Chapter 25

"I confess," Lissac replied, "that I should be the worst of ingrates if I did not forget many things in consideration of what I owe you, both in the present and in the past. Your burned letters still shed their fragrance!"

Marianne touched the half-consumed logs with the tip of her foot and the débris of the paper fluttered around her shoe like little black butterflies.

"I wish I could have destroyed the past as I have made those letters flame! It weighs on me, it chokes me! You do not imagine, perhaps," she said, "that I have forgiven you for your flight and all that followed it?--If, for a moment, I almost stumbled in the mire, the fault was yours, for I loved you and you abandoned me, as a man forsakes a strumpet.--So, you see, my dear, a woman never forgets it, and I would have cried out long before, if I had felt myself free, free as I am now that those letters are burned, the poor letters of a stupid mistress, confiding in her lover who is overcome with weariness, and who is only thinking of deserting her, while she is still intoxicated in yielding to him--and because I adored you--yes, truly--because I was your mistress, do you arrogate to yourself the right of preventing me from marrying as I wish, and of drawing myself out of the bog into which, perhaps, by your selfishness, I have fallen? Ah, my dear fellow, really I am somewhat surprised at you, I swear!--I said nothing because of those scraps of paper, that you would have been cowardly enough, I assert, to show Rosas and every line of which told how foolish I had been to love you."

"Monsieur de Rosas would never have seen them!" said Lissac severely.

She did not seem to hear him.

"But now, what? Thank God," she continued, "there is nothing, and you have delivered those letters to me that you ought never to have returned. And I have paid you for them, paid for them with new caresses and a last prostitution! Well! that ends it, doesn't it? There is nothing more between us, nothing, nothing, nothing!--And these two beings, who exchanged here their loveless kisses, the kisses of a debauchee and a courtesan, will never recognize each other again, I hope--you hear, never recognize each other again--when they meet in life. Moreover, I will take care to avoid meetings!"

Guy said nothing.

He twirled his moustache slightly and continued to look at Marianne sideways without replying.

This indifference, though doubtless assumed, nevertheless annoyed the young woman.

"Go, find Monsieur de Rosas now!" she said. "Tell him that you have been my lover, he will not believe you."

"I am satisfied of that," Lissac replied very calmly.

She realized a threat in his very calmness. But what had she to fear now?

She fastened her ironical glance on Lissac, the better to defy him, and to enjoy his defeat.

With extended hands, he noiselessly tapped his fingers together, the gesture of a person who waits, sure of himself and displaying a mocking silence.

"Then adieu!" she said abruptly. "I hope that we shall never see each other again!"

"How can you help it?" said Lissac, smiling. "In Paris!"

He sat down on a chair, while Marianne stood, putting on her gloves.

"On my word, my dear Marianne, for a clever woman you are outrageously sanguine."

"I?"

"And credulous! You credit me with the simplicity of the Age of Gold, then?--Is it possible?--Do you think a corrupted Parisian like myself would allow himself to be trifled with like a schoolboy by a woman as extremely seductive as I confess you are? But, my dear friend, the first rule in such matters is only to completely disarm one's self when it is duly proved that peace has been definitely signed and that a return to offensive tactics is not to be feared. You have shown your little pink claws too nimbly, Marianne. Too quickly and too soon. In one of those drawers, there are still one or two letters left, I was about to say, that belong to the series of letters that are slumbering: exquisite, perfumed, eloquent, written in that pretty, fine and firm writing that you have just thrown into the fire, and those letters I would only have given you on your continuing to act fairly. They were my reserve. It is an elementary rule never to use all one's powder at a single shot, and one never burns _en bloc_ such delicate autographs. They are too valuable! Tell me, will you disdain to recognize me when you meet me, Miss Marianne?"

She remained motionless, pale and as if frozen.

"Then you have kept?--" she said.

"A postscriptum, if you like, yes."

"Are you lying now, or did you lie in giving me the packet that has been burned?"

"I did not tell you that the packet was complete, and what I now tell you is the simple truth! I regret it, but you have compelled me to keep my batteries, in too quickly unmasking your own."

Marianne pulled off her gloves in anger.

