Chapter 7

The man hesitated. He was the servant of a famous florist, and had often seen people pay forty or fifty dollars for such bouquets. He thought the joke was carried too far. However, the count insisted. The roses were piled up in the bottom of the carriage; and, when he had done, he received a handsome fee for his trouble.

Then the count returned to the opera-house, Daniel following him, filled with amazement. Evidently love had made the count young again, and now gave wings to his steps. He ran up the steps of the great porch of the opera-house, and in a few moments he was once more in Miss Brandon’s box. At once he took Daniel by the hand; and, drawing him into the box close to the lady, he said to the young girl,--

“Permit me to present to you M. Daniel Champcey, one of our most distinguished naval officers.”

Daniel bowed, first to her, and then solemnly to Mrs. Brian, and long, stiff Sir Thorn.

“I need not tell you, my dear count,” said Miss Sarah, “that your friends are always welcome here.”

Then, turning to Daniel, she added,--

“Besides, I have long since known you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, sir. And I even know that you are one of the most frequent visitors at Count Ville-Handry’s house.”

She looked at Daniel with a kind of malicious simplicity, and then added,

“_I_ do not mean to say that the count would not be wrong if he attributed your frequent visits exclusively to his own merits. I have heard something of a certain young lady”--

“Sarah,” here broke in Mrs. Brian, “what you say there is highly improper.” This reproof, so far from checking Miss Sarah’s merriment, only seemed to increase it. Without losing sight of Daniel, she turned to her aunt, and said,--

“Since the count is not opposed to this gentleman’s paying his attentions to his daughter, I think I may safely speak of them. It would be such an extraordinary thing, if any thing should happen to interfere with his hopes!”

Daniel, who had blushed all over, suddenly became deadly pale. After all that he had been told, these words sounded to him, in spite of the loud laugh that accompanied them, like a warning and a threat. But he was not allowed the time to reflect. The piece was coming to an end; Miss Brandon was drawing a fur cloak over her shoulders, and left on the count’s arm; while he had to escort Mrs. Brian, being closely followed by tall, stiff Sir Thorn. The landau was at the door. The servants had let down the steps; and Miss Sarah was just getting in. Suddenly, as her foot touched the bottom of the carriage, she drew back, and cried out,--

“What is that? What is in there?”

The count came forward, looking visibly embarrassed.

“You are fond of roses,” he said, “and I have ordered a few.”

With these words he took up some of the leaves, and showed them to her. But immediately Miss Brandon’s terror was changed into wrath.

“You certainly are bent upon making me angry,” she said. “You want people to say everywhere that I make you commit all kinds of follies. What a glorious thing to waste fifty dollars on flowers, when one has I know not how many millions!”

Then, seeing by the light of the street-lamp that the count’s face showed deep disappointment, she said in a tone to make him lose the little reason that was left him,--

“You would have been more welcome if you had brought me a cent’s worth of violets.”

In the mean time Mrs. Brian had taken her seat by Miss Brandon’s side; Sir Thorn had gotten in; and it was now the count’s turn. At the moment when the servant was closing the door, Miss Sarah bent forward toward Daniel, and said,--

“I hope I shall have the pleasure of soon seeing you again. Our dear count will give you my address, and tell you my reception-days. I must tell you that we American girls dote upon naval officers, and that I”--

The remainder was lost in the noise of the wheels. The carriage which took Miss Brandon and Count Ville-Handry away was already at some distance, before Daniel could recover from his amazement, his utter consternation.

All these strange events, coming upon him one by one, in the course of a few hours, and breaking suddenly in upon so calm and quiet a life, overwhelmed him to such a degree, that he was not quite sure whether he was dreaming or awake.

Alas! he was not dreaming. This Miss Sarah Brandon, who had just passed away from him like a glorious vision from on high, was only too real; and there, on the muddy pavement, a handful of rose-leaves bore witness of the power of her charms, and the folly of her aged lover.

