She stooped and picked up an orange that had fallen, throwing it subsequently along the smooth turf for her dog to chase.

"See," she said gaily, "Talleyrand will scarcely trouble to run now. He is so stout and dignified. He is afraid that the country dogs should see him. It is Paris. Paris spoils—so much."

"You know my father's plans concerning us," said Alphonse, after a pause, which served to set aside Talleyrand and the orange.

"The Baron's plans are, I am told, wonderful, but"—she paused and gave a little laugh—"I do not understand finance."

They walked up the steps together, between the trim borders, where spring flowers were already breaking into bud. On the terrace they found the Vicomtesse and the Baron Giraud. A servant was going towards the house carrying carelessly a small silver salver. The Baron was standing with an unopened envelope in his hand.

"You will permit me, Madame," they heard him say with his strident little self-satisfied laugh. "A man of affairs is the slave of the moment. And the affairs of state are never still. A great country moves even in its sleep."

Having the permission of Madame, he tore open the envelope, enjoying the importance of the moment. But his face changed as soon as his glance fell on the paper.

"The government has fallen," he gasped, with white lips and a face wherefrom the colour faded in blotches. He seemed to forget the ladies, and looked only at his son. "It may mean—much. I must go to Paris at once. The place is in an uproar. Mon Dieu—where will it end!"

He excused himself hurriedly, and in a few minutes his carriage rattled through the grey stone gateway.

"An uproar in Paris," repeated Lucille, anxiously, when she was alone with her mother. "What does he mean? Is there any danger? Will papa be safe?"

"Yes," answered the Vicomtesse quietly; "he will be safe, I think."



Chapter VIII

In Paris

"Le plus grand art d'un habile homme est celui de savior cacher son habilete."

It will be necessary to dwell to a certain extent on those events of the great world that left their mark on the obscure lives of which the present history treats. An old man may be excused for expressing his opinion—or rather his agreement with the opinions of greater minds—that our little existence here on earth is but part of a great scheme—that we are but pawns moved hither and thither on a vast chess-board, and that, while our vision is often obscured by some knight or bishop or king, whose neighbourhood overshadows us, yet our presence may affect the greater moves as certainly as we are affected by them.

I first became aware of the fact that my existence was amenable to every political wind that might blow a week or so after Lucille went to La Pauline, without, indeed, vouchsafing an explanation of her sudden coldness.

In my study I was one evening smoking, and, I admit it, thinking of Lucille—thinking very practically, however. For I was reflecting with satisfaction over some small improvements I had effected—with a Norfolk energy which, no doubt, gave offence to some—during the short time that the Vicomte and I had passed in the Provencal chateau. I had the pleasant conviction that Lucille's health could, at all events, come to no harm from a residence in one of the oldest castles in France. No very lover-like reflections, the high-flown will cry. So be it. Each must love in his own way. "Air and water—air and water!" the Vicomte had cried when he saw the men at work under my directions. "You Englishmen are mad on the subject."

While I was engaged in these thoughts the old gentleman came to my room, and in the next few minutes made known to me a new and unsuspected side of his character. His manner was singularly alert. He seemed to be years younger.

"I said I should want a man at my side—young and strong," he began, seating himself. "Let us understand each other, Mr. Howard."

"By all means."

He gave a little laugh, and leaning forward took a quill pen from my writing-table, disliking idle fingers while he talked.

"That time has come, my friend. Do you mean to stand by me?"



"Yes."

"You are a man of few words," he answered, looking at me with a new keenness which sat strangely on his benign features. "But I want no more. The government has fallen—the doctors say the Emperor's life is not worth that!"

And he snapped his finger and thumb, glancing at the clock. It was eight o'clock. We had dined at half-past six.

"Can you come with me now? I want to show you the state of Paris—the condition of the people, the way of their thoughts. One cannot know too much of the ... people—for they will some day rule the world."

"And rule it devilish badly," I added, putting my papers together.

"We shall be late in returning," the Vicomte said to the servant who held the carriage door. I had heard—through my thoughts—the stamping of the horses in the courtyard and the rattle of the harness, but took no great note of them, as the Vicomte had the habit of going out in the evening. I noticed we never crossed the river during our silent drive. A river has two sides, just as a street, and one of them is usually in the shade. It was among the shadows that our business lay this evening.

"You know," said the Vicomte, as we climbed the narrow staircase of a quiet house in the neighbourhood of the great wine stores that adjoin the Jardin des Plantes—"you know that this is the day of the talkers—the Rocheforts, the Pyats—the windbags. Mon Dieu, what nonsense! But a windbag may burst and do harm. One must watch these gentry."

Republicanism was indeed in the air at this time. And has not history demonstrated that those who cry loudest for a commonwealth are such as wish to draw from that wealth and add nothing to it? The reddest Republican is always the man who has nothing to lose and all to gain by a social upheaval.

I was not surprised, therefore, when we found ourselves in a room full of bad hats and unkempt heads. A voice was shouting their requirements. I knew that they wanted a wash more than anything else.

The room was a large, low one, and looked larger through an atmosphere blue with smoke and the fumes of absinthe. The Vicomte—a little man, as I have said—slipped in unperceived. I was less fortunate, being of a higher stature. I saw that my advent did not pass unobserved on the platform, where a party of patriots sat in a row, like the Christy Minstrels, showing the soles of their boots to all whom it might concern. In this case a working cobbler would have been deeply interested, as in a vast field of labour. The Vicomte slipped a few yards away from me, and the shoulders of his fellow-countrymen obscured him. I could find no such retreat, for your true Socialist never has much to recommend him to the notice of society, being usually a poor, mean man to look at, who seeks to add a cubit to his stature by encouraging the growth of his hair.

One such stood on the platform, mouthing the bloodthirsty periods of his creed. He caught sight of me.

"Ah!" he cried, "here is a new disciple. And a hardy one! Un grand gaillard, my brethren, who can strike a solid blow for liberty, equality and fraternity. Say, brother, you are with us; is it not so?"

"If you open the casements, not otherwise," I answered. The French crowd is ever ready for blood or laughter. I have seen the Republic completely set in the background by a cat looking in a window and giving voice to the one word assigned to it by nature. Some laughed now, and the orator deemed it wise to leave me in peace. I took advantage of my obscurity to look around me, and was duly edified by what I saw. The Paris vaurien is worth less than any man on earth, and these were choice specimens from the gutter.

We were wasting our time in such a galley, and as I thus reflected a note was slipped into my hand.

"Follow me, but not at once." I read and hid the paper in my pocket. Without staring about me too much, I watched the Vicomte make his way towards a door half hidden by a dirty curtain—another to that by which we had entered. Thither I followed him after a decent interval—no one molesting me. One of the patriots on the platform seemed to watch me with understanding, and when I reached the curtained doorway, my glance meeting his, he dismissed me with his eyelids.

I found myself in a dark passage, and with his gentle laugh the Vicomte took my arm.

"All that out there," he whispered, "is a mere blind. It is in the inner room that they act. Out there they merely talk. Come with me. Gently—there are two steps—my dear Howard. These are the men—he paused with his fingers on the handle of a door—who will rule France when the Emperor is dead or deposed."

With that we entered, and those assembled—some sitting at a table, others standing about the room—saluted the Vicomte de Clericy almost as a leader. Some of the faces I knew—indeed, they are to be found in the illustrated histories of France. The thoughts of others were known to me, for many were journalists of repute—men of advanced views and fiery pens. Perhaps, after all, I knew as little of the Vicomte de Clericy as of any man there. For he seemed to have laid aside that pleasant and garrulous senility which had awakened my dull conscience.

Although he did not deliver a speech during the proceedings, as did some, his attitude was rather that of a leader than of a mere on-looker. Here was no mere watching, thought I. My patron was known to all, and went from group to group talking in the ear of many. There was, indeed, much talking as I have always found in the world, and but little listening. The Vicomte introduced me to some of his friends.

"Mr. Howard," he said, "an English gentleman who is kind enough to act as my secretary. Mr. Howard is too wise to trouble himself with politics."

And I thought some of them had a queer way of looking at me.

"A deceiver or a dupe?" I heard one ask another, trusting too far the proverbial dulness of British ears.

The topic of the evening was, of course, the fall of the ministry—a matter of great moment at that time, and, it may be, through all the ages—though a recital of its possible effects would be but dull reading to-day. When a chain is riven, the casual on-looker takes but small interest in the history of each link. This event of December, 1869, was in truth an important link in the chain of strange events that go to make up the history of the shortest and most marvellous of the great dynasties of the world.

I stood among those politicians and wondered what the greatest of their race at that time living thought of these matters in the Tuileries Palace hard by. I could picture him sitting, as was his wont—a grave man with a keen sense of humour—with his head a little on one side, his large, still face drawn and pale—the evidence of his malady around his dull eyes. Was the game played out? The greatest since that so gloriously won—so miserably lost at length—by his uncle. The Bonapartes were no common men—and it was no common blood that trickled unstanched ten years later into the sand of the African veldt, leaving the world the poorer of one of its greatest races.

I gathered that the fall of the ministry was no great surprise to these men assembled in this inner room. They formed, so far as I could discover, a sort of administration—a committee which gathered the opinions of the more intelligent citizens of the larger towns of France—a head-center of news and public thought. Their meeting place was furnished without ostentation, and in excellent taste.

These were no mere adventurers, but men of position and wealth, who had somewhat to lose and every desire to retain the same. They did not rave of patriotism, nor was there any cant of equality and fraternity. It seemed rather that, finding themselves placed in stirring times, they deemed it wise to guide by some means or other the course of events into such channels as might ensure safety to themselves and their possessions. And who can blame them for such foresight? Patriots are, according to my experience, men who look for a substantial quid pro quo. They serve their country with the view of making their country serve them.