"If you do not give me everything here that belongs to me, you are a coward; you hear, a coward, Monsieur de Lissac!"

"Oh! your insults are of as little importance as your kisses! but they are less agreeable!"

She clearly saw that she had thrown off the mask too soon, and that Lissac would not now allow himself to be snared by her caresses or disarmed by her threats. The game was lost.

Lost, or merely compromised?

She looked about her with an expression of powerless rage, like a very graceful wild beast enclosed in a cage. Her letters, her last letters must be here, in one of those pieces of furniture whose drawers she might open with her nails. She threw her gloves on the floor and mechanically tore into shreds--as she always did when in a rage--between her nervous fingers, her fine cambric handkerchief reduced to rags.

"Be very careful what you are doing, Guy," she said at last, casting a malicious look at him, "I have purchased these letters from you, for I hate you, I repeat it, and these letters you owe to me as you would owe money promised to a wench. If you do not give them to me, I will have them, notwithstanding."

"Really?"

"I promise you I will."

"And suppose I have burned them?"

"You lie, you have them here, you have kept them. You have behaved toward me like a thief."

"Nonsense, Marianne," said Lissac coldly, "on my faith, I see I have done well to preserve some weapon against you. You are certainly very dangerous!"

"More than you imagine," she replied.

He moved slightly backward, seeing that she wished to pass him to reach the door.

"You will not give me back my letters?" she asked in a harsh and menacing tone as she stood on the threshold of the room.

Guy stooped without heeding her and picked up the gloves that were lying on the carpet and handed them to the young woman:

"This is your property, I think?"

This was said with insolently refined politeness.

Marianne took the gloves, and as a last insult, like a blow on the cheek, she threw them at Guy's face, who turned aside and the gloves fell on the bed where just before these two hatreds had come together in kisses of passion.

"Miserable coward!" said Marianne, surveying Lissac from head to foot with an expression of scorn, while he stood still, his monocle dangling at the end of a fine cord on his breast, near the buttonhole of his jacket that bore the red rosette; his face was pale but wore a sly expression.

That silk rosette looked there like a vermilion note stamped on a dark ground, and it seemed to pierce like a luminous drill into Marianne's eyes; and with her head erect, pallid face and trembling lip she passed before the domestic who hastened to open the door and went downstairs, repeating to herself with all the distracted fury of a fixed idea:

"To be avenged! To be avenged! Oh! to be avenged!"

She jumped into a cab.

"Well?"--said the coachman, looking with blinking eyes at this pale-faced, distraught-looking woman.

She remained there as if seeking an idea, a purpose.

"Where shall we go?" repeated the driver.

Suddenly Marianne's face trembled with a joyous expression and she abruptly said:

"To the Prefecture of Police!"

* * * * *

_The general rose, grasping his glass as if he would shiver it, and while the _parfait_ overflowed on to the plates, he cried in a hoarse voice, as if he were at the head of his division:_

_"I love bronze--I love bronze--...."_

VI

There was a crowd at the _Mirlitons_ Exposition.

A file of waiting carriages lined the kerbstone the whole length of Place Vendôme. Beneath the arch and within the portal, groups of fashionable persons elbowed each other on entering or leaving, and exchanged friendly polite greetings; the women quizzing the new hats, little hoods of plush or large _Rembranesque_ hats in which the delicate Parisian faces were lost as under the roof of a cabriolet. The liveried lackeys perfunctorily glanced at the cards of admission that the holders hardly took the trouble to present. One was seated at a table mechanically handing out catalogues. Through the open door of the Club's Theatre could be seen gold frames suspended from the walls, terra cottas and marbles on their pedestals, and around the pictures and sculptures a dense crowd, masses of black hats inclined toward the paintings, side by side with pretty feminine heads crowned with Gainsborough hats adorned with plumes. It was impossible to see at close quarters the pieces offered for the sale that was for that day the engrossing topic of conversation of _All Paris_.

"A veritable salon in miniature!" said Guy aloud to an art critic who was taking notes. "But to examine it comfortably one should be quite alone. For an hour past I have been trying to get a look at the Meissonier, but have not been able to do so. It is stifling here. I will return another time."

