Chapter IX: Separation

Chaffin was profoundly preoccupied, and very anxious as he followed the footman who was instructed to usher him into Landri's presence. He would have been even more so if he had glanced through the windows of the long glass gallery that surrounded the courtyard of the hôtel. His legs, trembling already, would have refused further service. He certainly would not have crossed the threshold of the room where his former pupil awaited him.

At the very moment when he was proceeding thus toward an interview of decisive importance to him, the small door on Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, through which visitors on foot were admitted, opened in response to an impatient ring, and Pierre appeared. His arrival thus on his father's heels, in view of the circumstances under which the two men had parted, was a threat well calculated to check the flow of blood in the unfaithful steward's veins. He had hastened thither to implore a compassion which his son's presence would render unavailing. That implacable Fate, of which Landri had been the craftsman, unwitting at first, then terrified by its working out, continued its work. But what is this Fate if not the internal logic of life, so well summed up, in the words of the poet: "We are the masters of our first step. We are the slaves of the second." This force which thus compels all the consequences of crime is not distinguishable from it. We could not help committing a crime. Once committed it holds us fast. Our very precautions serve only to hasten our punishment. It overtakes us alike through our prudences and our imprudences, through those who love us and those who hate us and those even to whom we are indifferent, so inevitably do our sins unfold their results according to a mathematical ratio.

Landri's visit to Pierre Chaffin was a perfectly natural result of the peculations committed by the steward of the Claviers estate, and that visit had produced this other no less natural result: the doctor had questioned his father. When Chaffin returned to the house on Quai de Béthune on the preceding day, his son opened the door, anticipating his ring, a sign that he had been at the window watching for his return.

"I was waiting for you," he said. "Let us go into my study. I have something to say to you, at once."

"What's going on?" queried Chaffin. As he asked the question his glance expressed more terror than surprise. This singular fact did not escape Pierre. He was conscious of the false ring in the newcomer's laughter as he added, with an impertinent allusion to the very advanced opinions professed by the physician: "There's no question of an anarchist plot, is there? For I am as much of a radical as you please, but still, you know, a landed proprietor."

"Landri de Claviers has just gone from here," Pierre replied, paying no heed to the pleasantry. He had closed the door by way of precaution, and spoke in a low voice. He did not wish his mother and sister, who were looking over the week's laundry in an adjoining room, to suspect that his father and he were closeted together. "Yes," he repeated, "Landri de Claviers." And he gazed steadfastly at the discharged steward. He tried to detect upon that enigmatic face a confusion which did not appear. The thief recovered his self-control, and ventured to reply:--

"He is probably ashamed of the way his father behaved to his old tutor. I don't class them together, Monsieur de Claviers and him. Landri is weak. He doesn't dare to break a lance against the prejudices of a society which he estimates none the less at its real worth. You saw how absurdly he acted in that matter of the inventory. He is not a believer, he adores the army, and still he gets his job taken away from him! He has a poor head, but he's a very good fellow."

"Landri did not come to apologize either for himself or his father," said the doctor. "He came to accuse us."

"Us?" cried Chaffin. "Of what, I should like to know?"

Despite his self-control, that explicit statement made him jump. Among the many suppositions with which his terror-haunted fancy had tormented him, one had been especially persistent of late: he had written the anonymous note, it will be remembered, on his typewriter. Several people in the Claviers household knew that he had the machine. At the moment he had said to himself: "Pshaw! there are thousands of others in Paris!" and had gone ahead. Since then he had lived in deadly fear lest some suggestion should lead the marquis to see whether the characters in the letter did not correspond with those of his machine. It was an extravagant fear. By virtue of what authority could M. de Claviers have claimed such a power? But it is the peculiarity of the fixed idea, that it does not distinguish the possible from the impossible. And then, there was Pierre. To be assailed by an insinuation of that nature in the esteem and affection of his son was to the father a worse punishment than to be sent before the Assizes. Did Landri's accusation relate to that? Did he claim the right to demand a test? But, if so, what was the meaning of that "us?"

"I will tell you about it," rejoined the physician. He began to repeat word for word the conversation he had had with his father's former pupil, ending with the terrible question asked by himself: "Yes or no, did you hear any talk of dishonesty?" and with Landri's evasive reply: "I heard something said of confusion in Monsieur de Claviers' affairs."

As he told the story, which it was exceedingly painful to him to repeat thus, his eyes continued to examine the face of the agent so directly incriminated. Lively emotion was certain to be depicted thereon, even if he were innocent,--especially if he were innocent. The news of Landri's visit, under the existing conditions, could not be indifferent to a man of heart. There was matter therein at which to take offence, to be distressed, to be alarmed, to be indignant. Perhaps, if Chaffin had foreseen this explanation with his son, he would have been shrewd enough to feign agitation. But being attacked unexpectedly, he instinctively feigned absolute impassibility. It is the least hazardous of defences for a culprit taken by surprise. It offers no hold for an investigation, but for that very reason it suggests mastery of self, a premeditated reserve, the possibility of a secret.

