All this, however detestable, was, from the standpoint of society as it existed, perfectly possible and legal, and it was, we repeat, that possibility which rendered his want of success so bitter to M. Pascal.

Another thing still: what he felt for Antonine being, after all, only a sensual desire, did not tolerate the exclusive preference of pure love; so that, in his pa.s.sionate longing for this young girl of innocent and virginal beauty, he had not been less strongly impressed by the provoking charms of Madeleine, and, by a refinement of sensuality which aggravated his torture, M. Pascal had all night evoked, by his inflamed imagination, the contrasting loveliness of these two beautiful creatures.

And at this hour in which we see him M. Pascal was a prey to the same torment.

"Curses on me!" said he, promenading with a feverish and unequal step.

"Why did I ever see that d.a.m.ned blonde woman with the black eyebrows, blue eyes, pale complexion, impudent face, and provoking figure? She seems to me more attractive even than that little girl hardly grown.

Curses on me! will these two faces always pursue me? or, rather, will my disordered mind always evoke them? Misery! have I not been fool enough, brute enough? I do not know how, but the thing was so easy, so practical, that is what makes me furious. Surely, rich as I am, I ought to be able to marry this little girl and have the other for a mistress, because I do not doubt she is the mistress of that archduke, confound him! and I defy him to give her as much money as I would have given her.

Yes, yes," continued he, clenching his fists in excess of rage, "I am becoming a fool, a furious fool, but I did not ask to have the Empress of Russia for a mistress, or to marry the daughter of the Queen of England or any other queen. What did I wish? To marry a little citizen, niece of an old magistrate who has not a cent. Are there not thousands of such marriages? And I could not succeed! and I have thirty millions!

Misery! my fortune is to fine purpose, not to take away a mistress from this automaton German prince! After all, she only loves him for his money. He is nearly forty; he is as proud as a peac.o.c.k, stupid as a goose, and cold as an icicle. I am younger than he, not any uglier, and if he is an archduke, am I not a millionaire? And then I have the advantage of having put him at my feet, for this accursed and insolent woman heard me treat her imbecile prince as a poor creature; she reproached him before me for enduring the humiliations I heaped upon him. She ought to despise that man, and, like all women of her kind, have a weakness for a rough and energetic man who put this crowned, lanky fellow at his feet. She treated me cruelly before him, that is true, but it was to flatter him; we all understand those profligates.

Oh, if I could only take this woman away from him, what a triumph! what a revenge! what a consolation for my lost marriage! Consolation? No; for one of these women could not make me forget the other. I do not know if it is my age, but I have never known such tenacity of desire as I feel for this little girl. But no matter, if I could only take his mistress away from this prince, half of my will would be accomplished; and who knows? This woman is acquainted with Antonine; she seems to have influence over her. Yes, who knows, if once mine, I would not be able by means of money to decide her to--Misery!" cried Pascal, with an explosion of ferocious joy, "what a triumph, to take a wife from this blond youth, and his beautiful mistress from the archduke! If my fortune can do it, it shall be done!"

And our hero, holding up his head, seemed to develop into an att.i.tude of imperious will, while his features took on an expression of satanic joy.

"Come, come," said he, holding his head high; "if I have talked like a fool and an ingrate, money is a beautiful thing." Then stopping to reflect awhile he continued:

"Let us see now,--calmness by all means,--we will undertake the thing well and slowly. My spy will know this evening where the archduke's mistress lives, at least if she lives in the palace, which is not probable. Let me find out where she lives," added he, stroking his chin with a meditative air. "Zounds, I will send to her that old milliner, Madame Doucet. It is the old way and always the best with these actresses and such women, for, after all, the mistress of a prince is no better. She came, her head uncovered, to throw herself unceremoniously into our conversation; she had no discretion to protect. So I cannot have a better go-between, a more suitable one, than old Mother Doucet. I will write to her at once."