He quickly grasped the hand that held the pencil, and which was extended to him, and tried to make a passage through the crowd to the exit. Pushed and pushing, he smiled and apologized for his inability to disengage his arms that were held by the crowd as if in a vise, in order to salute the friends he recognized. At length he reached, giving vent to a grunt of satisfaction, the hall where visitors were sitting on divans, chatting, either less eager to view the pictures or satisfied in their desires. There, Guy instinctively looked at a mirror and examined the knot of his cravat. He did not notice that a gentleman with a closely buttoned frock-coat, on seeing him, quietly rose from the divan on which he had been sitting, and approached him, mechanically pulling the skirts of his coat meanwhile, so as to smooth the creases.

He simply touched Monsieur de Lissac's shoulder with the tip of his finger.

Guy turned round, expecting to recognize a friend.

"You are surely Monsieur de Lissac?" said the man in the frock-coat, with the refined manners of a gentleman.

"Yes!" said Lissac, somewhat astonished at the coldness of his manner.

"Be good enough to accompany me, monsieur, I am a Commissioner of the Judiciary Delegations!"

Lissac thought he misunderstood him.

"I confess that I don't quite understand you," he began, with a rather significant smile.

"I am a Commissioner of Police," the other replied, "and I am ordered to arrest you."

He suddenly exposed his insignia like the end of a sash, and by a very polite gesture, with an amiable and engaging manner, pointed to the way out by the side of the archway of the hôtel.

"I have two of my men yonder, monsieur, but you will not place me under the necessity of--"

"What is this, monsieur?" said Lissac. "I frankly confess that I understand nothing of this enigma. I hope you will explain it to me."

All this was said in a conversational tone, _mezzo voce_, and accompanied with smiles. No one could have guessed what these two men were saying to each other. Only, Guy was very pale and his somewhat haughty glance around him seemed to indicate that he was seeking some support or witness.

He uttered a slight exclamation of satisfaction on perceiving the journalist to whom he had just before spoken a few words before a little canvas by Meissonier.

"My dear Brévans," he said in a loud voice, "here is an unpublished item for your journal. This gentleman has laid his hand on my collar."

With a sly look he indicated the Commissioner of Police, who did not budge.

"What! my dear fellow?"

"They have arrested me, that is all," said Lissac.

"Monsieur," the Commissioner quickly interrupted in a low voice, "no commotion, please. For my sake--and for yours."

He lightly touched Lissac's buttonhole with the end of his finger, as if to intimate that there was the explanation of his arrest, and Guy suddenly became very red and stamped his foot.

"Idiot that I am!--I am at your orders, monsieur," he said, making a sign to the Commissioner to pass out.

He again saluted the stupefied journalist, and the Commissioner bowing to him, out of politeness or prudence, Guy passed before him, angrily twirling his mustache.

Besides Brévans, nobody in all that crowd suspected that a man had just been arrested in the midst of the Exposition. Unless the journalist had hawked the news from group to group, it would not have been suspected.

Lissac found at the door of the Club on Place Vendôme a hired carriage which had come up as soon as the driver saw the Commissioner. Two agents, having the appearance of good, peaceable bourgeois, were walking about, chatting together on the sidewalk, as if on duty. The Commissioner said to one of them:

"I have no further need of you, Crabot will do."

Crabot, a little man with the profile of a weasel, slowly mounted the box beside the coachman, and the Commissioner of Police took his seat next to Lissac, who had nervously plucked the rosette of the Portuguese Order of Christ from his buttonhole.

"What!" he said. "Really, then, it is for this? Because I wear this ribbon without having paid five or six louis into the Chancellery?--I have always intended to do so, but, believe me, I have not had the time. But a fiscal question does not warrant publicly insulting--"

"I do not know if it is for that," interrupted the Commissioner; "but it is evident that a recent note in the _Officiel_ points directly to the illegal wearing of foreign decorations. You do not read the _Officiel_, Monsieur de Lissac."