Pierre felt this so strongly that, at the end of this painful narration,--this cross-examination, rather, scarcely disguised,--he uttered a cry, a downright appeal to the sense of honor of that father of his, who listened to him with an impassive face which made it impossible to discover a single one of his thoughts:--

"And it doesn't make you jump from your chair that I, your son, have reached the point where I could put such a question to that man, and that he refused to answer? You seem to have no suspicion that I am passing through one of the most ghastly hours of my whole life! Don't tell me that you had nothing to do with the disappearance of Monsieur Jaubourg's papers. I know it. Don't tell me that this act of Landri's proves that he and his father are crazy. I know it. But I know something else, by an experience of many, many years! Monsieur de Claviers and Landri, with all their failings and their prejudices and their follies and their absurdities, are perfectly honorable men, incapable of wronging any one knowingly. If they suspected you of this, it was because they believed that they had the right to. It must be that you and the marquis broke off your relations for some reason of which I know nothing. I insist on knowing it. Yes, why did Monsieur de Claviers, who finds it so hard to discharge his employés,--you used to complain of it so often!--why did he part with you so abruptly, so brutally? Ah!" he concluded in a heart-rending tone, "if the reason was what you told us, Landri would never have come here, he would never have left me with that evasive reply, after he had seen how I was suffering, and what I thought--never!"

"I told your mother and sister and you the exact truth," said Chaffin, pretending to be angry at last.

He could not assume any other attitude, but the contrast was too great between this sudden outburst and the carefully guarded attention of a few moments before. They who simulate emotions always miss their imitation of reality in some detail. They exaggerate the symptoms or distort them. For instance, the impostors who feign an attack of vertigo, and who fall with their hands extended to protect themselves. The genuine epileptic, being hurled to the ground as it were, has no time to take that precaution. The error, in this case, was the sudden change from premeditated indifference to extreme rage, without transition. The protest, too emphatic in his too abrupt somersault, was not sincere.

"Yes," the dishonest steward persisted none the less, "I told you the truth, and it is incredible to me that you, my son, should be the one to take sides against me with these great nobles whom you know only by hearsay! I know them, I do, from having undergone innumerable humiliations at their hands which I have always concealed from you. In their eyes a man is of no account when he doesn't belong to their caste. They wouldn't do you a material injury. They are very careful in that respect, from pride. But as to other injuries, no. I expected better things from Landri. Evidently he's no better than his father. Papers are missing from Jaubourg's apartments, certificates of stock, I suppose? They think at once of _us_, of _us_, mind you, of you as well as myself! Do I conclude from that that they mean to accuse you of dishonesty? Not at all. But you conclude that they do mean to accuse me! It is incredible! But the dishonesty was in coming here to insult you and your father! And you listened to my gentleman? And when he proved to you, by the mere fact of coming here, his absolute lack of perspicacity, you questioned him about me?--How many times must I tell you that Monsieur de Claviers did not part with me, but I parted with him, and for the reason that Landri admitted: he talked about confusion in my accounts, when there was no confusion in anything but his expenditure, which was insane! What Landri did not tell you is that I warned him personally of the marquis's impending ruin, in order to save his fortune. Just ask him about that. We will see whether he will dare to deny that conversation at Grandchamp when I gave him the exact figures. I swear it, on your mother's head and your sister's. If he had listened to me he wouldn't have lost a sou. And this is how he rewards me! But he isn't my son, and you, Pierre, have been too unjust to me, too ungrateful. I have only lived and worked for you all, for you especially. I have tried to spare you all the miseries of the breadwinner which crushed me at your age. You were intelligent and hard-working. I kept you at home, so that you could give your time to science as you chose, and prepare for your examinations, while your comrades were wearing themselves out with patients; and you have forgotten all my sacrifices!--Ah! it's too horrible!"

"For the very reason that I am living on your benefactions," replied the physician with savage asperity, "I cannot endure certain ideas. And those ideas," he continued still more harshly, "let us admit that it is, as you say, horrible to entertain them. It is a fact that I do entertain them. Would you like me to tell you why? Landri de Claviers' conduct has nothing to do with it. The change in you that I have noticed these last weeks has given them to me, nothing else. Since you left Grandchamp you are not the same man. I see it with my eyes. I see that you are suffering. You are growing thin. You don't eat. You don't sleep. You have some persistent trouble that you cannot hide, and I too am beginning to have one, I feel it growing and taking possession of me--it is suspicion. I do not want it. We must not both play at madness. Let us have more pride. A father and son should not exchange such words as these twice. There is one way of putting an end to them. It is too late to-day," he added, looking at the clock; "but to-morrow, at eleven, after the Hôtel-Dieu, I'll call for you, and we will go together to Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré. We will ask to speak with the marquis. You will tell him, or, if you prefer, I will, that there are rumors abroad. And it is true. Louvet has changed his manner to me since you left the Claviers. These rumors have reached our ears. We have come to ask him to cut them short by declaring publicly, and first of all before me, that he has nothing to reproach you with in your stewardship that affects your honor. I will demand that he put that declaration in writing for me, if necessary."

