Antonia

I-2

A pause of amazement and emotion succeeded this declaration from Julie d'Estrelle. She had spoken with ill-concealed distress, like one weary of discussing pecuniary interests, who gives way to the craving to pass her mental life in review and to discover the philosophical formula for her situation. The proud Amélie d'Ancourt was more scandalized than moved by an avowal which condemned her own ideas and the customs of her caste; moreover, she considered this effusive outburst on her friend's part, in the presence of a petty attorney, a little dangerous.

As for the attorney, he was sincerely touched; but he did not allow it to appear, being accustomed to see such explosions of secret feeling override the proprieties, even among people of the highest rank.

"My fair client is a sincere and touching creature," he said to himself; "she is right to accuse herself; there is no human law which can force a yes from the mouth which is determined to say no. She sinned like other women, because she longed for glittering gewgaws; but she sadly admits it, and in that she shows herself superior to most of her sisters. It is not for me to console her; I will confine myself to saving her, if I can.—Madame," he said aloud, after turning over these reflections in his mind, "you can augur better for your interests in the future than in the past. The present shows that monsieur le marquis will not easily make up his mind to set you free, but that he will not make up his mind to abandon you in any event. The paltry assistance which he offers you is not to be the last, so I was given to understand, and I am certain of it. Wait a few months, allow his son's creditors to threaten you, and you will find that he will put his hand in his pocket again to prevent the sale of this house. Forget these worries, do not think of moving, trust to time and circumstances."

"Very good, monsieur," said the baroness, who was in haste to give her opinion and display her pride of rank. "That is very excellent advice of yours; but, if I were in madame la countesse's place, I would not follow it. I would flatly refuse these miserable little charities! Yes, indeed, I should blush to accept them! I would go from this house with head erect, and live in a convent; or, better still, I would go to some one of my friends, Baronne d'Ancourt for example, and I would say to the marquis and marchioness: 'Arrange matters to suit yourselves; I will let the house be sold. I have incurred no debts, and I do not worry about those left by monsieur your son. Pay them with the tattered remnants of a fortune that he left me, and we will see whether you will put up with the public spectacle of my destitution.'—Yes, my dear Julie, that is what I would do, and I promise you that the marquis, who is very rich by his second marriage, would retract these infamous propositions he makes to-day."

"Does Madame la Comtesse d'Estrelle coincide with that opinion," said the solicitor, "and am I to burn our bridges?"

"No," replied the countess. "Tell me in two words of what my father-in-law's contribution consists, and, whatever it may be, I accept it."

"It consists," replied Marcel Thierry, "of a small farm in the Beauvoisis, worth about twenty thousand francs, and a very old, but not badly dilapidated pavilion, situated on your street at the end of the garden of your hôtel."

"Ah! that old pavilion of Richelieu's day?" said the countess indifferently.

"A mere hovel!" said the baroness; "it is good for nothing but to pull down!"

"Possibly," replied Marcel; "but the land has some value, and as the street is being built up, you might find a purchaser for it."

"And allow a house to be built so near my own," said Julie, "overlooking my garden, and almost overlooking my apartments."

"No, you would require that the house should turn its back to you and take the air from the street or from my uncle's garden."

"Who might your uncle be?" queried the baroness, with an indescribable touch of contempt in her tone.

"Monsieur Marcel Thierry," said the countess, "is a near relative of my wealthy neighbor, Monsieur Antoine Thierry, of whom you must certainly have heard."

"Oh! yes, a former tradesman."

"An armorer," rejoined Marcel. "He made his fortune in the colonies without ever setting foot on a ship, and, thanks to shrewd planning and good luck, he made several millions in his chimney corner, you might say."

"I congratulate him," replied the baroness. "And he lives in this neighborhood?"

"His house faces the new court; but his garden is separated only by a wall from the Comtesse d'Estrelle's, and the pavilion forms a sort of elbow between the two estates. Now my uncle might purchase the pavilion, either to straighten his own lines by destroying it, or to repair it and turn it into a green-house or gardener's lodge."

"So the wealthy Monsieur Thierry has his eye on the pavilion," observed the baroness, "and perhaps he has commissioned you——"

"He has commissioned me to do nothing," Marcel interrupted in a firm tone. "He has no knowledge whatever of the affairs of my other clients."

"Then you are his solicitor also?"

"Naturally, madame la baronne; but that will not prevent me from making him pay the highest possible price for whatever it may please madame la comtesse to sell him, and he will not take it ill of me. He is too good a man of business not to know the value of a piece of real estate that he really wants."

"But I have not decided to sell the property we are talking about," said the countess, emerging from a sort of vague reverie. "It does not annoy me at all. It is occupied, I am told, by a most excellent person of quiet habits."