Guy shrugged his shoulders as if he considered the matter perfectly ridiculous. It seemed to him that behind the alleged pretext there was some secret cause, something like a feminine intrigue. He vaguely recalled that he had seen Marianne one evening at Madame de Marsy's smile at the Prefect of Police, that Jouvenet who flirted so agreeably with that pretty girl in a corner of the salon. And then, too, at the theatre, in Marianne's box, the prefect found his way. At the first moment, the idea that Marianne had a hand in this arrest took possession of his mind. He saw her standing before him at his house, posing her little nervous, fidgety hand on his breast at the very spot occupied by this rosette; again he saw her smiling mysteriously, accompanying it with a caress which seemed to suggest the desire to end in a scratch.

Was it really true that Marianne was sufficiently audacious to have brought about this coup de théâtre? No, there was some error. The stupid zeal of some subordinate officer was manifested in this outrage. Some cowardly charge had perhaps been made against him at the prefecture. Every man who crosses a street has so many enemies that look at him as he passes as if they would spy on him! There are so many undeclared hatreds crawling in the rotten depths of this Parisian bog! One fine morning one feels one's self stung in the heel. It is nothing: only some anonymous gossip; some unknown person taking revenge!

At the prefecture, they would doubtless inform Guy as to the cause of the attack: in questioning him, he would himself certainly be permitted to interrogate. He was stunned on arriving at the clerk's office to find that they took his description, just as they would that of a common offender, a night-walker or a rascal. He wished to enter a protest and became annoyed. He flew into a rage for a moment, then he reflected that there was nothing to be done but to submit to the bites of the iron teeth of the police routine in which he was suddenly entangled. They searched his pockets and he felt their vile hands graze his skin. He experienced a strongly rebellious sentiment and notwithstanding his present enforced calm, from time to time he demanded to see the Prefect of Police, the Chief of the Municipal Police, the _Juge d'Instruction_, he did not know whom, but at least some one who was responsible.

"You have my card, send my card to Monsieur Jouvenet; he knows me!"

They made no reply.

The Commissioner who had arrested him was not there. Guy found himself in the presence of what were as pieces of human machinery, working silently, without noise of wheels, and caring for his protests no more than they did for the wind that blew through the corridors.

"See, on my honor, I am not a rascal!" he said. "What have I done? I have stupidly passed this bit of red ribbon into my buttonhole. Well! that is an offence, it is not a crime! People are not arrested for that! I will pay the fine, if fine there is! You are not going to keep me here with thieves?"

In that jail, he endeavored to preserve his appearance as a fashionable elegant and an ironical man of the world, treating his misadventure in a spirit of haughty disdain; but his overstrained nerves led him to act with a sort of cold fury that gave him the desire to openly oppose, as in a duel, his many adversaries.

"I beg you to remain calm," one of these men repeated to him from time to time in a passionless way.

"Oh! that is easy enough for you to say," cried Lissac. "I ask you once more, where is Monsieur Jouvenet?--I wish to see Monsieur Jouvenet!"

"Monsieur le Prefect cannot be seen in this way," was the reply. "Moreover, you haven't to see any one; you have only to wait."

"Wait for what?"

They led Guy de Lissac through the passages to the door of a new cell, which they opened before him.

"Then," he said, as he tried to force a troubled smile, "I am a prisoner? Quite seriously? As in melodrama? This is high comedy!"

He asked if he would soon be examined, at least. They didn't know. They hardly replied to him. Could he write, at any rate? Notify any one? Protest? What should he do? He heard from the lips of a keeper who had the appearance of a very honest man, the information, crushing as a verdict: "You are in close confinement, as it is called!"

_In close confinement?_ Were they mocking him? In secret, he, Lissac? Evidently, they wanted to make fun; it was absurd, it was unlikely, such things only happened in operettas. He would heartily relish it at the Café Riche presently, when he went to dine. _In close confinement?_ He was no longer annoyed at the jest, so amusing had it become. For an old Parisian like him, it was a facetious romance and almost amusing.

"A climax!"