Whatever the usual deliberations of the body among whom I found myself might be, the all-absorbing topic of the evening set all else aside.

"We approach the moment," cried one, a young man with a lisping intonation and great possessions, as I afterwards learnt. "Now is the time for all to do as I have done. I have sent everything out of the country. I and my sword remain for France."

He spoke truly. He and his sword now lie side by side—in French soil.

"Let all do the same," growled an old man, with eyes flashing beneath his great white brows.

"All who know," suggested one, significantly. Whereupon arose a great discussion, and many names were uttered that were familiar to me—among others, indeed, that of my friend, John Turner. I noticed that many laughed when his name was mentioned.

"Oh!" they cried. "You may leave John Turner to care for his own affairs. Il est fin celui-la."

Again a familiar name fell on my ears, and this was received with groans and derisive laughter. It was that of the Baron Giraud. I gathered that there was question of warning certain financiers and rich persons outside of this circle of some danger known only to the initiated. Indeed, the wealthy were sending their money out of the country as fast and as secretly as possible.

"No, no," cried the young man I have mentioned; "the Baron Giraud—a fine Baron, heaven knows!—has risen with the Empire—nor has he been over-scrupulous as to whom he trod underfoot. With the Empire he must fall."

And one and all fell to abusing the Baron Giraud. He was a thief, and a despoiler of the widow and orphan. His wealth had been acquired not honestly, but at the expense,—nay, at the ruin—of others. He was an unwholesome growth of a mushroom age—a bad man, whose god was gold and gain his only ambition.

"If such men are to grow in France and govern her, then woe to France," cried one prophetic voice.

Indeed, if half we heard was true of the Baron Giraud, he must have been a fine scoundrel, and I had little compunction in agreeing that he deserved no consideration at the hands of honest men. The cooler heads deemed it wise to withhold from the Baron certain details of the public feeling, not out of spite, but because such knowledge could not be trusted in notoriously unscrupulous hands. He would but turn it to money.

For the greater safety, all present bound themselves upon honour not to reveal the result of their deliberations to certain named persons, and the Baron Giraud had the privilege of heading this list. I was surprised that no form of mutual faith was observed. These men seemed to trust each other without so much as a word—and indeed, what stronger tie can men have than the common gain?

"We are not conspirators," said one to me. "Our movements are known."

And he nodded his head in the direction of the Tuileries. I made no doubt that all, indeed, was known in that quarter, but the fatalist who planned and schemed there would meet these men the next day with his gentle smile, betraying nothing.

As my interest became aroused by these proceedings, I became aware of the Vicomte's close scrutiny. It seemed that he was watching me—noting the effect of every speech and word.

"You were interested," he said, casually, as we drove home smoking our cigars.

"Yes."

He looked out of the carriage window for some time, and then, turning, he laid his hand on my knee.

"And it is not a game," he said, with his little laugh, which somehow sounded quite different—less senile, less helpless. "It is not a game, my friend!"



Chapter IX

Finance

"Il n'est pas si dangereux de faire du mal a la plupart des hommes que de leur faire trop de bien."

We have seen how the Baron Giraud was called suddenly away from those pleasures of the country, which he had taken up too late in life, as many do, to the busy—ay, and stormy—scenes of Paris existence during the winter before the great war. It was perhaps a week later—one morning, in fact, soon after the New Year—that my business bade me seek the Vicomte in his study adjoining my own. These two apartments, it will be remembered, were separated by two doors and a small intervening corridor. In the days when the Hotel Clericy was built, walls had ears, and every keyhole might conceal a watching eye. Builders understood the advantage of privacy, and did not construct rooms where every movement and every spoken word may be heard in the adjoining chambers.

No sound had come to me, and I had no reason for supposing the Vicomte engaged at so early an hour. But as I entered the room, after knocking and awaiting his permission as usual, I saw that some one was leaving it by the other door. His back was presented to my sight, but there was no mistaking the slim form and a nonchalant carriage. Charles Miste again! And only the back of him once more.

"I have had a visit from my late secretary," said the Vicomte, casually, and without looking up from his occupation of opening some letters. There was no reason to suppose that he had seen me glance towards the closing door, recognising him who went from it.

We were still engaged with the morning's correspondence, when a second visitor was announced, and almost on the heels of the servant a little fat man came puffing into the room, red-faced and agitated.

"Ah! Heaven be thanked that I have found you in," he gasped, and although it was a cold morning, he wiped his pasty brow with a gorgeous silk handkerchief whereupon shone the largest coronet obtainable.

His face was quite white and flaccid, like the unbaked loaves into which I had poked inquiring fingers in my childhood, and there was an unwholesome look of fear in his little bright eyes. The Baron had been badly scared, and lacked the manhood to conceal his panic.

"Ah! Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!" he gasped again, and looked at me with insolent inquiry. He was, it must be remembered, a very rich man, and could afford to be ill-mannered. "I must see you, Vicomte."

"You do see me, my friend," replied the old nobleman, in his most amiable manner. "And at your service."

"But—" and the fluttering handkerchief indicated myself.

"Ah! Let me introduce you. Monsieur Howard, my secretary—the Baron Giraud."

I bowed as one only bows to money-bags, and the Baron stared at me. Only very rich or very high-born persons fully understand the introductory stare.

"You may speak before Monsieur Howard," said the Baron, quietly. "He is not a secretary pour rire."

Had Miste been a secretary pour rire, I wondered?

I drew forward a chair and begged the Baron to be seated. He accepted my invitation coldly, and seating himself seemed to lose nothing in stature. There are some men who should always be seated. It is, of course, a mistake to judge of one's neighbour at first sight, but it seemed to me that the Baron Giraud only wanted a little courage to be a first-class scoundrel. He fumbled in his pocket, glancing furtively at me the while. At length he found a letter, which he handed to the Vicomte.

"I have received that," he said. "It is anonymous, as you will see, and cleverly done. There is absolutely no clue. It was sent to my place of business, and my people there telegraphed for me in Provence. Of course I came at once. One must sacrifice everything to affairs."

Naturally I acquiesced fervently, for the last remark had been thrown to me for my good.

The Vicomte was looking for his spectacles.

"But, my friend," he said, "it is atrociously written. One cannot decipher such a scrawl as this."

In his impatience the Baron leant forward, and taking the paper from my patron, handed it to me.

"Here," he said, "the secretary—read it aloud."

Nothing loth, I read the communication in my loudest voice. The world holds that a loud voice indicates honesty or a lack of brain, and the Baron was essentially of that world. The anonymous letter was a warning that a general rising against the rule of the Emperor was imminent, and that in view of the probable state of anarchy that would ensue, wise men should not delay in transferring their wealth to more stable countries. Precisely—in a word—the information that it had been decided to withhold from the recipient of the letter.



The Baron blew and puffed like a prize-fighter when I had finished the perusal.

"There," he cried; "I receive a letter like that—I, the Baron Giraud—of the high finance."

"My poor friend, calm yourself," urged the Vicomte.

It is easy enough to tell another to calm himself, but who among us can compass such a frame of mind when he is hit in a vital spot? The Baron wiped his forehead nervously.

"But," he said, "is it true?"

The Vicomte spread out his hands, and never glanced at me as an ordinary man would have done towards one who shared his knowledge.

"Who can tell—but yes! So far as human foresight goes—it is true enough."

"Then what am I to do?"

I stared at the great financier asking such a question. Assuredly he, of all men, needed no one's counsel in a matter of money.

"Do as I have done," said the Vicomte; "send your money out of the country."

An odd look came over the Baron's face. He glanced from one of us to the other—with the cunning, and somewhat the look, of a cat. The Vicomte was blandly indifferent. As for me, I had, I am told, a hard face in those days—hardened by weather and a disbelief in human nature which has since been modified.

"It is a responsibility that you take there," said the financier.

"I take no responsibility. A man of my years, of my retired life, knows little of such matters." (I thought he looked older as he spoke.) "I only tell you what I have done with my small possessions."

The Baron shook his head with a sly scepticism. After all, the cheapest cunning must suffice for money-making, for I dare swear this man had little else.

"But how?" he said.

"In bank notes, by hand," was the Vicomte's astonishing answer. And the Baron laughed incredulously. It seems that the highest aim of the high finance is to catch your neighbour telling the truth by accident. It would almost be safe to tell the truth always, so rarely is it recognised.

It was not until the Vicomte produced his bankbook and showed the amounts paid in and subsequently withdrawn that the Baron Giraud believed what he had been told. My duties, it may be well to mention in passing, had no part in the expenditure of the Vicomte de Clericy. I had only to deal with the income derived from the various estates, and while being fully aware that large sums had been placed within the hands of his bankers, I had not troubled to be curious respecting the ultimate destination of such moneys. My patron possessed, as has already been intimated, a lively—nay, an exaggerated—sense of the value of money. He was, indeed, as I remember thinking at this time, somewhat of a miser, loving money for its own sake, and not, as did the Baron Giraud, merely for the grandeur and position to be purchased therewith.

"But I am not like you," said the financier at length.

"No; you have a thousand louis for every one that I possess."

"But I have nothing solid—no lands, no estates except my chateau in Var."

His panic had by no means subsided, and presently he found himself on the verge of tears—a pitiable, despicable object. The Vicomte—soothing and benevolent—went on to explain more fully the position of his own affairs. He told us that on information received from a sure source he had months earlier concluded that the Emperor's illness was of a more serious nature than the general public believed.

"You, my dear friend," he said, "engaged as you have been in the affairs of the outside world—the Suez Canal, Mexico, the Colonies—have perhaps omitted to watch matters nearer home. While looking at a distant mountain one may fall over a little stone—is it not so?"