"I will not do it!" cried Chaffin, his eyes bulging out with terror as, in imagination, they saw M. de Claviers. "I will not do it! You talk about pride, and yet you don't see that you are proposing to me a nameless humiliation, worse than all the rest!"

"What, pray?" his son quickly retorted. "What humiliation is there in going to a man as to whom you have nothing to reproach yourself with, and claiming from him reparation for involuntary injustice? Tell me, when Louvet and I--and how many others that I don't know!--may have received an unfavorable impression of your quarrel with Monsieur de Claviers, is not that an injustice, if the quarrel was a mere caprice on his part? And is he not responsible for it by the exaggerated indignation which you claim that he has shown?"

"People may think what they choose," interposed Chaffin. "I won't go up that man's stairs. I won't go to his house. I won't go."

"Very good," said Pierre, "then I shall go alone."

"You won't put that affront on me?" the father implored. "You shall not go! I forbid you. To humiliate yourself is to humiliate me. We are one as to that. You must obey me."

"Because of that very identity of interest, I shall not obey you," rejoined the son. "Your honor is my honor. I propose to know whether the money I am living on is pure. At eleven o'clock to-morrow I shall be there. I hope you will be there too. But if you are not, I shall go in alone. Nothing on earth, you understand, nothing shall prevent my having an explanation with Monsieur de Claviers, unless--"

"Unless what?" queried Chaffin breathlessly. "Go on."

"Unless you tell me that your leaving his service was for a different reason, and what it was."

"I can't invent one," the father replied.

"Then I can't understand your objections to a step which, I tell you once more, I must take in order to put an end to an intolerable state of mind."

"Well!" said Chaffin, after a pause, "do it, since you no longer believe in your father; but remember this, that I will never forgive you."

An awkward and ill-timed attempt at paternal dignity, which lacked the accent, the expression, the gesture, in a word the inimitable and irresistible reality, which Pierre craved as he craved bread and water, air and light! Chaffin resorted to it, however, as a desperate effort to prevent that visit, the threat of which had sent a stream of fire running through his veins. What an evening and night he passed under the apprehension of that hour, which every minute brought nearer, when his shamefully wronged employer and his idolized son should be face to face!

The young man did not dine at home, in order to avoid meeting his father. The latter heard him come in about midnight. A mad temptation assailed him, as he heard that well-known step, to rise and go to him and confess everything. But no. Pierre's terrible words were still ringing in his ears: "I propose to know whether the money I am living on is pure." How could he bear to tell that boy, whose probity was so absolute, that that money was not pure, that the little fortune, by virtue of which he was pursuing his studies, almost without practising, was, in part, stolen! For that was really one of the motives that had led Chaffin into rascality: his passionate desire to assure his son Pierre immunity from his own laborious life was his revenge for his semi-menial position. He had imagined him physician to the hospitals, professor in the Faculty, member of the Académie de Medicine, perhaps of the Institute.

This excitation of his paternal love was due to the same malevolence, born of his abortive destiny, that filled him with implacable hatred of his noble and magnificent employer. That most excellent sentiments can exist in the same heart with evil sentiments, and criminal resolutions inspired by the latter justify themselves by the former, is a fact of every-day observation, as disconcerting as it is indisputable. It explains why the great legislators, who were also great psychologists, always strove to punish acts in themselves, without seeking the intent with which they were committed. The decadence of civic justice began with this search for the intent, which, in healthy societies, is left to religion to deal with. The Church can still find reasons for pardoning a Chaffin for his crimes, when human tribunals, taking cognizance of his case, owe him naught save the galleys.

"If he ever finds that out," said the guilty father to himself, in that vigil of anguish, "he will leave me. He will go away from the house. His mother and sister will insist on knowing, too. They will guess the truth. At any price, Pierre must remain in ignorance. But how?"

