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However, I shall attend the sale, and I think I shall bid. And, in fact, your acquaintances won't fail to repair to the Hotel Drouot, and maybe your most intimate friends will yield to their generous impulses sufficiently to offer twenty sous for one of the dainty trifles on your etageres." Overcome with shame, Madame d'Argeles hung her head.
"You are Monsieur Wilkie!" interrupted Madame d'Argeles, in a tone of mingled irony and disdain. "Yes," he replied, drawling out the name affectedly, "I am M. Wilkie." "Did you desire to speak with me?" inquired Madame d'Argeles, dryly. "In fact yes. I should like " "Very well. I will listen to you, although your visit is most inopportune, for I have eighty guests or more in my drawing-room.
An old serving-man, in a quiet, tasteful livery, opened the door, whereupon M. Fortunat, in a tone of authority, asked: "Madame Lia d'Argeles?" "Madame does not receive on Friday," was the reply. With a petulant gesture, M. Fortunat rejoined: "All the same I must speak with her to-day. It is on a matter of the greatest importance. Give her my card."
Standing silent and motionless near the window, Wilkie gazed with consternation at Madame d'Argeles, his mother, who was crouching in the middle of the room with her face hidden in her hands, and sobbing as if her heart would break. He would willingly have given his third share in Pompier de Nanterre to have made his escape. The strangeness of the scene appalled him.
He cast a last admiring glance at himself in the mirror, twirled his mustaches, and departed on his mission. He even went on foot, which was a concession to what he considered M. de Coralth's absurd ideas. The aspect of the Hotel d'Argeles, in the Rue de Berry, impressed him favorably, but, at the same time, it somewhat disturbed his superb assurance.
M. Wilkie was actually so much interested that he forgot his anxiety concerning his attitude, and no longer thought of M. de Coralth and the Marquis de Valorsay. He even sprang up, and exclaimed: "Amazing!" But Madame d'Argeles had already resumed: "Such was my great, inexcusable, irreparable fault. I have told you the whole truth, without trying either to conceal or justify anything.
By the way Madame d'Argeles shook her head, it was easy to see that she had very little hope. "All this will end badly," she murmured. The baron shared her opinion, but he did not think it wise or kind to discourage her. "Nonsense!" he said lightly, "luck is going to change; it is always changing." Then as he heard the clock strike, he sprang from his arm-chair in dismay.
Nor did he forget that he would be compelled to give the Viscount de Coralth the large reward he had promised him a reward promised in writing, unfortunately. "I shall have nothing left," he began, piteously. But with a disdainful gesture Madame d'Argeles interrupted him. "Set your mind at rest," said she. "You will still be immensely rich.
Coralth certainly won't run after him, and we shall have nothing more to fear on that score." "Great heavens!" murmured Madame d'Argeles, "why did this idea never occur to me?" The baron had now completely recovered his composure. "As regards yourself," said he, "the plan you ought to adopt is still more simple. What is your furniture worth? About a hundred thousand francs, isn't it?
At ten o'clock, when the first arrivals entered the brilliantly lighted rooms, they found her seated as usual on the sofa, near the fire, with the same eternal, unchangeable smile upon her lips. There were at least forty persons in the room, and the gambling had become quite animated when the baron entered. Madame d'Argeles read in his eyes that he was the bearer of good news.
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