“Ah, we are lost!” exclaimed Daniel, in so loud a voice, that some of the passers-by stopped, expecting one of those street-dramas which read so strikingly in the local columns of our papers. They were disappointed, however. Noticing that he attracted attention, Daniel shrugged his shoulders, and quickly walked off towards the boulevards.

He had promised Henrietta to be sure to tell her that very evening, if possible, what he had found out; but it was too late now; midnight was striking.

“I’ll go to-morrow,” he said to himself.

Whilst lounging leisurely down the boulevards, still brilliantly lighted up, and crowded with people, he strained all his faculties for the purpose of examining his situation coolly and calmly. At first he had imagined he should only have to do with one of those common _intriguantes_ who want to secure themselves a quiet old age, and clumsily spread their nets to catch an old or a young man; and who can always easily be gotten rid of by paying them a more or less considerable sum of money, provided the police does not get hold of them. In such a case he would have had some hope.

But here he saw himself suddenly confronted by one of those formidable adventuresses in high life, who either save appearances altogether, or, at worst, are only compromised far enough to give additional zest and an air of mystery to their relations. How could he hope to compete with such a woman? and with what weapons could he attack her? How should he reach her? and how attack her?

Was it not pure folly to think even of making her give up the magnificent fortune which she seemed already to have in her hands, Heaven knows by what means? She evidently looked upon it as her own already, and enjoyed its charms in anticipation.

“Great God!” said Daniel, “send me some inspiration.”

But no inspiration came; and in vain did he torture his mind; he was unable to think.

When he reached home, he went to bed as usual; but the consciousness of his misfortunes kept him awake. At nine o’clock in the morning, having never closed his eyes, and feeling utterly overcome by sleeplessness and fatigue, he was just about to get up, when some one knocked at his door. He rose hastily, put on his clothes, and went to open the door. It was M. de Brevan, who came to hear all about his new acquaintance of last night, and whose first word was,--

“Well?”

“Alas!” replied Daniel, “I think the wisest plan would be to give it up.”

“Upon my word, you are in great haste to surrender.”

“And what would you do in my place, eh? That woman has beauty enough to drive any one mad; and the count is a lost man.”

And, before Maxime had time to reply, Daniel told him simply and frankly all about his love for Miss Ville-Handry, the hopes he had been encouraged to cherish, and the dangers that threatened his happiness in life.

“For I can no longer deceive myself, Maxime,” he concluded with a tone of utter despair. “I foresee, I know, what is going to happen. Henrietta will obstinately, and at any risk, do every thing in the world to prevent her father’s marriage with Miss Brandon; she will struggle to the bitter end. Ought I, or ought I not, to help her? Certainly. Can we succeed? No! But we shall have a mortal enemy in Miss Brandon; and, on the morning after her wedding, her first thought will be how to avenge herself, and how to separate Henrietta and myself forever.”

Little as Brevan was generally given to show his feelings, he was evidently deeply touched by his friend’s despair.

“In short, my dear fellow, you have reached the point at which we no longer know what to do. All the more reason, then, that you should listen to the calm advice of a friend. You must have yourself presented at Miss Brandon’s house.”

“She has invited me.”

“Well, then, do not hesitate, but go there.”

“What for?”

“Not for much. You will pay some compliments to Miss Sarah; you will be all attention to Mrs. Brian; and you will try to win over the Hon. Thomas Elgin. Finally, and above all, you will be all ears and all eyes.”

“I am sorry to say I do not understand you yet.”

“What? Don’t you see that the position of these daring adventurers, however secure it may appear, may, after all, hang on a single thread? and that nothing is wanting in order to cut that thread but an opportunity? And when you may expect, at any moment, any thing and every thing, what is to be done but to wait and watch?”

Daniel did not seem to be convinced. He added,--

“Miss Sarah will talk to me about her marriage.”

“Certainly she will.”

“What can I say?”

“Nothing,--neither yes nor no,--but smile, or run away; at all events, you gain time.”

He was interrupted by Daniel’s servant, who came in, holding a card in his hand, and said,--

“Sir, there is a gentleman down stairs in a carriage, who wants to know if he would interrupt you if he came up to see you.”

“What is the gentleman’s name?”