Then it was that in that mind, already exhausted by the stings of conscience, an idea began to take root. It occurred to him to go himself, about nine o'clock, while his son was at the Hôtel-Dieu, and throw himself at the marquis's feet. He would implore him not to dishonor him in Pierre's eyes. M. de Claviers was generous. He would take pity on him. He would promise not to speak. He would not speak. But to appear before Madame de Claviers' husband after he had, like a dastard, dealt him that despicable blow of the anonymous letter, was beyond the Judas's courage. He could not even endure the thought. There had been, in the attitude maintained by that proud man since he had received the letter of his wife, testifying to her liaison with Jaubourg and the illegitimacy of the child, a mystery which terrified Chaffin. He divined therein a bottomless abyss of suffering over which it would be too horrible for him to lean.

Landri's visit to Pierre had intensified that puzzled sensation. His inquiries concerning papers said to have been stolen from Jaubourg implied that the young count was informed of the anonymous letter. Had M. de Claviers shown it to him? If so, why? Why, so that Landri might institute this inquiry, of course! And with what object, if not to unearth the holder of the "other documents"? Chaffin recalled those words in his letter, which was written in the paroxysm of nervous excitement caused by the gratification of long-cherished hate. He had added to it, in pure wantonness, a threat of blackmail which he had never intended to put in execution.

That recollection suggested a second plan: since his threat had produced such an effect on the two men, he had a certain means of obtaining from them a promise of silence with respect to his son. It was to Landri that the marquis had entrusted the mission of seeking those documents. It was to Landri that he must appeal. The anticipation of that interview was painful to the dishonored tutor. But it was not unendurable, like the other. But would Landri give way under that pressure? Would he not, on the other hand, reply: "You threaten us with a scandal? Very good. We propose to apply for a warrant against you."

No, he must not take that risk. Chaffin devised a safer method of procedure. He thought that he was well acquainted with his pupil of so many years. He believed him to be very weak, but he knew his absolute loyalty and the noble elements of his character. The better way was to go to him and say: "It was I who wrote that outrageous denunciation in a moment of insanity. I am sorry for it. I have the other papers. Here they are. I place them in your hands. I ask you, in return, to induce Monsieur de Claviers not to tell Pierre the real reason for my leaving him." The acceptance of that restitution would create the most sacred of obligations in the eyes of the noble-hearted young man.

Such are the disconcerting contradictions of human nature, that, upon representing to himself that scene of confession, although dictated entirely by self-interest, Chaffin had a sense of relief, almost as of rehabilitation. At all events he should have spoken, should have confessed his crime, which was suffocating him.

Once determined upon this course, he was in such feverish haste to carry it out that he left the house before nine o'clock, as soon as his son had started for the Hôtel-Dieu. He had not reckoned upon the working of Pierre's mind in a direction parallel to his own. The physician had said to himself, on leaving his father:--

"To-morrow he will have reflected. He will decide to go to Monsieur de Claviers with me if there's nothing wrong; and if there is anything, he will confess."

When he found, in the morning, that Chaffin did not mention the subject again, he reasoned thus:--

"My father has devised some expedient. What can it be? If he is guilty, there is only one: to go there first, in order to implore the marquis to spare him with regard to me. But is it possible?"

The physician had resolved to go to all lengths now, to put an end to the torture of suspicion, which, to his horror, was already changing from a recurrent to a fixed idea. He dreaded too keenly the form of monomania so well defined by one of his confrères of ancient times: _Animi angor in una cogitatione defixus et inhœrens_. He had acted at once therefore. Instead of going to the hospital, he had stationed himself at the corner of Rue des Deux-Ponts and Quai de Béthune. He had seen his father leave the house, look about him like one who fears that he is watched, and then bend his steps, with an air of feigned indifference, toward Pont Sully, where he took a cab. Pierre himself hailed the first cab that passed. He gave the driver a five-franc piece, telling him to drive as fast as possible to the corner of Rue d'Aguesseau and Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, where he arrived in time to see Chaffin's cab stop in front of the hôtel de Claviers. He waited a few moments, then rang and asked the concierge:--

"Is my father with Monsieur le Marquis?"

"No, Monsieur le Docteur," the man replied, "Monsieur Chaffin came to see Monsieur le Comte."

"Very well! I beg you to send and ask Monsieur le Marquis if he can receive me," said Pierre, after a moment's hesitation.

He had fancied that he could read in the concierge's eyes the same constraint that he had noticed of late in Professor Louvet's. He was only partly mistaken. Naturally, the magnanimous M. de Claviers had confided to no one in his entourage his grievances against his secretary. But his servants were well aware of his unalloyed kindness of heart. They had imagined the reason of Chaffin's abrupt dismissal, the more readily because they were not ignorant of his daily peculation. But they were not officially informed. Pierre had sufficient proof of that, for Landri's door was not closed to his father, and he himself was admitted to the presence of M. de Claviers. The concierge called up the speaking-tube that connected his lodge with the house. An affirmative answer was returned. The bell rang, announcing the visitor, and the doctor was ushered into the presence of the marquis five minutes after Chaffin's humble and suppliant figure had passed through Landri's door.

