'She takes it well,' said Danjou the first evening. And neither little Countess Foder, from whose massy lace protruded a very sharp inquisitive little nose, nor sentimental Madame Desminieres, who had looked forward to lamentations and confidences, could get over such amazing courage. In truth they were as much amazed at her as if going to a long-expected play they had found the house 'closed for the day'; while the men took Ariadne's equanimity as an encouragement to would-be successors. The real change in the Duchess's life lay in the attitude observed towards her by all or nearly all the men; they were less reserved, more sedulous, more eager to please her, and fluttered round her chair with an obvious desire, not merely to merit her patronage, but to attract her regard.

Never indeed had Maria Antonia been more beautiful. When she entered the dining-room the tempered brilliancy of her complexion and her shoulders in their light summer robe made a bright place at the table, even when the Marquise de Roca Nera had come over from her neighbouring country seat on the other side of the Loire. The Marquise was younger, but no one would have thought so to look at them. Laniboire, the philosopher, was strongly attracted to the Duchess. He was a widower, well on in years, with heavy features and apoplectic complexion, but he did his best to captivate his hostess by the display of a manly and sportsmanlike activity which led him into occasional mishaps. One day, in a boat, as he tried to make a great display of biceps over his rowing, he fell into the river; another time, as he was prancing on horseback at the side of the carriage, his mount squeezed his leg so hard against the wheel that he had to keep his room and be bandaged for several days. But the finest spectacle was to see him in the drawing-room, 'dancing,' as Danjou said, 'before the Ark.' He stretched and bent his unwieldy person in all directions. He would challenge to a philosophic duel the young critic, a confirmed pessimist of three-and-twenty, and overwhelm him with his own imperturbable optimism. Laniboire the philosopher had one particular reason for this good opinion of the world; his wife had died of diphtheria caught from nursing their children; both his children had died with their mother; and each time that he repeated his dithyramb in praise of existence, the philosopher concluded his statement with a sort of practical demonstration, a bow to the Duchess, which seemed to say, 'How can a man think ill of life in the presence of such beauty as yours?'

The young critic paid his court in a less conspicuous and sufficiently cunning fashion. He was an immense admirer of the Prince d'Athis, and being at the age when admiration shows itself by imitation, he no sooner made his entry into society than he copied Sammy's attitudes, his walk, even the carriage of his head, his bent back, and vague mysterious smile of contemptuous reserve. Now he increased the resemblance by details of dress, which he had observed and collected with the sharpness of a child, from the way of pinning his tie just at the opening of the collar to the fawn-coloured check of his English trousers. Unfortunately he had too much hair and not a scrap of beard, so that his efforts were quite thrown away, and revived no uncomfortable memories in the Duchess, who was as indifferent to his English checks as she was to the languishing glances of Bretigny fils, or the significant pressure of Bretigny pere, as he gave her his arm to dinner. But all this helped to surround her with that atmosphere of gallantry to which she had long been accustomed by D'Athis, who played the humble servant to the verge of servility, and to save her woman's pride from the conscious humiliation of abandonment.

Amidst all these aspirants Danjou kept somewhat aloof, amusing the Duchess with his green-room stories and making her laugh, a way of self-recommendation in certain cases not unsuccessful. But the time came when he thought matters sufficiently advanced: and one morning when she was starting for her rapid solitary walk with her dogs through the park, in the hope of leaving her wrath behind in the thickets with the waking birds, or of cooling and tempering it among the dewy lawns and dripping branches—suddenly, at a turn in the path, appeared Danjou, ready for the attack. Dressed from head to foot in white flannels, his trousers tucked into his boots, with a picturesque cap and a well-trimmed beard, he was trying to find a denouement for a three-act drama, to be ready for the Francais that winter. The name was 'Appearances,' and the subject a satire on society. Everything was written but the final scene.



'Well, let us try what we can do together,' said the Duchess brightly, as she cracked the long lash of the short-handled whip with silver whistle, which she used to call in her dogs. But the moment they turned to walk together, he began to talk of his love, and how sad it would be for her to live alone; and ended by offering himself, after his own fashion, straight out and with no circumlocutions. The Duchess, with a quick movement of pride, threw up her head, grasping her whip handle tightly, as if to strike the insolent fellow who dared to talk to her as he might to a super at the opera. But the insult was also a compliment, and there was pleasure as well as anger in her blush. Danjou steadily urged his point, and tried to dazzle her with his polished wit, pretending to treat the matter less as a love affair than as an intellectual partnership. A man like himself and a woman like her might command the world.

'Many thanks, my dear Danjou; such specious reasoning is not new to me. I am suffering from it still.' Then with a haughty wave of her hand, which allowed no reply, she pointed out the shady path which the dramatist was to follow, and said, 'Look for your denouement; I am going in.' He stood where he was, completely disconcerted, and gazed at her beautiful carriage as she walked away.

'Not even as zebra?' he said, in a tone of appeal.

She looked round, her black brows meeting. 'Ah, yes, you are right; the post is vacant,' Her thoughts went to Lavaux, the base underling for whom she had done so much, and without a smile she answered in a weary voice, 'Zebra, if you like.'

Then she vanished behind a little group of fine yellow roses a little overblown, whose leaves would be scattered at the first fresh breeze.

It was something to boast of that the proud Mari' Anto' had heard him through. Probably no other man, not even her Prince, had ever spoken to her thus. Full of the inspiration of hope, and stimulated by the fine speeches he had just thrown off, the dramatist soon hit upon his final scene. He was going back to write it out before breakfast, when he stopped short in surprise at seeing through the branches 'the Prince's' windows open to the sunlight Who was coming? What favourite guest was to be honoured with those convenient and luxurious rooms, looking over the river and the park? He made inquiries, and was reassured. It was her Grace's architect; he was coming to the castle after an illness. Considering the intimacy between the lady and the Astiers, nothing was more natural than that Paul should be entertained like a son of the house in a mansion which he had more or less created. Still, when the new arrival took his seat at breakfast, his chastened delicacy of feature, his paleness—the paler by a white silk kerchief—his duel, his wound, and the general flavour of romance surrounding him seemed to make so keen an impression on the ladies, and called forth such affectionate interest and care on the part of the Duchess herself, that handsome Danjou, being one of those all-engrossing persons to whom any other man's success seems a personal loss, if not downright robbery, felt a jealous pang. With his eyes on his plate he took advantage of his position by the hostess to murmur some depreciatory remarks upon the pretty young fellow, unfortunately so much disfigured by his mother's nose. He made merry over his duel, his wound, and his reputation in the fencing-room, the kind of bubble which bursts at the first prick of a real sword. He added, not knowing how near he was to the truth, 'The quarrel at cards was of course a mere pretext; there was a woman at the bottom of it.'

'Of the duel? Do you think so?' His nod said 'I am sure of it.' Much admiring his own cleverness, he turned to the company, and dazzled them with his epigrams and anecdotes. He never went into society without providing himself with a store of these pocket squibs. Paul was no match for him here, and the ladies' interest soon reverted to the brilliant talker, especially when he announced that, having got his denouement and finished his play, he would read it in the drawing-room while it was too hot to go out. A universal exclamation of delight from the ladies welcomed this invaluable relief to the day's monotony. What a precious privilege for them, proud as they were already of dating their letters from Mousseaux, to be able to send to all their dear friends, who were not there, accounts of an unpublished play by Danjou, read by Danjou himself, and then next winter to be in a position to say when the rehearsals were going on, 'Oh, Danjou's play! I know it; he read it to us at the castle.'

As the company rose, full of excitement at this good news, the Duchess went towards Paul, and taking his arm with her graceful air of command said, 'Come for a turn on the gallery; it is stifling here.' The air was heavy even at the height of the gallery, for there rose from the steaming river a mist of heat, which overspread and blurred the irregular green outlines of its banks and of its low floating islands. She led the young man away from the smokers right to the end of the furthest bay, and then clasping his hand said, 'So it was for me; it was all for me.'

'Yes, Duchess, for you.'

And he pursed his lips as he added, 'And presently we shall have another try.'

'You must not say that, you naughty boy.'

She stopped, as an inquisitive footstep came towards them. Danjou!'

'Yes, Duchess.'

'My fan... on the dining-room table... would you be so kind?...' When he was some way off, she said, 'I will not have it, Paul. In the first place, the creature is not worth fighting. Ah, if we were alone—if I could tell you!' The fierceness of her tone and the clenching of her hands betrayed a rage that amazed Paul Astier. After a month he had hoped to find her calmer than this. It was a disappointment, and it checked the explosion, 'I love you—I have always loved you,' which was to have been forced from him at the first confidential interview. He was only telling the story of the duel, in which she was very much interested, when the Academician brought her fan. 'Well fetched, zebra!' she said by way of thanks. With a little pout he answered in the same strain but a lowered voice, 'A zebra on promotion, you know!'

'What, wanting to be raised already!' She tapped him with her fan as she spoke, and anxious to put him in a good temper for his reading, let him escort her back to the drawing-room, where his manuscript was lying ready on a dainty card-table in the full light of a high window partly open, showing the flower-garden and the groups of great trees.



'Appearances. A Drama in Three Acts. Dramatis Personae....'