He had, he informed us, withdrawn his small interest in such securities as depended upon the stability of the Government, but that for men occupying a public position, either by accident of birth or—and he bowed in his pleasant way towards the Baron—by the force of their genius, to send their money out of France by the ordinary financial channels would excite comment, and perhaps hasten the crisis that all good patriots would fain avoid. He talked thus collectedly and fairly while the Baron Giraud could but wipe his forehead with a damp handkerchief and gasp incoherent exclamations of terror.

"I could realize a couple of million," said the financier, "in two days, but there is much that I cannot sell just now—the fall of the government makes it necessary to hold much that I could have sold at a profit a fortnight ago."

The Vicomte was playing with a quill pen. How well I knew the action! It seemed that the millionaire was recovering from his shock, of which re-establishment the outward and visible sign was a dawning gleam of cunning in the eyes.

"But I have no one I can trust," he said; and I almost laughed, so well the words bespoke the man. "It is different for you," he added; "you have—Monsieur."

And he glanced keenly at me. Indeed, we were a queer trio; and I began to think that I was as big a scoundrel as my maiden aunts maintained.

"I would trust Mr. Howard with all my possessions," said the old Vicomte, looking at me almost affectionately; "but in this matter I have found another messenger, less valuable to me personally, less necessary to my comfort and daily happiness, but equally trustworthy."

"And if I gave him twenty million francs to take abroad for me—?" suggested the great financier.

"Then, my friend, we should be in the same boat—that is all."

"Your boat," said the Baron, with an unpleasant laugh.

Monsieur de Clericy shrugged his shoulders and smiled. This grave political crisis had rejuvenated him, and he seemed to rise to meet each emergency with a buoyancy that sat strangely on white hairs.

They talked together upon the fascinating topic, while I, who had no part in the game, sat and listened. The Baron was very cunning, and, as it seemed to me, very contemptible. With all the vices that are mine, I thank heaven that I have never loved money; for that love, it seems, undermines much that is manly and honest in upright hearts. Money, it will be remembered, was at the root of the last quarrel I had with my father—the last fatal breach, which will have to be patched up in another world. Money has, as it will be seen by such as care to follow me through these pages, dogged my life from beginning to end. I have run my thick head against those pursuing it, each in his different manner, getting lamentably in their way, and making deadly enemies for myself.

Monsieur de Clericy, in his frank and open way, gave fuller details of his own intentions. It seemed that his possessions were at that moment in the house—in a safe hiding-place; that the messenger was to make several journeys to London, carrying at one time a sum of money which would be no very pleasant travelling companion. A safe depository awaited the sums in England, and, in due course, reinvestment would follow. Money, it will be suspected, was by now beginning to be somewhat of a red rag for me, and I thought I saw some signs of its evil influence over my kindly patron. He spoke of it almost as if there were nothing else on earth worth a man's consideration. In the heat of argument he lowered his voice, and was no longer his open, genial self.

What astonished me most, however, was the facility with which the Baron made a catspaw of him. For the old Vicomte slowly stepped down as it were from his high standpoint of indifference, and allowed himself to be interested in the financier's schemes. It was out of keeping with the attitude which my patron had assumed a few days earlier at the meeting which we had attended, and I was more than ever convinced that the Vicomte was too old and too simple to hold his own in a world of scoundrels.

The Baron led him on from one admission to another, and at last it was settled that twenty millions of francs were to be brought to the Hotel Clericy and placed in the Vicomte's keeping. To my mind the worst part of the transaction lay in the fact that the financier had succeeded in saddling my patron with a certain moral responsibility which the old man was in no way called upon to assume.

"Then," he said, "I may safely leave the matter thus in your hands? I may sleep to-night?"

"Ah!" replied the other. "Yes—you may sleep, my friend."

"And Monsieur shares the responsibility?" added the upstart, turning to me.

"Of course—for all I am worth," was my reply, and I did not at the time think that even the Vicomte, whose faculties were keener in such matters, saw the sarcasm intended by the words.

"Then I am satisfied," the Baron was kind enough to say; and I thought that his low origin came suddenly to the fore in the manner in which he bowed. A low origin is like an hereditary disease—it will bear no strain.

"By the way," he said, pausing near the door, having risen to go, "you have not told me the name of your trusted messenger."

And before the Vicomte opened his lips the answer flashed across my mind.

"Charles Miste," he said.



Chapter X

The Golden Spoon

"Nous avons tous assez de force pour supporter les maux d'autrui."

A few days later I received a letter from Madame de Clericy. "I write," it ran, "to tell you of the satisfaction that Lucille and I have found in the improvements you initiated here. I laugh—mon ami—when I think of all that you did in three days. It seems as if a strong and energetic wind—such as I imagine your English breezes to be—had blown across my old home, leaving it healthier, purer, better; leaving also those within it somewhat breathless and surprised. I suppose that many Englishmen are like you, and suspect that they will some day master the world. We have had visitors, among others Alphonse Giraud, whom I believe you do not yet know. If contrasts are mutually attractive, then you will like him. I wonder if you know, or suspect, that he is more or less an acknowledged aspirant to Lucille's hand, but—"

Madame de Clericy had run her pen through the last word, leaving it, however, legible. And here she began a new subject, asking me, indeed, to write and give her news of the Vicomte. I am no indoor man or subtle analyst of a motive—much less of a woman's motive, if, indeed, women are so often possessed of such, as some believe—but the obliterated word and Madame de Clericy's subsequent embarkation on a new subject made me pause while I deciphered her letter.

It had originally been arranged that the Vicomte should follow the ladies to La Pauline, leaving me in Paris to attend to my duties, but the sudden political crisis led to a delay in his departure. In truth, I gathered from Madame's letter that he must have written to her saying that the visit was at present impossible. Madame, in fact, asked me to advise her by return of the state of the Vicomte's health, and plainly told me that if business matters were worrying him she would return to Paris without delay.

And if Madame returned she would bring Lucille with her, and thus put an end to the aspirations of Alphonse Giraud, for the prosecution of which the seclusion of La Pauline afforded excellent opportunity. I had but to write a word to bring all this about. Did Madame de Clericy know all that she placed within my power? Did she know, and yet place it there purposely? Who can tell? I remembered Lucille's coldness—her departure without one word of explanation. I recollected that the twenty million francs at that moment in the Hotel Clericy would, in due course, be part of Alphonse Giraud's fortune. I was mindful, lastly, that in England we are taught to ride straight, and I sat down and wrote to Madame that her husband was in good health, and that I quite hoped to see him depart in a few days for La Pauline. I will not deny that the letter went into the post-box followed by a curse.

We may, however, write letters and post them. We may—if we be great men—indite despatches and give them into the hands of trusty messengers, and a little twirl of Fortune's wheel will send all our penmanship to the winds.

While I was smoking a pipe and deciphering a long communication received from the gentleman who further entangled my affairs in England, a visitor was announced to me.

"Monsieur Alphonse Giraud."

"Why?" I wondered as I rose to receive this gentleman. "Why, Monsieur Alphonse Giraud?"

He was already in the doorway, and, I made no doubt, had conceived an ultra-British toilet for the occasion. For outwardly he was more English than myself. He came forward, holding out his hand, and I thought of Madame's words. Were we to become friends?

"Monsieur Howard," he said, "I have to apologise. Mon Dieu!—to think that you have been in Paris three months, and I have never called to place myself at your disposition! And a friend of Alfred Gayerson, of that good, stout John Turner—of half a dozen hardy English friends of mine."

I was about to explain that his oversight had a good excuse in the fact that my existence must have been unknown to him, but he silenced me with his two outstretched hands, waving a violent negation.

"No—no!" he said, smiting himself grievously on the chest. "I have no excuse. You say that I was ignorant of your existence—then it was my business to find it out. Ignorance is often a crime. An English gentleman—a sportsman—a fox-hunter! For you chase the fox, I know. I see it in your brown face. And you belong to the English Jockey Club—is it not so?"

I admitted that it was so, and Alphonse Giraud's emotion was such that he could only press my hand in silence.

"Ah, well!" he cried almost immediately, with the utmost gaiety. "We have begun late, but that is no reason why it should not be a good friendship—is it?"

And he took the chair I offered with such hearty good-will that my cold English sympathy was drawn towards him.

"I came but yesterday from the South," he went on. "Indeed, from La Pauline, where I have been paying a delightful visit. Madame de Clericy—so kind—and Mademoiselle Lucille—"

He twisted up the unsuccessful side of his mustache, and gave a quick little sigh. Then he remembered his scarf, and attended to the horseshoe pin that adorned it.

"You know my father," he said, suddenly, "the—er—Baron Giraud. He has been more fortunate than myself in making your acquaintance earlier."

I bowed and said what was necessary.

"A kind man—a dear man," said the Baron's son. "But no sportsman. Figure to yourself—he fears an open window."

He laughed and shrugged his little shoulders.

"I dare say many Englishmen would not understand him."

"I am not of those," replied I. "I understand him and appreciate his many able qualities."

From which it will be seen that I can lie as well as any man.

"The poor dear has been called to Paris, on his affairs. Not that I understand them. I have no head for affairs. Even my tailor cheats me—but what will you? He can cut a good coat, and one must forgive him. My father's hotel in the Champs Elysees is uninhabitable at the moment. The whitewashers!—and they sing so loud and so false, as whitewashers ever do. The poor man is desolated in an appartement in the Hotel Bristol. I am all right. I have my own lodging—a mere bachelor kennel—where I hope to see you soon and often."

He threw his card on the table, rising to go, and timing his departure with that tact and grace which is only compassed by Frenchmen or Spaniards.