"True, madame," said Marcel; "but the rent is so small that it will increase your income very slightly. However, if you prefer to keep it, it will be of use to you, in that it represents a substantial security for the interest on your debts."

"We will talk about this again, Monsieur Thierry. I will think it over and you will advise me further. Tell me the total amount of the gift to be made to me."

"About thirty thousand francs."

"Should I express my thanks for it?"

"If I were in your place, I would do nothing of the kind!" cried the baroness.

"Do so by all means," said the solicitor in an undertone. "A word of amiable and modest resignation costs a heart like yours nothing at all."

The countess wrote two lines and handed them to Marcel.

"Let us hope," he said, as he rose to go, "that the Marquis d'Estrelle will be touched by your gentleness."

"He is not a bad man," replied Julie, "but he is very old and feeble, and his second wife governs him completely."

"She is a genuine plague spot, that ex-Madame d'Orlandes!" cried the baroness.

"Do not speak ill of her, madame la baronne," retorted Marcel; "she belongs to that society and entertains those opinions which you certainly look upon as the law and the prophets."

"What is that, monsieur le procureur?"

"She abhors the new ideas and considers the privileges of birth the blessed ark of tradition."

"Do not insult me by comparing me to that woman," said the baroness; "that her ideas are all right is very possible; but her actions are all wrong. She is miserly, and people say that she would even desert her opinions for money."

"Oh! in that case," said Marcel, with an equivocal smile which Madame d'Ancourt took for an act of homage, "I can understand that madame la baronne must regard her with profound aversion."

He bowed and retired.

"That man is not by any means ill-bred!" said the baroness, who had observed the dignified and respectful ease of his exit. "His name is Thierry, you say?"

"Like his uncle's the rich man, and like his other uncle, much more favorably known, Thierry the painter of flowers."

"Ah! the painter? I almost knew the excellent Thierry. My husband used to receive him in the morning."

"Everybody received him at all hours, my dear love, at least all people of taste and intelligence; for he was a charming old man, extremely well educated and most agreeable in conversation."

"Baron d'Ancourt apparently lacks taste and intelligence, for he did not choose to have him to dinner."

"I do not say that the baron lacks——"

"Say it, say it, I don't care; I know more about it than you do."

And, having delivered that double-edged retort, the baroness, who had a sovereign contempt for her husband's intellect, but forgave him in consideration of his eminent qualities in the matter of noble birth, indulged in a hearty and good-humored peal of laughter.

"Let us return to these Thierrys," she said. "Do I understand that you were well acquainted with the artist?"

"No, I did not know him. You know that Comte d'Estrelle fell sick immediately after our marriage, that I went with him to take the waters, and that as a matter of fact I have never received visitors at all, for he simply languished and languished until he died."

"That is why you have never seen society and know nothing about it. Poor dear, after sacrificing yourself for a brilliant life, you have known nothing except the duties due to a dying man, the crêpe of mourning, and the annoyances of business! Come, you must leave all this behind you, my dear Julie; you must marry again."

"Ah! God forbid!" cried the countess.

"You propose to live alone and bury yourself, at your age? Impossible!"

"I cannot say that is to my taste, for I have no idea. I have passed so entirely beside everything that goes to make up the life of young women—marriage, wealth and liberty—that I am hardly acquainted with myself. I know that I have consumed two years in ennui and melancholy, and thus far in my solitude, except for these money troubles, which are exceedingly distasteful to me, but which I do my best to endure without bitterness, I find myself in a more tolerable condition than in those through which I have previously passed. It may be that my character lacks energy just as my mind lacks variety. Being driven to some occupation to kill time, I have taken a liking to quiet amusements. I read a great deal, I draw a little, I play on the piano, I embroider, I write occasional letters to my old friends at the convent. I receive four or five people of a serious turn of mind, but good-tempered, and always the same, so that I am habitually placid and free from excitement. In a word, I do not suffer, and I am not bored; and that is a good deal to one who has always suffered or yawned with ennui hitherto. So leave me as I am, my friend. Come to see me as often as you can without interfering with your pleasures, and do not worry about my lot, which is not so bad as it might be."

"All this will do very well for a while, my dear, and you act like a woman of spirit by meeting misfortune with a stout heart; but all things have their day, and you must not sacrifice too much of the age of beauty and the advantages which it procures. You are not, be it said without offence, of very exalted birth, but your unfortunate marriage gave you a fine name and a title which placed you on a higher social level. You are a widow, which enables you to go about and be seen and known, and you have no children; so that you are still in all the bloom of your youth. You have no fortune; but, as your dower, overladen with debts as it is, will be no great loss, you can very well hold it cheap, and renounce it for a more eligible suitor than the first. If you choose to put yourself in my hands, I will undertake to arrange the sort of marriage for you to which you have a perfect right to aspire."