The ladies, getting as close round as they could, drew themselves together with the charming little shiver which is their way of anticipating enjoyment. Danjou read like a genuine 'Player' of Picheral's classification, making lengthy pauses while he moistened his lips with his glass of water, and wiped them with a fine cambric handkerchief. As he finished each of the long broad pages, scribbled all over with his tiny handwriting, he let-it fall carelessly at his feet on the carpet Each time Madame de Foder, who hunts the 'lions' of all nations, stooped noiselessly, picked up the fallen sheet, and placed it reverently upon an armchair beside her, exactly square with the sheets before, contriving, in this subtle and delicate way, to take a certain part in the great man's work. It was as if Liszt or Rubinstein had been at the piano and she had been turning over the music. All went well till the end of Act I., an interesting and promising introduction, received with a furore of delighted exclamations, rapturous laughter, and enthusiastic applause. After a long pause, in which was audible from the far distance of the park the hum of the insects buzzing about the tree-tops, the reader wiped his moustache, and resumed:

Act II The scene represents... But here his voice began to break, and grew huskier with every speech. He had just seen an empty chair among the ladies in the first row; it was Antonia's chair; and his glances strayed over his eye-glass searching the whole huge room. It was full of green plants and screens, behind which the auditors had ensconced themselves to hear—or to sleep—undisturbed. At last, in one of the numerous and regular intervals provided by his glass of water, he caught a whisper, then a glimpse of a light dress, then, at the far end, on a sofa, he saw the Duchess with Paul beside her, continuing the conversation interrupted on the gallery. To one like Danjou, spoiled with every kind of success, the affront was deadly. But he nerved himself to finish the Act, throwing his pages down on the floor with a violence which made them fly, and sent little Madame de Foder crawling after them on all fours. At the end of the Act, as the whispering still went on, he left off, pretending that he was suddenly taken hoarse and must defer the rest till the next day. The Duchess, absorbed in the duel, of which she could not hear enough, supposed the play concluded, and cried from the distance, clapping her little hands, 'Bravo, Danjou, the denouement is delicious.'

That evening the great man had, or said he had, a bilious attack, and very early next morning he left Mousseaux without seeing any one again. Perhaps it was only the vexation of an author; perhaps he truly believed that young Astier was going to succeed the Prince. However that may be, a week after he had gone Paul had not got beyond an occasional whispered word. The lady showed him the utmost kindness, treated him with the care of a mother, asked after his health, whether he did not find the tower looking south too hot, whether the shaking of the carriage tired him, whether it was not too late for him to stay on the river. But the moment he tried to mention the word 'love,' she was off without seeming to understand. Still he found her a very different creature from the proud Antonia of other years. Then, haughty and calm, she would show impertinence his place by a mere frown. It was the serenity of a majestic river flowing between its embankments. But now the embankment was giving way; there seemed to be a crack somewhere, through which was breaking the real nature of the woman. She had fits of rebellion against custom and social convention, which hitherto she had respected scrupulously, sudden desires to go somewhere else, and to tire herself in some long excursion. She planned festivities, fireworks, great coursing expeditions for the autumn, in which she would take the lead, though it was years since she had been on horseback. Paul watched carefully the vagaries of her excitement, and kept his sharp hawk's-eye upon everything; he had quite made up his mind not to dangle for two years, as he had round Colette de Rosen.

One night the party had broken up early, after a tiring day of driving in the neighbourhood. Paul had gone up to his room, and having thrown off his coat was sitting in his slippers smoking a cigar and writing to his mother a carefully studied epistle. Mamma was staying at Clos Jallanges, and wearing her eyes out with looking across the winding river into the extreme distance for a glimpse of the four towers of Mousseaux: and he had to convince her that there was no chance of a reconciliation at present between her and her friend, and that they had better not meet. (No, no! His good mother was much too fond of fishing on her own hook to be a desirable associate!) He had to remind her of the bill due at the end of the month, and her promise to send the money to good little Stenne, who had been left in the Rue Fortuny as sole garrison of the mediaeval mansion. If Sammy's money had not yet come in, she might borrow of the Freydets, who would not refuse to advance it for a few days. That very morning the Paris papers in their foreign news had announced the marriage of the French Ambassador at St. Petersburg, mentioned the presence of the Grand Duke, described the bride's dresses, and given the name of the Polish Bishop who had bestowed his blessing on the happy pair. Mamma might imagine how the breakfast party at Mousseaux was affected by this news, known to every one, and read by the hostess in the eyes of her guests and in their persistent conversation on other topics.

The poor Duchess, who had hardly spoken during the meal, felt, when it was over, that she must rouse herself, and in spite of the heat had carried off all her visitors in three carriages to the Chateau de la Poissonniere, where the poet Ronsard was born. Ten miles' drive in the sun on a road all cracks and dust, for the pleasure of hearing that hideous old Lani-boire, hoisted on to an old stump as decayed as himself, recite 'Mignonne, allons voir si la rose.' On the way home they had paid a visit to the Agricultural Orphanage and Training School founded by old Padovani. Mamma must know it all well; they had been over the dormitory and laundry, and inspected the implements and the copy-books; and the whole place was so hot and smelly; and Laniboire made a speech to the Agricultural Orphans, cropped like convicts, in which he assured them that the world was good. To finish themselves up they stopped again at the furnaces near Onzain, and spent an hour between the heat of the setting sun and the smoke and smell of coal from three huge belching brick chimneys, stumbling over the rails and dodging the trucks and shovels full of molten metal in gigantic masses, which dropped fire like dissolving blocks of red ice, All the time the Duchess went on unwearied, but looked at nothing, listened to nothing. She seemed to be having an animated discussion with old Bretigny, whose arm she had taken, and paid as little attention to the furnaces and forges as to the poet Ronsard or the Agricultural Orphanage.

Paul had reached this point in his letter, painting with terrible force, to console his mother for her absence, the dullness of life this year at Mousseaux, when he heard a gentle knock at his door. He thought it was the young critic, or the Vicomte de Bretigny, or perhaps Laniboire, who had been very unquiet of late. All these had often prolonged the evening in his room, which was the largest and most convenient, and had a dainty smoking-room attached to it. He was very much surprised on opening his door to see by the light of the painted windows that the long corridor of the first floor was absolutely silent and deserted, right away to the guard-room, where a ray of moonlight showed the outline of the carving on the massive door. He was going back to his seat, when there came another knock. It came from the smoking-room, which communicated by a little door under the hangings with a narrow passage in the thickness of the wall leading to the rooms of the Duchess. The arrangement, dating much earlier than the restorations, was not known to him: and, as he remembered certain conversations during the last few days, when the men were alone, and especially some of the stories of old Laniboire, his first thought was 'Whew! I hope she did not hear us.' He drew the bolt and the Duchess passed him without a word, and laying down on the table where he had been writing a bundle of yellowish papers, with which her delicate fingers played nervously, she said in a serious voice:

'I want you to give me your advice; you are my friend, and I have no one else to confide in.'

No one but him—poor woman! And she did not take warning from the cunning watchful predatory glance, which shifted from the letter, imprudently left open on the table where she might have read it, to herself as she stood there with her arms bare and heavy hair coiled round and round her head. He was thinking, 'What does she want? What has she come for?' She, absorbed in the requickened wrath which had been rising and choking her since the morning, panted out in low broken sentences, 'Just before you came, he sent Lavaux—he did! he sent Lavaux—to ask for his letters!—I gave his impudent cheeks such a reception that he won't come again.—His letters, indeed!—these are what he wanted.'

She held out the roll, her brief, as it might be called, against the partner of her affections, showing what she had paid to raise the man out of the gutter.

'Take them, look at them! They are really quite interesting! 'He turned over the odd collection, smelling now of the boudoir, but better suited to Bos's shop-front; there were mortgageable debts to dealers in curiosities, private jewellers, laundresses, yacht-builders, agents for imitation-champagne from Touraine, receipts from stewards and club-waiters, in short, every device of usury by which a man about Paris comes to bankruptcy. Mari' Anto muttered under her breath, 'The restoration of this gentleman cost more than Mousseaux, you see!... I have had all these things in a drawer for years, because I never destroy anything; but I solemnly declare that. I never thought of using them. Now I have changed my mind. He is rich. I want my money and interest. If he does not pay, I will take proceedings. Don't you think I am justified?'

'Entirely justified,' said Paul, stroking the point of his fair beard, 'only—was not the Prince d'Athis incapable of contracting when he signed these bills?'

'Yes, yes, I know... Bretigny told me about that... for as he could get nothing through Lavaux, he wrote to Bretigny to ask him to arbitrate. A fellow Academician, you know!' She laughed a laugh of impartial scorn for the official dignities of the Ambassador and the ex-Minister. Then she burst out indignantly, 'It is true that I need not have paid, but I chose he should be clean. I don't want any arbitration. I paid and will be paid back, or else I go into court, where the name and title of our representative at St. Petersburg will be dragged through the dirt. If I can only degrade the wretch, I shall have won the suit I care about.'

'I can't understand,' said Paul as he put down the packet so as to hide the awkward letter to Mamma, 'I can't understand how such proofs should have been left in your hands by a man as clever——'

'As D'Athis?'

The shrug of her shoulders sufficiently completed the interjection. But the madness of a woman's anger may always lead to something, so he drew her on. 'Yet he was one of our best diplomatists.'

'It was I who put him up to it. He knows nothing of the business but what I taught him.'

She hid her face, as for shame, in her hands, checking her sobs and gasping with fury. 'To think, to think, twelve years of my life to a man like that! And now he leaves me; he casts me off! Cast off by him! Cast off by him!'

It is some hours later, and she is still there. The young man is upon his knees and is whispering tenderly: 'When you know that I love you—when you know that I loved you always. Think, think!' The striking of a clock is heard in the far distance and wakening sounds go by in the growing light. She flies in dismay from the room, not caring so much as to take with her the brief of her intended revenge.

