Chapter II: Part 2

"Perhaps; it gives me something to think about. Do you know, I am deeply impressed by the example set us by some lives? I see that Madame Thierry is like me, being a widow and ruined; but I see that she is happy none the less, while I am not. She is proud to pay the debts of a husband whom she loved dearly,--and I--But I do not propose to retract the confession that escaped my lips yesterday in your presence. I wish to ask you one question. This son, this most excellent son of the worthy widow--where is he?"

"In Paris, madame, where he is working very hard and beginning to pay off the debts by painting pictures which are already almost as good as his father's. Some influential friends have become interested in him, and would push him ahead more rapidly if he were less scrupulous and proud; but with a little time he will be rich in his turn, indeed he now owes only a mere trifle, for which our Uncle Antoine has decided to become responsible, inasmuch as there is no longer any risk in so doing."

"This rich uncle seems to be about as timid and economical as my father-in-law the marquis?"

"No, madame; his is an entirely different sort of selfishness. It would take a long while to tell you about him, and it is time for me to be at the Palais."

"Of course, of course, some other time, Monsieur Thierry. Go and attend to your business. Here are the papers all signed; come again soon!"

"As soon as your affairs require it; rely upon my promptitude, madame la comtesse."

"Do not be so ceremonious. Come to see me when you have time, without regard to business. I am greatly indebted to you, Monsieur Thierry. You have not only given me the clear understanding of my position which was so necessary to me. You have given me good advice and have not led my honor astray in order to protect my selfish interests. In fact I see that you feel perhaps a little friendliness for me, and I thank you with all my heart."

The countess had a way of saying such simple things which made her extremely charming. Modest and dignified in her every act and every word, there was in her manners an indefinable suggestion of restrained emotion which denoted a too full heart, a heart seeking a fit receptacle for its overflow. The baroness would surely have considered that she was altogether too grateful and effusive to the pettifogger, who was only too happy to act for her. She would have told her that one must not spoil people of that sort by letting them see that they are necessary to one. Julie, being perfectly sure of herself, notwithstanding her pathetic humility, was not afraid of placing her friendship too low by bestowing it on a clever and honorable man; and, moreover, there was taking place within her, as we have seen, an insensible yet rapid reaction against the circle in which she had hitherto lived.

"A most delightful woman!" said Marcel Thierry to himself as he left her. "Deuce take me! if I were not an attorney, married to the best woman on earth, and the father of a bouncing boy--all of which things tend to guarantee the strength of a man's brain--I should be in love with this countess myself! oh! head over heels in love, I verily believe! I will tell my wife so this evening, and we will have a good laugh over it."

"How did it happen," Madame d'Estrelle was thinking at that moment, "that I did not ask Thierry what it is most important for me to know? I thought of it, and then I forgot it. I must find out, however! If this young Thierry lives with his mother, it will not be proper for him to make my garden his usual place of promenade. But perhaps he is not a young man. Did he say that he was young? His father was very old. But did he say that he was so very old? I cannot remember at all. However, my servants must know. Servants know everything."

She rang.

"Camille," she said to her maid, "has this Madame Thierry, who lives in the old pavilion yonder,--a most excellent person, I know--has she any children? I talked with her yesterday, but I didn't think of asking her."

"She has a son," Camille replied.

"About how old?"

"Twenty-five, judging from his face."

"He is married, of course?"

"No, madame."

"Where does he live?"

"At the pavilion, with his mother."

"Is he a good sort of man? What do people say of him?"

"He is a most excellent young man, madame la comtesse. Everybody speaks well of him. They are very poor, and they pay all their bills, never keep anybody waiting. And yet they are not stingy, they never do anything mean. One would say that they must be people of quality."

Camille did not mean to flatter her mistress by speaking in that way. She, too, claimed to be well-born and to have known better days. She claimed that some of her ancestors had been sheriffs.

"_Mon Dieu_, Camille, birth is of no consequence," said the countess, who was often vexed by her maid's airs.

"I beg pardon, madame la comtesse," rejoined Camille, tartly, "I thought that it was of the greatest consequence."

"As you please, my dear. Go and bring me my gray parasol. There is so much of this pride on all sides," thought Madame d'Estrelle, "that it will disgust me with all prejudices; it will make me more fond of Jean-Jacques Rousseau than I ought to be; and really I am beginning to wonder if the great are not living a little on their past, and if all this antiquated nonsense is not becoming useful to amuse our servants."

She took her gray parasol, with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction; then sat down in her salon, open to the April sun, saying to herself that she must not go in the direction of the pavilion any more, and perhaps not into her garden at all.

Then it was that Madame Thierry, finding that she did not come to meet her as she expected, ventured to go as far as the house, to pay her respects to her and thank her. Madame d'Estrelle received her with great courtesy, but the widow was too keen not to detect a shade of embarrassment in her greeting, and she had hardly seated herself before she thanked her and rose to go.

"Already?" said the countess. "You find me ungracious, I am sure, and I confess that I feel some slight embarrassment with you to-day which makes me act foolishly. So let us have done at once with this nonsense, which I am sure you will forgive. When I came and spoke to you yesterday, I had no idea that you had a son, a young and estimable man, I am told, who lives with you."

