La Constantin by Alexandre Dumas père (list of e readers .TXT) 📕

him he would lose his independence. A lover to whose prayers the adored one remains deaf too long is apt to draw back in discouragement, but a woman whose part is restricted to awaiting those prayers, and answering with a yes or no, necessarily learns patience. Maitre Quennebert would therefore have felt no anxiety as to the effect of his dilatoriness on the widow, were it not for the existence of a distant cousin of the late Monsieur Rapally, who was also paying court to her, and that with a warmth much greater than had hitherto been displayed by himself. This fact, in view of the state of the notary's affairs, forced him at last to display more energy. To make up lost ground and to outdistance his rival once more, he now began to dazzle the widow with fine phrases and delight her with compliments; but to tell the truth all this trouble was superfluous; he was beloved, and with one fond look he might have won pardon for far greater neglect.

An hour before the treasurer's arrival there had been a knock at the door of the old house, and Maitre Quennebert, curled, pomaded, and prepared for conquest, had presented himself at the widow's. She received him with a more languishing air than usual, and shot such arrows at him froth her eyes that to escape a fatal wound he pretended to give way by degrees to deep sadness. The widow, becoming alarmed, asked with tenderness--

"What ails you this evening?"

He rose, feeling he had nothing to fear from his rival, and, being master of the field, might henceforth advance or recede as seemed best for his interests.

"What ails me?" he repeated, with a deep sigh. "I might deceive you, might give you a misleading answer, but to you I cannot lie. I am in great trouble, and how to get out of it I don't know."

"But tell me what it is," said the widow, standing up in her turn.

Maitre Quennebert took three long strides, which brought him to the far end of the room, and asked--

"Why do you want to know? You can't help me. My trouble is of a kind a man does not generally confide to women."

"What is it? An affair of honour?

"Yes."

"Good God! You are going to fight!" she exclaimed, trying to seize him by the arm. "You are going to fight!"

"Ah! if it were nothing worse than that!" said Quennebert, pacing up and down the room: "but you need not be alarmed; it is only a money trouble. I lent a large sum, a few months ago, to a friend, but the knave has run away and left me in the lurch. It was trust money, and must be replaced within three days. But where am I to get two thousand francs?"

"Yes, that is a large sum, and not easy to raise at such short notice."

"I shall be obliged to have recourse to some Jew, who will drain me dry. But I must save my good name at all costs."

Madame Rapally gazed at him in consternation. Maitre Quennebert, divining her thought, hastened to add--

"I have just one-third of what is needed."

"Only one-third?"

"With great care, and by scraping together all I possess, I can make up eight hundred livres. But may I be damned in the next world, or punished as a swindler in this, and one's as bad as the other to me, if I can raise one farthing more."

"But suppose someone should lend you the twelve hundred francs, what then?"

"Pardieu! I should accept them," cried the notary as if he had not the least suspicion whom she could mean. "Do you happen to know anyone, my dear Madame Rapally?"

The widow nodded affirmatively, at the same time giving him a passionate glance.

"Tell me quick the name of this delightful person, and I shall go to him to-morrow morning. You don't know what a service you are rendering me. And I was so near not telling you of the fix I was in, lest you should torment yourself uselessly. Tell me his name."

"Can you not guess it?"

"How should I guess it?"

"Think well. Does no one occur to you?"

"No, no one," said Quennebert, with the utmost innocence.

"Have you no friends?"

"One or two."

"Would they not be glad to help you?"

"They might. But I have mentioned the matter to no one."

"To no one?"

"Except you."

"Well?"

"Well, Madame Rapally--I hope I don't understand you; it's not possible; you would not humiliate me. Come, come, it's a riddle, and I am too stupid to solve it. I give it up. Don't tantalise me any longer; tell me the name."

The widow, somewhat abashed by this exhibition of delicacy on the part of Maitre Quennebert, blushed, cast down her eyes, and did not venture to speak.

As the silence lasted some time, it occurred to the notary that he had been perhaps too hasty in his supposition, and he began to cast round for the best means of retrieving his blunder.

"You do not speak," he said; "I see it was all a joke."

"No," said the widow at last in a timid voice, "it was no joke; I was quite in earnest. But the way you take things is not very encouraging."

"What do you mean?"

"Pray, do you imagine that I can go on while you glare at me with that angry frown puckering your forehead, as if you had someone before you who had tried to insult you?"

