In this parlor everything had been combined to dazzle. Furniture, carpets, hangings, every thing, was rich, too rich, furiously, incontestably, obviously rich. The chandelier was a masterpiece, the clock an original and, unique piece of work. The pictures hanging upon the wall were all signed with the most famous names.
"To judge of the rest by what I have seen," thought M. de Tregars, "there must have been at least four or five hundred thousand francs spent on this house."
And, although he was shocked by a quantity of details which betrayed the most absolute lack of taste, he could hardly persuade himself that the cashier of the Mutual Credit could be the master of this sumptuous dwelling; and he was asking himself whether he had not followed the wrong scent, when a circumstance came to put an end to all his doubts.
Upon the mantlepiece, in a small velvet frame, was Vincent Favoral's portrait.
M. de Tregars had been seated for a few minutes, and was collecting his somewhat scattered thoughts, when a slight grating sound, and a rustling noise, made him turn around.
Mme. Zelie Cadelle was coming in.
She was a woman of some twenty-five or six, rather tall, lithe, and well made. Her face was pale and worn; and her heavy dark hair was scattered over her neck and shoulders. She looked at once sarcastic and good-natured, impudent and naive, with her sparkling eyes, her turned-up nose, and wide mouth furnished with teeth, sound and white, like those of a young dog. She had wasted no time upon her dress; for she wore a plain blue cashmere wrapper, fastened at the waist with a sort of silk scarf of similar color.
From the very threshold, "Dear me!" she exclaimed, "how very singular!"
M. de Tregars stepped forward.
"What?" he inquired.
"Oh, nothing!" she replied, - "nothing at all!"
And without ceasing to look at him with a wondering eye, but suddenly changing her tone of voice, "And so, sir," she said, "my servants have been unable to keep you from forcing yourself into my house!"
"I hope, madame," said M. de Tregars with a polite bow, "that you will excuse my persistence. I come for a matter which can suffer no delay."
She was still looking at him obstinately. "Who are you?" she asked.
"My name will not afford you any information. I am the Marquis de Tregars."
"Tregars!" she repeated, looking up at the ceiling, as if in search of an inspiration. "Tregars! Never heard of it!"
And throwing herself into an 'arm chair, "Well, sir, what do you wish with me, then? Speak!"
He had taken a seat near her, and kept his eyes riveted upon hers.
"I have come, madame," he replied, "to ask you to put me in the way to see and speak to the man whose photograph is there on the mantlepiece."
He expected to take her by surprise, and that by a shudder, a cry, a gesture, she might betray her secret. Not at all.
"Are you, then, one of M. Vincent's friends?" she asked quietly.
M. de Tregars understood, and this was subsequently confirmed, that it was under his Christian name of Vincent alone, that the cashier of the Mutual Credit was known in the Rue du Cirque.
"Yes, I am a friend of his," he replied; "and if I could see him, I could probably render him an important service.
"Well, you are too late."
"Why?"
"Because M. Vincent put off more than twenty-four hours since?"
"Are you sure of that?"
"As sure as a person can be who went to the railway station yesterday with him and all his baggage."
"You saw him leave?"
"As I see you."
"Where was he going?"
"To Havre, to take the steamer for Brazil, which was to sail on the same day; so that, by this time, he must be awfully seasick."
"And you really think that it was his intention to go to Brazil?"
"He said so. It was written on his thirty-six trunks in letters half a foot high. Besides, he showed me his ticket."
"Have you any idea what could have induced him to expatriate himself thus, at his age?"
"He told me he had spent all his money, and also some of other people's; that he was afraid of being arrested; and that he was going yonder to be quiet, and try to make another fortune."
Was Mme. Zelie speaking in good faith? To ask the question would have been rather naive; but an effort might be made to find out.
Carefully concealing his own impressions, and the importance he attached to this conversation, "I pity you sincerely, madame," resumed M. de Tregars; "for you must be sorely grieved by this sudden departure."
"Me!" she said in a voice that came from the heart. "I don't care a straw."
Marquis de Tregars knew well enough the ladies of the class to which he supposed that Mme. Zelie Cadelle must belong, not to be surprised at this frank declaration.
"And yet," he said, "you are indebted to him for the princely magnificence that surrounds you here."
"Of course."
"He being gone, as you say, will you be able to keep up your style of living?"
Half raising herself from her seat, "I haven't the slightest idea of doing so," she exclaimed." Never in the whole world have I had such a stupid time as for the last five months that I have spent in this gilded cage. What a bore, my beloved brethren! I am yawning still at the mere thought of the number of times I have yawned in it."
M. de Tregars' gesture of surprise was the more natural, that his surprise was immense.
"You are tired being here?" he said.
"To death."
"And you have only been here five months?"
"Dear me; yes! and by the merest chance, too, you'll see. One day at the beginning of last December, I was coming from - but no matter where I was coming from. At any rate, I hadn't a cent in my pocket, and nothing but an old calico dress on my back; and I was going along, not in the best of humor, as you may imagine, when I feel that some one is following me. Without looking around, and from the corner of my eye, if look over my shoulder, and I see a respectable-looking old gentleman, wearing a long frock-coat."
"M.Vincent?"
"In his own natural person, and who was walking, walking. I quietly begin to walk slower; and, as soon as we come to a place where there was hardly any one, he comes up alongside of me."