"Let me tell the rest, madame la comtesse. You are afraid----"

"Oh! _mon Dieu!_ I am afraid that people will talk, that is all. I am young, alone in the world, with no immediate protector; a stranger in a family which accepted me only with regret, as I learned too late, and which blames me for not choosing to pass my period of mourning in a convent."

"I know all that, madame la comtesse; my nephew Marcel told me. As I am most solicitous for your good name, I do not propose that your kindness of heart shall carry you too far. You must not come to the pavilion so long as I live there, nor must I come into the garden or to your house. That is what I came to say to you. It is not necessary for me to add that my son never for an instant supposed that he was included in the permission which you so graciously gave me yesterday."

"Very good!" cried the countess, "this last point is all that is necessary. I thank you for your delicacy, which makes it possible for me not to return your visits; but as to the other point, I do not agree with you. You will walk in my garden and you will come to see me."

"Perhaps it would be better that I should not come."

"No, no," replied Julie, earnestly, "you must come, I insist upon it! and, if you don't come, I shall be obliged to go to fetch you and knock at your window again, which will compromise me. Tell me," she added with a smile, "if you wish me to _ruin_ myself for you? I warn you that I am capable of it."

Madame Thierry could not resist the fascination of this artless generosity. She yielded, making a mental vow that she would fly to the other end of Paris, if her presentiment of Julien's passion proved not to be a dream of her maternal imagination.

"Now," said the countess, "let us arrange the conditions of our intercourse, in order to put an end to all danger of evil-speaking. The pavilion has only four windows looking on my garden. The two lower ones--I do not know the arrangement of the rooms."

"The two lower ones are in the room which my son uses as a studio and I as a salon. We always sit there; but the lower sash, with four panes of ground glass, is stationary, and we open only the upper sashes; but they are often open at this season."

"Then you cannot look into my house, as I was told. But that sash with the ground glass was not stationary yesterday; it was partly open."

"True, madame la comtesse; there was a broken pane which you may have noticed."

"No; my sight is bad, consequently I don't look very closely."

"For that reason I had to open that sash, a very unusual thing. But it was repaired and fastened again this morning. Light from below would be very inconvenient for my son in his painting, and he stretches a green cloth over the window on the inside. So he would have to stand on a chair to look into your garden, and, as he is a serious-minded man, and not an ill-taught schoolboy----"

"Very well, very well! My mind is at rest concerning the lower floor. The windows above----"

"Are in my bedroom. My son's room looks on the street."

"And he never sits in your room? No one in my garden will ever see a man at your windows?"

"It never has happened and never will happen. I will answer for it."

"Nor will he ever come to the garden door, even for an instant? You will warn him."

"Be perfectly at ease in that respect. My son is a man of honor."

"I do not doubt it. Commend my honor to him, and let us say no more about him; that is to say let us say no more about me, for to forbid you to speak of him would be very cruel. I know that he is your pride and your joy, and I congratulate you."

Madame Thierry had made up her mind not to say another word about Julien, but it was impossible for her to keep to her determination. Step by step she finally reached the point where she gave full expression to her idolatry of that adored son, who well deserved to be adored. The countess listened without any uncalled-for scruples to her enumeration of the young artist's talents and virtues. But she became a little melancholy at the thought that she should probably never have children to afford occupation for her youth and console her old age. Madame Thierry divined her secret thought and changed the subject.

What was Julien doing while they were talking about him in the little summer salon of the hôtel d'Estrelle? He was working, or was supposed to be working. He constantly changed his position, he was hot and cold, he started at the slightest sound. He said to himself that perhaps his name was on the countess's lips at that moment, that perhaps she was asking some question about him, merely as a matter of form, without listening to the answer. He went to the window, the lower sash of which was really nailed in its place and covered with a green cloth; but there was an imperceptible slit in that cloth, there was a scratch on the ground glass, and through that treacherous crevice, cunningly made and cunningly concealed, he saw Madame d'Estrelle every day, strolling among the shrubbery in her garden, and walking along the path which was in full view from the pavilion. Julien knew almost to a minute her regular hours for that walk. When some accident interfered with her usual practice, then mysterious presentiments, the divinatory instinct which belongs only to love, and especially to a first love, warned him of Julie's approach. Then he invented a thousand pretexts, each more ingenious than the last, for turning his mother's vigilant eye in some other direction and gazing at his fair neighbor; or else he would find that he had to go and get something in his bedroom, and would go upstairs, his mother remaining below, enter her room and look through the blind. In fact he had adored Julie for a fortnight, and Julie thought that he had never seen her, and Madame Thierry lied unconsciously when she said that her son could see nothing from the studio, and that he had never looked out of her bedroom windows.

To Julien himself there was something insane, or at all events inexplicable, in that sudden passion which had taken possession of him, who was so sensible in all other respects; but as there is a cause for every effect, it is our place to seek it, and not be too free to admit the improbability of actual occurrences.

