From the throat of this Fandor-Fantomas issued a long-drawn howl of rage!

x.x.xIII

RECONCILIATION

"Which do you prefer, Mademoiselle? The multi-coloured c.o.c.kades or the bows of ribbon in one shade? We have both in satin of the best quality."

Wilhelmine de Naarboveck hesitated. The representative from "The Ladies' Paradise" continued:

"The c.o.c.kades of various colours do very well: they are gay, look bright; but the bows of ribbon also produce an excellent effect--so distinguished! Both articles are in great demand."

Wilhelmine answered at random:

"Oh, put in half of each!"

"And what quant.i.ty, Mademoiselle?"

"Oh, three hundred will be sufficient, I should think."

The shopwoman displayed her a.s.sortment of cotillion objects. She did her part ably. But Wilhelmine de Naarboveck gave but a perfunctory attention to this choosing of cotillion accessories.

The saleswoman was more and more astonished. She considered that were her customer's orders executed to the letter she would have the oddest a.s.sortment of cotillion accessories that could be imagined. She adroitly called Wilhelmine's attention to this.

Realising that she had been giving orders at random, the absent-minded girl came to a decision.

"We have every confidence in your house being able to supply us with a cotillion complete in every detail. You know better than I what is necessary. I will leave it to you, then, to see that everything is done as well as possible."

The saleswoman was full of delighted protestations. Though satisfied with a decision that simplified her task, she was surprised that a young girl as free to act and order as Mademoiselle de Naarboveck seemed to be, did not take interest in the details of a fete which, as rumour had it, was given in her honour.

"Ah!" said the young woman, as she collected the patterns scattered over a table in the hall, "if all our customers were like you, Mademoiselle, and allowed us to carry out our own ideas, we should do marvellous things!"

Wilhelmine smiled, but--would this saleswoman never have done!

"Of course, Mademoiselle, we make similar ribbons for you and your partner; but would you kindly tell me if the gentleman is tall or short? It is better to make the ribbons of a length proportionate to the height."

This question troubled Wilhelmine.... The leader of the cotillion should have been Henri de Loubersac. Was not their betrothal to have been announced at the ball?... But the painful interview at Saint-Sulpice seemed to have put an end to all relations between them!

Who, then, would lead with her?

Little she cared!

"Really, Madame," replied Wilhelmine to the woman, who was astonished at her indifference: "I do not know how tall or short my partner is, for the very good reason that I do not know who he is!... Provide, then, a set of ribbons which may suit anybody!"

When the representative of "The Ladies' Paradise" had taken her departure, Wilhelmine went up to the library. Except for the stiff and solemn household staff, Wilhelmine was alone in the house. Her father was still absent: Mademoiselle Berthe had vanished.

The house was turned upside down from top to bottom. Decorators and electricians were in possession. Hammering had been going on all the afternoon. Furniture had been displaced, pushed hither and thither.

The hall had been denuded of all but the table; even the privacy of the library had been invaded--and all in preparation for the ball of the day after to-morrow, to which the baron de Naarboveck had invited the highest personages of the aristocratic and official worlds.

What a lively interest Wilhelmine had at first taken in this fete!

The baron was giving it to set a public seal on his diplomatic position, for hitherto he had not been definitely attached to his emba.s.sy; now he was to be the accredited amba.s.sador of a certain foreign power. Also he intended to announce the betrothal of the young couple.

Alas! this latter project had suffered shipwreck!

As Wilhelmine sat in lonely state in the library, she saw a dismal future opening before her. Not only had her heart been torn by the brusque rupture with Henri de Loubersac, but everything which made up her home life, such as it was, seemed falling to pieces.... No doubt the diplomat was obliged to be continually absent, but Wilhelmine suffered from this solitude, this abandonment.... She had become attached to the gay and companionable Mademoiselle Berthe, who had been the life and soul of the house. She had disappeared: no tidings of her doings or whereabouts had reached Wilhelmine. There must be some very serious reason for this....

The mysterious occurrences of the past weeks had altered her world, shaken it to its insecure foundations, and inevitably affected her outlook. Life seemed a melancholy thing: how gloomy, how helpless her outlook!

More than ever before she felt in every fibre of her being that she was not the daughter of the baron de Naarboveck, that she was indeed Therese Auvernois. But what a fatal destiny must be hers! An existence open to the attacks of misfortune, at the mercy of a being, enigmatic, indefatigable, who, time and again, had thrown his horrible influence across her destiny, was throwing it now--the sinister Fantomas!

Wilhelmine was torn from her miserable reflections by the irruption of a domestic, who announced:

"Monsieur de Loubersac is asking if Mademoiselle can receive him!"

Wilhelmine rose from the divan on which she had been reclining. In an expressionless voice she said:

"Show him in."

When the young officer of cuira.s.siers appeared, his air was embarra.s.sed, his head was bent.

"You here, Monsieur?" Wilhelmine's voice and manner expressed indignation.

But Henri de Loubersac was no longer the arrogant unbeliever of the Saint-Sulpice interview.

"Excuse me!" he murmured.

"What do you want?" demanded Wilhelmine, her head held high.

"Your forgiveness," he said in a voice barely audible.

De Loubersac had come to his senses.

His intense jealousy had distorted his judgment.

Desperate after the Saint-Sulpice interview, when, so it had seemed to him, Wilhelmine had avoided a categorical denial of his accusation regarding her liaison with Captain Brocq, the frantic lover had flown to Juve and had poured out his soul to the sympathetic detective.

Juve had shown himself no sceptic. He believed Wilhelmine's story and statements. They coincided with his own prognostications: they explained why Wilhelmine went regularly to pray at Lady Beltham's tomb: they corroborated his conjectures, they confirmed his forecasts.

If he did not confess it to de Loubersac, he knew in his own mind that these statements indicated that between this Baron de Naarboveck and the redoubtable bandit he was pursuing so determinedly there was some connection, possibly as yet unfathomed, but in his heart of hearts he believed he had lighted on the truth. His conviction that de Naarboveck and Fantomas had relations of some sort dated from the night of his own arrest as Vagualame in the house of de Naarboveck. He had gone further than that.

"Yes," he had said to himself: "de Naarboveck must be a manifestation of Fantomas!"

Corporal Vinson's revelations regarding the den in the rue Monge had but strengthened Juve's impression. He had said to himself after that, "De Naarboveck, Vagualame, Fantomas, are but one."