“No more! You bore me to death. Besides I haven’t time to listen to your nonsense; they are waiting for me to play a game of whist at the club.”
This time it was the master of the house, Baron Trigault, who spoke, and Pascal recognized his voice instantly.
“If monsieur would only allow me to read the items. It will take but a moment,” rejoined Van Klopen. And as if he had construed the oath that answered him as an exclamation of assent, he began: “In June, a Hungarian costume with jacket and sash, two train dresses with upper skirts and trimmings of lace, a Medicis polonaise, a jockey costume, a walking costume, a riding-habit, two morning-dresses, a Velleda costume, an evening dress.”
“I was obliged to attend the races very frequently during the month of June,” remarked the baroness.
But the illustrious adorner of female loveliness had already resumed his reading. “In July we have: two morning-jackets, one promenade costume, one sailor suit, one Watteau shepherdess costume, one ordinary bathing-suit, with material for parasol and shoes to match, one Pompadour bathing-suit, one dressing-gown, one close-fitting Medicis mantle, two opera cloaks——”
“And I was certainly not the most elegantly attired of the ladies at Trouville, where I spent the month of July,” interrupted the baroness.
“There are but few entries in the month of August,” continued Van Klopen. “We have: a morning-dress, a travelling-dress, with trimmings——” And he went on and on, gasping for breath, rattling off the ridiculous names which he gave to his “creations,” and interrupted every now and then by the blow of a clinched fist on the table, or by a savage oath.
Pascal stood in the smoking-room, motionless with astonishment. He did not know what surprised him the most, Van Klopen’s impudence in daring to read such a bill, the foolishness of the woman who had ordered all these things, or the patience of the husband who was undoubtedly going to pay for them. At last, after what seemed an interminable enumeration, Van Klopen exclaimed: “And that’s all!”
“Yes, that’s all,” repeated the baroness, like an echo.
“That’s all!” exclaimed the baron—“that’s all! That is to say, in four months, at least seven hundred yards of silk, velvet, satin, and muslin, have been put on this woman’s back!”
“The dresses of the present day require a great deal of material. Monsieur le Baron will understand that flounces, puffs, and ruches——”
“Naturally! Total, twenty-seven thousand francs!”
“Excuse me! Twenty-seven thousand nine hundred and thirty-three francs, ninety centimes.”
“Call it twenty-eight thousand francs then. Ah, well, M. Van Klopen, if you are ever paid for this rubbish it won’t be by me.”
If Van Klopen was expecting this denouement, Pascal wasn’t; in fact, he was so startled, that an exclamation escaped him which would have betrayed his presence under almost any other circumstances. What amazed him most was the baron’s perfect calmness, following, as it did, such a fit of furious passion, violent enough even to be heard in the vestibule. “Either he has extraordinary control over himself or this scene conceals some mystery,” thought Pascal.
Meanwhile, the man-milliner continued to urge his claims—but the baron, instead of replying, only whistled; and wounded by this breach of good manners, Van Klopen at last exclaimed: “I have had dealings with all the distinguished men in Europe, and never before did one of them refuse to pay me for his wife’s toilettes.”
“Very well—I don’t pay for them—there’s the difference. Do you suppose that I, Baron Trigault, that I’ve worked like a negro for twenty years merely for the purpose of aiding your charming and useful branch of industry? Gather up your papers, Mr. Ladies’ Tailor. There may be husbands who believe themselves responsible for their wives’ follies—it’s quite possible there are—but I’m not made of that kind of stuff. I allow Madame Trigault eight thousand francs a month for her toilette—that is sufficient—and it is a matter for you and her to arrange together. What did I tell you last year when I paid a bill of forty thousand francs? That I would not be responsible for any more of my wife’s debts. And I not only said it, I formally notified you through my private secretary.”
“I remember, indeed——”
“Then why do you come to me with your bill? It is with my wife that you have opened an account. Apply to her, and leave me in peace.”
“Madame promised me——”
“Teach her to keep her promises.”
“It costs a great deal to retain one’s position as a leader of fashion; and many of the most distinguished ladies are obliged to run into debt,” urged Van Klopen.
“That’s their business. But my wife is not a fine lady. She is simply Madame Trigault, a baroness, thanks to her husband’s gold and the condescension of a worthy German prince, who was in want of money. SHE is not a person of consequence—she has no rank to keep up.”
The baroness must have attached immense importance to the satisfying of Van Klopen’s demands, for concealing the anger this humiliating scene undoubtedly caused her, she condescended to try and explain, and even to entreat. “I have been a little extravagant, perhaps,” she said; “but I will be more prudent in future. Pay, monsieur—pay just once more.”
“No!”
“If not for my sake, for your own.”
“Not a farthing.”
By the baron’s tone, Pascal realized that his wife would never shake his fixed determination. Such must also have been the opinion of the illustrious ruler of fashion, for he returned to the charge with an argument he had held in reserve. “If this is the case, I shall, to my great regret, be obliged to fail in the respect I owe to Monsieur le Baron, and to place this bill in the hands of a solicitor.”
“Send him along—send him along.”
“I cannot believe that monsieur wishes a law-suit.”
“In that you are greatly mistaken. Nothing would please me better. It would at last give me an opportunity to say what I think about your dealings. Do you think that wives are to turn their husbands into machines for supplying money? You draw the bow-string too tightly, my dear fellow—it will break. I’ll proclaim on the house-top what others dare not say, and we’ll see if I don’t succeed in organizing a little crusade against you.” And animated by the sound of his own words, his anger came back to him, and in a louder and ever louder voice he continued: “Ah! you prate of the scandal that would be created by my resistance to your demands. That’s your system; but, with me, it won’t succeed. You threaten me with a law-suit; very good. I’ll take it upon myself to enlighten Paris, for I know your secrets, Mr. Dressmaker. I know the goings on in your establishment. It isn’t always to talk about dress that ladies stop at your place on returning from the Bois. You sell silks and satins no doubt; but you sell Madeira, and excellent cigarettes as well, and there are some who don’t walk very straight on leaving your establishment, but smell suspiciously of tobacco and absinthe. Oh, yes, let us go to law, by all means! I shall have an advocate who will know how to explain the parts your customers pay, and who will reveal how, with your assistance, they obtain money from other sources than their husband’s