Revenge herself now? On whom? and what for? There was an end of her hatred now, for had she not her love? From this day she was another woman, such an one as when she is seen with her lover or her husband, supporting her unhasty steps upon the tender cradle of his arm, makes the common people say, 'Well, she has got what she wants.' There are not so many of them as people think, particularly in society. Not that the mistress of a great house could be thinking exclusively of her own happiness; there were guests going away and other guests arriving and settling in, a second instalment, more numerous and less intimate, the whole in fact of the Academic set. There were the Duke de Courson-Launay, the Prince and Princess de Fitz-Roy, the De Circourts, the Huchenards, Saint-Avol the diplomatist, Moser and his daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Henry of the American embassy. It was a hard task to provide entertainment and occupation for all these people and to fuse such different elements. No one understood the business better than she, but just now it was a burden and a weariness to her. She would have liked to keep quiet and meditate on her happiness, to think of nothing else: and she could devise no other amusements for her guests than the invariable. visit to the fish preserves, to Ronsard's castle, and to the Orphanage. Her own pleasure was complete when her hand touched Paul's, as accident brought them together in the same boat or the same carriage.

In the course of one such pompous expedition on the river, the little fleet from Mousseaux, sailing on a shimmering mirror of silken awnings and ducal pennons, had gone somewhat further than usual. Paul Astier was in the boat in front of his lady's. He was sitting in the stern beside Laniboire, and was receiving the Academician's confidences. Having been invited to stay at Mousseaux till his report was finished, the old fool fancied that he was making good progress towards the coveted succession; and as always happens in such cases, he chose Paul as the confidant of his hopes. After telling him what he had said and what she had answered, and one thing and another, he was just saying, 'Now, young man, what would you do, if you were me?' when a clear voice of low pitch rang over the water from the boat behind them.

'Monsieur Astier!'

'Yes, Duchess.'

'See yonder, among the reeds. It looks like Vedrine.'

Vedrine it was, painting away, with his wife and children at his side, on an old flat-bottomed boat moored to a willow branch alongside of a green islet, where the wagtails were chirping themselves hoarse. The boats drew quickly up beside him, any novelty being a break to the everlasting tedium of fashionable society: and while the Duchess greeted with her sweetest smile Madame Vedrine, who had once been her guest at Mousseaux, the ladies looked with interest at the artist's strange home and the beautiful children, born of its light and its love, as they lay in the shelter of their green refuge on the clear, placid stream, which reflected the picture of their happiness. After the first greetings, Vedrine, palette in hand, gave Paul an account of the doings at Clos Jallanges, which was visible through the mists of the river, half-way up the hill side—a long low white house with an Italian roof. 'My dear fellow, they have all gone crazy there! The vacancy has turned their heads. They spend their days ticking votes—your mother, Picheral, and the poor invalid in her wheelchair. She too has caught the Academic fever, and talks of moving to Paris, entertaining and giving parties to help her brother on.' So Vedrine, to escape the general madness, camped out all day and worked in the open air—children and all; and pointing to his old boat he said, with a simple unresentful laugh, 'My dahabeeah, you see; my trip to the Nile.'

All at once the little boy, who in the midst of so many people, so many pretty ladies and pretty dresses, had eyes for no one but old Laniboire, addressed him in a clear voice, 'Please, are you the gentleman of the Academie who is going to be a hundred?' The philosopher, occupied in showing off his boating for the benefit of the fair Antonia, was all but knocked off his seat: and when the peals of laughter had somewhat subsided, Vedrine explained that the child was strangely interested in Jean Rehu, whom he did not know and had never seen, merely because he was nearly a hundred years old. Every day the handsome little boy asked about the old man and inquired how he was. Child as he was, he admired such length of days with something of a personal regard. If others had lived to a hundred, why not he?

But a sudden freshening of the breeze filled the sails of the little craft, and fluttered all the tiny pennons; a mass of clouds was moving up from over Blois, and towards Mousseaux a film of rain dimmed the horizon, while the four lights on the top of the towers sparkled against the black sky.

There was a moment of hurry and confusion. Then the vessels went away between the banks of yellow sand, one behind the other in the narrow channels; while Vedrine, pleased by the brightness of the colours beneath the stormy sky and by the striking figures of the boatmen, standing in the bows and leaning hard on their long poles, turned to his wife, who was kneeling in the punt packing in the children, the colour-box, and the palette, and said, 'Look over there, mamma. I sometimes say of a friend, that we are in the same boat. Well, there you may see what I mean. As those boats fly in line through the wind, with the darkness-coming down, so are we men and workers, generation after generation. It's no use being shy of the fellows in your own boat; you know them, you rub up against them, you are friends without wishing it or even knowing it, all sailing on the same tack. But how the fellows in front do loiter and get in the way! There's nothing in common between their boat and ours. We are too far off, we cannot catch what they say. We never trouble about them except to call out "Go ahead; get on, do!" Meanwhile youth in the boat behind is pushing us; they would not mind running us down; and we shout to them angrily, "Easy there! Where's the hurry?" Well, as for me,' and he drew himself to his full height, towering above the line of coast and river, 'I belong, of course, to my own beat and I am fond of it. But the boat just ahead and the one coming up interest me not less. I would hail them, signal to them, speak to them all. All of us alike, those before and those behind, are threatened by the same dangers, and every boat finds the current strong, the sky treacherous, and the evening quick to close in... Now, my dears, we must make haste; here comes the rain!'



CHAPTER XIII.

'Pray for the repose of the soul of the most noble Lord, the Duke Charles Henri Francois Padovani, Prince d'Olmitz, formerly Member of the Senate, Ambassador and Minister, Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, who departed this life September 20, 1880, at his estate of Barbicaglia, where his remains have been interred. A mass for the deceased will be celebrated on Sunday next in the private chapel, where you are invited to attend.'

This quaint summons was being proclaimed on both banks of the Loire, between Mousseaux and Onzain, by mourners hired from Vafflard's, wearing tall hats with crape mufflers that reached the ground, and ringing their heavy bells as they walked. Paul Astier, hearing the words as he came downstairs to the midday breakfast, felt his heart beat high with joy and pride. Four days ago the news of the Duke's death had startled Mousseaux as the report of a gun startles a covey of partridges, and had unexpectedly dispersed and scattered the second instalment of guests to various seaside and holiday resorts. The Duchess had had to set off at once for Corsica, leaving at the castle only a few very intimate friends. The melancholy sound of the voices and moving bells, carried to Paul's ear by a breeze from the river through the open panes of the staircase window, the antiquated and princely form of the funeral invitation, could not but invest the domain of Mousseaux with an impressive air of grandeur, which added to the height of its four towers and its immemorial trees. And as all this was to be his (for the Duchess on leaving had begged him to stay at the castle, as there were important decisions to be taken on her return), the proclamation of death sounded in his ears like the announcement of his approaching installation. 'Pray for the repose of the soul,' said the voices. At last he really had fortune within his grasp, and this time it should not be taken from him. 'Member of the Senate, Ambassador and Minister,' said the voices again.

'Those bells are depressing, are they not, Monsieur Paul?' said Mdlle. Moser who was sitting at breakfast between her father and the Academician Laniboire. The Duchess had kept these guests at Mousseaux, partly to amuse Paul's solitude and partly to give a little more rest and fresh air to the poor 'Antigone,' kept in bondage by the interminable candidature of her father. There was certainly no fear that the Duchess would find a rival in this woman, who had eyes like a beaten hound, hair without colour, and no other thought but her humiliating petition for the unattainable place in the Academie. But on this particular morning she had taken more pains than usual with her appearance, and wore a bright dress open at the neck. The poor neck was very thin and lean, but—there was no higher game. So Laniboire, in high spirits, was teasing her with a gay freedom. No, he did not think the death-bells at all depressing, nor the repetition of 'Pray for the repose,' as it died away in the distance. No, life seemed to him by contrast more enjoyable than usual, the Vouvray sparkled more brightly in the decanters, and his good stories had a telling echo in the huge half-empty dining-room. The sodden subservient face of Moser the candidate wore a fawning smile, though he wished his daughter away. But the philosopher was a man of great influence in the Academie.

After coffee had been served on the terrace, Laniboire, with his face coloured like a Redskin, called out, 'Now let's go and work, Mdlle. Moser; I feel quite in the humour. I believe I shall finish my report to-day.' The gentle little lady, who sometimes acted as his secretary, rose with some regret. On a delicious day like this, hazy with the first mists of autumn, a good walk, or perhaps a continuation on the gallery of her talk with the charming and well-mannered M. Paul, would have pleased her better than writing at old M. Laniboire's dictation commendations of devoted hospital-nurses or exemplary attendants. But her father urged her to go, as the great man wanted her. She obeyed and went upstairs behind Laniboire, followed by old Moser, who was going to have his afternoon nap.

Laniboire may have had Pascal's nose, but he had not his manners. When Paul came back from cooling his ambitious hopes by a long walk in the woods, he found the break waiting at the foot of the steps in the great court. The two fine horses were pawing the ground, and Mdlle. Moser was inside, surrounded by boxes and bags, while Moser, looking bewildered, stood on the doorstep, feeling in his pockets and bestowing coins on two or three sneering footmen. Paul went up to the carriage, 'So you are leaving us, Mademoiselle.' She gave him a thin clammy hand, on which she had forgotten to put a glove, and without saying a word, or removing the handkerchief with which she was wiping her eyes under her veil, she bent her head in sign of good-bye. He learnt little more from old Moser, who stammered out in a low voice, as he stood vexed and gloomy, with one foot on the step of the carriage 'It's her doing: she will go. He was rude to her she says, but I can't believe it.' Then with a profound sigh, and knitting the wrinkle in his brow, the deep, red, scar-like wrinkle of the Academic candidate, he added, 'It's a very bad thing for my election.'

Laniboire stayed all the afternoon in his room, and at dinner, as he took his seat opposite Paul, he said, 'Do you know why our friends the Mosers went off so suddenly?'

'No, sir, do you?'

