very high value on his name when he offers it to a woman whom he knows absolutely nothing about.”

“Excuse me—you forget that my mother——”

“Your mother has only known me for a week.”

An expression of intense surprise appeared on the lieutenant’s face. “Is it possible?” he murmured.

“Your father has met me five or six times at the table of the Count de Chalusse, who was his friend—but what does he know of me?” resumed Mademoiselle Marguerite. “That I came to the Hotel de Chalusse a year ago, and that the count treated me like a daughter—that is all! Who I am, where I was reared, and how, and what my past life has been, these are matters that M. de Fondege knows nothing whatever about.”

“My parents told me that you were the daughter of the Count de Chalusse, mademoiselle.”

“What proof have they of it? They ought to have told you that I was an unfortunate foundling, with no other name than that of Marguerite.”

“Oh!”

“They ought to have told you that I am poor, very poor, and that I should probably have been reduced to the necessity of toiling for my daily bread, if it had not been for them.”

An incredulous smile curved the lieutenant’s lips. He fancied that Mademoiselle Marguerite only wished to prove his disinterestedness, and this thought restored his assurance. “Perhaps you are exaggerating a little, mademoiselle,” he replied.

“I am not exaggerating—I possess but ten thousand francs in the world—I swear it by all that I hold sacred.”

“That would not even be the dowry required of an officer’s wife by law,” muttered the lieutenant.

Was his incredulity sincere or affected? What had his parents really told him? Had they confided everything to him, and was he their accomplice? or had they told him nothing? All these questions flashed rapidly through Marguerite’s mind. “You suppose that I am rich, monsieur,” she resumed at last. “I understand that only too well. If I was, you ought to shun me as you would shun a criminal, for I could only be wealthy through a crime.”

“Mademoiselle——”

“Yes, through a crime. After M. de Chalusse’s death, two million francs that had been placed in his escritoire for safe keeping, could not be found. Who stole the money? I myself have been accused of the theft. Your father must have told you of this, as well as of the cloud of suspicion that is still hanging over me.”

She paused, for the lieutenant had become whiter than his shirt. “Good God!” he exclaimed in a tone of horror, as if a terrible light had suddenly broken upon his mind. He made a movement as if to leave the room, but suddenly changing his mind, he bowed low before Mademoiselle Marguerite, and said, in a husky voice: “Forgive me, mademoiselle, I did not know what I was doing. I have been misinformed. I have been beguiled by false hopes. I entreat you to say that you forgive me.”

“I forgive you, monsieur.”

But still he lingered. “I am only a poor devil of a lieutenant,” he resumed, “with no other fortune than my epaulettes, no other prospects than an uncertain advancement. I have been foolish and thoughtless. I have committed many acts of folly; but there is nothing in my past life for which I have cause to blush.” He looked fixedly at Mademoiselle Marguerite, as if he were striving to read her inmost soul; and in a solemn tone, that contrasted strangely with his usual levity of manner, he added: “If the name I bear should ever be compromised, my prospects would be blighted forever! The only course left for me would be to tender my resignation. I will leave nothing undone to preserve my honor in the eyes of the world, and to right those who have been wronged. Promise me not to interfere with my plans.”

Mademoiselle Marguerite trembled like a leaf. She now realized her terrible imprudence. He had divined everything. As she remained silent, he continued wildly: “I entreat you. Do you wish me to beg you at your feet?”

Ah! it was a terrible sacrifice that he demanded of her. But how could she remain obdurate in the presence of such intense anguish? “I will remain neutral,” she replied, “that is all I can promise. Providence shall decide.”

“Thank you,” he said, sadly, suspecting that perhaps it was already too late—“thank you.” Then he turned to go, and, in fact, he had already opened the door, when a forlorn hope brought him back to Mademoiselle Marguerite, whose hand he took, timidly faltering, “We are friends, are we not?”

She did not withdraw her icy hand, and in a scarcely audible voice, she repeated: “We are friends?”

Convinced that he could obtain nothing more from her than her promised neutrality, the lieutenant thereupon hastily left the room, and she sank back in her chair more dead than alive. “Great God! what is coming now?” she murmured.

She thought she could understand the unfortunate young man’s intentions, and she listened with a throbbing heart, expecting to hear a stormy explanation between his parents and himself. In point of fact, she almost immediately afterward heard the lieutenant inquire in a stern, imperious voice: “Where is my father?”

“The General has just gone to his club.”