Marcel came very often, with or without his wife, to pass a portion of the evening with his aunt Thierry. Julien and he were much attached to each other, and although they often disagreed, Marcel considering Julien too romantic, and Julien considering Marcel too practical, they would have died for each other. Marcel talked freely about his practice, which was rapidly increasing. When Julien asked him: "Is your office flourishing?" he would answer: "It is budding, my boy, it is budding! I often have clients who bring me more honor than profit, and they are not the ones of whom I think the least."--Among those clients who were not fond of litigation, but to whom he owed pleasant or profitable connections, Marcel placed the Comtesse d'Estrelle in the first rank. He mentioned her so often and in such enthusiastic terms, he thought and spoke so severely of the lovely widow's unworthy husband, he inveighed so bitterly against the inhuman avarice of the family, he took such a profound interest in Julie's gentle and noble character, he involuntarily extolled her charms so warmly, that Julien was curious to see her; he saw her and loved her, if indeed he did not love her before he saw her.

Julien had never loved before. He had led a very virtuous life, he had experienced a great sorrow, he was at the height of his physical and mental development; his susceptibility was overstrained by the courageous efforts he had made, by a constant exchange of fervent affection with his loving mother, by a tendency to enthusiasm which he derived from long association with an enthusiastic father. He lived in seclusion, he denied himself all diversion and worked with intense eagerness to preserve the honor of his name and to save his mother from want. All this must inevitably find a vent, and that generous heart discharge its surplus emotion. We will say no more about it; indeed we have already said far too much in explanation of that impossible phenomenon which we see every day--a persistent, violent, boundless aspiration toward an object which is known to be unattainable. Long, long before, La Fontaine had written this refrain, which had passed into a proverb:

"Love, love! when thou dost hold us, Well may we say: 'Prudence, farewell!'"

II

Now, while the countess was talking to Madame Thierry, and Julien to himself, Marcel Thierry was talking not far away with his uncle Antoine, the old bachelor, the ex-armorer, the rich man of the family.

Gentle reader--as they used to say at the time when these events took place--be kind enough to accompany us to Rue Blomet from the hôtel d'Estrelle on Rue de Babylone; skirting the garden wall for five minutes, passing in front of the Louis XIII. pavilion, then skirting the wall of another garden much larger than Madame d'Estrelle's, along a lane grass-grown on the edges, muddy and full of holes in the centre, destined at some time to be an extension of Rue de Babylone; then turning to the left and passing along another street in embryo to the corner of Rue Blomet, where stands a large house of the Louis XIV. style of architecture, formerly the hôtel de Melcy, recently purchased and occupied by Monsieur Antoine Thierry. If Monsieur Antoine Thierry would have allowed us to pass through his extensive grounds, we might have started from Julien's house and walked straight through the nursery to the rear of the mansion; but Uncle Antoine is determined to be master on his own estate, and he will not grant any easement whatsoever, even in favor of his brother's widow and son. Marcel, therefore, on leaving the countess, had taken this walk, half in the city, half in the country; and now behold him seated in the rich man's study, formerly a boudoir with painted and gilded ceiling, now filled with shelves and tables covered with bags of seeds, specimens of fruit moulded in wax, and baskets of tools and other articles connected with horticulture.

To reach this study, the proprietor's favorite retreat, he has had to pass through galleries and immense salons overweighted with gilt decorations in relief, grand in conception, but blackened by neglect and dampness; for the windows are shut and the shutters tightly closed in all weathers; the rich man never tarries in those majestic apartments, he never receives visitors there, he never gives parties or banquets, he cares for no one, he is suspicious of everybody. He loves rare flowers and exotic shrubs, he also esteems the product of fruit trees, and he is constantly deliberating upon the trimming and grafting of his _subjects_. He overlooks and directs in person a score of gardeners, whom he pays handsomely, and whose families he takes under his protection. Never attempt to interest him in any other people than those who flatter or subserve his caprices or his vanity.

This passion for gardening he acquired by a mere chance. One of the vessels which sailed to the far east on his account and for his profit brought from China a parcel of seeds which he carelessly dropped in an urn filled with earth. The seeds sprouted, the plants grew and were covered with lovely flowers. The armorer, who did not anticipate that result, and who, moreover, had never in his life looked at a plant, paid very little heed at first; but another accident brought to his house a connoisseur who went into ecstasies, and declared the priceless plant to be absolutely new and unknown to science.

