VII

Just at that moment Stanislas came up unheard by either of the pair.

He beheld Lucien in tears, half reclining on the floor, with his head

on Louise's knee. The attitude was suspicious enough to satisfy

Stanislas; he turned sharply round upon Chatelet, who stood at the

door of the salon. Mme. de Bargeton sprang up in a moment, but the

spies beat a precipate retreat like intruders, and she was not quick

enough for them.

"Who came just now?" she asked the servants.

"M. de Chandour and M. du Chatelet," said Gentil, her old footman.

Mme. de Bargeton went back, pale and trembling, to her boudoir.

"If they saw you just now, I am lost," she told Lucien.

"So much the better!" exclaimed the poet, and she smiled to hear the

cry, so full of selfish love.

A story of this kind is aggravated in the provinces by the way in

which it is told. Everybody knew in a moment that Lucien had been

detected at Nais feet. M. de Chandour, elated by the important part he

played in the affair, went first to tell the great news at the club,

and thence from house to house, Chatelet hastening to say that HE had

seen nothing; but by putting himself out of court, he egged Stanislas

on to talk, he drew him on to add fresh details; and Stanislas,

thinking himself very witty, added a little to the tale every time

that he told it. Every one flocked to Amelie's house that evening, for

by that time the most exaggerated versions of the story were in

circulation among the Angouleme nobility, every narrator having

followed Stanislas' example. Women and men were alike impatient to

know the truth; and the women who put their hands before their faces

and shrieked the loudest were none other than Mesdames Amelie,

Zephirine, Fifine, and Lolotte, all with more or less heavy

indictments of illicit love laid to their charge. There were

variations in every key upon the painful theme.

"Well, well," said one of the ladies, "poor Nais! have you heard about

it? I do not believe it myself; she has a whole blameless record

behind her; she is far too proud to be anything but a patroness to M.

Chardon. Still, if it is true, I pity her with all my heart."

"She is all the more to be pitied because she is making herself

frightfully ridiculous; she is old enough to be M. Lulu's mother, as

Jacques called him. The little poet it twenty-two at most; and Nais,

between ourselves, is quite forty."

"For my own part," said M. du Chatelet, "I think that M. de Rubempre's

position in itself proves Nais' innocence. A man does not go down on

his knees to ask for what he has had already."

"That is as may be!" said Francis, with levity that brought

Zephirine's disapproving glance down on him.

"Do just tell us how it really was," they besought Stanislas, and

formed a small, secret committee in a corner of the salon.

Stanislas, in the long length, had put together a little story full of

facetious suggestions, and accompanied it with pantomime, which made

the thing prodigiously worse.

"It is incredible!"

"At midday?"

"Nais was the last person whom I should have suspected!"

"What will she do now?"

Then followed more comments, and suppositions without end. Chatelet

took Mme. de Bargeton's part; but he defended her so ill, that he

stirred the fire of gossip instead of putting it out.

Lili, disconsolate over the fall of the fairest angel in the

Angoumoisin hierarchy, went, dissolved in tears, to carry the news to

the palace. When the delighted Chatelet was convinced that the whole

town was agog, he went off to Mme. de Bargeton's, where, alas! there

was but one game of whist that night, and diplomatically asked Nais

for a little talk in the boudoir. They sat down on the sofa, and

Chatelet began in an undertone--

"You know what Angouleme is talking about, of course?"

"No."

"Very well, I am too much your friend to leave you in ignorance. I am

bound to put you in a position to silence slanders, invented, no

doubt, by Amelie, who has the overweening audacity to regard herself

as your rival. I came to call on you this morning with that monkey of

a Stanislas; he was a few paces ahead of me, and he came so far"

(pointing to the door of the boudoir); "he says that he SAW you and M.

de Rubempre in such a position that he could not enter; he turned

round upon me, quite bewildered as I was, and hurried me away before I

had time to think; we were out in Beaulieu before he told me why he

had beaten a retreat. If I had known, I would not have stirred out of

the house till I had cleared up the matter and exonerated you, but it

would have proved nothing to go back again then.

