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

then every thing changed in her face, tone of voice, look, and manner.

“Well,” she commenced, “now you are happy, miss! You have advertised my house, and it will all be in the papers. Everybody will pity you, and think your lover a cold-blooded villain, who lets you die of starvation.”

The poor young girl deprecated the charge with such a sweet, gentle expression of face, that a savage would have been touched; but Mrs. Chevassat was civilized.

“And still you know very well,” she went on in a bitter tone, “that dear M. Maxime has done all he could to save you. Only day before yesterday, he offered you his whole fortune”—

“Madam,” stammered Henrietta, “have you no mercy?”

Mercy—Mrs. Chevassat! What a joke!

“You would take nothing,” she continued, “from M. Maxime. Why, I ask you? To play the virtuous woman, was it? It was hardly worth while, if you meant, immediately afterwards, to accept that old miser, who will make life hard enough for you. Ah, you have fallen into nice hands!”

Gathering up all the strength that had come back to her, Henrietta raised herself on the pillows, and asked,—

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, nothing! I see. After all, you would have it so. Besides, he had been looking after you a long time already.”

As soon as Henrietta opened her eyes, Papa Ravinet had discreetly withdrawn, in order to leave the ladies, who were about her, time to undress her. Thus she had not seen the man who had saved her, and did not understand the allusions of the old woman.

“Explain, madam, explain!”

“Ah, upon my word! that is not difficult. The man who has pulled you out, who has brought you all these things to make your bed, and kindle a fire; why, that is the second-hand dealer of the fourth story! And he will not stop there, I am sure. Patience, and you will know well enough what I mean.”

It must be borne in mind, that the woman, for fear Henrietta might sell to Papa Ravinet what she had to sell, or for some other reason, had always painted the old man to her in colors by no means flattering.

“What ought I to be afraid of?” asked Henrietta.

The woman hesitated. At last she answered,—

“If I were to tell you, you would repeat it to him when he comes back.”

“No, I promise you.”

“Swear it on your mother’s sacred memory.”

“I swear.”

Thus reassured, the old woman came close up to her bed; and, in an animated but low voice, she said,—

“Well, I mean this: if you accept now what Papa Ravinet will offer you, in six months you will be worse than any of Mrs. Hilaire’s girls. Ah! don’t tell me ‘I do not mean to touch him.’ The old rascal has ruined more than one who was just as good as you are. That’s his business; and, upon my word! he understands it. Now, forewarned, forearmed. I am going down to make you a soup. I’ll be back at night. And above all, you hear, not a word!”

By one word Mrs. Chevassat had plunged Henrietta once more into an abyss of profound despair.

“Great God!” she said to herself, “why must the generous assistance of this old man be a new snare for me?”

With her elbow resting on her pillow, her forehead supported by her hand, her eyes streaming with tears, she endeavored to gather her ideas, which seemed to be scattered to the four winds, like the leaves of trees after a storm; when a modest, dry cough aroused her from her meditations.

She trembled, and raised her head.

In the framework of the open door stood a man of mature age and of medium height, looking at her.

It was Papa Ravinet, who, after a long conversation with the concierge, and after some words with his amiable wife, had come up to inquire after his patient. She guessed at it, rather than she knew; for, although she lived in the same house with him, she was not in the same part of the building, and she scarcely recollected having caught a glimpse of him now and then in crossing the yard.

“That,” she thought, “is the man who plots my ruin, the wretch whom I am to avoid.”

Now, it is true that this man, with his mournful face, his huge, brushlike eyebrows, and his small, yellow eyes, startling by their incessant activity, had for the observer something enigmatical about him, and therefore did not inspire much confidence.

Nevertheless, Henrietta thanked him none the less heartily, although greatly embarrassed, for his readiness to help her, his kind care, and his generosity in providing every thing she wanted.

“Oh! you owe me no thanks,” he said. “I have only done my duty, and that very imperfectly.”

And at once, in a rather grim manner, he began to tell her that what he had done was nothing in comparison with what he meant to do. He had but too well guessed what had led Henrietta to attempt suicide; he had only to look around her room. But he swore she should have nothing more to fear from want as long as he was there.

But, the more earnest and pressing the good man became in his protestations, the more Henrietta drew back within her usual reserve; her mind being filled with the prejudices instilled by Mrs. Chevassat. Fortunately he was a clever man, the old dealer; and by means of not saying what might shock her, and by saying much that could not fail to touch her, he gradually regained his position. He almost conquered her when he returned to her the letters she had written before making her dreadful preparations, and when she saw that they looked unhurt, and sealed as before. Thus, when he left her, after half an hour’s diplomatic intercourse, he had obtained from the poor young girl the promise that she would not renew the attempt at her life, and that she would explain to him by what fatal combination of circumstances she had been reduced to such extreme suffering.

“You would not hesitate,” he said, “if you knew how easy it often is, by a little experience, to arrange the most difficult matters.”

Henrietta did not hesitate. A thought which had occurred to her as soon as she found herself alone had brought her to this conclusion: “If Papa Ravinet were really what Mrs. Chevassat says, that bad woman would not have warned me against him. If she tries to keep me from accepting the old man’s assistance, she no doubt finds it to her advantage that I should do so.”

When she tried, after that, to examine as coolly as she could the probable consequences of her decision, she found enormous chances in her favor. If Papa Ravinet was sincere, she might be enabled to wait for Daniel; if he