This discovery exerted a decisive influence on Monsieur Antoine's life. He had always despised flowers: it was probable that he would never really understand them, for he was entirely devoid of the artistic sense; but his vanity, which was stifling him for lack of nourishment, pounced upon that windfall and pointed out to him the only way in which he could attain renown. He had a brother who painted flowers, who interpreted them, who loved them and gave his life to them. His brother was much admired; a trivial sketch from his brush made more noise than all of his older brother's great wealth. The older brother knew it, and was jealous of him. He could never hear the word art mentioned without shrugging his shoulders. He considered that the world was unjust and idiotic to be amused by trifles and not to admire the shrewdness of a man who, having started from nothing, counted his gold-pieces by the shovelful. He was disappointed, perturbed in mind.--But suddenly all was changed; he, too, was going to become a celebrity. The flowers which his brother summoned forth from the canvas he would summon from the earth, and they would not be mere every-day flowers which everybody knew and could name at sight; they would be rarities, plants from the four corners of the world, which scholars would have to cudgel their brains to define and classify and baptize. The most wonderful should bear his name! It had been suggested that his name should be given to several of his nurslings, but there was no hurry, since his collection was enriched every year by some marvel from the metropolis. He determined to wait, and was still waiting for a certain lily, which was likely to surpass all the rest, and which should bear, in addition to its generic name, the specific designation of _Antonia Thierrii._

There was still time enough, for the uncle, although seventy-five years old, was still hale and hearty. He was a short man, rather slight, with a very good figure, but the hands hardened by constant contact with the soil, the skin tanned by constant exposure to the air, the neglected hair and dusty clothes, the back bent by bodily toil, presented the incongruous image of a villager with rustic manners, tenacious in his ideas, of an overbearing and surly disposition, ungrammatical, imperious and peremptory, planted in the heart of Paris, in a mansion of which he was the heedless and preoccupied master.

Marcel saluted his uncle with more familiarity than deference. He knew that flattery would be a waste of time; that the ex-armorer could be brought to terms on any subject only by a contest in obstinacy, in harsh language at need. He knew that his first impulse would be to say no; that no perhaps would be his last word; but that, in order to obtain one poor _yes_ among a hundred _noes_ he must fight without losing heart for a moment. Marcel was of a stout temper--it was a family trait--and he was so accustomed to fighting, especially against his uncle, that he derived a sort of painful pleasure from that occupation, which would have disgusted an artist in an instant.

"I have brought you something to sign," he began.

"I will not sign anything; my word is good enough."

"True, with those who know you."

"Everybody knows me."

"Almost everybody; but I am dealing with idiots. Come, sign, sign!"

"No, you might just as well sign it. My word's as good as gold; all the worse for the man who doubts it."

"Then you will see the creditor take possession of the house at Sèvres. He will be satisfied then, no doubt, but until then he will doubt my authority."

"So you have a bad reputation, have you?"

"Apparently."

"The idea of your saying that!"

"What do you want me to say? If I should say no, you would not sign, and I want to induce you to sign."

"Oh! you do! Why, I should like to know?"

"Because it bores me, tires me and annoys me to return to Sèvres and wait for them to make up their minds to come to see you, when the despatch of this paper by my clerk will remove all difficulties and save me expense and many steps. Do you understand?"

"You do whatever you please with me," replied the armorer, taking his pen. He dipped it in the ink three times before deciding, read and reread the document whereby he guaranteed the payment of the last six thousand francs of his brother's debts, looked Marcel in the eye to see if he was anxious or impatient, and, seeing that he was unmoved, regretfully renounced the pleasure of driving him into a passion. He signed the paper and tossed it in his face, with a wicked laugh, saying:

"Off with you, rascal! You never come to my house unless you want to get something out of me. You might have guaranteed the debts in my place, for you're rich enough!"

"If I were, be sure that it would be done already; but I am making the final payments for my practice, and I cannot deceive Julien any longer as to the sacrifices I am making for him. He is deeply concerned; his mother is in despair----"

"Oh! his mother, his mother!" sneered the rich man in a tone of profound aversion.

"You are not fond of her, as everyone knows; so she will never ask you for anything, never fear; but I am fond of my aunt, if you have no objection, and Julien adores her. Between them--between us three, if necessary--we will have everything paid within two years, and I flatter myself that you will not have to spend a sou."

"Well, I don't flatter myself that I shall not! No matter! I will do them this favor, which will be the last."

"And the first, too, my dear uncle!"

And, as the document was signed, folded and safely in his pocket, Marcel added, resting his elbows on the table and looking his uncle straight in the face:

"Do you know, my dear uncle of the good Lord, you must be a very mean fellow to allow your brother's country house to be sold."

"Ah! there we are again!" shouted Monsieur Antoine, rising and smiting the table a genuine peasant's blow with his fist. "You would like to see me use my money, earned by the sweat of my brow, to pay for the follies of a spendthrift! Since when have artists needed to have houses of their own and fill them with a heap of gimcracks that cost the eyes out of your head, and make gardens for themselves, with bridges and summer-houses, when they don't even know how to grow a bit of milkweed? What difference does it make to me whether my brother's folly is sold, and his widow doesn't now have any great chefs in her kitchen and great noblemen at her table? They made all the trouble for themselves when they chose to receive counts and marquises, and madame would say: 'My house, my servants, my horses!'--I knew well enough where all that nonsense would bring them up! And now to-day they find they need the old rat who lives in his corner like a wise man and a philosopher, despising society, scorning luxury and giving all his time to useful work! They lower their crests and put out their paws, and he--he wouldn't give anything from pity--those people don't deserve it--he gives from pride, and that's how he gets his revenge. Go and tell that to your aunt, the beautiful princess in distress: that's the errand your mean dog of an uncle gives you to do. Go, I say, you dog of a pettifogger! What are you standing there for, staring at me?"