"There may be nothing wrong after all," thought the doctor, "as they receive us both. If it were only true! What a weight would be taken from my heart! However, I shall soon know."

The _grand seigneur_, with whom the son of the unfaithful steward, of the villainous informer, ventured to adopt this tragic step, was in the vast, severe library, which had been the scene, a fortnight before, of a no less tragic explanation, that with Landri. He was seated at his table this time, engaged in a task which would have seemed most strange to one who was not aware of the secret resolutions of his mind. He was transcribing himself, upon detached sheets, the number of which was already very great, a schedule of all the artistic treasures preserved in the château of Grandchamp. He had proceeded methodically, room by room, and he was at that moment, as was indicated by the line written at the top of the sheet, in the apartment of the deceased marchioness. He had kept it till the last. The reason will be only too readily understood.

The work, begun several weeks before, was nearing its end. The old gentleman's handwriting had always resembled himself. It was bold, free and distinct, with an air of the great century. But a slight tremulousness in some letters testified how painful a task it had been to him to write the lines of that page. A box stood open on his desk, containing documents relating to the treasures. The "Genealogy of the House of Claviers-Grandchamp" was also there with a mark at the famous Appendix number 44, upon which Altona had formerly based his offer. The last, in blood, of the magnificent Claviers was drawing up the death-certificate of his family, in a form determined upon by himself. He had, that very morning, been assailed by distressing emotions, the reflection of which made his noble countenance more imposing than ever.

His old-fashioned courtesy brought him to his feet to receive the son of the corrupt steward. He waved him to a chair--without offering him his hand; a slight circumstance which Pierre interpreted as confirming his suspicions: the marquis was punishing his father's sins in him.

Pierre's visit was, in fact, a surprise to M. de Claviers, and a most painful surprise, but for a reason very different from that which the young man imagined. He had been Jaubourg's physician. He had been present during his last moments, when the patient had undoubtedly spoken. Although M. de Claviers knew nothing of the learned theories of modern specialists concerning "ecmnesia" and "onirism," he had seen people die. He knew what confessions the excitation of fever sometimes extorts from lips previously dumb. He explained in that way the declaration of paternity made by Jaubourg. Perhaps Pierre Chaffin had been present at that horrible scene of which the young man had told him. That was the reason that the heroic marquis had consented to receive him. He had not chosen to seem to fear the meeting.

Another detail impressed the doctor--the truly extraordinary change in that imposing countenance. M. de Claviers had aged, within the last few weeks, as much as his ex-secretary. But it was the aging of a man consumed by grief without remorse,--the despair, with undimmed eyes, of him who has naught to blame himself for in the suffering that is killing him; whereas Chaffin had exhibited to his son the mask of the unhappy wretch with sombre, veiled glance, the conscious architect of his own misery. This comparison shaped itself involuntarily in the physician's mind, as he was saying:--

"You will excuse me for disturbing you. Monsieur le Marquis, and at such an early hour. It will not be for very long."

"It is your time that is valuable, doctor, not mine," replied M. de Claviers, now wholly master of himself. He was trying to divine the motive of this unexpected visit. "Probably he isn't satisfied with his fees, as Métivier fixed them," he thought, and the other continued:--

"I shall not try to play at diplomacy with you, Monsieur le Marquis. That is not my style, and I know that it isn't yours, either. I will go straight to the goal. This then, in few words, and very simply, is the object of my visit. You parted with my father after you had had him in your service more than fifteen years. The separation was very sudden. It has caused talk. I myself have had the impression that I do not know the whole truth. My father has refused to explain himself clearly to me thereon. Or, rather, he has explained himself, but in terms which do not satisfy me, and I have come to say to you, knowing your ideas and how high you rank the family spirit, I cannot endure the idea that my father is suspected, still less to suspect him myself. If you parted for reasons which do not involve his honor, as I believe, as I wish to believe, I ask you to say so publicly two or three times, under circumstances which will cut short all rumors, especially before Monsieur le Professeur Louvet, my chief. I ask you to say so to me, too. If, on the other hand--" And in a heart-rending tone: "I must know it."

M. de Claviers had listened to the young man with a more and more distressed expression in his clouded eyes. The resemblance was too striking between the grief of this son who suspected his father and the anguish with which he had seen Landri overwhelmed, in that same place, because of his mother's sin,--the same Landri whom he continued to love so dearly even while hardening his heart against him! He was too entirely, too genuinely religious not to recognize the justice of a higher power in this punishment visited, as the Book promises, on the second generation. This view of the moral side of life harmonized perfectly with his view of its social side. He was too humane not to pity the young man whose toilsome and honorable career he had followed from childhood. On the other hand, his indignation against Chaffin was too fresh, too well-deserved.--And he was still ignorant of the wretched creature's crowning infamy!--He could not give him the certificate of honorable conduct which the son demanded. Moreover, he abhorred falsehood. These diverse feelings were reflected in his reply, which he did not make until he had taken what seemed to his visitor a very long time for reflection.