'It's very strange, very strange.'

He assumed an air of great composure for the benefit of the servants, but it was obvious that he was disturbed, worried, and in desperate fear of a scandal. Gradually he regained his serenity and satisfaction, not being able to think ill of life at dinner, and ended by admitting to his young friend that he had perhaps been a little too attentive. 'But it is her father's fault; he pesters me; and even an awarder of good-conduct prizes has his feelings, eh?' He lifted his glass of liqueur with a triumphant flourish, cut short by Paul's remark, 'What will the Duchess say? Of course Mdlle. Moser must have written to her to explain why she left.'

Laniboire turned pale. 'Really, do you think she did?'

Paul pressed the point, in the hopes of ridding himself of such a far from gay gallant. If the lady had not written, there was the chance that a servant might say something. Then, wrinkling his deceitful little nose, he said, 'If I were you, my dear sir——'

'Pooh, pooh! Nonsense! I may get a scolding, but it won't really do me any harm.'

But in spite of his assumed confidence, the day before the Duchess returned, upon the pretext that the election to the Academie was coming on, and that the damp evenings were bad for his rheumatism, he went off, taking in his portmanteau his completed report on the prizes for good-conduct.

The Duchess arrived for Sunday's mass, celebrated with great magnificence in the Renaissance chapel, where Vedrine's versatility had restored both the fine stained glass and the wonderful carving of the reredos. A huge crowd from the villages of the neighbourhood filled the chapel to overflowing, and gathered in the great court. Everywhere were awkward fellows in hideous black coats, and long blue blouses shining from the iron, everywhere white caps and kerchiefs stiff with starch round sunburnt necks. All these people were brought together not by the religious ceremony, nor by the honours paid to the old Duke, who was unknown in the district, but by the open-air feast which was to follow the mass. The long tables and benches were arranged on both sides of the long lordly avenue; and here, after the service, between two and three thousand peasants had no difficulty in finding room. At first there was some constraint; the guests, overawed by the troop of servants in mourning and the rangers with crape on their caps, spoke in whispers under the shadow of the majestic elms. But as they warmed with the wine and the victuals, the funeral feast grew more lively, and ended in a vast merrymaking.

To escape this unpleasant carnival, the Duchess and Paul went for a drive, sweeping rapidly in an open carriage draped with black along the roads and fields, abandoned to the desertion of Sunday. The mourning cockades of the tall footmen and the long veil of the widow opposite reminded the young man of other similar drives. He thought to himself, 'My destiny seems to lie in the way of dead husbands.' He felt a touch of regret at the thought of Colette de Rosen's little curly head, contrasting so brightly with the black mass of her surroundings. The Duchess however, tired as she was by her journey, and looking stouter than usual in her improvised mourning, had a magnificence of manner entirely wanting in Colette, and besides, her dead husband did not embarrass her, for she was much too frank to feign a grief which ordinary women think necessary under such circumstances, even when the deceased has been cordially detested and completely abandoned. The road rang under the horses' hoofs, as it unrolled before them, climbing or descending gentle slopes, bordered now by little oak plantations, now by huge plains which, in the neighbourhood of the isolated mills, were swept by circling flights of crows. A pale sunlight gleamed through rare gaps in a sky soft, rainy, and low: and to protect them from the wind as they drove, the same wrap enveloped them both, so that their knees were closely pressed together under the furs. The Duchess was talking of her native Corsica, and of a wonderful vocero which had been improvised at the funeral by her maid.

'Matea?'

'Yes, Matea. She's quite a poet, fancy'—and the Duchess quoted some of the lines of the voceratrice, in the spirited Corsican dialect, admirably suited to her contralto voice. But to the 'important decision' she did not refer.

But it was the important decision that interested Paul Astier, and not the verses of the lady's-maid. No doubt it would be discussed that evening. To pass the time, he told her, in a low tone, how he had got rid of Laniboire. 'Poor little Moser,' said the Duchess, 'her father really must be elected this time.' After that they spoke but a word now and then. They only drew together, lulled, as it were, by the gentle movement of the carriage, while the daylight left the darkening fields, and let them see over towards the furnaces sudden flashes of flame and flickering gleams like lightning against the sky. Unfortunately the drive home was spoilt by the drunken cries and songs of the crowds returning from the feast. The peasants got among the wheels of the carriage like cattle, and from the ditches on either side of the road, into which they rolled, came snores and grunts, their peculiar fashion of praying for the repose of the soul of the most noble Lord Duke.

They walked, as usual, on the gallery, and the Duchess, leaning against Paul's shoulder to look out at the darkness between the massive pillars which cut the dim line of the horizon, murmured, 'This is happiness! Together, and alone!' Still not a word on the subject which Paul was waiting for. He tried to bring her to it, and with his lips in her hair asked what she was going to do in the winter. Should she go back to Paris? Oh, no! certainly not. She was sick of Paris and its false society, its disguises and its treachery! She was still undecided, however, whether to shut herself up at Mousseaux, or to set out on a long journey to Syria and Palestine. What did he think? Why, this must be the important decision they were to consider! It had been a mere pretext to keep him there! She had been afraid that if he went back to Paris, and away from her, some one else would carry him off! Paul, thinking that he had been taken in, bit his lips as he said to himself, 'Oh, if that's your game, my lady, we'll see!' Tired by her journey and a long day in the open air, the Duchess bid him good-night and went wearily up to her room.

The next day they hardly met. The Duchess was busy settling accounts with her steward and her tenants, much to the admiration of Maitre Gobineau, the notary, who observed to Paul as they sat at breakfast, with slyness marked in every wrinkle of his shrivelled old face, 'Ah, it's not easy to get on the blind side of the Duchess!'

'Little he knows,' was the thought of the Duchess's young pursuer as he played with his light brown beard. But when he heard the hard cold tones which his lady's tender contralto could assume in a business discussion, he felt that he would have to play his cards carefully.

After breakfast there arrived some trunks from Paris with Spricht's forewoman and two fitters. And at last, about four o'clock, the Duchess appeared in a marvellous costume, which made her look quite young and slim, and proposed a walk in the park. They went along briskly, side by side, keeping to the bye-paths to avoid the noise of the heavy rakes. Three times a day the gardeners struggled against the accumulation of the falling leaves. But in vain; in an hour the walks were again covered by the same Oriental carpet, richly coloured with purple, green, and bronze; and their feet rustled in it as they walked under the soft level rays of the sun. The Duchess spoke of the husband who had brought so much sorrow into her youth; she was anxious to make Paul feel that her mourning was entirely conventional and did not affect her feelings. Paul understood her object, and smiled coldly, determined to carry out his plan.

At the lower end of the park they sat down, near a little building hidden behind maples and privet, where the fishing nets and oars of the boats were kept. From their seat they looked across the sloping lawns and the plantations and shrubberies showing patches of gold. The castle, seen in the background, with its long array of closed windows and deserted terraces, lifting its towers and turrets proudly to the sky, seemed withdrawn, as it were, into the past, and grander than ever.

'I am sorry to leave all that,' said Paul, with a sigh. She looked at him in amazement with storm in her knitted brows. Go away? Did he mean to go away? Why?

'No help. Such is life.'

'Are we to part? And what is to become of me?—and the journey we were to make together?'

'I could not interrupt you——' he said. But how could a poor artist like him afford himself a journey to Palestine? It was an impossible dream, like Vedrine's dahabeeah ending in a punt on the Loire.

She shrugged her aristocratic shoulders, and said, 'Why, Paul, what nonsense! You know that all I have is yours.'

'Mine? By what right?'

It was out! But she did not see yet what he was driving at. Fearing that he had gone too far, he added, 'I mean, what right, in the prejudiced view of society, shall I have to travel with you?'

'Well then, we will stay at Mousseaux.'

He made her a little mocking bow as he said, 'Your architect has finished his work on the castle.'

'Oh, we will find him something to do, if I have to set fire to it to-night!'

She laughed her open-hearted tender laugh, leant against him, and taking his hands pressed them against her cheeks—fond trifling this, not the word which he was waiting for, and trying to make her say. Then he burst out, 'If you love me, Antonia, let me go. I must make a living for myself and mine. Society would not forgive my living on the bounty of a woman who is not and never will be my wife.'

She understood, and closed her eyes as if on the brink of an abyss. In the long silence that followed was heard all over the park the falling of the leaves in the breeze, some still heavy with sap, dropping in bunches from bough to bough, others stealing down with a scarcely audible sound, like the rustling of a dress. Round the little hut, under the maples, it was more like the pattering footsteps of some voiceless crowd which moved around. She rose with a shiver. 'It is cold; let us go in.' She had made her sacrifice. It would kill her, very probably, but the world should not see the degradation of the Duchess Padovani into Madame Paul Astier, who had married her architect.

Paul spent the evening in making the obvious arrangements for his departure. He gave orders about his luggage, bestowed princely gratuities upon the servants, and inquired about the time of the trains, chatting away without constraint, but quite unsuccessful in breaking through the gloomy silence of the fair Antonia, who read with absorbed attention a magazine, of which she did not turn the pages. But when he took his leave of her and thanked her for her prolonged and gracious hospitality, in the light of the huge lace lamp-shade he saw on her haughty face a look of anguish, and in her eyes, magnificent as those of a dying lion, a beseeching supplication.

When he reached his room the young man looked to see that the door to the smoking-room was bolted; then he put out his light and waited, sitting quite still on the divan close to the communication. If she did not come, he had made a mistake and must begin again. But there was a slight noise in the private passage, the sound of a gown, then after a momentary surprise at not being able to come straight in, a touch with the tip of a finger, scarcely a knock. He did not move, and paid no attention to a little significant coughing. Then he heard her go away, with an agitated, uneven step.

