It is useless to relate the activity with which Josette, Jacquelin, Mariette, Moreau, and his agents went about their functions.It was like the busyness of ants about their eggs.All that daily care had already rendered neat and clean was again gone over and brushed and rubbed and scrubbed.The china of ceremony saw the light; the damask linen marked "A, B, C" was drawn from depths where it lay under a triple guard of wrappings, still further defended by formidable lines of pins.Above all, Mademoiselle Cormon sacrificed on the altar of her hopes three bottles of the famous liqueurs of Madame Amphoux, the most illustrious of all the distillers of the tropics,--a name very dear to gourmets.Thanks to the devotion of her lieutenants, mademoiselle was soon ready for the conflict.The different weapons--furniture, cookery, provisions, in short, all the various munitions of war, together with a body of reserve forces--were ready along the whole line.Jacquelin, Mariette, and Josette received orders to appear in full dress.The garden was raked.The old maid regretted that she couldn't come to an understanding with the nightingales nesting in the trees, in order to obtain their finest trilling.
At last, about four o'clock, at the very moment when the Abbe de Sponde returned home, and just as mademoiselle began to think she had set the table with the best plate and linen and prepared the choicest dishes to no purpose, the click-clack of a postilion was heard in the Val-Noble.
"'Tis he!" she said to herself, the snap of the whip echoing in her heart.
True enough; heralded by all this gossip, a post-chaise, in which was a single gentleman, made so great a sensation coming down the rue Saint-Blaise and turning into the rue du Cours that several little gamains and some grown persons followed it, and stood in groups about the gate of the hotel Cormon to see it enter.Jacquelin, who foresaw his own marriage in that of his mistress, had also heard the click-clack in the rue Saint-Blaise, and had opened wide the gates into the courtyard.The postilion, a friend of his, took pride in making a fine turn-in, and drew up sharply before the portico.The abbe came forward to greet his guest, whose carriage was emptied with a speed that highwaymen might put into the operation; the chaise itself was rolled into the coach-house, the gates closed, and in a few moments all signs of Monsieur de Troisville's arrival had disappeared.Never did two chemicals blend into each other with greater rapidity than the hotel Cormon displayed in absorbing the Vicomte de Troisville.
Mademoiselle, whose heart was beating like a lizard caught by a herdsman, sat heroically still on her sofa, beside the fire in the salon.Josette opened the door; and the Vicomte de Troisville, followed by the Abbe de Sponde, presented himself to the eyes of the spinster.
"Niece, this is Monsieur le Vicomte de Troisville, the grandson of one of my old schoolmates; Monsieur de Troisville, my niece, Mademoiselle Cormon.""Ah! that good uncle; how well he does it!" thought Rose-Marie-Victoire.
The Vicomte de Troisville was, to paint him in two words, du Bousquier ennobled.Between the two men there was precisely the difference which separates the vulgar style from the noble style.If they had both been present, the most fanatic liberal would not have denied the existence of aristocracy.The viscount's strength had all the distinction of elegance; his figure had preserved its magnificent dignity.He had blue eyes, black hair, an olive skin, and looked to be about forty-six years of age.You might have thought him a handsome Spaniard preserved in the ice of Russia.His manner, carriage, and attitude, all denoted a diplomat who had seen Europe.His dress was that of a well-bred traveller.As he seemed fatigued, the abbe offered to show him to his room, and was much amazed when his niece threw open the door of the boudoir, transformed into a bedroom.
Mademoiselle Cormon and her uncle then left the noble stranger to attend to his own affairs, aided by Jacquelin, who brought up his luggage, and went themselves to walk beside the river until their guest had made his toilet.Although the Abbe de Sponde chanced to be even more absent-minded than usual, Mademoiselle Cormon was not less preoccupied.They both walked on in silence.The old maid had never before met any man as seductive as this Olympean viscount.She might have said to herself, as the Germans do, "This is my ideal!" instead of which she felt herself bound from head to foot, and could only say, "Here's my affair!" Then she flew to Mariette to know if the dinner could be put back a while without loss of excellence.
"Uncle, your Monsieur de Troisville is very amiable," she said, on returning.
"Why, niece, he hasn't as yet said a word.""But you can see it in his ways, his manners, his face.Is he a bachelor?""I'm sure I don't know," replied the abbe, who was thinking of a discussion on mercy, lately begun between the Abbe Couturier and himself."Monsieur de Troisville wrote me that he wanted to buy a house here.If he was married, he wouldn't come alone on such an errand," added the abbe, carelessly, not conceiving the idea that his niece could be thinking of marriage.
"Is he rich?"
"He is a younger son of the younger branch," replied her uncle."His grandfather commanded a squadron, but the father of this young man made a bad marriage.""Young man!" exclaimed the old maid."It seems to me, uncle, that he must be at least forty-five." She felt the strongest desire to put their years on a par.
"Yes," said the abbe; "but to a poor priest of seventy, Rose, a man of forty seems a youth."All Alencon knew by this time that Monsieur de Troisville had arrived at the Cormons.The traveller soon rejoined his hosts, and began to admire the Brillante, the garden, and the house.