Scarcely had I regained my room, after duly admiring Alphonse Giraud's smart dog-cart, when the servant again appeared. The Baron Giraud had arrived to see the Vicomte, who happened to be out. The affairs of the Baron were urgent, and he desired to see me—was, indeed, awaiting me with impatience in Monsieur de Clericy's study.

Thither I hastened, and found the great financier in that state of perturbation and perspiration which the political crisis seemed to have rendered chronic. He was, however, sufficiently himself to remember that I was a paid dependent.

"How is this?" he cried. "I call to see the Vicomte on important affairs, and he is out."

"It is," I replied, "that the Vicomte de Clericy is not a man of affairs, but a gentleman of station and birth—that this is not an office, but a nobleman's private house."

And I suppose I looked towards the door, for the Baron gasped out something that might have been an apology, and looked redder in the face.

"But, my good sir," he whined distractedly, "it is a matter of the utmost gravity. It is a crisis in the money market. A turn of the wheel may make me a poor man. Where is the Vicomte? Where are my twenty million francs?"

"The Vicomte has gone out, as is his custom before dejeuner, and your twenty millions are, so far as I know, safe in this house. I have not the keeping of either."

"But you took the responsibility," snapped the Baron.

"For all that I am worth—namely, one hundred and twenty pounds a year, out of which I have to find my livery."

"Can you go out and find the Vicomte? I will wait here," asked the Baron, in the utmost distress. It is indeed love that makes the world go round—love of money.

"I know where he is usually to be found," was my reply, "and can go and seek him. I will return here in half an hour if I fail to find him."

"Yes—yes; go, my good sir—go! And God be with you!" With which inappropriate benediction he almost pushed me out of the room.

On making inquiries of the servants, I found my task more difficult than I had anticipated. Monsieur de Clericy had not taken the carriage, as was his habit. He had gone out on foot, carrying, as the butler told me, a bundle of papers in his hand.

"They had the air of business papers of value—so closely he held them," added the man.

He had taken the direction of the Boulevard, with the intention, it appeared, of calling a cab. I hurried, however, to the Vicomte's favourite club, and learned that he had not been seen there. His habits being more or less known to me, I prosecuted my search in such quarters as seemed likely, but without success.

At the Cercle de l'Union I ran against John Turner, who was reading the Times there.

"Ah!" he said, "young Howard. Come to lunch, I suppose. You look hungry—gad, what a twist you had that day! Just in time. I can tell you what is worth eating."

"Thanks; you know such advice is wasted on a country boor like myself. No; I came seeking the Vicomte de Clericy. Have you seen him?"

"Ah! you are still with old Clericy; thought you were up to some mischief—so d—d quiet. Then Mademoiselle is kind?"

"Mademoiselle is away," I answered. "Do you know anything of the Baron Giraud?"

"Do I know anything of the devil," growled John Turner, returning to the perusal of his newspaper. "Are he and old Clericy putting their heads together? I would not trust Giraud with ten sous so far as the club door."

"Exactly!"

"Then he and old Clericy are at it—are they?" said John Turner, looking at me over the Times with his twinkling eyes. "And you, Monsieur, le secretaire, are anxious about your patron. Ha, ha! You have a lot to learn yet, Master Dick."

I looked impatiently at the clock. Twenty minutes had already been wasted in my fruitless search.

"Then you haven't seen de Clericy?"

"No—my good boy—I haven't. And if you cannot find him you may be sure that it is because he does not want to be found."

The words followed me as I left the room. It seemed that John Turner believed in no man.

There was nothing for it but to return to the Rue des Palmiers, and tell the Baron that I had failed to find my patron. The cab I had hired was awaiting me, and in a few minutes I was rattling across the bridge of the Holy Fathers.

"Monsieur le Vicomte returned a few minutes ago," the butler told me. "He has gone to the study, and is now with the Baron Giraud. The Vicomte asked that you should go to him at once."

The atmosphere of the old house seemed gloomy and full of foreboding as I ran up the stairs. The servant stood at the open door and watched me. In that unknown world behind the green baize door more is known than we suspect, and there is often no surprise there when we who live above stairs are dumbfounded.

In my haste I forgot to knock at Monsieur de Clericy's door before opening it—indeed, I think it was ajar.

"My good friend," I heard as I entered the room, "collect yourself. Be calm. We are together in a great misfortune—the money has been stolen!"

The voice was that of my patron. I went in and closed the door behind me. For it seemed, to my fancy, that there were other doors ajar upon the landing, and listeners on the stairs.

The two old men were facing each other, the one purple in the visage, with starting eyes, the other white and quiet.

"Stolen?" echoed the Baron in a thick voice, and with a wild look round the room. "Then I am ruined!"

The old Vicomte spread out his trembling hands in despair, a gesture that seemed to indicate a crumbling away of the world beneath us.

The Baron Giraud turned and looked at me. He did not recognise me for quite ten seconds.



"Then it is not you," he said, thickly. "As you are there. You did not steal it."

"No—I did not steal it," I answered quietly, for there was a look in his face that I did not understand, while it frightened me. Suddenly his eyes shot red—his face was almost black. He fell forward into my arms, and I tore his collar off as I laid him to the ground.

"Ah, mon Dieu, mon Dieu!" the Vicomte was crying as he ran hither and thither, wringing his hands, while I attended, unskillfully enough, to the stricken man. "Ah, mon Dieu! what is this?"

"It is death," I answered, with my hand inside the Baron's shirt. "Who stole that money?"

The Vicomte looked at me.

"Charles Miste," he said.



Chapter XI

Theft

"La fortune ne laisse rien perdre pour les hommes heureux."

I thus returned Alphonse Giraud's visit sooner than either of us anticipated, for I had to go and tell him what had happened in the Rue des Palmiers. I delivered my news in as few words as possible, and cannot tell how he took the evil tidings, for when I had spoken I walked to the window, and there stood looking down into the street.

"Have you told me all?" asked Giraud at length, wondering, perhaps, that I lingered.

"No."

I turned and faced him, the little French dandy, in his stiff collar and patent-leather boots—no bigger than a girl's. The politeness of our previous intercourse seemed to have fallen away from us.

"No—I have not told you all. It seems likely that you, like myself, have been left a poor man."

"Then we have one reason more for being good friends," said Giraud, in his quick French way.

He rose and looked round the room.

"All the same, I have had a famous time," he said. "Come, let us go to my father."

We found the Hotel Clericy in that state of hushed expectation which follows the dread visit in palace and hut alike. The servants seemed to have withdrawn to their own quarters to discuss the event in whispers there. We found the Vicomte in my study, still much agitated and broken. He was sitting in my chair, the tears yet wet upon his wrinkled cheek. There was a quick look of alertness in his eyes, as if the scythe had hissed close by in reaping the mature grain.

"Ah! my poor boy—my poor boy," he cried when he saw Alphonse, and they embraced after the manner of their race.

"And it is all my fault," continued the broken old man, wringing his hands and sinking into his chair again.

"No!" cried Alphonse, with characteristic energy. "We surely cannot say that, without questioning—well—a wiser judgment than ours."

He paused, and perhaps remembered dimly some of the teaching of a good, simple bourgeoise who had died before her husband fingered gold. I sought to quiet the Vicomte also. Old men, like old clothes, need gentle handling. I sat down at my table and began to write.

"What are you doing?" asked the Vicomte, sharply.

"I am telegraphing to Madame de Clericy to return home."

There was a silence in the room while I wrote out the message and despatched it by a servant. The Vicomte made no attempt to stop me.

"Here," he said, when the door was closed—and he handed Giraud the key of his own study. "The doctors and—the others—have placed him in my room—that is the key. You must consider this house as your own until the funeral is over; your poor father's house, I know, is in disorder."

Monsieur de Clericy would have it that the Baron should be buried from the Rue des Palmiers, which Alphonse Giraud recognised as in some sort an honour, for it proclaimed to the world the esteem in which the upstart nobleman was held in high quarters.

"I am glad," said my patron, with that air of fatherliness which he wore towards me from the first, "that you have telegraphed for my wife—the house is different when she is in it. When can she be here?"

"It is just possible that she may be with us to-morrow at this time—by driving rapidly to Toulon."

"With promptitude," muttered the Vicomte, musingly.

"Yes—such as one may expect from Madame."

The Vicomte looked up at me with a smile.

"Ah!—you have discovered that. One is never safe with you men who know horses. You find out so much from observation."

But I think it is no great thing to have discovered that one may usually look for prompt action in men and women of a quiet tongue.

Lucille's name was not mentioned between us. My own desires and feelings had been pushed into the background by the events of the last few days, and he is but half a man who cannot submit cheerfully to such treatment at the hand of Fate from time to time.

During the day we learnt further details respecting the theft of the money, amounting in all to rather more than eight hundred thousand pounds of our coinage. Miste, it appeared, had been instructed to leave Paris by the eight o'clock train that morning for London, taking with him a large sum. The Vicomte had handed him the money the previous evening.

"I carelessly replaced the remainder in the drawer of my writing-table," my patron told us, "before the eyes of that scoundrel. I went to the drawer this morning, having been uneasy about so large a sum—it was arranged that I should see Miste off from the Gare du Nord. Figure to yourselves! The drawer was empty. I hastened to the railway station. Miste was, of course, not there."

And he rocked himself backwards and forwards in the chair. What trouble men take for money—what trouble it brings them! So distressed was he that it would perhaps have been wiser to change the current of his thoughts, but there was surely work here for an idle man like myself to do.

"How was the money to be conveyed?" I asked.

"In cheques of ten thousand pounds each, drawn by John Turner on various European and American bankers in favour of myself."

"And you had indorsed these cheques?"

"No."

"Then how can Miste realise them?" I asked.

