“I have not made, nor do I intend making, any explanation.”
“Monsieur,” began De Clameran.
“Allow me to finish, if you please. If, unintentionally, I have offended the wife of a man whom I highly esteem, it is his business to seek redress, and not yours. Perhaps you will tell me he is too old to demand satisfaction: if so, let him send one of his sons. I saw one of them in the ball-room to-night; let him come. You asked me who I am; in return I ask you who are you—you who undertake to act as Mme. Fauvel’s champion? Are you her relative, friend, or ally? What right have you to insult her by pretending to discover an allusion to her in a play invented for amusement?”
There was nothing to be said in reply to this. M. de Clameran sought a means of escape.
“I am a friend of M. Fauvel,” he said, “and this title gives me the right to be as jealous of his reputation as if it were my own. If this is not a sufficient reason for my interference, I must inform you that his family will shortly be mine: I regard myself as his nephew.”
“Ah!”
“Next week, monsieur, my marriage with Madeleine will be publicly announced.”
This news was so unexpected, so startling that for a moment the clown was dumb; and now his surprise was genuine.
But he soon recovered himself, and, bowing with deference, said, with covert irony:
“Permit me to offer my congratulations, monsieur. Besides being the belle to-night, Mlle. Madeleine is worth, I hear, half a million.”
Raoul de Lagors had anxiously been watching the people near them, to see if they overheard this conversation.
“We have had enough of this gossip,” he said, in a disdainful tone; “I will only say one thing more, master clown, and that is, that your tongue is too long.”
“Perhaps it is, my pretty youth, perhaps it is; but my arm is still longer.”
De Clameran here interrupted them by saying:
“It is impossible for one to seek an explanation from a man who conceals his identity under the guise of a fool.”
“You are at liberty, my lord doge, to ask the master of the house who I am—if you dare.”
“You are,” cried Clameran, “you are—”
A warning look from Raoul checked the forge-master from using an epithet which would have led to an affray, or at least a scandalous scene.
The clown stood by with a sardonic smile, and, after a moment’s silence, stared M. de Clameran steadily in the face, and in measured tones said:
“I was the best friend, monsieur, that your brother Gaston ever had. I was his adviser, and the confidant of his last wishes.”
These few words fell like a clap of thunder upon De Clameran.
He turned deadly pale, and stared back with his hands stretched out before him, as if shrinking from a phantom.
He tried to answer, to protest against this assertion, but the words froze on his lips. His fright was pitiable.
“Come, let us go,” said Lagors, who was perfectly cool.
And he dragged Clameran away, half supporting him, for he staggered like a drunken man, and clung to every object he passed, to prevent falling.
“Oh,” exclaimed the clown, in three different tones, “oh, oh!”
He himself was almost as much astonished as the forge-master, and remained rooted to the spot, watching the latter as he slowly left the room.
It was with no decided object in view that he had ventured to use the last mysteriously threatening words, but he had been inspired to do so by his wonderful instinct, which with him was like the scent of a blood-hound.
“What can this mean?” he murmured. “Why was he so frightened? What terrible memory have I awakened in his base soul? I need not boast of my penetration, or the subtlety of my plans. There is a great master, who, without any effort, in an instant destroys all my chimeras; he is called ‘Chance.’”
His mind had wandered far from the present scene, when he was brought back to his situation by someone touching him on the shoulder. It was the man in the Venetian cloak.
“Are you very satisfied, M. Verduret?” he inquired.
“Yes, and no, M. the Count. No, because I have not completely achieved the object I had in view when I asked you for an invitation here to-night; yes, because these two rascals behaved in a manner which dispels all doubt.”
“And yet you complain—”
“I do not complain, M. the Count: on the contrary, I bless chance, or rather Providence, which has just revealed to me the existence of a secret that I did not before even suspect.”
Five or six people approached the count, and he went off with them after giving the clown a friendly nod.
The latter instantly threw aside his banner, and started in pursuit of Mme. Fauvel. He found her sitting on a sofa in the large salon, engaged in an animated conversation with Madeleine.
“Of course they are talking over the scene; but what has become of Lagors and De Clameran?”
He soon saw them wandering among the groups scattered about the room, and eagerly asking questions.
“I will bet my head these honorable gentlemen are trying to find out who I am. Keep it up, my friends, ask everybody in the room; I wish you success!”
They soon gave it up, but were so preoccupied, and anxious to be alone in order to reflect and deliberate, that, without waiting for supper, they took leave of Mme. Fauvel and her niece, saying they were going home.
The clown saw them go up to the dressing-room for their cloaks, and in a few minutes leave the house.
“I have nothing more to do here,” he murmured; “I might as well go too.”
He completely covered his dress with a domino, and started for home, thinking the cold frosty air would cool his confused brain.
He lit a cigar, and, walking up the Rue St. Lazare, crossed the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette, and struck into the Faubourg Montmartre.
A man suddenly started out from some place of concealment, and rushed upon him with a dagger.
Fortunately the clown had a cat-like instinct, which enabled him to protect himself against immediate danger, and detect any which threatened.
He saw, or rather divined, the man crouching in the dark shadow of a house, and had the presence of mind to strike an attitude which enabled him to ward off the assassin by spreading out his arms before him.
This movement certainly saved his life; for he received in his arm a furious stab, which would have instantly killed him had it penetrated his breast.
Anger, more