"Pierre," he said at last, addressing him in the familiar tone that he had formerly used with him, "give me your hand." And he suited the action to the word. "You are a very noble fellow. I have always known it. I felt it more profoundly than ever while you were speaking to me. But for the very reason that you are a very noble fellow, how could you fail to realize the enormity of this appeal you are making to me? And you say that you know my ideas! Remember, my boy, a son doesn't judge his father. He does not institute an investigation concerning his father. I shall not, by answering you, associate myself with what I consider a deplorable mistake on your part, an aberration of the mind. If I had spoken to any person whomsoever of my reasons for depriving myself of your father's services, I might, by straining a point, permit you to come and ask me to explain my words. But I have said nothing. Your father left me because he mismanaged my affairs. That is all. It is all that I have said or shall ever say about him, to you or to any one else."

"Mismanage has two meanings, Monsieur le Marquis," rejoined the physician nervously; and, anticipating M. de Claviers' protest, "if I insist it is because you have acknowledged my right to do so. Yes. You say that you would permit my question if you had spoken to any one. You meant by that, any stranger. You forgot your son. Monsieur le Comte de Claviers came to my house yesterday afternoon to question me, in his own name and yours, concerning certain papers which have been stolen, it seems, from Monsieur Charles Jaubourg's apartment. He accused my father of the theft, with my assistance. He probably knows now that he was mistaken. But it is none the less true that such a suspicion justified me in finding out upon what ground he could have conceived it. It must have been upon what you had told him. He was under arrest when the thing happened. He confronted me with that alibi when I questioned him. There was nothing left for me to do but to apply to you. Tell me what you have told him about my father. Is it unfair to ask you?"

"My son is another myself," M. de Claviers replied. To learn, even in this vague way, of the scene of the day before between the two young men wounded him where his susceptibility was tenderest. What indications had led Landri to invite an explanation which might well have been so dangerous? It might arouse suspicions concerning the nature and importance of the papers stolen at Jaubourg's. To maintain to the end the rôle of a father on perfectly cordial terms with his child, the marquis must neither ask a question upon that subject, nor seem to disavow the young man's act. But the news affected him profoundly, and his voice trembled as he continued: "You surely do not claim that I must detail to you my interviews with Landri alone? Nor that I should take you to my new man of affairs and inform you as to the details of my receipts and expenditure? And observe that that is exactly what you presume to demand of me! I excuse you because of the motive that impels you. But let us stop here."

He had risen, with contracted eyebrows and haughty bearing, thus constraining his interlocutor to do likewise, and he pressed the electric button on his desk.

"I have told you that Monsieur Chaffin had mismanaged my affairs. Wherein? How? That concerns him and myself, and us alone. I shall not add a word. So that it is useless for us to prolong a discussion which henceforth would have no meaning. You have your patients, and I"--he pointed to the table--"have to finish this urgent task.--Garnier," he added, as the maître d'hôtel for whom he had rung entered the room, "show Monsieur le Docteur Chaffin to the door.--Monsieur, I have the honor to salute you."

"No, we will not stop here," said Pierre to himself, while yielding, in spite of himself, to the extraordinary authority that emanated from the old noble when he was in a certain state of concentrated irritation.--"I am to go to Monsieur le Comte's apartments and get my father," he said to the servant; "will you take me there?"

As he followed the maître d'hôtel through the glass gallery which his father had passed through a quarter of an hour before, another person was on his way, by an interior passage, to that same room in which Landri was talking with Chaffin. It was the Marquis de Claviers. He wished to learn, and without loss of time, Landri's reasons for going to Quai de Béthune, and whether he had at last discovered a way to solve the mystery of the anonymous denunciation which had been a constant source of anxiety to him for so many days. Thus it was that he knocked at one door of the young man's smoking-room, at almost the same instant that Pierre entered at the other door.

This simultaneous double appearance, which had the air of being concerted, almost extorted a shriek from the two occupants of the room, between whom a scene had just taken place almost more distressing than that between the marquis and Pierre. Their arrival brought about a terrible dénouement.

At the moment that they entered, Chaffin was seated at a table. He had just laid aside a pen with which he had written upon an envelope before him the following address: "Monsieur le Marquis de Claviers-Grandchamp." He was about to rise. The sight of his son caused him to fall back upon his chair, and that of the marquis, the next instant, to spring up again. He retreated backward, so demoralized by terror that his legs gave way and he had to lean against the wall.