Marcel was in fact studying his uncle's expression and attitude with his sharp gray eyes, as if he would search the lowest depths of his conscience.

"Bah!" he exclaimed abruptly, as he rose, "you are very harsh, very mean, I say it again; but you are not so cruel as that! You have some reason for hating your sister-in-law which nobody has ever been able to understand, which you don't understand very clearly yourself, I fancy, but which I shall succeed in unearthing, my dear uncle, never fear, for I propose to go to work upon it, and you know that when I have set my heart upon a thing, I am like you, I never let go."

As he spoke Marcel kept his eyes fixed on the rich man, and he detected a notable change in his manner. A sudden pallor drove the coarse flush from his face, which was already burned afresh by the sun of the new spring. His lips trembled, he pulled his hat down to his bushy black eyebrows, turned his back, and went out into his garden without a word.

It was not a garden with little pieces of rockery, little summer-houses, and little terra cotta cows lying in the grass, like those which were so common at that period, in imitation of the rustic style adopted at Trianon. Nor was there an undulating lawn with winding paths, clumps of trees at regular intervals, and truncated columns reflected in limpid ponds, like the garden of the hôtel d'Estrelle, one of the first picturesque attempts at the modern garden _à l'anglaise_. Nor were there the old-fashioned flower-beds and long regular borders of the time of Louis XIV.; everywhere the ground was turned up and cut by Monsieur Antoine's experiments. On all sides were beds in the shape of baskets, hearts, stars, triangles, ovals, shields and trefoils, surrounded by green borders and narrow paths forming a perfect labyrinth. There were flowers of all sorts, beautiful or curious, but deprived of all their national grace by cages made of rushes, nets of wire, umbrellas of reeds, supports and props of all sorts, to protect them from being marred by the dirt, burned by the sun or broken by the wind. His rosebushes, being constantly trimmed and watered, had an artificial look, they were so exceedingly tidy and shiny. His peonies were ball-shaped at the top, like a grenadier's _pompon_, and his tulips shone like metal in the sun. Around the flower-garden were immense, melancholy-looking nurseries, like rows of stakes with scraggy bunches of leaves at the top. All this rejoiced the horticulturist's eyes and banished his gloom.

A single corner of his garden, nearest the pavilion occupied by Madame Thierry, afforded a pleasant promenade. That corner he had devoted for twenty years to the acclimatation of exotic ornamental trees. They were beautiful now, and cast considerable shade; but Monsieur Antoine, as it was no longer necessary to take particular pains with them, had almost lost his interest in them, and much preferred a shoot of pine or acacia just raised under glass.

His hothouse was wonderfully beautiful. He hurried thither to bury the bitter memories which Marcel had recalled. He went in and out among his favorite plants, the lilies, and, after assuring himself of the good health of those which were in bloom, he halted beside a small porcelain vase wherein an unknown bulb was just beginning to put forth shoots of a dark and glossy green.

"What will this be?" he thought. "Will it mark an epoch in the history of gardening, like so many others that owe their fame to me? It seems a long while since anything has happened in my garden, and people don't talk about me so much as they ought to."

Meanwhile Marcel went away, deep in thought, for Monsieur Antoine Thierry's miserliness was of a very curious sort. The curious thing about it was that Monsieur Thierry was not miserly. He did not hoard his money, he did not lend money and never had done so, he denied himself nothing that caught his fancy, and he even did a good deed sometimes under the spur of self-love. How did it happen that he had let slip so excellent an opportunity of purchasing his late brother's property for his nephew? That generous performance would have given him much more celebrity than the future _Antonia Thierrii._ That is precisely the problem which Marcel was trying to solve. He knew that the old armorer had always been jealous, not of his artist brother's talent, which he despised, but of his renown and social success; but should not that jealousy have died with old André? Ought his widow and son to have that unfortunate inheritance forced upon them?

An idea passed through Marcel's mind; he retraced his steps and interrupted Monsieur Antoine's horticultural reveries.

"By the way, my gallant uncle," he said in a playful tone, "don't you want to buy the hôtel d'Estrelle pavilion?"

"The pavilion is for sale, and you didn't tell me, you idiot?"

"I forgot it. Well, how much will you give for it?"

"What is it worth?"

"I have told you a hundred times: to Comtesse d'Estrelle, who has just accepted it as a gift, it is worth ten thousand francs; to you, who want it and need it, it is worth twice that. It remains to be seen whether the countess won't ask three times ten thousand."

"Ah! that's like your great folk! sharper and stingier than the parvenus they despise!"

"The Comtesse d'Estrelle despises no one."

"Yes, she does! she's a fool like all the others. We are separated by a wall, and in the four years she's been living in the hôtel d'Estrelle, she's never had the curiosity to look into my garden."

"Perhaps she doesn't know anything about rare plants."

"Say rather that she would consider herself dishonored if she put her foot inside a _plebeian's_ door!"

"Bah! do you expect a young woman in mourning to compromise herself by strolling about in the garden of a bachelor of your age?"

"Of my age? You are joking, I suppose! Am I of an age to make people talk?"