'Now,' thought he, 'she is mine. I can do what I like with her.' And he went quietly to bed.

'If I were called the Prince d'Athis, would you not have married me when your mourning was over? Yet D'Athis did not love you, and Paul Astier does. Proud of his love, he would gladly have proclaimed it abroad instead of hiding it as a thing to be ashamed of. Ah, Mari' Anto! I have awaked from a beautiful dream! Farewell for ever.'

She read his letter with her eyes hardly open, swollen with the tears she had been shedding all night. 'Is Monsieur Astier gone?' The maid who was leaning out of the window to fasten back the shutters that moment caught sight of the carriage that was taking away M. Paul, right at the end of the avenue, too far off to be called back. The Duchess sprang out of bed and flew to the clock. 'Nine o'clock.' The express did not reach Onzain till ten. 'Quick, a messenger—Bertoli, and the best of the horses!' By taking the short cut through the woods he could reach the station before the carriage. Whilst her orders were being hastily carried out she wrote a note, standing, without waiting to dress. 'Come back; all shall be as you wish.' No, that was too cold. That would not bring him back. She tore up the note, wrote another, 'What you will, so long as I am yours,' and signed it with her title. Then, wild at the thought that perhaps even that would not bring him, she cried, 'I'll go myself! My habit, quick!' And she called out of the window to Bertoli, whose horse was by this time waiting impatiently at the foot of the steps, and gave orders to saddle 'Mademoiselle Oger' for herself.

She had not ridden for five years. Her figure had grown stouter, the stitches of the habit gave way, some of the hooks were missing. 'Never mind, Matea, never mind.' She went down the staircase with the train over her arm, between the footmen who stood with blank looks of astonishment, and set off full speed down the avenue, through the gate, into the road, into the wood, and down the cool green paths and long avenues, where the wild creatures fluttered and leapt away as she galloped madly by. She must and will have him. He is her death and life. She has tasted love; and what else does the world contain? Leaning forward, she listens for the sound of the train and watches in every distant view for the steam skirting the horizon. If only she is in time! Poor thing! She might let her horse walk, and yet she would overtake that handsome runaway He is her evil genius, and he is not to be escaped.



CHAPTER XIV.

From the Vicomte de Freydet

To Mademoiselle Germaine de Freydet Villa Beausejour,

Paris-Passy.

Cafe d'Orsay: 11 A.M. at breakfast. EVERY two hours, and oftener if I can, I shall send you off an interim despatch like this, as much to relieve your anxiety, dearest, as for the pleasure of being with you throughout this great day, which I hope will end with the news of victory, in spite of defections at the last moment. Picheral told me just now of a saying of Laniboire's, 'When a man enters the Academie he wears a sword, but he does not draw it.' an allusion, of course, to the Astier duel. It was not I who fought, but the creature cares more for his jest than for his promise. Cannot count on Danjou, either. After having said so often to me, 'You must join us,' this morning in the secretary's office he came up to me and whispered, 'You should let us miss you,' perhaps the best epigram on his list. Never mind, I'm well ahead. My rivals are not formidable Fancy Baron Huchenard, the author of 'Cave Man,' in the Academie Francaise! Why, Paris would rise! As for M. Dalzon, I can't think how he has the face. I have got a copy of his too notorious book. I do not like to use it, but he had better be careful.

2 P.M.

At the Institute, in my good master's rooms, where I shall await the result of the voting. Perhaps it is pure imagination, but I fancy that my arrival, though they expected me, has put them out here a little. Our friends were finishing breakfast. There was a bustle and banging of doors, and Corentine, instead of showing me into the drawing-room, hustled me into the library, where my old master joined me with an embarrassed air, and in a low voice advised me to keep extremely quiet. He was quite depressed. I asked if he had any bad news. He said first, 'No, no, my dear boy,' and then, grasping my hand, 'Come, cheer up.' For some time past the poor man has been much altered. He is evidently ready to overflow with vexation and sorrow that he will not express. Probably some deep private trouble, quite unconnected with my candidature; but I am so nervous.

More than an hour to wait. I am amusing myself by looking across the court through the great bay window of the meeting-room at the long rows of busts. The Academicians! Is it an omen?

2.45 P.M.

I have just seen all my judges go by, thirty-seven of them, if I counted right. The full number of the Academie, since Epinchard is at Nice, Ripault-Babin in bed, and Loisillon in the grave. It was glorious to see all the distinguished men come into the court; the younger walking slowly with serious looks and head bent as if under the weight of a responsibility too heavy for them, the old men carrying themselves well and stepping out briskly. A few gouty and rheumatic, like Courson-Launay, drove up to the foot of the steps and leant on the arm of a colleague. They stood about before going up, talking in little knots, and I watched the movements of their backs and shoulders and the play of their open hands. What would I not give to hear the last discussion of my prospects! I opened the window gently, but just then a carriage covered with luggage came clattering into the court, and out got a traveller wrapped in furs and wearing an otter-skin cap. It was Epinchard; just think, dear, Epinchard arriving from Nice on purpose to vote for me. Good fellow! Then my old master went by, his broad-brimmed hat down over his eyes; he was turning over the copy of 'Without the Veil,' which I gave him, to be used if necessary. Well, self-defence is always legitimate.

Now there's nothing to see but two carriages waiting and the bust of Minerva keeping guard. Goddess, protect me! They must be beginning the calling of names, and the interrogatory. Each Academician has to state to the President that his vote is not promised. It's a mere formality, as you may suppose, and they all reply by a smile of denial or a little shake of the head like a Chinese mandarin.

A most amazing thing has just happened! I had given my letter to Corentine and was getting a breath of fresh air at the window and trying to read the secret of my fate in the gloomy front of the building opposite, when at the next window to mine I caught sight of Huchenard, airing himself too, quite close to me. Huchenard, my rival—Astier-Rehu's worst enemy, installed in his study! We were, both equally amazed, bowed, and withdrew at the same moment. But there he is, I can hear him, I feel that he is on the other side of the partition. No doubt, like me, he is waiting to hear the decision of the Academie, only he has all the space of 'Villemain's reception-room,' while I am suffocating in this hole crammed full of papers! Now I understand the confusion caused by my arrival. But what is it all about? What is going on? My dear Germaine, my head is going! Which of us is the fool?

Lost! And by treachery, by some mean Academic intrigue which I do not yet understand!

FIRST COUNTING.

Baron Huchenard.......... 17 votes.

Dalzon................... 15 "

Vicomte de Freydet....... 5 "

Moser......................1 vote.

SECOND COUNTING.

Baron Huchenard.......... 19 votes.

Dalzon................... 15 "

Vicomte de Freydet....... 3 "

Moser.................... 1 vote.

THIRD COUNTING.

Baron Huchenard.......... 33 votes.

Dalzon................... 4 "

Vicomte de Freydet....... 0 "(!!)

Moser................... . 1 vote.

It is clear that between the second and third taking of votes the copy of 'Without the Veil' must have been sent round in the interest of Baron Huchenard. An explanation I must and will have. I won't leave the place till I get it.

4 P.M.

Dearest sister, you may guess my feelings when, after I had heard in the next room M. and Madame Astier, old Rehu, and a stream of visitors congratulating the author of 'Cave Man,' the door of the library opened and my old master came in, reaching out his hands and saying, 'My dear boy, forgive me'—between heat and emotion he was nearly speechless—'forgive me, that man had a hold over me. I had to do it, I had to do it. I thought I could avert the disaster which threatens me, but destiny is not to be escaped, no, not even by a base act—' He held out his arms and I embraced him without the least anger, without indeed quite understanding the mystery of this bitter grief.

After all, my own loss is easily retrieved. I have first-rate news of Ripault-Babin. He can hardly live through the week. One more campaign, dear, one more. Unfortunately the Hotel Padovani will be closed all the winter, owing to the Duchess's deep mourning. So for our scene of operations we shall have the 'at home' days of Madame Astier, Madame Ancelin, and Madame Eviza, of whose fashion there is no question since the visit of the Grand Duke. But the first thing, dear Germaine, will be to move. Passy is too far off; the Academie will not go there. You will say I am dragging you about again, but it is so important. Just look at Huchenard. He had no claim whatever but his parties. I dine with my dear master; don't wait for me.

Your affectionate brother,

Abel de Freydet.

Moser's solitary vote in each counting was given by Laniboire, the man who reports for the good conduct prizes. They tell a queer story about it There are strange things under the dome!



CHAPTER XV.

'It's a scandal.'

'There must be a reply. The Academie cannot be silent under the attack.'

'What are you thinking of? On the contrary, the dignity of the Academie demands——'

'Gentlemen, gentlemen, the real feeling of the Academie is——'

In their private assembly room, in front of the great chimney-piece and the full-length portrait of Cardinal Richelieu, the 'deities' were engaged in a discussion preliminary to the meeting. The cold smoke-stained light of a Parisian winter's day, falling through the great lantern overhead, gave effect to the chill solemnity of the marble busts ranged in row along the walls; and the huge fire in the chimney, nearly as red as the Cardinal's robe, was not enough to warm the little council-chamber or court-house, furnished with green leather seats, long horse-shoe table in front of the desk, and chain-bedecked usher, keeping the entrance near the place of Picheral, the Secretary.

Generally the best part of the meeting is the quarter of an hour's grace allowed to late-comers. The Academicians gather in groups with their backs to the fire and their coat tails turned up, chatting familiarly in undertones. But on this afternoon the conversation was general and had risen to the utmost violence of public debate, each new comer joining in from the far end of the room, while he signed the attendance list. Some even before entering, while they were still depositing their great coats, comforters, and overshoes in the empty room of the Academie des Sciences, opened the door to join in the cries of 'Shame!' and 'Scandalous!'