"By forgery—my friend," replied the Vicomte sadly. Which was true enough. I thought of Monsieur Miste's graceful figure—of his slim neck, and longed to get my fingers around it. I had only seen his back, after all—and had a singular desire to know the look of his face. I am no great reader, but have met some words which go well with the thoughts I harboured at this time of Monsieur Charles Miste, for I could

"Read rascal in the motions of his back, And scoundrel in the subtle sliding knee."

Seeing that I had risen, the Vicomte asked me where I was going, in a tone of anxiety which I had noted in his voice of late, and, in my vanity, attributed to the fact that he was in some degree dependent upon myself.

"I am going to see John Turner, and then I am going to seek Charles Miste until I find him."

Before I knew what had happened, Alphonse Giraud was shaking my hand, and would have embraced me had he not remembered in time his English clothes, and the reserve of manner usually observed inside such habiliments.

"Ah! my friend," he said, desperately, "the world is large."

"Yes; but not roomy enough for Monsieur Charles Miste and your humble servant."

I spent the remainder of the day with John Turner, who was cynical enough about the matter, but gave me, nevertheless, much valuable information.

"You may be sure," he said, "that I did not sign the cheques until Clericy and the Baron had handed over the equivalent in notes and gold. One man's scare is another man's profit."

And my stout friend chuckled. He heard my plans and laughed at them.

"Very honourable and fine, but out of date," he said. "You will not catch him, but you will, no doubt, enjoy the chase immensely, and in the mean time you will leave a clear field for Alphonse Giraud aupres de Mademoiselle."

I instituted inquiries the same evening, and determined to await the result before setting off to seek Miste in person. Nor will I deny that this decision was brought about, in part, by the reflection that Madame de Clericy and Lucille might arrive the following morning.

At the Lyons station the next morning I had the satisfaction of seeing the two ladies step from the Marseilles express. Lucille would scarcely look at me. During the drive to the Rue des Palmiers I acquainted Madame with the state of affairs, and she listened to my recital with a grave attention and a quiet occasional glance into my face which would have made it difficult to tell aught but the truth.

When we reached home Alphonse Giraud had gone out; the Vicomte was still in his room. He had slept little and was much disturbed, the valet told us. As we mounted the stairs, I saw the two ladies glance instinctively towards the closed door of the Vicomte's study. We are all curious respecting death and vice. Madame went straight to her husband's apartment. At the head of the stairs the door of the morning-room stood open. It was the family rendezvous, where we usually found the ladies at the luncheon hour.

Lucille went in there, leaving the door open behind her. I have always rushed at my fences, and have had the falls I merited. I followed Lucille into the sunlit room. She must have heard my footsteps, but took no notice—walking to the window, and standing there, rested her two hands on the sill while she looked down into the garden.

"Mademoiselle!"

She half turned her head with a little haughty toss of it, looking not at me, but at the ground beneath my feet.

"Well, Monsieur?"

"In what have I offended you?"

She shrugged her shoulders, and I, looking at her as she stood with her back to me, knew again and always that the world contained but this one woman for me.

"Since I told you of my feeling towards yourself," I went on, "and was laughed at for my pains, I have been careful not to take advantage of my position in the house. I have not been so indiscreet again."

She was playing with the blind-cord in an attitude and humour so youthful that I had a sort of tugging at the heart.

"Perhaps, though," I continued, "I have offended in my very discretion. I should have told you again—that I love you—that you might again enjoy the joke."

She stamped her foot impatiently.

"Of course," she said, "you are cleverer than I—you can be sarcastic, and say things I do not know how to answer."

"You can at least answer my question—Mademoiselle."

She turned and faced me with angry eyes.

"Well—then. I do not like the ways of English gentlemen."

"Ah!"

"You told me that you were not poor, but rich—that you had not become my father's secretary because such a situation was necessary, but—but for quite another reason."

"Yes."

"And I learn immediately afterwards from Mr. Gayerson that you are penniless, and must work for your living."

"Merely because Alfred Gayerson knew more than I did," I replied. "I did not know that my father in the heat of a passing quarrel had made such a will—or, indeed, could make it if he so desired. I was not aware of this when I spoke to you—and, knowing it now, I must ask you to consider my words unsaid. You may be sure that I shall not refer to them again, even with the hope of making you merry."

She laughed suddenly.

"Oh," she said, "I find plenty to amuse me—thank you. You need not give yourself the trouble. D'ailleurs," she paused and looked at me with a quick and passing gravity, "that has never been your role, Monsieur l'Anglais—you are not fitted for it."

She pulled a long face—such as mine, no doubt, appeared in her eyes—and left me.

I had business that took me across the Seine during the morning, and lunched at a club—so did not again see the ladies until later in the day. The desire of speech with Alphonse Giraud on a matter connected with his father's burial took me back to the Rue des Palmiers in the afternoon, when I learnt from the servant that the Baron's son had returned, and was, so far as he knew, still in the house. I went to the drawing-room and there found Madame alone.

"I am seeking Monsieur Alphonse Giraud," I said.

"Whose good genius you are."

"Not that I am aware of, Madame."

"No," she said, slowly, "that is just it. In a crowded street the strongest house does not know how many weaker buildings are leaning against it. Alphonse Giraud is not a strong house. He will lean against you if you permit it. So be warned."

"By my carelessness," I answered, "I have done Alphonse Giraud a great injury—I have practically ruined him. Surely the least I can do is to attempt to recover for him that which he has lost."

Madame de Clericy was of course engaged in needlework. I never saw her fingers idle. It appeared that at this moment she had a difficult stitch to execute.

"One never knows," she said, without looking up, "what is the least or the most that men can do. We women look at things in a different light, and therefore cannot say what is right or what is wrong; it is better that men should judge for themselves."

"Yes," I said.

"Of course," said Madame de Clericy quietly, "if you recover Alphonse's fortune you will earn his gratitude, for without it the Vicomte would never recognise his pretensions to Lucille's hand."

"Of course," I answered; and Madame's clever eyes were lifted to my face for a moment.

"You think it the least you can do?"

"I do," said I. "Can you tell me if Alphonse Giraud is in this house?"



"No; I cannot."

"Perhaps Mademoiselle Lucille—"

"Perhaps. You can ask her—if you like."

Madame looked at me again. And I made my inquiries elsewhere.



Chapter XII

Ruin

"Il ne faut regarder dans ses amis que la seule vertu qui nous attache a eux."

If the Baron Giraud was unable in the nature of human affairs to take his wealth with him, it accompanied him, at all events, to the grave, where feathers made a fine show of grief, where priests growled consolatory words, and cherub-faced boys swung themselves and censers nonchalantly along. Some who owed their wealth to Giraud sent their empty carriages to mourn his decease; others, with a singular sense of fitness, despatched wreaths of tin flowers to be laid upon his grave.

The Vicomte had been early astir that morning; indeed, I heard him moving before daylight in the room where the coffin was. I was glad when that same morning dawned, for my kind old patron seemed unhinged by these events, and could not keep away from the apartment where the Baron lay.

There was, of course, no keeping him from the funeral, which ceremony I also attended, and if ever earth was laid to earth it was when we consigned the great financier to his last resting-place. Alphonse Giraud, in his absurd French way, embraced me when the last carriage drove away from the gates of Pere la Chaise.

"And now, mon ami," he said, with a sigh of relief, "let us go and lunch at the club."

He meant no disrespect towards his departed sire. It was merely that his elastic nature could not always be at a tension. His quick bright face was made for smiles, and naturally relaxed to that happy state. He clapped me on the back.

"You are my best friend," he cried.

And I had, indeed, arranged the funeral for him. Those who had honoured the ceremony with their presence showed much sympathy for Alphonse. They pressed his hand; some of them embraced him. A few—elderly men with daughters—told him that they felt like fathers towards him. All this Alphonse received with a bland innocence which his Parisian education had no doubt taught him.

When they were gone, rattling away in their new carriages, he looked after them with a laugh.

"And now," he said, "for ruin. I wonder what it will be like—new at all events. And we all live for novelty nowadays. There is the price of a luncheon at the club, however. Come, my friend, let us go there."

"One change you must, at all events, be prepared for," I said, as we stepped into his carriage. "A change of friends."

Alphonse understood and laughed. Cynicism is an arid growth, found to perfection on the pavement, and this little Frenchman wore his boots out thereon.

During luncheon my host recovered his spirits; although, to do him justice, he was melancholy enough when he remembered his recent loss. Once or twice he threw down his knife and fork, and for quite three minutes all food and drink were nauseous to him.

"Ah!" he cried, "that poor old man. It tears the heart to think of him."

He sat for a few moments with his chin in the palm of his hand, and then slowly took up again the things of this life, wielding them heartily enough.

"I wonder," he went on in a reflective voice, "if I did my duty towards him. It was not difficult, only to make a splash and spend money, and I did that—beautifully!"

"Coffee and chartreuse," he said to the waiter, when we had finished. "And leave the bottle on the table. You know," he added, addressing me, his face beaming with conscious pride, his hand laid impressively on my arm—"you know this club drinks chartreuse in claret glasses. It is our great distinguishing feature."

While religiously observing this law we fell to discussing the future.

"One cannot," observed my companion, philosophically, "bring on the thunder-storm, however heavy the air may be. One can only gasp and wait. I suppose the crash will come soon enough. But tell me how I stand; I have not had time to think the last few days."

He had, indeed, thought only of others.

"We have," answered I, "done all that is possible to stop the payment of these cheques; but a clever villain might succeed in realising them one by one in different parts of the world, and thus outwit us."

"I wonder how it is," said my companion, afloat on a side issue like any woman, "that a fool like myself—an incompetent ass with no brains, eh?—always finds such a friend as you."

He leant forward and tapped me on the chest in his impulsive way, as if sounding that part of me.

"A solid man," he added, apparently satisfied with the investigation.