"Why, who can say? you used to be a volcano once!"

"I! What are you saying, you brute?"

"You cannot make me believe that you were never in love."

"What's that? I have never been in love! No such fool!"

"Yes, you have been in love, a fool if you please, at least once in your life! Try to insist that you haven't," added Marcel, as he saw that the horticulturist turned pale and seemed perturbed once more.

"Enough of this nonsense!" retorted the uncle, tapping the floor angrily with his foot. "You are Madame d'Estrelle's attorney; are you instructed to sell the pavilion?"

"No, but I have the right to suggest it. How much will you give?"

"Not a sou. Let me alone."

"Then I can offer it to another purchaser?"

"What other?"

"There is no other in view at this moment. I am not given to lying, and I shall not deal falsely with you in the matters you have placed in my charge; but you are well aware that the street is being built up, and that by to-morrow, perhaps to-night, people will be fighting for the pavilion."

"Let Madame d'Estrelle take the trouble to enter into negotiations with me."

"Do you want her to receive you? Very good!"

"Would she receive me?" said Monsieur Antoine, and his round eyes gleamed for an instant.

"Why not?" said Marcel.

"Oh! yes, she would receive me in her courtyard, or at best in her ante-chamber, standing up, between two doors, as she receives a dog or an attorney!"

"You are a great stickler for manners, aren't you, for a man who won't take his hat off his head for anybody? But never fear: Madame d'Estrelle is as courteous to decent people of our class as to the greatest aristocrats. To prove it, she is on the best of terms with my aunt Thierry, and they are almost friends already."

"Ah!--Well, that is because madame your aunt is noble! The nobles understand each other like thieves at a fair!"

"_Sapristi!_ uncle, once more I ask you what in heaven's name you have against your sister-in-law?"

"I have--Well, I detest her!"

"So I see; but why?"

"Because she is noble. Don't talk to me about your nobles! They are all heartless and ungrateful!"

"Did you love her, I wonder?"

This direct question was too much for Monsieur Antoine. He turned deathly pale, then flushed with anger, swore, tore his hair and shouted in a frenzy of rage:

"Did she tell you that? She pretends, she dares to say----"

"Nothing at all. I have never been able to extort a word from her about you; but I have had my suspicions, and now you have confessed. Tell me everything, uncle; that will be the best way, for it will relieve you, and you will have had a good heart-searching for once in your life."

Fully half an hour passed before the ex-armorer had exhausted all the spleen and bile of which his heart was full against Marcel, against Madame Thierry and against his deceased brother. When Marcel, who worried him cruelly, had succeeded in exhausting him, he carried his point, and old Antoine told him what follows, by fits and starts, forcing his nephew to extract from him bit by bit the secret of his life, which was also the secret of his character.

Forty years prior to the period of this narrative, Mademoiselle de Meuil, having eloped with André Thierry, had gone with her fiancé to seek shelter with Antoine Thierry, who was already rich and still quite young. Until that time the two brothers had lived on good terms with each other. While she remained in hiding at the hôtel de Melcy, Mademoiselle de Meuil had manifested sincere friendship for the armorer and perfect confidence in him. André, being prosecuted by the Meuil family and in danger of being consigned to the Bastille, had been compelled to leave Paris, to avert suspicion from the right quarter, while certain influential friends of his endeavored to adjust his affairs and gradually succeeded in so doing.

During this separation of several months, Mademoiselle de Meuil, constantly beset by the most painful anxiety, was more than once tempted to return to her parents in order to relieve the man she loved from the dangers and misfortunes which threatened him. More than once she discussed the subject frankly with André's brother, setting forth her fears and asking his advice. Then it was that Antoine conceived a strange idea, not treacherous and in no wise induced by passion, but in which his sensitive self-esteem was soon deeply involved. We will allow him to speak for a moment.

"The girl was ruined, although she had not lived with my brother as his wife. She was too far compromised to be taken back into the family, and the very best that she could hope for was to end her days in a convent. My brother seemed to me even more completely ruined than she was. A _lettre de cachet_ had been issued against him, and that was no joke in those days. He might be shut up for twenty years, or for his whole life--who could say? And as the young lady told me all this herself, crying out every minute: 'What shall I do, Monsieur Antoine? _Mon Dieu!_ what shall I do?' the idea came into my head of saving them both by marrying the girl. I was not in love with her, no! the devil take me if I lie! I should have loved any other woman as much, and I had never given a thought to marriage. If she had not been of noble birth, which gave her--not in my eyes, for I have no prejudices--in many people's eyes a sort of distinction, I shouldn't have paid much attention to her. Are you laughing? What are you laughing at, you ass of an attorney?"

"I am not laughing," said Marcel. "Go on. You were telling me about the bright idea that came into your head."