“Count Ville-Handry. Here is his card.”

“Be quick!” said Daniel, “run down and ask him, would he please come up.”

M. de Brevan had started up, and was standing, with his hat on, near the door. As the servant left, he said,--

“I am running away.”

“Why?”

“Because the count must not find me here. You would be compelled to introduce me to him; he might remember my name; and, if he were to tell Miss Sarah that I am your friend, all would be lost.”

Thereupon he turned to go; but at the same moment the outer door was opened, and he said,--

“There is the count! I am caught.”

But Daniel opened promptly the door to his bedroom, pushed him in, and shut the door. It was high time; the same moment the count entered.

VI.

The count must have risen early that day. Although it was not yet ten o’clock, he was already brilliant, rouged, dyed, and frizzed. Of course all these results had not been the work of an hour. As he entered, he drew a long breath, and said,--

“Ah! You live pretty high up, my dear Daniel.”

Poor fellow! He forgot that he was playing the young man. But he recalled himself at once, and added, full of vivacity,--

“Not that I complain of it; oh, no! A few stories to climb--what is that to me?”

At the same time he stretched out his leg, and caressed his calf, as if to exhibit its vigor and its suppleness. In the meantime, Daniel, full of respect for his future father-in-law, had drawn forward his easiest arm-chair. The count took it, and in an airy manner, which contrasted ill with his evident embarrassment, he said,--

“I am sure, my dear Daniel, you must be very much surprised and puzzled to see me here; are you not?”

“I confess, sir, I am. If you wished to speak to me, you had only to drop me a line, and I should have waited upon you at once.”

“I am sure you would! But that is not necessary. In fact, I have nothing to say to you. I should not have come to see you, if I had not missed an appointment. I was to meet one of my fellow members of the assembly, and he did not come to the place where we were to meet. On my return home, I happened to pass your house; and I said to myself, ‘Why not go up and see my sailor friend? I might ask him what he thinks of a certain young lady to whom he had, last night, the honor of being presented.’”

Now or never was the favorable moment for following Maxime’s advice; hence Daniel, instead of replying, simply smiled as pleasantly as he could.

But that did not satisfy the count; so he repeated the question more directly, and said,--

“Come, tell us frankly, what do you think of Miss Brandon?”

“She is one of the greatest beauties I have ever seen in my life.”

Count Ville-Handry’s eyes beamed with delight and with pride as he heard these words. He exclaimed,--

“Say she is the greatest beauty, the most marvellous and transcendent beauty, you ever saw. And that, M. Daniel Champcey, is her smallest attraction. When she opens her lips, the charms of her mind, beauty and her mind, and remember her admirable ingenuousness, her naive freshness, and all the treasures of her chaste and pure soul.”

This excessive, almost idiotic admiration, this implicit, absurd faith in his beloved, gave the painted face of the count a strange, almost ecstatic expression. He said to himself, but loud enough to be heard,--

“And to think that chance alone has led me to meet this angel!”

A sudden start, involuntary on the part of Daniel, seemed to disturb him; for he resumed his speech, laying great stress upon his words,--

“Yes, chance alone; and I can prove it to you.”

He settled down in his chair like a man who is going to speak for some length of time; and, in that emphatic manner which so well expressed the high opinion he had of himself, he continued,--

“You know, my friend, how deeply I was affected by the death of the Countess Ville-Handry. It is true she was not exactly the companion a statesman of my rank would have chosen. Her whole capacity rarely rose beyond the effort to distinguish a ball-dress from a dinner-dress. But she was a good woman, attentive, discreet, and devoted to me; an excellent manager, economical, and yet always sure to do honor to the high reputation of my house.”

Thus, in all sincerity, the count spoke of her who had literally made him, and who, for sixteen long years, had galvanized his empty head.

“In short,” he continued, “the loss of my wife so completely upset me, that I lost all taste for the occupations which had so far been dear to me; and I set about to find distractions elsewhere. Soon after I had gotten into the habit of going frequently to my club, I fell in with M. Thomas Elgin, and, although we never became intimate, we always exchanged a friendly greeting, and occasionally a cigar.