M. de Claviers, thunderstruck himself by the presence of his former secretary, and of his son, whom he had just left, gazed at them both and at Landri. Then, addressing the latter,--

"I have to talk with you," he said, "when you have finished with these gentlemen."

At that moment his eye fell on the envelope lying on the desk. He recognized his own name. He took it up and opened it. Chaffin had not had time to seal it, a circumstance which made more striking the exact parallel between that moment and another, when the betrayed husband had compelled the adulterine son to read the proof of their common shame. The envelope contained the three letters from Jaubourg to Madame de Claviers stolen by the tutor, and, on a separate sheet, these lines in his hand, written at Landri's dictation:--

"The wretch who, in a moment of insanity, sent an anonymous letter to M. le Marquis de Claviers-Grandchamp, restores to him the other papers mentioned in that letter, and, while asking his forgiveness, appeals to his generosity not to dishonor him in the eyes of his son."

The marquis read the note. He recognized on the other sheets the detested handwriting of his wife's lover, his villainous friend. He looked at Chaffin and said: "So it was you!"--Then he took two steps towards him with an expression so threatening that the unhappy wretch--ah! he well deserved that title at that cruel moment!--fell on his knees, crying, "Pardon!"

The doctor rushed between his father and M. de Claviers. The marquis stopped, plainly struggling against himself, to refrain from revenging himself with his own hands. At last, pointing to the door, he commanded: "Go! go, I say!" in so imperative a tone that his former secretary, still on his knees, crawled towards the door. His nerveless fingers had difficulty in opening it. He escaped at last, while Landri said to the horrified Pierre, who no longer needed to have any one tell him the truth about his father:--

"Follow him. Do not leave him alone."

"You're afraid that he'll kill himself," said M. de Claviers, when the door had closed on the two men. "I suppose that he played that comedy for you," he continued with a bitter smile. "It is not he, but his son, who should not be left alone. Cowards live. It's the men of courage who think of suicide in the presence of disgrace. And when one does not believe in God! On that boy's account, I tried to control myself. I could not do it.--But no," he continued, with a fierce energy wherein the stern inheritance of a warlike race reappeared. "We are too much afraid of suffering and of causing others to suffer. The grief of the sons is the redemption of the fathers in this world and the next. We must learn to atone for the sins that we did not commit, as we profit by virtues that we never had."

He had spoken as if to himself, and he seemed to have forgotten the existence of Landri, who watched him pace the floor, silent now. Chaffin's note and Jaubourg's three letters still lay on the table, where he had left them when he rushed upon the traitor. The young man trembled lest, when he emerged from that fit of excited meditation, the sight of those sheets should increase the smart of the wound from which his noble heart was bleeding. So that he was amazed by the calm tone in which M. de Claviers, upon returning to himself and spying the papers, said to him, pointing to them as he spoke: "Do as you did before!" He resumed his walk while the proofs of the terrible secret were being consumed. At last, halting in front of Landri, he said to him:--

"You have done what you promised. It is well. It is very well. I am relieved of a horrible weight. We are entitled to think that all the letters are destroyed. The Chaffins will not talk. They cannot talk. Our honor is safe, thanks to you. Once more, it is well, and I thank you."

"You thank me? O monsieur!" exclaimed Landri; and he continued, choking with emotion: "If you really think that I have at least tried to satisfy you, allow me to implore one favor--that you will hasten the time when this pretence of intimacy that you have imposed upon me, that you have rightly imposed upon me, shall come to an end. This life in society, among all those indifferent people, is too hard. I haven't the strength for it any longer. You must have seen that I have not shirked it. I venture to say that no one can have guessed what I have suffered these last weeks. But I am at the end. I can do no more."

"And I?" said the marquis; "do you think that I am not weary of it, too?--But it is true: the test has been a severe one. The world will never dream now of supposing that we parted on a pretence. Your marriage will suffice to explain everything. The author of that infamous anonymous letter is unmasked and disarmed. We have nothing more to fear now. We can put an end to it.--These are my wishes," he continued after another pause: "You will write me a letter that I can show. You will inform me of your purpose to marry Madame Olier, despite my prohibition, and to employ such legal measures as the Code places at your disposal. I don't know what they are, so you will specify them. You will leave the house this very day, and let me know your address, so that I can communicate with you at once in case of urgent need. I do not anticipate such a contingency. Métivier, in conformity with my orders, should have turned into cash by this time the property that you inherit from your mother. It is fully understood that the share that she left me by her will is to be added to it. I ask you to deposit the money at the Bank of France, until further orders. In that way it will be easier for me to turn over to your account, without intermediary, another fortune, which you know about and which you accept. You have pledged yourself to do it. Last of all, I ask you not to settle in Paris, so long as I last. It won't be very long."