"I do not know," answered I, truthfully enough; "unless it be that solid men are fools enough to place themselves in such a position."

"How have you placed yourself in such a position? When you have finished that cup of coffee—you have no sugar, by the way—you have but to take your hat and—'Bon jour.' You leave me still in your debt."

With a few quick gestures he illustrated his argument, so that I saw myself—somewhat stiff and British, with my hat upon my head—quit the room, having wished him good day, and leaving him overwhelmed in my debt in a chair.

"I told your father that I would share the responsibility as regarded the safety of his money," I replied. "It was said only half in earnest, but he took it seriously."

"Ah! the poor, dear man! He always took money matters seriously," put in Alphonse.

"I am, at all events, going to try to recover your wealth for you. Besides, I have a singular desire to twist the neck of Monsieur Charles Miste. I ought to have known that the Vicomte was too old to be trusted with the arrangement of affairs such as that. Your father knew it, but thought that I was taking an active part in the matter. I was a fool."

"Ah!" said Alphonse Giraud. "We are all fools, mon cher, or knaves."

And long afterwards, remembering the words, I recognised that truth often bubbles to the lips of irresponsible people.

I told him of my plans, which were simple enough, for I had called in the aid of men whose profession it was to deal with scoundrels. It is only until we know vice that we think it complicated or interesting. There is really no man so simple as your thorough scoundrel. A picture all shade is less difficult to comprehend than one where light and shade are mingled. I had only asked to be put on the track of Charles Miste, for evil men, like water, run in one channel and one direction only. I wished to deal with him myself, law or no law. Indeed, there had been a sufficiency of law and lawyers in my affairs already.

"And I will help you," exclaimed Alphonse Giraud, when he had heard, not without interruption, my proposed plan of campaign. "I will go with you."

"No; you cannot do that. You may be sure that Miste has accomplices who will, of course, watch you, and warn him the moment they suspect you of being on the right scent. Whereas I am nobody. Miste does not even know me. I wish I knew him."

And I remembered with regret how ignorant I was.

"Besides," I added, "you surely have other calls. The Vicomte requires some one near him—the ladies will be glad of your advice and assistance."

He was scarcely the man to whom I should have applied for either, but one can never tell with women. Some of them look up to us when we know in our hearts that we are no better than asses.

We talked of details which may well be omitted here, for the majority of them were based upon assumptions subsequently to be proved erroneous. It seemed that Alphonse Giraud had almost given up hope of recovering his lost wealth, and as I raised this anew in his breast so his face grew graver. A great hope makes a grave face.

"You must not," he said, "make me believe that, unless you have a good foundation for your own faith."

"Oh, no!" I answered, and instinctively changed the subject. His gravity disturbed me.

But he returned to his thought again and again.

"It is not the money," he said at length, when I, who knew what was coming, could no longer hold him. "It is—" he paused, his face suddenly red as he looked hard into his coffee-cup. "It is Lucille."

I made no answer, and it was Alphonse who spoke again, after a pause.

"What a hard face you have, mon ami!" he said. "I never noticed it before. I pity that poor Miste, you know—if you catch him."

The same evening I spoke to my old patron, whom I found in the morning-room, where he sat alone and in meditation. The doors of his own study were still locked, and no one was allowed to enter there. His manner was so feverish and unnatural that I almost abandoned my project of leaving the Rue des Palmiers.

"Ah!" he said, "what a terrible day—and that poor Alphonse! How did you leave him?"

I thought of Alphonse as I had left him, smiling under his mourning hat-band, waving a black glove gaily to me in farewell.

"Oh," I answered, "Alphonse will soon be himself again."

"Ah, my friend," exclaimed the Vicomte, after a sorrowful pause. "The surprises of life are all unpleasant. Pfuit!" he spread out his hands suddenly as if indicating a quick flight, "and I lose a friend and four hundred thousand francs in the twinkling of an eye. To think that a mere shock can kill a man as it killed the poor Baron."

"He had no neck, and systematically ate too much," I said. "I am now going to see if we cannot repair some of the harm that has been done."

"How?" asked the old man, with all the suspicion that had recently come into his character.

"I am going to look for Miste."

He shook his head.

"Very quixotic, but quite useless," said he; and then set himself to dissuade me from my quest with every argument that he could bring to bear upon me. Some of these, indeed, I thought he might well have omitted.

"We cannot spare you at this time, when the political world is so disturbed, and internal affairs are on the brink of catastrophe. We cannot spare you, I, the Vicomtesse—Lucille. It was only last night that she was rejoicing at your presence with us in our time of trouble. I shall tell her that you wish to leave us, and she will, I am sure, dissuade you."

Which threat he carried out, as will be recorded later. I was, however, fixed in my determination, and only gave way in so far as to promise to return as soon as possible. These details are recorded thus at length, as they are all links of a chain which pieced itself together later in my life. Such links there are in the story of every human existence, and no incident seems to stand quite alone.

After dinner that evening I went to my own study, leaving the Vicomte to join the ladies in the drawing-room without me. So far as I was able I had arranged during the last few days the affairs which had been confidingly placed in my care, and desired to leave books and papers in such a condition that a successor could at once take up the thread of management.

The Vicomte was so disturbed at the mention of my departure that the topic had been carefully avoided during dinner, though I make no doubt that he knew my purpose in refusing to go to the drawing-room.

I was at work in my room—between the two tall candles—when the rustle of a woman's dress in the open doorway made me look up. Lucille had come into the room—her eyes bright, her cheeks flushed. And I knew, or thought I knew, her thoughts.

"My father tells me that you are going to leave us," she said in her impetuous way.

"Yes, Mademoiselle."

"I have come to ask you not to do so. You may—think what you like."

I did not look at her, but guessed the expression of her determined lips.

"And you are too proud," I said, "to explain. You think that I, like a schoolboy, am going off in a fit of wounded vanity—pleased to cause a little inconvenience, and thus prove my own importance. You think that it is yourself who sends me away, and your father cannot afford to lose my services at this time. You consider it your duty to suppress your own feelings, and tread under foot your own pride—to serve the Vicomte. Your pride further prompts you to give me permission to think what I like of you. Thank you, Mademoiselle."

I was making pretence, in a shallow way no doubt, to study the papers on the table, and Lucille standing before my desk was looking down at my bent head, noting perhaps the grey hairs there. Thus we remained for a minute in silence.

Then turning, she slowly left the room, and I would have given five years of my life to see the expression of her face.



Chapter XIII

The Shadow Again

"Qui ne craint pas la mort craint donc la vie."

As I sat in my study, the sounds of the house gradually ceased, and the quiet of night settled down between its ancient walls. It seemed to me at times that the Vicomte was moving in his own room. I knew, however, that the passage between us was locked on both sides. My old patron had said nothing to me on the subject, but I had found the door bolted and the key removed. I never was the man to intrude upon another's privacy, and respected the Vicomte's somewhat incomprehensible humour at this time.

I scarcely knew at what hour I at last went to bed; but the oil in my lamp was nearly exhausted and the candles had burnt low. Taking up one of these, I went to my bedroom, pausing at the head of the black staircase to listen as one instinctively does in a great silence. The household was asleep. A faint patter broke the stillness; Lucille's dog—a small white shadow in the gloom—came towards me from her bedroom, outside of which he slept. He looked up at me with a restrained jerk of the tail, for we were always friends, and his expression said:

"Anything wrong?"

He glanced back over his shoulder to Lucille's door, as if to intimate that his own charge was, at all events, safe; then he passed me, and pressed his inquiring nose to the threshold of the Vicomte's study door. He was a singular little dog, with a deep sense of responsibility, which he only laid aside in Lucille's presence. In which he resembled his betters. Men are usually at ease of mind in the presence of one woman only. At night I often heard him blowing the dust from his nostrils at the threshold of my door, whither he came to satisfy himself that I was in my room and all well in the house before he sought his own mat.

When I went softly to my bedroom he was still sniffing at the study door.

I must have slept a couple of hours only when my door handle was quietly turned, and, being a light sleeper, I became aware of a presence in the room before a touch was laid upon my shoulder. It was Madame de Clericy.

"Where is my husband?" she asked, and added: "I thought he was sitting up with you."

"No; I have been alone all the evening," answered I, with a quick feeling of uneasiness.

"I do not think that he is in the house at all," said Madame, moving towards the door. "Will you get up and dress? You will find me in the morning-room."

Lighting my candle, this woman of few words left me. The dawn was creeping up over the opposite roof and through the open window; the freshness of the March air made me shiver as I hurried into my clothes. In the morning-room I found Madame de Clericy.

"Mother," Lucille had once said to me, "always rises to the occasion, but the process is not visible."

"Come quietly," said Madame, speaking, as indeed was her habit in regard to myself, with a certain kindness and sympathy—"come quietly; for Lucille is asleep. I have been to see."

She took it for granted that she and I should consider Lucille before all else, and the assumption gave me pleasure. Although she said "Come," she stood aside and allowed me to lead the way. We naturally went first to the study. The door was locked. At the entrance from my own room we were again met by bars.

"Can you break it open?" asked Madame.

"Not without noise. Let us make sure that he is not elsewhere in the house first."

Together we went up and down the old dwelling, and I traversed many corridors and chambers for the first time. We found nothing. It was beginning to get light when we returned to my study.

"Shall I break open the door?" I asked, when I had unbarred the shutters.

"Yes," answered Madame.

The door was a solid one of walnut, and not to be broken open by mere pressure. While I was moving some of the chairs in order to give myself a run, Lucille came into the room. She had hurried on a dressing-gown and her hair was all down her back, but she was much too simple-minded to think that such things mattered at such a moment.

"What is it?" she cried. "What are you doing?"