“Sir Thorn, as they call him, is an excellent horseman, you know, and used to ride out every morning at an early hour; and as the physicians had recommended to me horseback exercise, and as I like it, because I excel in riding, as in every thing else, we often met in the Bois de Boulogne. We wished each other good-day; and sometimes we galloped a little while side by side. I am rather reserved; but Sir Thorn is even more so, and thus it did not seem that our acquaintance was ever to ripen into any thing better, till an accident brought us together.

“One morning we were returning slowly from a long ride, when Sir Thorn’s mare, a foolish brute, suddenly shied, and jumped so high, that he was thrown. I jumped down instantly to help him up again; but he could not rise. You know nothing ordinarily hurts these Americans. But it seems, as we found out afterwards, that he had sprained an ankle, and dislocated a knee. There was no one near the place; and I began to be seriously embarrassed, when fortunately two soldiers appeared. I called to them, and sent one on my horse to the nearest hack-stand to bring a carriage. As soon as it came, we raised the invalid, and put him in as well as we could; I got on the box to show the man the way to Sir Thorn’s house. When we arrived there, I rang the bell, and told the servants to come down to their master. They got him, with some difficulty, out of the hack; and there they were, carrying him painfully up the stairs, and he groaning feebly, for he suffered terribly.

“I was going up before them; and, as I reached the second story, a door suddenly opened, and a young girl was standing right before me.

“She was evidently dressing, when the noise which we made startled her; and she came running out. She had only taken time to throw a loose wrapper around her shoulders; and her dishevelled hair streamed out from under a kind of coquettish morning-cap.

“When she saw her kinsman in the arms of the servants, she imagined he was dangerously wounded, perhaps even--She turned as pale as death, and, uttering a loud cry, she tottered.

“She would have fallen down the steps, head foremost, if I had not caught her in my arms. She had fainted. And there I held her, leaning on my shoulder, so close that I became aware of the warmth of her lovely body, and actually felt her heart beat against mine. Her cap had become unfastened; and her hair fell in golden floods all over me, and down to the floor. But all this lasted only a few seconds.

“When she recovered, and found herself in the arms of a man, she rose with an air of extreme distress, and, slipping away, disappeared in her room.”

At the mere description of this scene, the count turned pale under his rouge; and his voice forsook him. Nor did he in any way attempt to conceal his emotion.

“I am a poor old fellow,” he said; “and between you and me, my dear Daniel, I will tell you that the women--well--the women have not been--exactly cruel to me. In fact, I thought I had outlived all the emotions which they can possibly give us.

“Well, I was mistaken. Never in my life, I assure you, have I felt such a deep sensation as when Miss Brandon was lying in my arms.”

While saying this, he had pulled out his handkerchief, saturated with a strong perfume, and was wiping his forehead, though very gently, and with infinite precautions, so as not to spoil the artistic work of his valet.

“You will know Miss Brandon,” he went on, “I hope soon. Once having seen her, one wants to see her again. I was lucky enough to have a pretext for coming again; and the very next day I was at her door, inquiring after M. Thomas Elgin. They showed me into the room of that excellent gentleman, where I found him stretched out on an invalid’s chair, with his legs all bandaged up. By his side sat a venerable lady, to whom he presented me, and who was no other than Mrs. Brian.

“They received me very kindly, although with some little reserve under all their politeness; but I staid and staid in vain beyond the proper time; Miss Sarah did not appear.

“Nor did I see her upon subsequent occasions, when I repeated my visits, until at last I came to the conclusion that she avoided me purposely.

“Upon my word, I believed it. But one day Sir Thorn, who was improving very rapidly, expressed a desire to walk out a few steps in the Champs Elysees. I offered him my arm; he accepted it; and, when we came back, he asked me if I would be kind enough to take pot-luck with him.”

However important these communications were for Daniel, he was for some time already listening but very inattentively to the count’s recital, for he had heard a strange, faint noise, which he could not by any means explain to himself. At last, looking all around, he discovered the cause.

