The Conspirators Part 16

"Who is Monsieur Fremond?" said the abbe, pouring himself out something to drink.

"It is the lodger on the third floor. A contemptible little fellow, with twelve hundred francs a year, and whose temper has caused me to have quarrels with every one in the house; and who came to complain that Monsieur Raoul prevented him and his dog from sleeping."

"My dear Madame Denis," replied the abbe, "you must not quarrel with Monsieur Fremond for that. Two o'clock in the morning is an unreasonable time; and if my pupil must sit up till then, he must play in the daytime and draw in the evening."

"What! Monsieur Raoul draws also!" cried Madame Denis, quite astonished at so much talent.

"Draws like Mignard."

"Oh! my dear abbe," said Madame Denis, "if you could but obtain one thing."

"What?" asked the abbe.

"That he would take the portrait of our Athenais."

The chevalier awoke from his reverie, as a traveler, asleep on the gra.s.s, feels a serpent glide up to him, and instinctively understands that a great danger threatens him.

"Abbe!" cried he, in a bewildered manner, "no folly!"

"Oh! what is the matter with your pupil?" asked Madame Denis, quite frightened.

Happily, at the moment when the abbe was seeking a subterfuge, the door opened, and the two young ladies entered blushing, and, stepping from right to left, each made a low courtesy.

"Well!" said Madame Denis, affecting an air of severity, "what is this?

Who gave you permission to leave your room?"

"Mamma," replied a voice which the chevalier recognized, by its shrill tones, for that of Mademoiselle Emilie, "we beg pardon if we have done wrong, and are willing to return."

"But, mamma," said another voice, which the chevalier concluded must belong to Mademoiselle Athenais, "we thought that it was agreed that we were to come in at dessert."

"Well, come in, since you are here; it would be ridiculous now to go back. Besides," added Madame Denis, seating Athenais between herself and Brigaud, and Emilie between herself and the chevalier, "young persons are always best--are they not, abbe?--under their mother's wing."

And Madame Denis presented to her daughters a plate of bon-bons, from which they helped themselves with a modest air which did honor to their education.

The chevalier, during the discourse and action of Madame Denis, had time to examine her daughters.

Mademoiselle Emilie was a tall and stiff personage, from twenty-two to twenty-three, who was said to be very much like her late father; an advantage which did not, however, suffice to gain for her in the maternal heart an affection equal to what Madame Denis entertained for her other two children. Thus poor Emilie, always afraid of being scolded, retained a natural awkwardness, which the repeated lessons of her dancing-master had not been able to conquer.

Mademoiselle Athenais, on the contrary, was little, plump, and rosy; and, thanks to her sixteen or seventeen years, had what is vulgarly called the devil's beauty. She did not resemble either Monsieur or Madame Denis, a singularity which had often exercised the tongues of the Rue St. Martin before she went to inhabit the house which her husband had bought in the Rue du Temps Perdu. In spite of this absence of all likeness to her parents, Mademoiselle Athenais was the declared favorite of her mother, which gave her the a.s.surance that poor Emilie wanted.

Athenais, however, it must be said, always profited by this favor to excuse the pretended faults of her sister.

Although it was scarcely eleven o'clock in the morning, the two sisters were dressed as if for a ball, and carried all the trinkets they possessed on their necks, arms, and ears.

This apparition, so conformable to the idea which D'Harmental had formed beforehand of the daughters of his landlady, gave him a new subject for reflection. Since the Demoiselles Denis were so exactly what they ought to be, that is to say, in such perfect harmony with their position and education, why was Bathilde, who seemed their equal in rank, as visibly distinguished as they were vulgar? Whence came this immense difference between girls of the same cla.s.s and age? There must be some secret, which the chevalier would no doubt know some day or other. A second pressure of the Abbe Brigaud's foot against his made him understand that, however true his reflections were, he had chosen a bad moment for abandoning himself to them. Indeed, Madame Denis took so sovereign an air of dignity, that D'Harmental saw that he had not an instant to lose if he wished to efface from her mind the bad impression which his distraction had caused.

