gaze was so intent that it became unbearable. “You see, then,” he began, “that I had good cause to fear.”
Exasperated beyond endurance, M. de Valorsay sprang up so violently that he overturned his chair. “No!” he exclaimed, “no, a thousand times no! You are wrong—for the man who loves Mademoiselle Marguerite is now ruined. Yes, such is really the case. While we are sitting here, at this very moment, he is lost—irredeemably lost. Between him and the woman whom I wish to marry—whom I SHALL marry—I have dug so broad and deep an abyss that the strongest love cannot overleap it. It is better and worse than if I had killed him. Dead, he would have been mourned, perhaps; while now, the lowest and most degraded woman would turn from him in disgust, or, even if she loved him, she would not dare to confess it.”
M. Fortunat seemed greatly disturbed. “Have you then put into execution the project—the plan you spoke of?” he faltered. “I thought you were only jesting.”
The marquis lowered his head. “Yes,” he answered.
His companion stood for a moment as if petrified, and then suddenly exclaimed: “What! You have done that—you—a gentleman?”
M. de Valorsay paced the floor in a state of intense agitation. Had he caught a glimpse of his own face in the looking-glass, it would have frightened him. “A gentleman!” he repeated, in a tone of suppressed rage; “a gentleman! That word is in everybody’s mouth, nowadays. Pray, what do you understand by a gentleman, Mons. Fortunat? No doubt, you mean a heroic idiot who passed through life with a lofty mien, clad in all the virtues, as stoical as Job, and as resigned as a martyr—a sort of moral Don Quixote, preaching the austerest virtue, and practising it? But, unfortunately, nobility of soul and of purpose are expensive luxuries, and I am a ruined man. I am no saint! I love life and all that makes life beautiful and desirable—and to procure its pleasures I must fight with the weapons of the age. No doubt, it is grand to be honest; but in my case it is so impossible, that I prefer to be dishonest—to commit an act of shameful infamy which will yield a hundred thousand francs a year. This man is in my way—I suppress him—so much the worse for him—he has no business to be in my way. If I could have met him openly, I would have dispatched him according to the accepted code of honor; but, then, I should have had to renounce all idea of marrying Mademoiselle Marguerite, so I was obliged to find some other way. I could not choose my means. The drowning man does not reject the plank, which is his only chance of salvation, because it chances to be dirty.”
His gestures were even more forcible than his words; and when he concluded, he threw himself on to the sofa, holding his head tightly between his hands, as if he felt that it was bursting. Anger choked his utterance—not anger so much as something he would not confess, the quickening of his own conscience and the revolt of every honorable instinct; for, in spite of his sins of omission, and of commission, never, until this day, had he actually violated any clause of the code acknowledged by men of honor.
“You have been guilty of a most infamous act, Monsieur le Marquis,” said M. Fortunat, coldly.
“Oh! no moralizing, if you please.”
“Only evil will come of it.”
The marquis shrugged his shoulders, and in a tone of bitter scorn, retorted: “Come, Mons. Fortunat, if you wish to lose the forty thousand francs you advanced to me, it’s easy enough to do so. Run to Madame d’Argeles’s house, ask for M. de Coralth, and tell him I countermand my order. My rival will be saved, and will marry Mademoiselle Marguerite and her millions.”
M. Fortunat remained silent. He could not tell the marquis: “My forty thousand francs are lost already. I know that only too well. Mademoiselle Marguerite is no longer the possessor of millions, and you have committed a useless crime.” However, it was this conviction which imparted such an accent of eagerness to his words as he continued to plead the cause of virtue and of honesty. Would he have said as much if he had entertained any great hope of the success of the marquis’s matrimonial enterprise? It is doubtful, still we must do M. Fortunat the justice to admit that he was really and sincerely horrified by what he had unhesitatingly styled an “infamous act.”
The marquis listened to his agent for a few moments in silence, and then rose to his feet again. “All this is very true,” he interrupted; “but I am, nevertheless, anxious to learn the result of my little plot. For this reason, Monsieur Fortunat, give me at once the five hundred louis you promised me, and I will then bid you good-evening.”
The agent had been preparing himself for this moment, and yet he trembled. “I am deeply grieved, monsieur,” he replied, with a doleful smile; “it was this matter that kept me out so much later than usual this evening. I hoped to have obtained the money from a banker, who has always accommodated me before—M. Prosper Bertomy, you know him: he married M. Andre Fauvel’s niece——”
“Yes, I know; proceed, if you please.”
“Ah, well! it was impossible for me to procure the money.”
The marquis had hitherto been pale, but now his face flushed crimson. “This is a jest, I suppose,” said he.
“Alas!—unfortunately—no.”
There was a moment’s silence, which the marquis probably spent in reflecting upon the probable consequences of this disappointment, for it was in an almost threatening tone that he eventually exclaimed: “You know that I must have this money at once—that I must have it.”
M. Fortunat would certainly have preferred to lose a good pound of flesh rather than the sum of money mentioned; but, on the other hand, he felt that it would not do for him to sever his connection with his client until the death of the Count de Chalusse was certain; and being anxious to save his money and to keep his client, his embarrassment was extreme. “It was the most unfortunate thing in the world,” he stammered; “I apprehended no difficulty whatever—” Then, suddenly clapping his hand to his forehead, he exclaimed: “But, Monsieur le Marquis, couldn’t you borrow this amount from one of your friends, the Duke de Champdoce or the Count de Commarin?—that would be a good idea.”
M. de Valorsay was anything but unsophisticated, and his natural shrewdness had been rendered much more acute by the difficulties with which he had recently been obliged to contend. M. Fortunat’s confusion had not escaped his keen glance; and this last suggestion aroused his suspicions at once. “What!” he said, slowly, and with an air of evident distrust. “YOU give me this advice, Master Twenty-per-cent. This is wonderful! How long is it since your opinions have undergone such a change?”
“My opinions?”
“Yes. Didn’t you say to me during our first interview; ‘The thing that will save you, is that you have never in your whole life borrowed a louis from a friend. An ordinary creditor only thinks of a large interest; and if that is paid him he holds his peace. A friend is never satisfied until everybody knows that he has generously obliged you. It is far better to apply to a usurer.’ I thought all that very sensible, and I quite agreed with you when you added: ‘So, Monsieur le Marquis, no borrowing of this kind until after your marriage—not on any pretext whatever. Go without eating rather than do it. Your credit is still good; but it is being slowly undermined—and the indiscretion of a friend who chanced to say: “I think Valorsay is hard up,” might fire the train, and then you’d explode.’”
M. Fortunat’s embarrassment was really painful to witness. He was not usually wanting in courage, but the events of the evening had shaken his confidence and his composure. The hope of gain and the fear of loss had deprived him of his wonted clearness of mind. Feeling that he had just committed a terrible blunder, he racked his brain to find some way of repairing it, and finding none, his