The cause of all the commotion was this. There had appeared in a morning paper a reprint of a highly disrespectful report made to the Academie of Florence upon Astier-Rehu's 'Galileo' and the manifestly apocryphal and absurd (sic) historical documents which were published with it. The report had been sent with the greatest privacy to the President of the Academie Francaise, and for some days there had been considerable excitement at the Institute, where Astier-Rehu's decision was eagerly awaited. He had said nothing but, 'I know, I know; I am taking the necessary steps.' And now suddenly here was this report which they believed to be known only to themselves, hurled at them like a bomb-shell from the outer sheet of one of the most widely circulated of the Parisian newspapers, and accompanied by remarks insulting to the Permanent Secretary and to the whole Society.

Furious was the indignant outcry against the impudence of the journalist and the folly of Astier-Rehu, which had brought this upon them. The Academie has not been accustomed to such attacks, since it has prudently opened its doors to 'gentlemen of the Press.' The fiery Laniboire, familiar with every kind of 'sport.' talked of cutting off the gentleman's ears, and it took two or three colleagues to restrain his ardour.

'Come, Laniboire; we wear the sword, but we do not draw it Why, it's your own epigram, confound you, though adopted by the Institute.'

'Gentlemen, you remember that Pliny the Elder, in the thirteenth book of his "Natural History"'—here arrived Gazan, who came in puffing with his elephantine trot—'is one of the first writers who mentions counterfeit autographs; amongst others, a false letter of Priam's on papyrus'—

'Monsieur Gazan has not signed the list,' cried Picheral's sharp falsetto.

'Oh, I beg your pardon.' And the fat man went off to sign, still discoursing about papyrus and King Priam, though unheard for the hubbub of angry voices, in which the only word that could be distinguished was 'Academie.' They all talked about the Academie as if it were an actual live person, whose real view each man believed himself alone to know and to express. Suddenly the exclamations ceased, as Astier-Rehu entered, signed his name, and quietly deposited at his place as Permanent Secretary the ensign of his office, carried under his arm. Then moving towards his colleagues he said:

'Gentlemen, I have bad news for you. I sent to the Library to be tested the twelve or fifteen thousand documents which made what I called my collection. Well, gentlemen, all are forgeries. The Academie of Florence stated the truth. I am the victim of a stupendous hoax.'

As he wiped from his brow the great drops of sweat wrung out by the strain of his confession, some one asked in an insolent tone:

'Well, and so, Mr. Secretary'—

'So, M. Danjou, I had no other choice but to bring an action—which is what I have done. There was a general protest, all declaring that a lawsuit was out of the question and would bring ridicule upon the whole Society, to which he answered that he was exceedingly sorry to disoblige his colleagues, but his mind was made up. 'Besides, the man is in prison and the proceedings have commenced.'

Never had the private assembly-room heard a roar like that which greeted this statement. Laniboire distinguished himself as usual among the most excited by shouting that the Academie ought to get rid of so dangerous a member. In the first heat of their anger some of the assembly began to discuss the question aloud. Could it be done? Could the Academie say to a member who had brought the whole body into an undignified position, 'Go! I reverse my judgment. Deity as you are, I relegate you to the rank of a mere mortal'? Suddenly, either having caught a few words of the discussion, or by one of those strange intuitions which seem occasionally to come as an inspiration to the most hopelessly deaf, old Rehu, who had been keeping to himself, away from the fire for fear of a fit, remarked in his loud unmodulated voice, 'During the Restoration, for reasons merely political, we turned out eleven members at once.' The patriarch gave the usual little attesting movement of the head, calling to witness his contemporaries of the period, white busts with vacant eyes standing in rows on pedestals round the room.

'Eleven! whew!' muttered Danjou amid a great silence. And Laniboire, cynical as before, said 'All societies are cowardly; it's the natural law of self-preservation.' Here Epinchard, who had been busy near the door with Picheral the Secretary, rejoined the rest, and observed in a weak voice, between two fits of coughing, that the Permanent Secretary was not the only person to blame in the matter, as would appear from the minutes of the proceedings of July 8, 1879, which should now be read. Picheral from his place, in his thin brisk voice, began at a great pace: On July 8, 1879, Leonard-Pierre-Alexandre Astier-Rehu presented to the Academie Francaise a letter from Rotrou to Cardinal Richelieu respecting the statutes of the Society. The Academie, after an examination of this unpublished and interesting document, passed a vote of thanks to the donor, and decided to enter the letter of Rotrou upon the minutes. The letter is appended (at this point the Secretary slackened his delivery and put a malicious stress upon each word) with all the errors of the original text, which, being such as occur in ordinary correspondence, confirm the authenticity of the document. All stood motionless in the faded light that came through the glass, avoiding each other's eyes and listening in utter amazement.

'Shall I read the letter too?' asked Picheral with a smile. He was much amused.

'Yes, read the letter too,' said Epinchard. But after a phrase or two there were cries of 'Enough, enough, that will do!' They were ashamed of such a letter of Rotrou. It was a crying forgery, a mere schoolboy's imitation, the sentences misshapen, and half the words not known at the supposed date. How could they have been so blind?

'You see, gentlemen, that we could scarcely throw the whole burden upon our unfortunate colleague,' said Epinchard; and turning to the Permanent Secretary begged him to abandon proceedings which could bring nothing but discredit upon the whole Society and the great Cardinal himself.

But neither the fervour of the appeal nor the magnificence of the orator's attitude, as he pointed to the insignia of the Sacred Founder, could prevail over the stubborn resolution of Astier-Rehu. Standing firm and upright before the little table in the middle of the room, which was used as a desk for the reading of communications, with his fists clenched, as if he feared that his decision might be wrung out of his hands, he repeated that 'Nothing, I assure you, nothing' would alter his determination. He struck the hard wood angrily with his big knuckles, as he said, 'Ah, gentlemen, I have waited, for reasons like these, too long already! I tell you, my "Galileo" is a bone in my throat! I am not rich enough to buy it up, and I see it in the shop windows, advertising me as the accomplice of a forger.' What was his object! Why, to tear out the rotten pages with his own hand and burn them before all the world! A trial would give him the opportunity. 'You talk of ridicule? The Academie is above the fear of it; and as for me, a butt and a beggar as I must be, I shall have the proud satisfaction of having protected my personal honour and the dignity of history. I ask no more.' Honest Crocodilus! In the beat of his rhetoric was a sound of pure probity, which rang strangely where all around was padded with compromise and concealment. Suddenly the usher announced, 'Four o'clock, gentlemen.' Four o'clock! and they had not finished the arrangements for Ripault-Babin's funeral.

'Ah, we must remember Ripault-Babin!' observed Danjou in a mocking voice. 'He has died at the right moment!' said Laniboire with mournful emphasis. But the point of his epigram was lost, for the usher was crying, 'Take your places'; and the President was ringing his bell On his right was Desminieres the Chancellor, and on his left the Permanent Secretary, reading quietly with recovered self-possession the report of the Funeral Committee, to an accompaniment of eager whispers and the pattering of sleet on the glass.

'How late you went on to-day!' remarked Coren-tine, as she opened the door to her master. Corentine was certainly to be reckoned with those who had no great opinion of the Institute. 'M. Paul is in your study with Madame. You must go through the library; the drawing-room is full of people waiting to see you.'

The library, where nothing was left but the frame of the pigeon-holes, looked as if there had been a fire or a burglary. It depressed him, and he generally avoided it But to-day he went through it proudly, supported by the remembrance of his resolve, and of how he had declared it at the meeting. After an effort, which had cost him so much courage and determination, he felt a sweet sense of relief in the thought that his son was waiting for him. He had not seen him since just after the duel, when he had been overcome by the sight of his gallant boy, laid at full length and whiter than the sheet. He was thinking with delight how he would go up to him with open arms, and embrace him, and hold him tight, a long while, and say nothing—nothing! But as soon as he came into the room and saw the mother and son close together, whispering, with their eyes on the carpet, and their everlasting air of conspiracy, the affectionate impulse was gone.

'Here you are at last!' cried Madame Astier, who was dressed to go out. And in a tone of mock solemnity, as if introducing the two, she said, 'My dear—the Count Paul Astier.'

'At your service, Master,' said Paul, as he bowed.

Astier-Rehu knitted his thick brows as he looked at them. 'Count Paul Astier?' said he.

The young fellow, as charming as ever, in spite of the tanning of six months spent in the open air, said he had just indulged in the extravagance of a Roman title, not so much for his own sake as in honour of the lady who was about to take his name.

'So you are going to be married,' said his father, whose suspicions increased. 'And who is the lady?'

'The Duchess Padovani.'

'You must have lost your senses! Why she is five-and-twenty years older than you, and besides—and besides—' He hesitated, trying to find a respectful phrase, but at last blurted right out, 'You can't marry a woman who to every one's knowledge has belonged to another for years.'

'A fact, however, which has never prevented our dining with her regularly, and accepting from her all kinds of favours,' hissed Madame Astier, rearing her little head as to strike. Without bestowing on her a word or a look, as holding her no judge in a question of honour, the man went up to his son, and said in earnest tones, the muscles of his big cheeks twitching with emotion, 'Don't do it, Paul. For the sake of the name you bear, don't do it, my boy, I beg you.' He grasped his son's shoulder and shook him, voice and hand quivering together. But the young fellow moved away, not liking such demonstrations, and objected generally that 'he didn't see it; it was not his view.' The father felt the impassable distance between himself and his son, saw the impenetrable face and the look askance, and instinctively lifted up his voice in appeal to his rights as head of the family. A smile which he caught passing between Paul and his mother, a fresh proof of their joint share in this discreditable business, completed his exasperation. He shouted and raved, threatening to make a public protest, to write to the papers, to brand them both, mother and son, 'in his history.' This last was his most appalling threat. When he had said of some historical character, 'I have branded him in my history,' he thought no punishment could be more severe. Madame Astier, almost as familiar with the threat of branding as with the dragging of his trunk about the passage, contented herself with saying as she buttoned her gloves: 'You know every word can be heard in the next room.' In spite of the curtains over the door, the murmur of conversation was audible from the drawing-room.

