"Good heavens!" she exclaimed, "but this is dreadful! Who is this Baudoyer?""A donkey," answered des Lupeaulx; "but, as you see, he uses means,--he gives monstrances; he succeeds, thanks to some clever hand that pulls the wires."The thought of her debts crossed Madame Rabourdin's mind and blurred her sight, as if two lightning flashes had blinded her eyes at the same moment; her ears hummed under the pressure of the blood that began to beat in her arteries; she remained for a moment quite bewildered, gazing at a window which she did not see.
"But are you faithful to us?" she said at last, with a winning glance at des Lupeaulx, as if to attach him to her.
"That is as it may be," he replied, answering her glance with an interrogative look which made the poor woman blush.
"If you demand caution-money you may lose all," she said, laughing; "Ithought you more magnanimous than you are. And you, you thought me less a person than I am,--a sort of school-girl.""You have misunderstood me," he said, with a covert smile; "I meant that I could not assist a man who plays against me just as l'Etourdi played against Mascarille.""What can you mean?"
"This will prove to you whether I am magnanimous or not."He gave Madame Rabourdin the memorandum stolen by Dutocq, pointing out to her the passage in which her husband had so ably analyzed him.
"Read that."
Celestine recognized the handwriting, read the paper, and turned pale under the blow.
"All the ministries, the whole service is treated in the same way,"said des Lupeaulx.
"Happily," she said, "you alone possess this document. I cannot explain it, even to myself.""The man who stole it is not such a fool as to let me have it without keeping a copy for himself; he is too great a liar to admit it, and too clever in his business to give it up. I did not even ask him for it.""Who is he?"
"Your chief clerk."
"Dutocq! People are always punished through their kindnesses! But,"she added, "he is only a dog who wants a bone.""Do you know what the other side offer me, poor devil of a general-secretary?"
"What?"
"I owe thirty-thousand and odd miserable francs,--you will despise me because it isn't more, but here, I grant you, I am significant. Well, Baudoyer's uncle has bought up my debts, and is, doubtless, ready to give me a receipt for them if Baudoyer is appointed.""But all that is monstrous."
"Not at all; it is monarchical and religious, for the Grand Almoner is concerned in it. Baudoyer himself must appoint Colleville in return for ecclesiastical assistance.""What shall you do?"
"What will you bid me do?" he said, with charming grace, holding out his hand.
Celestine no longer thought him ugly, nor old, nor white and chilling as a hoar-frost, nor indeed anything that was odious and offensive, but she did not give him her hand. At night, in her salon, she would have let him take it a hundred times, but here, alone and in the morning, the action seemed too like a promise that might lead her far.
"And they say that statesmen have no hearts!" she cried enthusiastically, trying to hide the harshness of her refusal under the grace of her words. "The thought used to terrify me," she added, assuming an innocent, ingenuous air.
"What a calumny!" cried des Lupeaulx. "Only this week one of the stiffest of diplomatists, a man who has been in the service ever since he came to manhood, has married the daughter of an actress, and has introduced her at the most iron-bound court in Europe as to quarterings of nobility.""You will continue to support us?"
"I am to draw up your husband's appointment-- But no cheating, remember."She gave him her hand to kiss, and tapped him on the cheek as she did so. "You are mine!" she said.
Des Lupeaulx admired the expression.
[That night, at the Opera, the old coxcomb related the incident as follows: "A woman who did not want to tell a man she would be his,--an acknowledgment a well-bred woman never allows herself to make,--changed the words into 'You are mine.' Don't you think the evasion charming?"]
"But you must be my ally," he answered. "Now listen, your husband has spoken to the minister of a plan for the reform of the administration;the paper I have shown you is a part of that plan. I want to know what it is. Find out, and tell me to-night.""I will," she answered, wholly unaware of the important nature of the errand which brought des Lupeaulx to the house that morning.
"Madame, the hair-dresser."
"At last!" thought Celestine. "I don't see how I should have got out of it if he had delayed much longer.""You do not know to what lengths my devotion can go," said des Lupeaulx, rising. "You shall be invited to the first select party given by his Excellency's wife.""Ah, you are an angel!" she cried. "And I see now how much you love me; you love me intelligently.""To-night, dear child," he said, "I shall find out at the Opera what journalists are conspiring for Baudoyer, and we will measure swords together.""Yes, but you must dine with us, will you not? I have taken pains to get the things you like best--""All that is so like love," said des Lupeaulx to himself as he went downstairs, "that I am willing to be deceived in that way for a long time. Well, if she IS tricking me I shall know it. I'll set the cleverest of all traps before the appointment is fairly signed, and I'll read her heart. Ah! my little cats, I know you! for, after all, women are just what we men are. Twenty-eight years old, virtuous, and living here in the rue Duphot!--a rare piece of luck and worth cultivating," thought the elderly butterfly as he fluttered down the staircase.
