The Celibates Part 60

remarked Benjamin to the Pole.

"My master will shut your mouth for you," answered Kouski, departing to join Max who established himself at the hotel de la Poste.

On the morrow, between nine and eleven o'clock, all the women talked to each other from door to door throughout the town. The story of the wonderful change in the Rouget household spread everywhere. The upshot of the conversations was the same on all sides,--

"What will happen at the banquet between Max and Colonel Bridau?"

Philippe said but few words to the Vedie,--"Six hundred francs'

annuity, or dismissal." They were enough, however, to keep her neutral, for a time, between the two great powers, Philippe and Flore.

Knowing Max's life to be in danger, Flore became more affectionate to Rouget than in the first days of their alliance. Alas! in love, a self-interested devotion is sometimes more agreeable than a truthful one; and that is why many men pay so much for clever deceivers. The Rabouilleuse did not appear till the next morning, when she came down to breakfast with Rouget on her arm. Tears filled her eyes as she beheld, sitting in Max's place, the terrible adversary, with his sombre blue eyes, and the cold, sinister expression on his face.

"What is the matter, mademoiselle?" he said, after wishing his uncle good-morning.

"She can't endure the idea of your fighting Maxence," said old Rouget.

"I have not the slightest desire to kill Gilet," answered Philippe.

"He need only take himself off from Issoudun and go to America on a venture. I should be the first to advise you to give him an outfit, and to wish him a safe voyage. He would soon make a fortune there, and that is far more honorable than turning Issoudun topsy-turvy at night, and playing the devil in your household."

"Well, that's fair enough," said Rouget, glancing at Flore.

"A-mer-i-ca!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, sobbing.

"It is better to kick his legs about in a free country than have them rot in a pine box in France. However, perhaps you think he is a good shot, and can kill me; it's on the cards," observed the colonel.

"Will you let me speak to him?" said Flore, imploring Philippe in a humble and submissive tone.

"Certainly; he can come here and pack up his things. I will stay with my uncle during that time; for I shall not leave the old man again,"

replied Philippe.

"Vedie," cried Flore, "run to the hotel, and tell Monsieur Gilet that I beg him--"

"--to come and get his belongings," said Philippe, interrupting Flore's message.

"Yes, yes, Vedie; that will be a good pretext to see me; I must speak to him."

Terror controlled her hatred; and the shock which her whole being experienced when she first encountered this strong and pitiless nature was now so overwhelming that she bowed before Philippe just as Rouget had been in the habit of bending before her. She anxiously awaited Vedie's return. The woman brought a formal refusal from Max, who requested Mademoiselle Brazier to send his things to the hotel de la Poste.

"Will you allow me to take them to him?" she said to Jean-Jacques Rouget.

"Yes, but will you come back?" said the old man.

"If Mademoiselle is not back by midday, you will give me a power of attorney to attend to your property," said Philippe, looking at Flore.

"Take Vedie with you, to save appearances, mademoiselle. In future you are to think of my uncle's honor."

Flore could get nothing out of Max. Desperate at having allowed himself, before the eyes of the whole town, to be routed out of his shameless position, Gilet was too proud to run away from Philippe. The Rabouilleuse combated this objection, and proposed that they should fly together to America; but Max, who did not want Flore without her money, and yet did not wish the girl to see the bottom of his heart, insisted on his intention of killing Philippe.

"We have committed a monstrous folly," he said. "We ought all three to have gone to Paris and spent the winter there; but how could one guess, from the mere sight of that fellow's big carca.s.s, that things would turn out as they have? The turn of events is enough to make one giddy! I took the colonel for one of those fire-eaters who haven't two ideas in their head; that was the blunder I made. As I didn't have the sense to double like a hare in the beginning, I'll not be such a coward as to back down before him. He has lowered me in the estimation of this town, and I cannot get back what I have lost unless I kill him."

"Go to America with forty thousand francs. I'll find a way to get rid of that scoundrel, and join you. It would be much wiser."

