The Muse of the Department Part 15

"Let us get out; they will come and find us," said the Baroness, desiring her coachman to keep watch.

Dinah took Bianchon's arm, and the doctor set off by the banks of the Loire at so rapid a pace that the journalist had to linger behind. The physician had explained by a single wink that he meant to do Lousteau a good turn.

"You have been attracted by Etienne," said Bianchon to Dinah; "he has appealed strongly to your imagination; last night we were talking about you.--He loves you. But he is frivolous, and difficult to hold; his poverty compels him to live in Paris, while everything condemns you to live at Sancerre.--Take a lofty view of life. Make Lousteau your friend; do not ask too much of him; he will come three times a year to spend a few days with you, and you will owe to him your beauty, happiness, and fortune. Monsieur de la Baudraye may live to be a hundred; but he might die in a few days if he should leave off the flannel winding-sheet in which he swathes himself. So run no risks, be prudent both of you.--Say not a work--I have read your heart."

Madame de la Baudraye was defenceless under this serried attack, and in the presence of a man who spoke at once as a doctor, a confessor, and confidential friend.

"Indeed!" said she. "Can you suppose that any woman would care to compete with a journalist's mistresses?--Monsieur Lousteau strikes me as agreeable and witty; but he is _blase_, etc., etc.----"

Dinah had turned back, and was obliged to check the flow of words by which she tried to disguise her intentions; for Etienne, who seemed to be studying progress in Cosne, was coming to meet them.

"Believe me," said Bianchon, "what he wants is to be truly loved; and if he alters his course of life, it will be to the benefit of his talent."

Dinah's coachman hurried up breathlessly to say that the diligence had come in, and they walked on quickly, Madame de la Baudraye between the two men.

"Good-bye, my children!" said Bianchon, before they got into the town, "you have my blessing!"

He released Madame de la Baudraye's hand from his arm, and allowed Lousteau to draw it into his, with a tender look, as he pressed it to his heart. What a difference to Dinah! Etienne's arm thrilled her deeply. Bianchon's had not stirred her in the least. She and the journalist exchanged one of those glowing looks that are more than an avowal.

"Only provincial women wear muslin gowns in these days," thought Lousteau to himself, "the only stuff which shows every crease. This woman, who has chosen me for her lover, will make a fuss over her frock!

If she had but put on a foulard skirt, I should be happy.--What is the meaning of these difficulties----"

While Lousteau was wondering whether Dinah had put on a muslin gown on purpose to protect herself by an insuperable obstacle, Bianchon, with the help of the coachman, was seeing his luggage piled on the diligence.

Finally, he came to take leave of Dinah, who was excessively friendly with him.

"Go home, Madame la Baronne, leave me here--Gatien will be coming," he added in an undertone. "It is getting late," said he aloud. "Good-bye!"

"Good-bye--great man!" cried Lousteau, shaking hands with Bianchon.

When the journalist and Madame de la Baudraye, side by side in the rickety old chaise, had recrossed the Loire, they both were unready to speak. In these circ.u.mstances, the first words that break the silence are full of terrible meaning.

"Do you know how much I love you?" said the journalist point blank.

Victory might gratify Lousteau, but defeat could cause him no grief.

This indifference was the secret of his audacity. He took Madame de la Baudraye's hand as he spoke these decisive words, and pressed it in both his; but Dinah gently released it.

"Yes, I am as good as an actress or a _grisette_," she said in a voice that trembled, though she spoke lightly. "But can you suppose that a woman who, in spite of her absurdities, has some intelligence, will have reserved the best treasures of her heart for a man who will regard her merely as a transient pleasure?--I am not surprised to hear from your lips the words which so many men have said to me--but----"

The coachman turned round.

"Here comes Monsieur Gatien," said he.

"I love you, I will have you, you shall be mine, for I have never felt for any woman the pa.s.sion I have for you!" said Lousteau in her ear.

"In spite of my will, perhaps?" said she, with a smile.

"At least you must seem to have been a.s.saulted to save my honor," said the Parisian, to whom the fatal immaculateness of clean muslin suggested a ridiculous notion.

Before Gatien had reached the end of the bridge, the outrageous journalist had crumpled up Madame de la Baudraye's muslin dress to such an effect that she was absolutely not presentable.

"Oh, monsieur!" she exclaimed in dignified reproof.

"You defied me," said the Parisian.

But Gatien now rode up with the vehemence of a duped lover. To regain a little of Madame de la Baudraye's esteem, Lousteau did his best to hide the tumbled dress from Gatien's eyes by leaning out of the chaise to speak to him from Dinah's side.

"Go back to our inn," said he, "there is still time; the diligence does not start for half an hour. The papers are on the table of the room Bianchon was in; he wants them particularly, for he will be lost without his notes for the lecture."

"Pray go, Gatien," said Dinah to her young adorer, with an imperious glance. And the boy thus commanded turned his horse and was off with a loose rein.

"Go quickly to La Baudraye," cried Lousteau to the coachman. "Madame is not well--Your mother only will know the secret of my trick," added he, taking his seat by Dinah.

"You call such infamous conduct a trick?" cried Madame de la Baudraye, swallowing down a few tears that dried up with the fire of outraged pride.

She leaned back in the corner of the chaise, crossed her arms, and gazed out at the Loire and the landscape, at anything rather than at Lousteau.

The journalist put on his most ingratiating tone, and talked till they reached La Baudraye, where Dinah fled indoors, trying not to be seen by any one. In her agitation she threw herself on a sofa and burst into tears.

"If I am an object of horror to you, of aversion or scorn, I will go,"

said Lousteau, who had followed her. And he threw himself at her feet.

It was at this crisis that Madame Piedefer came in, saying to her daughter:

"What is the matter? What has happened?"

"Give your daughter another dress at once," said the audacious Parisian in the prim old lady's ear.

Hearing the mad gallop of Gatien's horse, Madame de la Baudraye fled to her bedroom, followed by her mother.

"There are no papers at the inn," said Gatien to Lousteau, who went out to meet him.

"And you found none at the Chateau d'Anzy either?" replied Lousteau.

"You have been making a fool of me," said Gatien, in a cold, set voice.

"Quite so," replied Lousteau. "Madame de la Baudraye was greatly annoyed by your choosing to follow her without being invited. Believe me, to bore a woman is a bad way of courting her. Dinah has played you a trick, and you have given her a laugh; it is more than any of you has done in these thirteen years past. You owe that success to Bianchon, for your cousin was the author of the Farce of the 'Ma.n.u.script.'--Will the horse get over it?" asked Lousteau with a laugh, while Gatien was wondering whether to be angry or not.

"The horse!" said Gatien.

At this moment Madame de la Baudraye came in, dressed in a velvet gown, and accompanied by her mother, who shot angry flashes at Lousteau. It would have been too rash for Dinah to seem cold or severe to Lousteau in Gatien's presence; and Etienne, taking advantage of this, offered his arm to the supposed Lucretia; however, she declined it.

"Do you mean to cast off a man who has vowed to live for you?" said he, walking close beside her. "I shall stop at Sancerre and go home to-morrow."

"Are you coming, mamma?" said Madame de la Baudraye to Madame Piedefer, thus avoiding a reply to the direct challenge by which Lousteau was forcing her to a decision.

Lousteau handed the mother into the chaise, he helped Madame de la Baudraye by gently taking her arm, and he and Gatien took the front seat, leaving the saddle horse at La Baudraye.

"You have changed your gown," said Gatien, blunderingly, to Dinah.