XV

In Jerome's eyes ten thousand francs could alter the laws of optics;

he saw in Mariette a neat figure; he did not perceive the pits and

seams which virulent smallpox had left on her flat, parched face; to

him the crooked mouth was straight; and ever since Savaron, by taking

him into his service, had brought him so near to the Wattevilles'

house, he had laid siege systematically to the maid, who was as prim

and sanctimonious as her mistress, and who, like every ugly old maid,

was far more exacting than the handsomest.

If the night-scene in the kiosk is thus fully accounted for to all

perspicacious readers, it was not so to Rosalie, though she derived

from it the most dangerous lesson that can be given, that of a bad

example. A mother brings her daughter up strictly, keeps her under her

wing for seventeen years, and then, in one hour, a servant girl

destroys the long and painful work, sometimes by a word, often indeed

by a gesture! Rosalie got into bed again, not without considering how

she might take advantage of her discovery.

Next morning, as she went to Mass accompanied by Mariette--her mother

was not well--Rosalie took the maid's arm, which surprised the country

wench not a little.

"Mariette," said she, "is Jerome in his master's confidence?"

"I do not know, mademoiselle."

"Do not play the innocent with me," said Mademoiselle de Watteville

drily. "You let him kiss you last night under the kiosk; I no longer

wonder that you so warmly approved of my mother's ideas for the

improvements she planned."

Rosalie could feel how Mariette was trembling by the shaking of her

arm.

"I wish you no ill," Rosalie went on. "Be quite easy; I shall not say

a word to my mother, and you can meet Jerome as often as you please."

"But, mademoiselle," said Mariette, "it is perfectly respectable;

Jerome honestly means to marry me--"

"But then," said Rosalie, "why meet at night?"

Mariette was dumfounded, and could make no reply.

"Listen, Mariette; I am in love too! In secret and without any return.

I am, after all, my father's and mother's only child. You have more to

hope for from me than from any one else in the world--"

"Certainly, mademoiselle, and you may count on us for life or death,"

exclaimed Mariette, rejoiced at the unexpected turn of affairs.

"In the first place, silence for silence," said Rosalie. "I will not

marry Monsieur de Soulas; but one thing I will have, and must have; my

help and favor are yours on one condition only."

"What is that?"

"I must see the letters which Monsieur Savaron sends to the post by

Jerome."

"But what for?" said Mariette in alarm.

"Oh! merely to read them, and you yourself shall post them afterwards.

It will cause a little delay; that is all."

At this moment they went into church, and each of them, instead of

reading the order of Mass, fell into her own train of thought.

"Dear, dear, how many sins are there in all that?" thought Mariette.

Rosalie, whose soul, brain, and heart were completely upset by reading

the story, by this time regarded it as history, written for her rival.

By dint of thinking of nothing else, like a child, she ended by

believing that the /Eastern Review/ was no doubt forwarded to Albert's

lady-love.

"Oh!" said she to herself, her head buried in her hands in the

attitude of a person lost in prayer; "oh! how can I get my father to

look through the list of people to whom the /Review/ is sent?"

After breakfast she took a turn in the garden with her father, coaxing

and cajoling him, and brought him to the kiosk.

"Do you suppose, my dear little papa, that our /Review/ is ever read

abroad?"

"It is but just started--"

"Well, I will wager that it is."

"It is hardly possible."

"Just go and find out, and note the names of any subscribers out of

France."

Two hours later Monsieur de Watteville said to his daughter:

"I was right; there is not one foreign subscriber as yet. They hope to

get some at Neufchatel, at Berne, and at Geneva. One copy, is in fact,

sent to Italy, but it is not paid for--to a Milanese lady at her

country house at Belgirate, on Lago Maggiore.

"What is her name?"

"The Duchesse d'Argaiolo."

"Do you know her, papa?"

"I have heard about her. She was by birth a Princess Soderini, a

Florentine, a very great lady, and quite as rich as her husband, who

has one of the largest fortunes in Lombardy. Their villa on the Lago

Maggiore is one of the sights of Italy."

Two days after, Mariette placed the following letter in Mademoiselle

de Watteville's hand:--

Albert Savaron to Leopold Hannequin.

"Yes, 'tis so, my dear friend; I am at Besancon, while you thought

I was traveling. I would not tell you anything till success should

begin, and now it is dawning. Yes, my dear Leopold, after so many

abortive undertakings, over which I have shed the best of my

blood, have wasted so many efforts, spent so much courage, I have

made up my mind to do as you have done--to start on a beaten path,

on the highroad, as the longest but the safest. I can see you jump

with surprise in your lawyer's chair!

"But do not suppose that anything is changed in my personal life,

of which you alone in the world know the secret, and that under

the reservations /she/ insists on. I did not tell you, my friend;

but I was horribly weary of Paris. The outcome of the first

enterprise, on which I had founded all my hopes, and which came to

a bad end in consequence of the utter rascality of my two

partners, who combined to cheat and fleece me--me, though

everything was done by my energy--made me give up the pursuit of a

fortune after the loss of three years of my life. One of these

years was spent in the law courts, and perhaps I should have come

worse out of the scrape if I had not been made to study law when I

was twenty.

"I made up my mind to go into politics solely, to the end that I

may some day find my name on a list for promotion to the Senate

under the title of Comte Albert Savaron de Savarus, and so revive

in France a good name now extinct in Belgium--though indeed I am

neither legitimate nor legitimized."

"Ah! I knew it! He is of noble birth!" exclaimed Rosalie, dropping the

letter.

"You know how conscientiously I studied, how faithful and useful I

was as an obscure journalist, and how excellent a secretary to the

statesman who, on his part, was true to me in 1829. Flung to the

depths once more by the revolution of July just when my name was

becoming known, at the very moment when, as Master of Appeals, I

was about to find my place as a necessary wheel in the political

machine, I committed the blunder of remaining faithful to the

fallen, and fighting for them, without them. Oh! why was I but

three-and-thirty, and why did I not apply to you to make me

eligible? I concealed from you all my devotedness and my dangers.

What would you have? I was full of faith. We should not have

agreed.

"Ten months ago, when you saw me so gay and contented, writing my

political articles, I was in despair; I foresaw my fate, at the

age of thirty-seven, with two thousand francs for my whole

fortune, without the smallest fame, just having failed in a noble

undertaking, the founding, namely, of a daily paper answering only

to a need of the future instead of appealing to the passions of

the moment. I did not know which way to turn, and I felt my own

value! I wandered about, gloomy and hurt, through the lonely

places of Paris--Paris which had slipped through my fingers--

thinking of my crushed ambitions, but never giving them up. Oh,

what frantic letters I wrote at that time to /her/, my second

conscience, my other self! Sometimes I would say to myself, 'Why

did I sketch so vast a programme of life? Why demand everything?

Why not wait for happiness while devoting myself to some

mechanical employment.'