"Madame," said he directly, with the most gracious air he could a.s.sume, "that which I already see of your family fills me with the most lively desire to know the rest. Is not your son at home, and shall not I have the pleasure of seeing him?"

"Monsieur," answered Madame Denis, to whom so amiable an address had restored all her good humor, "my son is with M. Joulu, his master; and, unless his business brings him this way, it is improbable that he will make your acquaintance."

"Parbleu! my dear pupil," said the Abbe Brigaud, extending his hand toward the door; "you are like Aladdin. It is enough for you to express a wish, and it is fulfilled."

Indeed, at this moment they heard on the staircase the song about Marlborough, which at this time had all the charm of novelty; the door was thrown open, and gave entrance to a boy with a laughing face, who much resembled Mademoiselle Athenais.

"Good, good, good," said the newcomer, crossing his arms, and remarking the ordinary number of his family increased by the abbe and the chevalier. "Not bad, Madame Denis; she sends Boniface to his office with a bit of bread and cheese, saying, 'Beware of indigestion,' and, in his absence, she gives feasts and suppers. Luckily, poor Boniface has a good nose. He comes through the Rue Montmartre; he snuffs the wind, and says, 'What is going on there at No. 5, Rue du Temps Perdu?' So he came, and here he is. Make a place for one."

And, joining the action to the word, Boniface drew a chair to the table, and sat down between the abbe and the chevalier.

"Monsieur Boniface," said Madame Denis, trying to a.s.sume a severe air, "do you not see that there are strangers here?"

"Strangers!" said Boniface, taking a dish from the table, and setting it before himself; "and who are the strangers? Are you one, Papa Brigaud?

Are you one, Monsieur Raoul? You are not a stranger, you are a lodger."

And, taking a knife and fork, he set to work in a manner to make up for lost time.

"Pardieu! madame," said the chevalier, "I see with pleasure that I am further advanced than I thought I was. I did not know that I had the honor of being known to Monsieur Boniface."

"It would be odd if I did not know you," said the lawyer's clerk, with his mouth full; "you have got my bedroom."

"How, Madame Denis!" said D'Harmental, "and you left me in ignorance that I had the honor to succeed in my room to the heir apparent of your family? I am no longer astonished to find my room so gayly fitted up; I recognize the cares of a mother."

"Yes, much good may it do you; but I have one bit of advice to give you.

Don't look out of window too much."

"Why?" asked D'Harmental.

"Why? because you have a certain neighbor opposite you."

"Mademoiselle Bathilde," said the chevalier, carried away by his first impulse.

"Ah! you know that already?" answered Boniface; "good, good, good; that will do."----"Will you be quiet, monsieur!" cried Madame Denis.

"Listen!" answered Boniface; "one must inform one's lodgers when one has prohibited things about one's house. You are not in a lawyer's office; you do not know that."

"The child is full of wit," said the Abbe Brigaud in that bantering tone, thanks to which it was impossible to know whether he was serious or not.

"But," answered Madame Denis, "what would you have in common between Monsieur Raoul and Bathilde?"

"What in common? Why, in a week, he will be madly in love with her, and it is not worth loving a coquette."

"A coquette?" said D'Harmental.

"Yes, a coquette, a coquette," said Boniface; "I have said it, and I do not draw back. A coquette, who flirts with the young men and lives with an old one, without counting that little brute of a Mirza, who eats up all my bon-bons, and now bites me every time she meets me."

"Leave the room, mesdemoiselles," cried Madame Denis, rising and making her daughters rise also. "Leave the room. Ears so pure as yours ought not to hear such things."

And she pushed Mademoiselle Athenais and Mademoiselle Emilie toward the door of their room, where she entered with them.

As to D'Harmental, he felt a violent desire to break Boniface's head with a wine-bottle. Nevertheless, seeing the absurdity of the situation, he made an effort and restrained himself.

"But," said he, "I thought that the bourgeois whom I saw on the terrace--for no doubt it is of him that you speak, Monsieur Boniface--"