"I will repeat what I said the first day," Landri replied: "I have no wish but to obey you. As to the last point, I propose, not only not to live in Paris, but to leave France, to undertake the farming business in Canada. On my return from Saint-Mihiel, you said to me--I remember your exact words: 'It is a horrible thing to me that the family you will found will bear the name of mine.' It would be no less horrible to me, knowing that that name is not my own. I cannot change it in France, without causing people to seek the cause of such a resolution. By expatriating myself, to engage in a new business in an absolutely new country, I shall escape all comments. I intend to adopt one of the names which belonged to my mother's family, and which no one has borne for more than a hundred years. You spoke of legal measures. If there is any possible means by which the title of Marquis de Claviers-Grandchamp can pass, after you, to some one of your young kinsmen, I will assent to it, in whatever form you prefer."

"You would do that?" cried M. de Claviers. The trembling born of an emotion stronger than all his resolutions strangled his voice in his throat. "You would change your name? But she--that woman--"

"Madame Olier?" Landri interrupted. "I have told her of my plan. She assented to it in advance, without asking for any explanation."

"Yes," continued the marquis. "It is the truth. That is the true remedy." He was no longer able to control himself, and his words echoed his thoughts. "I saw it, from the first moment. But the suggestion could not come from me.--Adopt another son,--who is not you? Never!--Ah!" he continued, with increasing excitement, "I can truly say, like that widow of the Middle Ages: 'You were stolen from me.'--No, I will have no other son. The Claviers-Grandchamps will die with me. I shall be the last of the name, as I am the last of the race. It is what they would have wished, if they could have looked ahead. Our house will end, as it has lived, nobly. By assisting therein, you have wiped out the insult. For your sake, I can forgive.--We must do our duty to the end," he added, at the conclusion of another pause, during which Landri waited, hoping for a different word, a gesture, an embrace, a kiss. But the old nobleman considered, doubtless, that he had said too much already, and, too, he was doubtless afraid of himself, of that wave of affection which was rushing from his heart, drowning every other sentiment; for he concluded abruptly: "Go you to your goal. I go to mine. Adieu!"

"Adieu," Landri replied.

The marquis hesitated another second. He had his hand on the door-knob. He opened the door and disappeared, without even turning his head. He walked with the inert step that had characterized him since the ghastly discovery had stricken him in his magnificent vitality--his head bent forward, his back slightly bowed. When he was in his library once more, and alone, his prostration was so complete that he let himself drop into the first arm-chair within his reach and sat there an indefinite time, gazing at--what? a portrait of Landri as a child that he had had in that room for years. All that past of paternal love throbbed in his heart, and he reflected that at that very moment the young man, who was the object of his passionate affection, was preparing to go away, and forever.

But when he roused himself from that savage immobility, it was not to return to the apartment where Landri undoubtedly still was. No. He took from the table once more the bulky volume in which he had written the history of his family, and opened it at the genealogical tree. He had to unfold the enormous sheet on which were inscribed more than four hundred names. The first two, Geoffroy and Aude, had above them the date 1060. The blue eyes of Geoffroy IX, of 1906, embraced with a burning glance that table which was, as it were, the imaginary cemetery of all his dead. When he closed the book, he was calm. His hand traced, this time without a tremor, the lines of a note which evidently represented a decisive episode in a fully matured resolution. For he read it twice before sealing it and writing the address on the envelope.

"Is the automobile in the courtyard?" he asked Garnier, who appeared in answer to another ring. "Let Auguste take this line to Monsieur le Comte de Bressieux at once. If Monsieur de Bressieux is at home, let him bring him back. If not, let him leave the note."--And, alone once more, "If any one can resume the negotiations for the sale of the furniture of Grandchamp with that Altona, he is the man," he said to himself. "Altona will give four millions merely for the articles enumerated in Appendix number 44. If I add all the rest, he will give five."--And he put in order the papers on his desk, which were nothing less than a schedule prepared by him of "the rest": plate, Dresden ware, weapons, books, linen--in a word, all the furniture of the château.--"That wretched money is to be returned. Suppose that, while I am waiting for Bressieux, I write to Charlus to announce the marriage? Poor Marie! She loved Landri. It's fortunate, however, that he did not love her as well. I should have had to prevent their union. Should I have had the strength? One has strength for anything when the honor of the name is at stake. And all the great names stand together. The Claviers would not have inflicted upon the Charluses, by my hand, the outrage of vitiating their blood."

As the suddenly evoked vision of the treachery restored his energy, he began the letter to Marie's father which should justify his quarrel with his supposititious son, in the eyes of the world; and this new upheaval of resentment neutralized for a moment his misery at that parting.