A sweet smile chased the frown from the notary's brow. Encouraged by the suspension of hostilities, Madame Rapally with sudden boldness approached him, and, pressing one of his hands in both her own, whispered--

"It is I who am going to lend you the money."

He repulsed her gently, but with an air of great dignity, and said--

"Madame, I thank you, but I cannot accept."

"Why can't you?"

At this he began to walk round and round the room, while the widow, who stood in the middle, turned as upon a pivot, keeping him always in view. This circus-ring performance lasted some minutes before Quennebert stood still and said--

"I cannot be angry with you, Madame Rapally, I know your offer was made out of the kindness of your heart,--but I must repeat that it is impossible for me to accept it."

"There you go again! I don't understand you at all! Why can't you accept? What harm would it do?"

"If there were no other reason, because people might suspect that I confided my difficulties to you in the hope of help."

"And supposing you did, what then? People speak hoping to be understood. You wouldn't have minded asking anyone else."

"So you really think I did come in that hope?"

"Mon Dieu! I don't think anything at all that you don't want. It was I who dragged the confidence from you by my questions, I know that very well. But now that you have told me your secret, how can you hinder me from sympathising with you, from desiring to aid you? When I learned your difficulty, ought I to have been amused, and gone into fits of laughter? What! it's an insult to be in a position to render you a service! That's a strange kind of delicacy!"

"Are you astonished that I should feel so strongly about it?"

"Nonsense! Do you still think I meant to offend you? I look on you as the most honourable man in the world. If anyone were to tell me that he had seen you commit a base action, I should reply that it was a lie. Does that satisfy you?"

"But suppose they got hold of it in the city, suppose it were reported that Maitre Quennebert had taken money from Madame de Rapally, would it be the same as if they said Maitre Quennebert had borrowed twelve hundred livres from Monsieur Robert or some other business man?"

"I don't see what difference it could make."

"But I do."

"What then?"

"It's not easy to express, but----"

"But you exaggerate both the service and the gratitude you ought to feel. I think I know why you refuse. You're ashamed to take it as a gift, aren't you."

"Yes, I am."

"Well, I'm not going to make you a gift. Borrow twelve hundred livres from me. For how long do you want the money?"

"I really don't know how soon I can repay you."

"Let's say a year, and reckon the interest. Sit down there, you baby, and write out a promissory note."

Maitre Quennebert made some further show of resistance, but at last yielded to the widow's importunity. It is needless to say that the whole thing was a comedy on his part, except that he really needed the money. But he did not need it to replace a sum of which a faithless friend had robbed him, but to satisfy his own creditors, who, out of all patience with him, were threatening to sue him, and his only reason for seeking out Madame de Rapally was to take advantage of her generous disposition towards himself. His feigned delicacy was intended to induce her to insist so urgently, that in accepting he should not fall too much in her esteem, but should seem to yield to force. And his plan met with complete success, for at the end of the transaction he stood higher than ever in the opinion of his fair creditor, on account of the noble sentiments he had expressed. The note was written out in legal form and the money counted down on the spot.

"How glad I am!" said she then, while Quennebert still kept up some pretence of delicate embarrassment, although he could not resist casting a stolen look at the bag of crowns lying on the table beside his cloak. "Do you intend to go back to Saint Denis to-night?"

Even had such been his intention, the notary would have taken very good care not to say so; for he foresaw the accusations of imprudence that would follow, the enumeration of the dangers by the way; and it was quite on the cards even that, having thus aroused his fears, his fair hostess should in deference to them offer him hospitality for the night, and he did not feel inclined for an indefinitely prolonged tete-a-tete.

"No;" he said, "I am going to sleep at Maitre Terrasson's, rue des Poitevins; I have sent him word to expect me. But although his house is only a few yards distant, I must leave you earlier than I could have wished, on account of this money."

"Will you think of me?"

"How can you ask?" replied Quennebert, with a sentimental expression. "You have compelled me to accept the money, but--I shall not be happy till I have repaid you. Suppose this loan should make us fall out?"

"You may be quite sure that if you don't pay when the bill falls due, I shall have recourse to the law."

"Oh, I know that very well."

"I shall enforce all my rights as a creditor."

"I expect nothing else."

"I shall show no pity."

And the widow gave a saucy laugh and shook her finger at him.

"Madame Rapally," said the notary, who was most anxious to bring this conversation to an end, dreading every moment that it would take a