"So it did, and it wasn't any more foolish than my excellent brother's idea. Was he an eagle in those days, I would ask? No, he was a little dauber, who hadn't succeeded in laying by four sous, and no one thought anything of him. Was he any better looking than I was, or younger, or better bred? We were both brought up just alike; I was five years older, that's all. I wasn't the ugliest, and he wasn't a beauty by any means! He knew how to talk; he was always a chatterer. I said less, but what I said was solid. Neither one of us was more of a plebeian than the other, for we had the same father and mother. I had already saved nearly a million which no one knew anything about! With a million a man can do many things that my brother couldn't do: he can put the law to sleep and appease angry parents, and obtain patrons who never sleep; with a million one can even reach the king's ear, and surely one can marry a girl who has nothing at all. If society makes a fuss, it's because everyone would like to have the million in his own pocket. In fact, my million proved that even if I was not quite so fine a talker as my brother, it wasn't for want of wit and genius. That is what the girl ought to have understood. I didn't ask her to love me right away, but to love her André enough to forget him and keep him from going to prison and rotting there. Very good; instead of appreciating my good sense and generosity, lo and behold! the prude loses her temper, calls me a boor and a wicked brother and a dishonorable man, and decamps from my house without telling me where she's going, staking all to win all, and leaving a letter for me in which all the thanks she gives me is a promise never to betray my treachery to Monsieur André! I confess that I have never forgiven her for that, and that I never shall forgive her. As for my excellent brother, he behaved in a way that disgusted me almost as much as madame did. I didn't choose to wait till his prude of a wife had sold me. When I saw that he was out of his difficulties and married, I told him the whole story, just as I have told it to you. He didn't lose his temper; on the contrary, he thanked me for my good intentions, but then he began to laugh. You know what a frivolous, weak-brained creature he was! Well, my idea struck him as very comical, and he made fun of me. Thereupon I broke with him, and I would never see the wife or the husband again."

"At last!" said Marcel, "now I know where we are. But Julien? Why do you bear Julien a grudge, for he wasn't born at the time of your grievance?"

"I don't bear Julien a grudge; but he is his mother's son, and I am sure that he hates me."

"Upon my honor, Julien knows nothing of what you have told me, and he knows you only by your conduct of late. Do you think that he can possibly approve it? Shouldn't you have redeemed his mother's house, when he swore by all that is most sacred that he would devote his life to the payment of his debt to you?"

"A fine security, the life of a painter! Where did painting land his father, who was _famous?_"

"And suppose you had lost a matter of fifty thousand francs, you who certainly have more than----"

"Hush! you should never mention the amount of a man's fortune. When such figures are in the air, the walls and trees, even the flower-pots, have ears."

"You agree that the amount is so large that the Sèvres affair would have been a mere trifle, don't you?"

"Do you propose to make me out a miser?"

"I know that you are not one, but I shall believe that you are cruel, and that you like to see people suffer whom you believe to be your enemies."

"Well, isn't that my right? Since when have we been forbidden to seek revenge?"

"Since we began to be something more than savages."

"Am I a savage then?"

"Yes."

"Be off, you are tiresome after a while! Look out that I don't set myself against you too?"

"I defy you to do it."

"Why so?"

"Because you know that I am the only person on earth who is just a little attached to you and devoted to you, in spite of all your shortcomings."

"You see! You admit now that Julien detests me."

"Make him love you; then you will have two friends instead of one."

"Ah! yes! you want me to redeem the house! Very good, when Julien is an orphan, I will look after him, on condition that he never mentions his mother to me."

"Perhaps you would like to have him kill her, would you? I tell you, uncle, you are mad, nothing more nor less. You are immeasurably vain, and you have the prejudices of the nobility in a more virulent form than any of the people who have ancestors. You were not in love with Mademoiselle de Meuil, I am sure; but her rank made you long to supplant your brother with her. You were frantically jealous of poor André, not because of that lovely and lovable young woman, but because of the parchments which she brought him with her dowry, and because of the sort of lustre that was reflected on him. In a word, you do not hate the nobles, you adore them, you envy them, you would give all your millions to have been _born_ somebody, and your outbreaks of rage against them on every occasion are simply the spleen of a discarded lover, just as your hatred of my aunt is the spleen of a wounded and humiliated plebeian. That is your mania, my poor uncle; every man has his own, they say, but this one makes you cruel, and I am very sorry for you."

Perhaps the ex-armorer felt that Marcel was right; consequently he was about to get more angry than ever, but Marcel turned his back on him with a shrug, and went away, paying no heed to his invectives.

In reality Marcel was very glad to be in possession at last of the ideas and recollections which underlay his uncle's actions. He promised himself that he would take advantage of his knowledge to induce him to mend his ways. Did he succeed? The sequel will tell us.

"Madame," said Marcel to the Comtesse d'Estrelle the next morning, "you must sell the pavilion."

"Why?" said Julie. "It is so old and such a paltry affair, and of such trifling value too!"

"It has a value due to its location, which you must not overlook. My uncle will give you thirty thousand francs for it, perhaps more."

"This is the first time, my dear adviser, that you have advised me ill. I am very reluctant to extort money from a neighbor. What is it but speculating on the need he may have of that old building?"

"Wait a moment, my noble client! My uncle does not need the pavilion; he wants it, which is a very different matter. He is rich enough to pay for his whims. And what would you say if he were grateful to you for your extortion?"

"How can that be?"