Then, repressing and swallowing his wrath, 'Listen to me, Paul,' said Leonard Astier, shaking his forefinger in the young man's face, 'if ever this thing you are talking of comes to pass, do not expect to look upon me again. I will not be present on your wedding day; I will not have you near me, not even at my death-bed; You are no longer a son of mine; and you go with my curse upon you.' Moving away instinctively from the finger which almost touched him, Paul replied with great calmness, 'Oh, you know, my dear father, that sort of thing is never done now-a-days! Even on the stage they have given up blessing and cursing.'

'But not punishing, you scoundrel!' growled the old man, lifting his hand. There was an angry cry of 'Leonard!' from the mother, as with the prompt parry of a boxer Paul turned the blow aside, quietly as if he had been in Keyser's gymnasium, and without letting go the wrist he had twisted under, said beneath his breath, 'No, no; I won't have that.'

The tough old hillsman struggled violently, but, vigorous as he still was, he had found his master. At this terrible moment, while father and son stood face to face, breathing hate at one another, and exchanging murderous glances, the door of the drawing-room opened a little and showed the good-natured doll-like smile of a fat lady bedecked with feathers and flowers. 'Excuse me, dear master, I want just to say a word—why, Adelaide is here, and M. Paul too. Charming! delightful! Quite a family group!' Madame Ancelin was right. A family group it was, a picture of the modern family, spoilt by the crack which runs through European society from top to bottom, endangering its essential principles of authority and subordination, and nowhere more remarkable than here, under the stately dome of the Institute, where the traditional domestic virtues are judged and rewarded.



CHAPTER XVI.



It was stifling in the Eighth Chamber, where the Fage case was just coming on after interminable preliminaries and great efforts on the part of influential persons to stop the proceedings. Never had this court-room, whose walls of a mouldy blue and diamond pattern in faded gilding reeked with the effluvium of rags and misery, never had this court seen squeezed on its dirty seats and packed in its passages such a press and such a crowd of fashionable and distinguished persons, so many flower-trimmed bonnets and spring costumes by the masters of millinery art, to throw into relief the dead black of the gowns and caps. People were still coming in through the entrance lobby, where the double doors were perpetually swinging as the tide flowed on, a wavy sea of thronging faces upturned beneath the whitish light of the landing. Everyone was there, all the well-known, well-worn, depressingly familiar personages that figure at every Parisian festivity, fashionable funeral, or famous 'first night.' There was Marguerite Oger well to the fore, and the little Countess Foder, and beautiful Mrs. Henry of the American Embassy. There were the ladies belonging to the Academic confraternity, Madame Ancein in mauve on the arm of Raverand, the leader of the bar; Madame Eviza, a bush of little roses surrounded by a busy humming swarm of would-be barristers. Behind the President's bench was Danjou, standing with folded arms, and showing above the audience and the judges the hard angles of his regular stage-weathered countenance, everywhere to be seen during the last forty years as the type of social commonplace in all its manifold manifestations. With the exception of Astier-Rehu and Baron Huchenard, who were summoned as witnesses, he was the only Academician bold enough to face the irreverent remarks that might be expected in the speech of Fage's counsel, Margery, the dreaded wit, who convulses the whole assembly and the bench with the mere sound of his nasal 'Well.' Some fun was to be expected; the whole atmosphere of the place announced it, the erratic tilt of the barristers' caps, the gleam in the eyes and curl in the corners of the mouths of people giving one another little anticipatory smiles. There were endless anecdotes current about the achievements in gallantry of the little humpback who had just been brought to the prisoner's box and, lifting his long well-greased head, cast into the court over the bar the conquering glance of a manifest ladies' man. Stories were told of compromising letters, of an account drawn up by the prisoner mentioning right out the names of two or three well-known ladies of fashion, the regular names dragged again and again into every unsavoury case. There was a copy of the production going the rounds of the seats reserved for the press, a simple conceited autobiography containing none of the revelations imputed to it by public rumour. Fage had beguiled the tedium of confinement by writing for the court the story of his life. He was born, he said, near Vassy (Haute Marne), as straight as anybody—so they all say—but a fall from a horse at fifteen had bent and inflected his spine. His taste for gallantry had developed somewhat late in life when he was working at a bookseller's in the Passage des Panoramas. As his deformity interfered with his success, he tried to find some way of getting plenty of money. The story of his love affairs alternating with that of his forgeries and the means employed, with descriptions of ink and of parchment, resulted in such headings to his chapters as 'My first victim—For a red ribbon—The gingerbread fair—I make the acquaintance of Astier-Rehu—The mysterious ink—I defy the chemists of the Institute.' This brief epitome is enough to show the combination, the humpback's self-satisfaction plus the arrogance of the self-taught artisan. The general result of reading the production was utter amazement that the Permanent Secretary of the Academie Francaise and the official representatives of science and literature could have been taken in for two or three years by an ignorant dwarf with a brain crammed full of the refuse of libraries and the ill-digested parings of books. This constituted the extraordinary joke of the whole business, and was the explanation of the crowded court. People came to see the Academie pilloried in the person of Astier-Rehu, who sat among the witnesses, the mark of every eye. There he sat without moving, absorbed in his thoughts, not turning his head, and hardly answering the fulsome compliments of Freydet who was standing behind, with black gloves and a deep crape hat-band, having quite recently lost his sister. He had been summoned for the defence, and the Academic candidate was afraid that the fact might damage him in the eyes of his old master. He was apologising and explaining how he had come across the wretched Fage in Vedrine's studio, and that was the reason of this unexpected call. But his whispers were lost in the noise of the court and the monotonous hum from the bench, as cases were called on and disposed of, the invariable 'This day week, this day week' descending like the stroke of the guillotine and cutting short the barrister's protest, and the entreaties of poor red-faced fellows mopping their brows before the seat of justice. 'But, Monsieur le President...' 'This day week.' Sometimes from the back of the court would come a cry and a despairing movement of a pair of arms, 'I am here, M. le President, but I can't get through, there's such a crowd...' 'This day week.' When a man has beheld such clearances as these, and seen the symbolic scales operate with such dexterity, he gets a vivid impression of French justice; it is not unlike the sensation of hearing the funeral service raced through in a hurry by a strange priest over a pauper's grave.

The voice of the President called for the Fage case. Complete silence followed in the court, and even on the staircase landing where people had climbed on to benches to see. Then after a short consultation on the bench the witnesses filed out through a dense crowd of gowns on their way to the little room reserved for them, a dreary empty place, badly lighted by glass windows that had once been red, and looking out on a narrow alley. Astier-Rehu, who was to be called first, did not go in, but walked up and down in the gloomy passage between the witness-room and the court. Freydet wished to stay with him, but he said in a colourless voice, 'No, no, let me alone, I want to be alone.' So the candidate joined the other witnesses who were standing in little knots—Baron Huchenard, Bos the palaeographer, Delpech the chemist, of the Academie des Sciences, some experts in handwriting, and two or three pretty girls, the originals of some of the photographs that adorned the walls of Fage's room, delighted at the notoriety that the proceedings would bring them, laughing loudly and displaying startling little spring hats strangely different from the linen cap and woollen mittens of the caretaker at the Cour des Comptes. Vedrine also had been summoned, and Freydet came and sat by him on the wide ledge of the open window. The two friends, whirled apart in the opposing currents that divide men's lives in Paris, had not met since the summer before until the recent funeral of poor Germaine de Freydet Vedrine pressed his friend's hand and asked how he was, how he felt after so terrible a blow. Freydet shrugged his shoulders, 'It's hard, very hard, but after all I'm used to it.' Then, as Vedrine stared in wonder at his selfish stoicism, he added, 'Just think, that's twice in one year that I have been fooled.' The blow, the only blow, that he remembered, was his failure to get Ripault-Babin's seat, which he had lately missed, as he had missed Loisillon's before. Presently he understood, sighed deeply, and said, 'Ah, yes, poor Germaine!' She had taken so much trouble all the winter about his unlucky candidature. Two dinners a week! Up to twelve or one o'clock she would be wheeling her chair all over the drawing-room. She had sacrificed her remaining strength to it, and was even more excited and keen than her brother. And at the last, the very last, when she was past speaking, her poor twisted fingers went on counting upon the hem of the sheet 'Yes, Vedrine, she died, ticking and calculating my chances of Ripault-Babin's seat. Oh, if only for her sake, I will get into their Academie, in defiance of them all, and in honour of her dear memory!' He stopped short, then in an altered and lower voice went on: 'Really I don't know why I talk like that. The truth is that, since they put the idea into my head, I can think of nothing else. My sister is dead and I have hardly given her a tear. I had to pay my calls and "beg for the Academie," as that fellow says. The thing takes the very life out of me. It's perfectly maddening.'