"Now, whether Stanislas' eyes deceived him, or whether he is right, HE

MUST HAVE MADE A MISTAKE. Dear Nais, do not let that dolt trifle with

your life, your honor, your future; stop his mouth at once. You know

my position here. I have need of all these people, but still I am

entirely yours. Dispose of a life that belongs to you. You have

rejected my prayers, but my heart is always yours; I am ready to prove

my love for you at any time and in any way. Yes, I will watch over you

like a faithful servant, for no reward, but simply for the sake of the

pleasure that it is to me to do anything for you, even if you do not

know of it. This morning I have said everywhere that I was at the door

of the salon, and had seen nothing. If you are asked to give the name

of the person who told you about this gossip, pray make use of me. I

should be very proud to be your acknowledged champion; but, between

ourselves, M. de Bargeton is the proper person to ask Stanislas for an

explanation. . . . Suppose that young Rubempre had behaved foolishly,

a woman's character ought not to be at the mercy of the first hare-

brained boy who flings himself at her feet. That is what I have been

saying."

Nais bowed in acknowledgment, and looked thoughtful. She was weary to

disgust of provincial life. Chatelet had scarcely begun before her

mind turned to Paris. Meanwhile Mme. de Bargeton's adorer found the

silence somewhat awkward.

"Dispose of me, I repeat," he added.

"Thank you," answered the lady.

"What do you think of doing?"

"I shall see."

A prolonged pause.

"Are you so fond of that young Rubempre?"

A proud smile stole over her lips, she folded her arms, and fixed her

gaze on the curtains. Chatelet went out; he could not read that high

heart.

Later in the evening, when Lucien had taken his leave, and likewise

the four old gentlemen who came for their whist, without troubling

themselves about ill-founded tittle-tattle, M. de Bargeton was

preparing to go to bed, and had opened his mouth to bid his wife

good-night, when she stopped him.

"Come here, dear, I have something to say to you," she said, with a

certain solemnity.

M. de Bargeton followed her into the boudoir.

"Perhaps I have done wrongly," she said, "to show a warm interest in

M. de Rubempre, which he, as well as the stupid people here in the

town, has misinterpreted. This morning Lucien threw himself here at my

feet with a declaration, and Stanislas happened to come in just as I

told the boy to get up again. A woman, under any circumstances, has

claims which courtesy prescribes to a gentleman; but in contempt of

these, Stanislas has been saying that he came unexpectedly and found

us in an equivocal position. I was treating the boy as he deserved. If

the young scatterbrain knew of the scandal caused by his folly, he

would go, I am convinced, to insult Stanislas, and compel him to

fight. That would simply be a public proclamation of his love. I need

not tell you that your wife is pure; but if you think, you will see

that it is something dishonoring for both you and me if M. de Rubempre

defends her. Go at once to Stanislas and ask him to give you

satisfaction for his insulting language; and mind, you must not accept

any explanation short of a full and public retraction in the presence

of witnesses of credit. In this way you will win back the respect of

all right-minded people; you will behave like a man of spirit and a

gentleman, and you will have a right to my esteem. I shall send Gentil

on horseback to the Escarbas; my father must be your second; old as he

is, I know that he is the man to trample this puppet under foot that

has smirched the reputation of a Negrepelisse. You have the choice of

weapons, choose pistols; you are an admirable shot."

"I am going," said M. de Bargeton, and he took his hat and his walking

cane.

"Good, that is how I like a man to behave, dear; you are a gentleman,"

said his wife. She felt touched by his conduct, and made the old man

very happy and proud by putting up her forehead for a kiss. She felt

something like a maternal affection for the great child; and when the

carriage gateway had shut with a clang behind him, the tears came into

her eyes in spite of herself.

"How he loves me!" she thought. "He clings to life, poor, dear man,

and yet he would give his life for me."

It did not trouble M. de Bargeton that he must stand up and face his

man on the morrow, and look coolly into the muzzle of a pistol pointed

straight at him; no, only one thing in the business made him feel

uncomfortable, and on the way to M. de Chandour's house he quaked

inwardly.

"What shall I say?" he thought within himself; "Nais really ought to

have told me what to say," and the good gentleman racked his brains to

compose a speech that should not be ridiculous.