Madame explained, and the two stood hand in hand while I made ready to burst in upon the mystery that lay behind that closed door.

I took a run, and brought my shoulder to bear just above the lock, wrenching the four screws out of the wood by the force of the blow. I staggered into the dark passage beyond, with a sore shoulder and my heart in my mouth. Madame and Lucille followed. I tried the handle of the door leading from the passage to the Vicomte's study. The key had not been turned.

"I will go in alone," I said, laying a hand on Madame's arm, who gave me a candle and made no attempt to follow me.



After all, the precaution was unnecessary, for the room was empty.

"You may come," I said; and the ladies stood in the dimly lighted chamber. None of us had entered there since the Baron Giraud had come to occupy it in his coffin. The dust was thick on the writing-table. Some flowers, broken from the complimentary wreaths, lay on the floor. The air was heavy. I kicked the withered lilies towards the fireplace, and looked carefully round the room. The furniture was all in order. Madame went to the window and threw it open. A river steamer, moving cautiously in the dawning light, cast its booming note over the housetops towards us. The frog in the fountain—a family friend—was croaking comfortably in the courtyard below us.

"Lucille, my child," said Madame, quietly, "go back to bed. Your father is not in the house. It will explain itself to-morrow."

But the face that Madame turned towards me, when her daughter had reluctantly left us, was not one that looked for a pleasant solution to the mystery. It is said that wherever a man may be cast he makes a little world around him. But it seemed rather that for me a world of hope and fear and interest and suspense was forming itself, despite me, encompassing me about so that I could not escape it.

"I will go out," I said to Madame, and left her abruptly. I had no plan or intention—for where could I seek the Vicomte at that hour—but a great desire came over me to get away from this gloomy house, where trouble seemed to move and live.

The streets were empty. I walked slowly to the quai, and then, turning to the left, approached the palace of the D'Orsays, which stood then, though to-day, in a fine irony, the broken walls alone remain, amid the new glory of republican Paris. I knew I was going in the wrong direction, and at length, with a queer feeling of shame, turned and crossed to the Isle St. Louis.

Of course, the Vicomte had not done away with himself! The idea was absurd. Aged men do not lay violent hands upon themselves. It was different for Pawle, a friend of mine, who had shot himself as he descended the club stairs, a ruined man. Nevertheless, I walked instinctively towards the Cathedral of Notre Dame, and past that building to the little square house—like a roadside railway station—where Paris keeps her nameless dead.

Half guiltily I went in at one door and out by the other. Two men lay on the slates—the lowest of the low—and even the sanctifying hand of death could not allay the conviction that the world must necessarily be the richer for their removal from it. I came away and walked towards the river again. Standing on one of the bridges, I never knew which, I looked down at the slow green water. As I stood a municipal guard passed me with a suspicious glance. The clocks of the city struck six in a solemn jangle of tones. The boats were moving on the river—the great unwieldy barges as big as a ship. The streets were now astir. Paris seemed huge and as populous as an ant-hill. I felt the hopelessness of seeking unaided one who purposely hid himself in its streets.

I went back to the Morgue and made some inquiries of the attendant there. Nay, I did more—for why should a man be coward enough to shut his eyes to patent fact?—I gave my name and address to the courteous official and asked him to send for me should any news come his way. It was plain enough that the Vicomte de Clericy had of late been in such a state of mind that the worst fears must needs be kept in view.

I went back to the Faubourg St. Germain and crept quietly into the house of my patron by the side door, of which he himself had given me the key. Despite my noiseless tread, Madame was waiting for me at the head of the stairs.

"Nothing?" she asked.

"Nothing," replied I, and avoided her persistent eyes. To share an unspoken fear is akin to the knowledge of a common crime.

At nine o'clock I sought John Turner in his apartment in the Avenue D'Antan, almost within a stone's throw of the British Embassy. There are some to whom one naturally turns in time of trouble and perplexity, while the existence of others who are equally important in their own estimation is at such moments forgotten. Our fellows seem to move around us in a circle—some step out of the rank and touch us as they pass—one, if it please God, comes out and stands beside us. John Turner had, I suppose, touched me in passing. He was at breakfast when I was shown into his presence.

"You are looking fresh and well," he said, in his abrupt way, "so I suppose you are engaged in some mischief."

"Not exactly. But what I began in play is continuing in earnest."

"Yes," he said, looking at me with his easy smile while he dropped a piece of sugar into his coffee-cup. "Yes; young men are fond of walking into streams without ascertaining the depth on the farther side."

"I suppose you were young yourself once?" retorted I, bringing forward a chair.

"Yes—but I was always fat. Women always laughed at me behind my back. And, with a woman half the fun is to let you know her intention as she passes. I returned the compliment in my sleeve."

"I do not see what women have to do in this matter," said I.

"No—but I do. How is Mademoiselle this morning? Sit down; have a cup of coffee, and tell me all about her."

I sat down, and related to him the events of the past night. Turner's face was grave enough when I had finished, and I saw him note with some surprise that he had allowed his coffee to get cold.

"I don't like the sound of it," he said. "One never knows with a Frenchman—he is never too old to talk of his mother, or make an ass of himself."

The English banker was of the greatest assistance to me during that most anxious day. But we found no clew, nor discovered any reason for the Vicomte's disappearance. I went back in the evening to the Hotel Clericy, and there found Madame de Clericy and Lucille awaiting me, with that calmness which is admirable when there is nothing else but waiting to be done.

It was at eight o'clock in the evening that the explanation came, from a source as natural as it was unexpected. A letter was delivered by the postman for Madame de Clericy, who at once recognized her husband's unsteady handwriting. She crossed the room, and stood beside me while she opened the envelope. Lucille, seeing the action, frowned, as I thought. I was still under displeasure—still learning that the better sort of woman will not forgive deception so long as she herself is its motive, as cheap cynics would have us believe.

Madame read the letter with that self-repression which was habitual to her, and made me ever wonder what her youth had been. Lucille and I watched her in silence.

"There," she said, and gave me the letter to pass to Lucille, who received it from my hand without taking her eyes from her mother's face. Then I quitted the room, leaving the two women alone. Madame followed me presently to the study, and there gave me the Vicomte's last letter to read. It was short and breathed of affection.

"Do not seek for me," it ran. "I cannot bear my great misfortunes, and the world will, perhaps, be less cruel to two women who have no protector."

Madame handed me the envelope, which bore the Passy postmark, and I read her thoughts easily enough.

I saw John Turner again that evening, also Alphonse Giraud, who had called at the Hotel Clericy during the day. With these gentlemen I set off the next morning for Passy, taking passage in one of those little river steamers which we had all seen a thousand times, without thinking of a nearer acquaintance.

"This is gay," cried Alphonse, on whom the sunshine had always an enlivening effect, as we sped along. "This is what you call sport—n'est ce pas? For you are a maritime race, is it not so, Howard?"

"Yes," answered I, "we are a maritime race."

"And figure to yourself this is the first time that I am afloat on anything larger than a ferry-boat."

During our short trip Alphonse fully decided that if his fortune should be recovered he would buy a yacht.

"Do you think you can recover it?" he asked quite wistfully, his mind full of this new scheme, and oblivious to the mournful object of our journey.

At Passy we were received with shrugging shoulders and outspread hands.

No, such an old gentleman had not been seen—but the river was large and deep. If one wanted—mon Dieu!—one could do such a thing easily enough. To drag the river—yes—but that cost money. Ten francs a day for each man. It was hard work out there in the stream. And if one found something—name of a dog—it turned on the stomach.

We arranged that two men should drag the river, and, after a weary day, went back to Paris no wiser than we came.

In this suspense a week passed, while I, unwilling to touch my patron's papers until we had certain news of his death, could render little assistance to Madame de Clericy and Lucille. That the latter resented anything in the nature of advice or suggestion was soon made clear enough to me. Nay! she left no doubt of her distrust, and showed this feeling whenever we exchanged words.

"It is a small thing upon which to condemn a man, Mademoiselle," I said to her one morning when chance left us together. "I told you what I thought to be the truth. Fate ruled that I was after all a poor man—but I have not been proved a liar."

"I do not understand you," she answered, with hard eyes. "You are such a strange mixture of good and bad."

An hour afterwards I received a telegram advising me that the body of the Vicomte de Clericy had been found in the river at Passy.



Chapter XIV

A Little Cloud

"Rien ne nous rend si grand qu'une grande douleur."

Alphonse Giraud and I—between whom had sprung up that friendship of contrasts which Madame de Clericy had foreseen—were in constant communication. My summons brought him to the Hotel Clericy at once, where he found the ladies already apprised of their bereavement. He and I set off again for Passy, by train this time, as our need was more urgent. I despatched instructions to the Vicomte's lawyer to follow by the next train—bringing the undertaker with him. There was no heir to my patron's titles, but it seemed necessary to observe every formality at this the dramatic extinction of a long and noble line.

As we drove through the streets, the newsboys were shrieking some tidings which we had neither time nor inclination to inquire into at that moment. It was a hot July day, and Paris should have been half empty, but the pavements were crowded.

"What is the matter?" I said to Alphonse Giraud, who was too busy with his horse to look about. "See the faces of the men at the cafes—they are wild with excitement and some look scared. There is news afoot."

"My good friend," returned Giraud, "I was in bed when your note reached me. Besides, I only read the sporting columns of the papers."

So we took train to Passy, without learning what it was that seemed to be stirring Paris as a squall stirs the sea.

At Passy there was indeed grim work awaiting us. The Prefet himself was kind enough to busy himself in a matter which was scarcely within his province. He had instructed the police to conduct us to his house, where he received us most hospitably.

"Neither of you is related to the Vicomte?" he said, interrogatively; and we stated our case at once.