Evening passed and night came. They brought Lissac a meal, and the _jest_, as he called it, in no way came to an end. He did not close his eyes for the whole night. He was stifled, and grew angry within the narrow cage in which they had locked him. All sorts of wild projects of revenge passed through his brain. He would send his seconds to Monsieur Jouvenet, he would protest in the papers. He would have public opinion in his favor.

Then his scepticism came to his aid, and shrugging his shoulders, he said:

"Bah! public opinion! It will ridicule me, that's all! It will accuse me of desiring to make a stir, to cut off my dog's tail. To-day, Alcibiades would thus cut off his, but the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals would bring an action against him."

He waited for the next morning with the feverish anxiety of those who cannot sleep. Certainly he would be examined at the first moment. They did so in the case of the vagabonds gathered in during the night and dumped into the _lions' den_. The whole day passed without Lissac's seeing any other faces than those of his turnkeys, and these men were almost mutes. Then his irritation was renewed. He turned his useless anger against himself, as he could not insult the walls.

Night came round, and spite of himself, he slept for a short time on the wretched prison pallet. He began to find the facetious affair too prolonged and too gloomy. They took him just in time, the second day after his arrest, before a kind of magistrate or police judge, who, after having reminded him that the law was clear in respect of the wearing of foreign orders, announced that the matter was settled by a decree of _nolle prosequi_.

"That is to say," said Lissac, in anger, "that two nights passed in close confinement is regarded as ample punishment? If I am guilty of a crime, I deserve much more than that. But, if only a mere peccadillo is attributable to me, I consider it too much; and I swear to you that I intend, in my turn, to summon to justice for illegal arrest--"

"Keep quiet," curtly interrupted the magistrate. "That is the best thing you can do!"

Lissac, meantime, felt a sort of physical delight in leaving those cold passages and that stone dwelling.

The fresh breeze of a gray November day appeared to him to be as gentle as in spring. It seemed that he had lived in that den for weeks. He flung himself into a carriage, had himself driven home, and was received by his concierge with stupefied amazement.

"You, monsieur?" he said. "Already!"

This _already_ was pregnant with suggestiveness, and puzzled Lissac. The rumor had, in fact, spread throughout the quarter, and probably the porter had helped it along--that Guy had been arrested for complicity in some political intrigue, though of what nature was unknown. Nevertheless, the previous evening, the agents of police had come to the apartments in Rue d'Aumale and had searched everything, moved, tried and probed everything. Evidently they were in quest of papers.

"Papers?" cried Lissac. "Her letter, _parbleu!_"

He was no longer in doubt. The delicate, dreaded hand of Marianne was at the bottom of all that. She had made some bargain with Monsieur Jouvenet, as between a woman and a debauchee! The Prefect of Police was not the loser: Marianne Kayser had the wherewithal to satisfy him.

"The miserable wench!" Lissac repeated as he went up to his apartment.

He rang and his servant appeared, looking as bewildered as the porter.

The apartment was still topsy-turvy. The valet de chambre had not dared to put the things in order, as if there reigned, amid the scattered packages and the yawning drawers, the majesty of the official seal.

They had examined everything, forced locks and removed packets of letters.

The small Italian cabinet, that contained Marianne's letter, had had its drawers turned over, like pockets turned inside out. Marianne's letter to Lissac, the scrap of paper which the police hunted, without knowing whose will they were obeying, that confession of a crazy mistress to a lover who was smitten to his very bones, was no longer there.

"Ah! I will see Vaudrey! I will see him and tell him!" said Lissac aloud.

"Will monsieur breakfast?"

"Yes, as quickly as possible. Two eggs and tea, I am in a hurry."

He was anxious to rush off to the ministry. Was the Chamber sitting to-day? No. He would perhaps then find Sulpice at his first call. The messengers knew him.

He speedily hastened to Place Bréda, looking for a carriage. On the way, he stumbled against a man who came down on the same side, smoking a cigar.

"Oh! Monsieur de Lissac!"

Guy instinctively stepped back one pace; he recognized Uncle Kayser. Then, suddenly, his anger, which up to that time he had been able to restrain, burst forth, and in a few words energetic and rapid, he told Simon, who remained bewildered and somewhat pale, as if one had tried to force a quarrel on him, what he thought of Marianne's infamy.