But people of M. de Bargeton's stamp, who live perforce in silence

because their capacity is limited and their outlook circumscribed,

often behave at great crises with a ready-made solemnity. If they say

little, it naturally follows that they say little that is foolish;

their extreme lack of confidence leads them to think a good deal over

the remarks that they are obliged to make; and, like Balaam's ass,

they speak marvelously to the point if a miracle loosens their

tongues. So M. de Bargeton bore himself like a man of uncommon sense

and spirit, and justified the opinion of those who held that he was a

philosopher of the school of Pythagoras.

He reached Stanislas' house at nine o'clock, bowed silently to Amelie

before a whole room full of people, and greeted others in turn with

that simple smile of his, which under the present circumstances seemed

profoundly ironical. There followed a great silence, like the pause

before a storm. Chatelet had made his way back again, and now looked

in a very significant fashion from M. de Bargeton to Stanislas, whom

the injured gentleman accosted politely.

Chatelet knew what a visit meant at this time of night, when old M. de

Bargeton was invariably in his bed. It was evidently Nais who had set

the feeble arm in motion. Chatelet was on such a footing in that house

that he had some right to interfere in family concerns. He rose to his

feet and took M. de Bargeton aside, saying, "Do you wish to speak to

Stanislas?"

"Yes," said the old gentleman, well pleased to find a go-between who

perhaps might say his say for him.

"Very well; go into Amelie's bedroom," said the controller of excise,

likewise well pleased at the prospect of a duel which possibly might

make Mme. de Bargeton a widow, while it put a bar between her and

Lucien, the cause of the quarrel. Then Chatelet went to M. de

Chandour.

"Stanislas," he said, "here comes Bargeton to call you to account, no

doubt, for the things you have been saying about Nais. Go into your

wife's room, and behave, both of you, like gentlemen. Keep the thing

quiet, and make a great show of politeness, behave with phlegmatic

British dignity, in short."

In another minute Stanislas and Chatelet went to Bargeton.

"Sir," said the injured husband, "do you say that you discovered Mme.

de Bargeton and M. de Rubempre in an equivocal position?"

"M. Chardon," corrected Stanislas, with ironical stress; he did not

take Bargeton seriously.

"So be it," answered the other. "If you do not withdraw your

assertions at once before the company now in your house, I must ask

you to look for a second. My father-in-law, M. de Negrepelisse, will

wait upon you at four o'clock to-morrow morning. Both of us may as

well make our final arrangements, for the only way out of the affair

is the one that I have indicated. I choose pistols, as the insulted

party."

This was the speech that M. de Bargeton had ruminated on the way; it

was the longest that he had ever made in life. He brought it out

without excitement or vehemence, in the simplest way in the world.

Stanislas turned pale. "After all, what did I see?" said he to

himself.

Put between the shame of eating his words before the whole town, and

fear, that caught him by the throat with burning fingers; confronted

by this mute personage, who seemed in no humor to stand nonsense,

Stanislas chose the more remote peril.

"All right. To-morrow morning," he said, thinking that the matter

might be arranged somehow or other.

The three went back to the room. Everybody scanned their faces as they

came in; Chatelet was smiling, M. de Bargeton looked exactly as if he

were in his own house, but Stanislas looked ghastly pale. At the sight

of his face, some of the women here and there guessed the nature of

the conference, and the whisper, "They are going to fight!" circulated

from ear to ear. One-half of the room was of the opinion that

Stanislas was in the wrong, his white face and his demeanor convicted

him of a lie; the other half admired M. de Bargeton's attitude.

Chatelet was solemn and mysterious. M. de Bargeton stayed a few

minutes, scrutinized people's faces, and retired.

"Have you pistols?" Chatelet asked in a whisper of Stanislas, who

shook from head to foot.

Amelie knew what it all meant. She felt ill, and the women flocked

about her to take her into her bedroom. There was a terrific

sensation; everybody talked at once. The men stopped in the drawing-

room, and declared, with one voice, that M. de Bargeton was within his

right.

"Would you have thought the old fogy capable of acting like this?"

asked M. de Saintot.

"But he was a crack shot when he was young," said the pitiless

Jacques. "My father often used to tell me of Bargeton's exploits."

"Pooh! Put them at twenty paces, and they will miss each other if you

give them cavalry pistols," said Francis, addressing Chatelet.