"It is well that you did not bring Madame with you," he said. "You forbade her to come?"

And he looked at me with a keenness which, I trust, impressed the police official for whose benefit it was assumed.

"I begged her to remain in Paris."

"Ah!" and he gave a significant laugh. "However—so long as she is not here."

He was a white-faced man, who looked as if he had been dried up by some blanching process. One could imagine that the heart inside him was white also. In his own eyes it was evident that he was a vastly clever man. I thought him rather an ass.

"You know, gentlemen," he said, as he prepared his papers, "the recognition of the body is a mere formality."

"Then let us omit it, Monsieur le Prefet," exclaimed Alphonse, with characteristic cheerfulness; but the remark was treated with contempt.

"In July, gentlemen," went on the Prefet, "the Seine is warm—there are eels—a hundred animalculae—a score of decomposing elements. However, there are the clothes—the contents of Monsieur le Vicomte's pockets—a signet ring. Shall we go? But first take another glass of wine. If the nerves are sensitive—a few drops of Benedictine?"

"If I may have it in a claret glass," said Alphonse, and he launched into a voluble explanation, to which the Prefet listened with a thin, transparent smile. I thought that he would have been better pleased had some of the Vicomte's titled friends come to observe this formality. But one's grand friends are better kept for fine weather only, and the official had to content himself with the company of a private secretary and the son of a ruined financier.

Alphonse and I had no difficulty in recognizing the small belongings which had been extracted from my old patron's sodden clothing. In the letter case was a letter from myself on some small matter of business. I pointed this out, and signed my name a second time on the yellow and crinkled paper for the further satisfaction of the lawyer. Then we passed into an inner room and stood in the presence of the dead man. The recognition was, as the Prefet had said, a painful formality. Alphonse Giraud and I swore to the clothing—indeed, the linen was marked plainly enough—and we left the undertaker to his work.

Giraud looked at me with a dry smile when we stood in the fresh air again.

"You and I, Howard," he said, "seem to have got on the seamy side of life lately."

And during the journey I saw him shiver once or twice at the recollection of what we had seen. His carriage was awaiting us at the railway station. Alphonse had been brought up in a school where horses and servants are treated as machines. The man who stood at the horse's head was, however, anything but mechanical, for he ran up to us as soon as we emerged from the crowded exit.



"Monseiur le Baron!" he cried excitedly, with a dull light in his eyes that made a man of him, and no servant. "Has Monsieur le Baron heard the news—the great tidings?"

"No—we have heard nothing. What is your news?"

"The King of Prussia has insulted the French Ambassador at Ems. He struck him on the face, as it is said. And war has been declared by the Emperor. They are going to march to Berlin, Monsieur!"

As he spoke two groups of men swaggered arm in arm along the street. They were singing "Partant pour la Syrie," very much out of tune. Others were crying "A Berlin—a Berlin!"

Alphonse Giraud turned and looked at me with a sudden rush of colour in his cheeks.

"And I, who thought life a matter of coats and neckties," he said, with that quick recognition of his own error that first endeared him to me and made him the better man of the two.

We stood for a few minutes watching the excited groups of men on the Boulevard. At the cafes the street boys were selling newspapers at a prodigious rate, and wherever a soldier could be seen there were many pressing him to drink.

"In Berlin," they shouted, "you will get sour beer, so you must drink good red wine when it is to be had." And the diminutive bulwarks of France were ready enough, we may be sure, to swallow Dutch courage.

"In Berlin!" echoed Giraud, at my side. "Will it end there?"

"There or in Paris," answered I, and lay no claim to astuteness, for the words were carelessly uttered.

We drove through the noisy streets, and Frenchmen never before or since showed themselves to such small advantage—so puerile, so petty, so vain. It was "Berlin" here and "Berlin" there, and "Down with Prussia" on every side. A hundred catchwords, a thousand raised voices, and not one cool head to realize that war is not a game. The very sellers of toys in the gutter had already nicknamed their wares, and offered the passer a black doll under the name of Bismarck, or a monkey on a stick called the King of Prussia.

It was with difficulty that I brought Alphonse Giraud to a grave discussion of the pressing matter we had in hand, for his superficial nature was open to every wind that blew, and now swayed to the tempest of martial ardour that swept across the streets of Paris.

"I think," he said, "I will buy myself a commission. I should like to go to Berlin. Yes—Howard, mon brave, I will buy myself a commission."

"With what?"

"Ah—mon Dieu!—that is true. I have no money. I am ruined. I forgot that."

And he waved a gay salutation of the whip to a passing friend.

"And then, also," he added, with a face suddenly lugubrious, "we have the terrible business of the Vicomte. Howard—listen to me—at all costs the ladies must never see that—must never know. Dieu! it was horrible. I feel all twisted here—as when I smoked my first cigar."

He touched himself on the chest, and with one of his inimitable gestures described in the air a great upheaval.

"I will try to prevent it," I answered.

"Then you will succeed, for your way of suggesting might easily be called by another name. And it is not only the women who obey you. I told Lucille the other day that she was afraid of you, and she blazed up in such a fury of denial that I felt smaller than nature has made me. Her anger made her more beautiful than ever, and I was stupid enough to tell her so. She hates a compliment, you know."

"Indeed, I have never tried her with one."

Alphonse looked at me with grave surprise.

"It is a good thing," he said, "that you do not love her. Name of God! where should I be?"

"But it is with Madame and not Mademoiselle Lucille that we shall have to do this afternoon," I said hastily.

Although he was more or less acknowledged as an aspirant to Lucille's hand, Giraud refused to come within the door when we reached the Hotel Clericy.

"No," he answered; "they will not want to see me at such a time. It is only when people want to laugh that I am required."

I found Madame quite calm, and all her thoughts were for Lucille. The more a man is brought into contact with maternal love, even if it bear in no way upon his own life, the better he will be for it—for this is surely the loftiest of human feelings.

My own mother having died when I was but an infant, it had never been my lot to live in intimacy with women, until fate guided me to the Hotel Clericy.

At no time had I felt such respect for that quiet woman, Madame de Clericy, as on this afternoon when widowhood first cast its sable veil over her.

"Lucille," she said at once, "must not be allowed to grieve for me. She has her own sorrow to bear, for she loved her father dearly. Do not let her have any thought for me."

And later, when the gods gave me five minutes alone with Lucille herself—

"You must not," she said, her face drawn and white, her lips quivering, "you must not let mother think that this is more than I can bear. It falls heavier upon her."

I blundered on somehow during those two days, making, no doubt, a hundred mistakes; for what comfort could I offer? What pretence could I make to understand the feelings of these ladies? My task was not so difficult as I had anticipated in regard to the grim coffin lying at Passy. To spare the other, both ladies agreed with me separately that the Vicomte should be buried from Passy as quietly as possible, and Lucille overlooked the fact that the suggestion came from such an unwelcome source as myself.

So, amid the wild excitement of July, 1870, we laid Charles Albert Malaunay, Vicomte de Clericy, to rest among his ancestors in the little church of Senneville, near Nevers. The war fever was at its height, and all France convulsed with passionate hatred for the Prussian.

It is not for one who has found his truest friends—ay, and his keenest enemies—in France to say aught against so great and gifted a people. But it seems, as I look back now, that the French were ripe in 1870 for one of those strokes by which High Heaven teaches nations from time to time through the world's history that human greatness is a small affair.

There are no people so tolerant of folly as the Parisians. It walks abroad in the streets of the great city with such unblushing self-satisfaction—such a brazen sense of its own superiority—that any Englishman must long to import a hundred London street boys, with their sense of ridicule and fearless tongue. At all times the world has possessed an army of geniuses whose greatness consists of faith and not of works—of faith in themselves which takes the outward form of weird clothing, long hair, and a literary or artistic pose. Paris streets were so full of such in 1870 that all thoughtful men could scarce fail to recognise a nation in its decadence.

"The asses preponderate in the streets," said John Turner to me. "You may hear their bray in every cafe, and France is going to the devil."

And indeed the voices raised in the drinking dens were those of the fool and the knave.

I busied myself with looking into the money affairs of my poor patron, and found them in great disorder. All the ready cash had fallen into the hands of Miste. Some of the estates, as, indeed, I already knew, yielded little or nothing. The commerce of France was naturally paralysed by the declaration of war, and no one wanted a vast old house in the Faubourg St. Germain—a hotbed of Legitimism where no good Buonapartist cared to own a friend or show his face.

I disguised nothing from Madame de Clericy, whom indeed it was hard to deceive.

"Then," she said, "there is no money."

We were in my study, where I was seated at the table, while Madame moved from table to mantelpiece with a woman's keen sight for the blemishes to be found in a bachelor's apartment.

"For the moment you are in need of ready money—that is all. If the war is brought to a speedy termination, all will be set right."

"And if the war is not brought to a speedy termination—you are a second-rate optimist, mon ami—what then?"

"Then I shall have to find some expedient."

She looked at me probingly. The windows were open, and we heard the cries of the newsboys in the streets.

"Hear!" she said; "they are shouting of victories."

I shrugged my shoulders.

"You mean," said the Vicomtesse slowly, "that they will shout of victories until the Prussians are in sight of Paris."

"The Parisians will pay two sous for good news, and nothing at all for evil tidings," I answered.

Thus we lived for some weeks, through the heat of July—and I could neither leave Paris nor give thought to Charles Miste. That scoundrel was, however, singularly quiet. No cheque had been cashed, and we knew, at all events, that he had realised none of his stolen wealth. On the tenth of July the Ollivier Ministry fell. Things were going from bad to worse. At the end of the month the Emperor quitted St. Cloud to take command of the army. He never came to France again.



Chapter XV

Flight

"Repousser sa croix, c'est l'appesantir."