In the savage plainness of these words and the excited ring of the angry voice, the sculptor could scarcely recognise his gentle courteous friend, to whom mere living used to be a joy. The absent expression in his eye, the anxious wrinkle on his brow, and the heat of the hand which grasped Vedrine's, all betrayed his subjection to one absorbing passion, one fixed idea. But the meeting with Vedrine seemed to have relieved his nerves, and he asked affectionately, 'Well, what are you doing, and how are you getting on? How is your wife? And the children?' His friend answered with his quiet smile. All were doing well, thank God. The little girl was just going to be weaned. The boy continued to fulfil his function of looking lovely, and was waiting impatiently for old Rehu's centenary. As for himself, he was hard at work. He had two pictures in the Salon this year, not badly hung, and not badly sold. On the other hand a creditor, not less unwise than hard, had taken possession of the Knight, and he had passed from stage to stage, first lying much in the way in a fine suite of rooms on the ground floor in the Rue St. Petersbourg, then packed off to a stable at Batignolles, and now shivering under a cowkeeper's shed at Levallois, where from time to time the sculptor and his family went to pay him a visit.

'So much for glory!' added Vedrine with a laugh, as the voice of the usher called for the witness Astier-Rehu. The head of the Permanent Secretary showed for a moment, outlined against the dusty light of the court-room, upright and steady; but his back he had forgotten to control, and the shiver of his broad shoulders betrayed intense feeling. 'Poor man,' muttered the sculptor, 'he's got heavy trials to go through. This autograph business, and his son's marriage.'

'Is Paul Astier married?'

'Yes, three days ago, to the Duchess Padovani. It was a sort of morganatic marriage, with no guests but the young man's mamma and the four witnesses. I was one of them, as you may suppose, for a freak of fate seems to associate me with all the acts and deeds of the Astier family.'

And Vedrine described the sorrowful surprise with which in the Mayor's room he had seen the Duchess Padovani appear, deathly pale, as haughty as ever, but withered and heart-broken, with a mass of grey hair, the poor beautiful hair that she no longer took the trouble to dye. By her side was Paul Astier, the Count, smiling, cold, and charming as before. They all looked at one another, and nobody had a word to say except the official who, after a good stare at the two old ladies, felt it incumbent upon him to remark with a gracious bow:

'We are only waiting for the bride.'

'The bride is here,' replied the Duchess, stepping forward with head erect and a bitter smile which spoilt and twisted her beautiful mouth.

From the Mayor's office, where the deputy on duty had the good taste to spare them an oration, they adjourned to the Catholic Institute in the Rue de Vaugirard, an aristocratic church, all over gilding and flowers and a blaze of candles, but not a soul there, nobody but the wedding party on a single row of chairs, to hear the Papal Nuncio, Monsignor Adriani, mumble an interminable homily out of an illuminated book. A fine thing it was, to hear the worldly prelate with large nose, thin lips, and hollow shoulders under his violet cape, talking of the 'honourable traditions of the husband and the charms of the wife,' with a sombre, cynical side-glance at the velvet cushions of the unhappy couple. Then came the departure; cold good-byes were exchanged under the arches of the little cloister, and a sigh of relief with 'Well, that's over,' escaped the Duchess, said in the despairing, disenchanted accent of a woman who has measured the abyss, and leaps in with her eyes open only to keep her word.

'Ah, well,' Vedrine went on, 'I have seen gloomy and lamentable sights enough in the course of my lite, but never anything so heart-breaking as Paul Astier's wedding.'

'He's a fine rascal, though, is our young friend,' said Freydet, between his closed teeth.

'Yes, a precious product of the "struggle for existence."'

The sculptor repeated the phrase with emphasis. A 'struggler for existence' was his name for the novel tribe of young savages who cite the necessity of 'nature's war' as an hypocritical excuse for every kind of meanness. Freydet went on:

'Well, anyhow, he's rich now, which is what he wanted. His nose has not led him astray this time.'

'Wait and see. The Duchess is not easy to get on with, and he looked devilish wicked at the Mayor's. If the old lady bores him too much, we may still see him some day at the Assize Court, son and grandson of divinities as he is.'

'The witness Vedrine!' called the usher at the top of his voice.

At the same moment a huge roar of laughter ran over the thronging crowd and came through the door as it swung open. 'They don't seem bored in there,' said the municipal officer posted in the passage. The witnesses' room, which had been gradually emptying during the chat of the two schoolfellows, now contained only Freydet and the caretaker, who, scared at having to appear in court, was twisting the strings of her cap like a lunatic. The worthy candidate, on the contrary, thought he had an unparalleled opportunity of burning incense at the shrine of the Academie Francaise and its Permanent Secretary. Left alone, when the good woman's turn came, he paced up and down the room, planted himself in front of the window, and let off well-rounded periods accompanied by magnificent gestures of his black gloves. But he was misunderstood in the house opposite; and a fat hand at the end of a bare arm pulled aside a pink curtain and waved to him. Freydet, flushing crimson with shame, moved quickly away from the window, and took refuge in the passage.

'The Public Prosecutor is speaking now,' said the doorkeeper in a whisper, as a voice in a tone of assumed indignation rang through the heated air of the court—'You played,' it said, 'on the innocent passion of an old man.'

'But how about me?' said Freydet, thinking aloud.

'I expect you have been forgotten.'

Freydet was at first puzzled, but presently disgusted at the strange fate which prevented his coming forward in public as the champion of the Academie, and so getting himself talked about and seeing his name for once in the papers. Just then a shout of laughter greeted the enumeration of the forgeries in the Mesnil-Case collection; letters from kings, popes, empresses, Turenne, Buffon, Montaigne, La Boetie, Clemence Isaure, and the mere mention of the absurd list showed the extraordinary simplicity of the historian who had been befooled by the little dwarf. But at the thought that this disrespectful laugh was a scoff at his master and protector, Freydet felt an indignation not altogether free from selfishness. He felt that he was himself hit by the recoil, and his candidature damaged again. He broke away, mingling in the stir of the general exodus amid a confusion of footmen running to and fro in the beautiful waning light of a fine June day, while the parasols, pink, white, mauve, or green opened like so many large flowers. Little explosions of laughter were still coming from the various groups, as if they had been seeing an amusing piece at the theatre. The little humpback had got it hot—five years' imprisonment and costs. But how comic Margery had been! Marguerite Oger was exclaiming in fits, 'Oh my dears, my dears!' and Danjou, escorting Madame Eviza to her carriage, said aloud in his cynical way, 'It's a slap in the face for the Academie, well planted—but it was cleverly done.'

Leonard Astier, who was walking alone, heard Danjou's remark as well as others, in spite of the warnings passed from mouth to mouth, 'Take care—there he is.' It signified to him the beginning of his fall in estimation, consequent on the general knowledge of his folly and the amusement of Paris.

'Take my arm, my dear master!' said Freydet, who had been carried to him by the strong impulse of affection.

'Ah, my dear friend, how much good you do me!' said the old man in a dull, broken voice.

They walked on in silence for some time. The trees on the quay cast a tracery of shade upon the stones below; the sounds of the street and the river echoed in the joyous air. It was one of those days on which human wretchedness seems to have been reprieved.

'Where are we going?' asked Freydet.

'Anywhere—except home,' answered the elder man, who felt a child's terror at the thought of the scene his wife would inflict on him at dinner.

They dined together at the Point-du-Jour after walking a long time by the river. When poor Astier returned home very late the friendly words of his old pupil and the sweetness of the air had succeeded in restoring his peace of mind. He had got over his five hours in the stocks on the bench of the Eighth Chamber—five hours to endure with bound hands the insulting laughter of the crowd and the vitriol squirt of the counsel. 'Laugh, apes, laugh! Posterity will judge!' was the thought with which he consoled himself as he crossed the large courts of the Institute, wrapped in slumber, with unlighted windows and great dark foursquare holes right and left where the staircases came down. He felt his way upstairs and reached his study noiselessly like a thief. Since Paul's marriage and his quarrel with his son he was in the habit of flinging himself down every night on a bed made up in the study, to escape the interminable midnight discussions in which the wife always comes off victorious, thanks to the never-failing support of her 'nerves', and the husband ends by giving way and promising everything for the sake of peace and permission to sleep.

Sleep! Never had he so much felt the need of it as now, at the end of his long day of emotion and fatigue, and the darkness of his study as he entered seemed the beginning of rest—when in the angle of the window he dimly distinguished a human figure.

'Well, I hope you are satisfied.' It was his wife! She was on the look out for him, waiting, and her angry voice stopped him short in the dark to listen. 'You have won your cause; you insisted on making yourself a mockery, and you have done it—daubed and drenched yourself with ridicule, till you won't be able to show yourself again! Much reason you had to cry out that your son was disgracing you, to insult and to curse your son! Poor boy, it is well he has changed his name, now that yours has become so identified with ignorance and gullibility that no one will be able to utter it without a smile. And all this, if you please, for the sake of your historical work! Why, you foolish man, who knows anything about your historical work? Who can possibly care whether your documents are genuine or forged? You know that nobody reads you.'

She went on and on, pouring out a thin stream of voice in her shrillest tone; and he felt as if he were back again in the pillory, listening to the official abuse as he had done all day, without interrupting, without even a threatening gesture, swallowing the insults as he had in court, and feeling that the authority was above attack and the judge one not to be answered. But how cruel was this invisible mouth which bit him, and wounded him all over, and slowly mangled in its teeth his pride as a man and a writer!

His books, indeed! Did he suppose that they had got him into the Academie? Why, it was to his wife alone that he owed his green coat! She had spent her life in plotting and manoeuvring to break open one door after another; sacrificed all her youth to such intrigues, and such intriguers, as made her sick with disgust. 'Why, my dear, I had to! The Academie is attained by talent, of which you have none, or a great name, or a high position. You had none of these things. So I came to the rescue.' And that there might be no mistake about it, that he might not attribute what she said only to the exasperation of a woman wounded and humiliated in her wifely pride and her blind maternal devotion, she recalled the details of his election, and reminded him of his famous remark about Madame Astier's veils that smelt of tobacco, though he never smoked, 'a remark, my dear, that has done more to make you notorious than your books.'