"What would people say of me?" he exclaimed. "No; I have buried nine already. The fellow doesn't seem as if he knew much; he went from school to the army, and there he was always fighting till 1815; then he went to America, and I doubt if the brute ever set foot in a fencing-alley; while I have no match with the sabre. The sabre is his arm; I shall seem very generous in offering it to him,--for I mean, if possible, to let him insult me,--and I can easily run him through.

Unquestionably, it is my wisest course. Don't be uneasy; we shall be masters of the field in a couple of days."

That it was that a stupid point of honor had more influence over Max than sound policy. When Flore got home she shut herself up to cry at ease. During the whole of that day gossip ran wild in Issoudun, and the duel between Philippe and Maxence was considered inevitable.

"Ah! Monsieur Hochon," said Mignonnet, who, accompanied by Carpentier, met the old man on the boulevard Baron, "we are very uneasy; for Gilet is clever with all weapons."

"Never mind," said the old provincial diplomatist; "Philippe has managed this thing well from the beginning. I should never have thought that big, easy-going fellow would have succeeded as he has.

The two have rolled together like a couple of thunder-clouds."

"Oh!" said Carpentier, "Philippe is a remarkable man. His conduct before the Court of Peers was a masterpiece of diplomacy."

"Well, Captain Renard," said one of the townsfolk to Max's friend.

"They say wolves don't devour each other, but it seems that Max is going to set his teeth in Colonel Bridau. That's pretty serious among you gentlemen of the Old Guard."

"You make fun of it, do you? Because the poor fellow amused himself a little at night, you are all against him," said Potel. "But Gilet is a man who couldn't stay in a hole like Issoudun without finding something to do."

"Well, gentlemen," remarked another, "Max and the colonel must play out their game. Bridau had to avenge his brother. Don't you remember Max's treachery to the poor lad?"

"Bah! nothing but an artist," said Renard.

"But the real question is about the old man's property," said a third.

"They say Monsieur Gilet was laying hands on fifty thousand francs a year, when the colonel turned him out of his uncle's house."

"Gilet rob a man! Come, don't say that to any one but me, Monsieur Canivet," cried Potel. "If you do, I'll make you swallow your tongue, --and without any sauce."

Every household in town offered prayers for the honorable Colonel Bridau.

CHAPTER XVI

Towards four o'clock the following day, the officers of the old army who were at Issoudun or its environs, were sauntering about the place du Marche, in front of an eating-house kept by a man named Lacroix, and waiting the arrival of Colonel Philippe Bridau. The banquet in honor of the coronation was to take place with military punctuality at five o'clock. Various groups of persons were talking of Max's discomfiture, and his dismissal from old Rouget's house; for not only were the officers to dine at Lacroix's, but the common soldiers had determined on a meeting at a neighboring wine-shop. Among the officers, Potel and Renard were the only ones who attempted to defend Max.

"Is it any of our business what takes place among the old man's heirs?" said Renard.

"Max is weak with women," remarked the cynical Potel.

"There'll be sabres unsheathed before long," said an old sub-lieutenant, who cultivated a kitchen-garden in the upper Baltan.

"If Monsieur Maxence Gilet committed the folly of going to live under old Rouget's roof, he would he a coward if he allowed himself to be turned off like a valet without asking why."

"Of course," said Mignonnet dryly. "A folly that doesn't succeed becomes a crime."

At this moment Max joined the old soldiers of Napoleon, and was received in significant silence. Potel and Renard each took an arm of their friend, and walked about with him, conversing. Presently Philippe was seen approaching in full dress; he trailed his cane after him with an imperturbable air which contrasted with the forced attention Max was paying to the remarks of his two supporters.

Bridau's hand was grasped by Mignonnet, Carpentier, and several others. This welcome, so different from that accorded to Max, dispelled the last feeling of cowardice, or, if you prefer it, wisdom, which Flore's entreaties, and above all, her tendernesses, had awakened in the latter's mind.

"We shall fight," he said to Renard, "and to the death. Therefore don't talk to me any more; let me play my part well."