M. Pascal was occupied in writing at his desk when his valet entered.

"What is it?" asked the financier, abruptly. "I did not ring."

"Monsieur, it is a lady."

"I have no time."

"She has come for a letter of credit."

"Let her go to the counting-room."

"This lady wishes to speak to M. Pascal."

"Impossible. Let her go to the counting-room."

The valet went out.

Pascal continued to write, but at the end of a few moments the servant returned.

"When will you finish? What is it now?"

"Monsieur, this lady who--"

"Ah, so you are making a jest, are you? I told you to send her to the counting-room!"

"This lady has given me a card and asked me to tell monsieur to read what she has just written at the bottom."

"Well, hand it here. It is insupportable!" said Pascal taking the card, where he read the following:

"_The Marquise de Miranda._"

Below the name was written with a pencil:

"She had the honour of meeting M. Pascal yesterday at the elysee-Bourbon, with his Highness, the Archduke Leopold."

If a thunderbolt had fallen at the feet of M. Pascal he could not have been more astonished. He could not believe his eyes, and read the card a second time soliloquising:

"The Marquise de Miranda! She is a marquise, then? Bah! she is a marquise as Lola Montes is a countess--petticoat n.o.bility; but at any rate it is she. She here! in my house at the very moment I was taxing my wits to contrive a meeting with her. Ah, Pascal, my friend Pascal, your star of gold, for a moment hidden, shines at last in all its brilliancy.

And she comes here under the pretext of a letter of credit. Come, come, Pascal, my friend, keep calm; one does not find such an opportunity twice in his life. Think now, if you are sly, you can take the mistress of the prince and the wife of the blond youth in the same net. Ah, how my heart beats! I am sure I most look pale."

"Monsieur, what shall I answer this lady?" asked the valet, astonished at the prolonged silence of his master.

"One minute, you rascal; wait my orders," replied Pascal, abruptly.

"Come, keep calm, keep calm," thought he to himself. "Excitement now would lose all, would paralyse my plans. It is a terrible part to play, but having such a fine game at hand, I believe I would blow my brains out with rage if, through awkwardness now, I should lose it."

After another silence, during which he succeeded in mastering his agitation, he said to himself:

"I am calm now. Let her come, I can play a sure game." Then he said aloud to his valet:

"Show the lady in."

The servant went out and soon returned to open the door and announce, "Madame the Marquise de Miranda."

Madeleine, contrary to her custom, was dressed, as she had said to the prince, no longer like a grandmother, but with a dainty elegance which rendered her beauty still more irresistible. A Pamela hat of rice straw, ornamented with ears of corn mingled with corn-flowers, relieved and revealed her face and neck; a new gown of white muslin, also strewn with corn-flowers, delineated the outlines of her incomparable figure, the finished type of refined elegance, the voluptuous flexibility characteristic of Mexican Creoles, while her gauze scarf rose and fell in gentle undulations with the tranquil breathing of her marble bosom.

CHAPTER XXI.

Pascal stood a moment dazzled, fascinated.

He beheld Madeleine a thousand times more beautiful, more attractive, more interesting than the day before. And, although a fine judge, as he had said to the prince, although he had enjoyed and abused all those treasures of beauty, grace, and youth which misery renders tributary to wealth, never in his life had he dreamed of such a creature as Madeleine; and strange, or rather natural to this brutalised man, deprived by satiety of all pleasures, he evoked the same moment the virginal figure of Antonine by the side of the marquise. For him, Venus Aphrodite was perfected by Hebe.

Madeleine, taking advantage of the involuntary silence of Pascal, said in a dry, haughty tone, and without making the slightest allusion to the scene of the day before, notwithstanding the words added to her name on the card:

"Monsieur, I have a letter of credit on you: here it is. I wished to see you in order to arrange some business matters."

This short and disdainful accent disconcerted Pascal; he expected some explanation of the scene of the day before, if not an excuse for it, so he said, stammering:

"What, madame, you come here--only--to learn about this letter of credit?"