"Enter into personal relations with him and he will offer you a bonus over and above the price."

"Fie! Monsieur Thierry! you would have me pay court to his gold?"

"No, but simply bestow upon it a kindly, patronizing smile, and it will come to you of itself. Moreover, you will do a kind deed."

"Tell me what you mean."

"You will show my uncle that you have much esteem and affection for my aunt and cousin, and thus you will induce the old Crœsus to assist them seriously in their distress."

"Then I will do it with all my heart, Monsieur Thierry; but, while I am already able to appreciate the worth of madame your aunt, what can I say of your cousin, whom I do not know?"

"No matter, speak of him with perfect confidence. My Julien has a heart of gold, the high spirit of a man of birth, and a mind above his condition; he is the best of sons, the truest of friends, the most honorable of men, and the most reasonable of artists. Say all that, madame la comtesse, and if Julien's life ever offers the slightest contradiction to your words, drive me from your presence, and never again give me your esteem or confidence."

Marcel spoke so vehemently that Julie was impressed. She abstained from asking questions, but she listened, without losing a word, to what followed this eulogy, when Marcel entered into details by which only the hardest of hearts could have failed to be moved. He told of Julien's care of his mother, of the privations which he endured without her knowledge, even going without proper food so that she might have enough. Therein Marcel, like Madame Thierry, unwittingly said what was not true. Julien had lost his appetite because he was in love, and Marcel, who had no suspicion of it, thought that he had divined the cause of that involuntary abstemiousness. But Julien was capable of doing much more for his mother than holding his appetite in check. He would have given the last drop of his blood for her; thus, while he did not tell the exact truth at that moment, Marcel said far less than the truth.

His panegyric of Julien was so generous and so affecting that the countess authorized Marcel to say to Uncle Antoine from her that she would like very much to see his rare flowers and inspect his extensive and interesting grounds. Uncle Antoine received this message with a haughty and sceptical air.

"I see," said he, "she wants to sell at a high price, and this condescension will cost me the eyes out of my head."

Marcel allowed him to talk, but was not deceived. The rich man's gratification was too evident.

On the appointed day Madame d'Estrelle resumed her deep mourning, entered her carriage and drove to the hôtel de Melcy. Marcel was at the door awaiting her. He offered her his hand, and as they went up the steps Uncle Antoine appeared in all his glory, in gardening costume. That was by no means ill-advised on the part of so stupid a man. He had duly considered, without mentioning it to Marcel, the plan of appearing in magnificent array; he was rich enough to have every seam stitched with gold; but the dread of ridicule deterred him, and, as he prided himself on being a great horticulturist before everything, he had the wit to appear in a strictly rustic costume.

Despite the asperity of his disposition and of his ordinary manners, despite his secret longing to assert his independence of mind and his philosophical pride before Marcel, he suddenly lost countenance before the fair Julie's gracious salutation and her sincere and limpid glance, and for the first time in thirty years removed his three-cornered hat and, instead of replacing it at once on his head, held it awkwardly, but respectfully, under his arm throughout the visit.

Julie did not resort to the vulgar ruse of trying to flatter his caprice; she was really interested in the treasures of horticulture which were exhibited to her. Herself a flower, she loved flowers. This is no madrigal,--to use a phrase then in vogue. There is a natural affinity between all divine creations, and in all ages symbols have been used to express realities.

The rich man, although he had little of the rose about him, bloomed resplendent at the sincere admiration bestowed on his beloved plants. Little by little his assumed haughtiness vanished before the sylph whose feet hardly grazed his lawns, and who flitted among his flower-beds like a caressing breeze. He awaited with entire resignation the announcement of the price fixed for the pavilion.

"Come, my dear uncle," said Marcel, seeing that Madame d'Estrelle had apparently forgotten the affair, "tell madame la comtesse of your desire to purchase--"

"True," said the rich man, careful not to commit himself too far, "I have had some idea of buying the pavilion; but now if madame does not wish to part with it----"

"I have but one reason for not wishing to part with it. It is occupied by some people whom I esteem, and whom I would not disturb on any consideration."

"They have a lease, I suppose?" said Monsieur Thierry, who knew all about it.

"Why, of course," said Marcel; "you would have to pay them a fair indemnity in case they should consent to cancel the lease, for you know they took it very recently."

"A fair indemnity!" repeated the uncle, with a frown.

"I would gladly undertake to pay that," said Madame d'Estrelle, "if----"

"If I would pay more for the place in proportion!"

"That is not what I was about to say," rejoined Julie, in a dignified tone which cut short all discussion. "I intended to say, and I say now that, if Madame Thierry, your sister-in-law, has the slightest objection to leaving that house, I propose to uphold her right to remain throughout the term of the lease; and that is a condition which the purchaser cannot evade on any pretext."

"That will delay the transaction and make it less advantageous to madame," said Monsieur Antoine, who, was consumed with longing to utter the fascinating title of _countess_, but could not quite make up his mind to do it.

"I do not say no to that, Monsieur Thierry," replied Julie, with an indifference which the rich man considered a fair artifice.

"However," he began after a pause, "what price does----"