The door to his bedroom, which he was sure he had closed himself, was now standing partly open. No doubt M. de Brevan, weary of his confinement and excited by curiosity, had chosen this way to see and to listen. Of all this, however, Count Ville-Handry saw nothing, and suspected nothing.

“Thus,” he continued, “I was at last to see Miss Sarah again. Upon my word, I was less excited, I think, the day I made my first speech. But you know I have some power over myself; and I had recovered my calmness, when Sir Thorn confessed to me that he would have invited me long since, but for the fear of offending his young relative, who had declared she would never meet me again. I was grieved, and asked how I had offended her. And then Sir Thorn, with that marvellous composure which never leaves him, said, ‘It is not you she blames, but herself, on account of that ridiculous scene the other day.’

“Do you hear, Daniel, he called that adorable scene which I have just described to you, ridiculous! It is only Americans who can commit such absurdities.

“I have since found out that they had almost to force Miss Brandon to receive me; but she had tact enough not to let me see it, when I was formally presented to her, just before going to dinner. It is true, she blushed deeply; but she took my hand with the utmost cordiality, and cut me short when I was trying to pay her some compliment, saying,--

“‘You are Thorn’s friend; I am sure we shall be friends also.’

“Ah, Daniel! you admired Miss Brandon at the theatre; but you ought to see her at her house. Abroad she sacrifices herself in order to pay proper regard to the world; but at home she can venture to be herself.

“We soon became friends, as she had foretold, so soon, in fact, that I was quite surprised when I found her addressing me like an old acquaintance. I soon discovered how that came about.

“Our young girls here in France, my dear Daniel, are charming, no doubt, but generally ill taught, frivolous, and caring for nothing but balls, novels, or dress. The Americans are very different. Their serious minds are occupied with the same subjects which fill their parents’ minds,--with politics, industry, discussions in the assembly, discoveries in science, &c. A man like myself, known abroad and at home during a long political career of some distinction, could not be a stranger to Miss Brandon. My earnestness in defending those causes which I considered just had often filled her with enthusiasm. Deeply moved by my speeches, which she was in the habit of reading, she had often thought of the speaker. I think I can hear her now say with that beautiful voice of hers, which has the clear ring of pure crystal,--

“‘Oh, yes! I knew you, count; I knew you long ago. And there was many a day when I wished I were a friend of yours, so that I might say to you, “Well done, sir! what you are doing is grand, is noble!”’

“And that was true; for she remembered a number of passages from my speeches, even from such as I had forgotten myself; and she always quoted them literally. At times, I was amazed at some peculiarly bold thoughts which she uttered; and, when I complimented her upon them, she broke out in loud laughter, and said,--

“‘Why, count, these are your own ideas; I got them from you. You said so on such and such an occasion.’

“And when I looked at night, after my return, into my papers, to ascertain the fact, I found almost always that Miss Brandon had been right. Need I tell you after that, that I soon became an almost daily visitor at the house in Circus Street? Surely you take it for granted.

“But what I must tell you is, that I found there the most perfect happiness, and the purest that I have ever known upon earth. I was filled with respect and with admiration, when I looked at their rigid morality, united with the heartiest cheerfulness. There I enjoyed my happiest hours, between Mrs. Brian, the Puritan lady, so strict for herself, so indulgent for others; and Thomas Elgin, the noblest and best of men, who conceals under an appearance of icy coldness the warmest and kindest of hearts.”

What was Count Ville-Handry aiming at? or had he no aim at all?

Had he come merely to confide to Daniel the amazing romance of his love? Or did he simply yield to the natural desire of all lovers, to pour out the exuberance of their feelings, and to talk of their love, even when they know that their indiscretion may be fatal to their success?

Daniel put these questions to himself; but the count did not leave him time to reflect, and to answer them.

After a short pause, he seemed to rouse himself, and said, suddenly changing his tone,--

“I guess what you think, my dear Daniel. You say to yourself, ‘Count Ville-Handry was in love.’ Well, I assure you you are mistaken.”

Daniel started from his chair; and, overcome by amazement, he exclaimed,--

“Can it be possible?”