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"Then why do you come to me with your bill? It is with my wife that you have opened an account. Apply to her, and leave me in peace." "Madame promised me " "Teach her to keep her promises." "It costs a great deal to retain one's position as a leader of fashion; and many of the most distinguished ladies are obliged to run into debt," urged Van Klopen. "That's their business.
She isn't a right down swell to-day, but I have ordered six dresses for her from Van Klopen; such swell gets up! You know Van Klopen, don't you, the best man-milliner in Paris. Such taste! such ideas! you never saw the like." Rose had by this time reached her drawing-room. "Andre," said she, impatiently, "are you never coming up?"
Baron Trigault, the baroness, and the famous Van Klopen were evidently in the adjoining room. It was a woman, the baroness, who was speaking, and the quivering of her clear and somewhat shrill voice betrayed a violent irritation, which was only restrained with the greatest difficulty.
Would it not be discovered sooner or later that he had been in the smoking-room while M. Van Klopen was in the dining-room? In any case, delicacy of feeling as well as his own interest forbade him to remain any longer a listener to the private conversation of the baron and his wife.
If Van Klopen was expecting this denouement, Pascal wasn't; in fact, he was so startled, that an exclamation escaped him which would have betrayed his presence under almost any other circumstances. What amazed him most was the baron's perfect calmness, following, as it did, such a fit of furious passion, violent enough even to be heard in the vestibule.
"I am here because De Breulh told me that in your interests I ought to pardon Van Klopen, and go to him again as I used to do; so you see, M. Andre, that it is never safe to judge by appearance, and a woman more than anything else." "Will you forgive me?" asked Andre earnestly. The lady interrupted him by a little wave of her hand, invisible to all save to him, which clearly said,
Catenac will fight to the bitter end, but the proofs are against him, and he will be convicted of infanticide. In Rigal's papers I have found evidence against Perpignan, Verminet and Van Klopen, who will all certainly hear something about penal servitude. Nothing has been settled yet about Toto Chupin, for it must be remembered that he came and gave himself up." "And what about Croisenois?"
The great Van Klopen was not an Alsatian, as was generally supposed, but a stout, handsome Dutchman, who, in the year 1850, had been a tailor in his small native town, and manufactured in cloth, purchased on credit, the long waistcoats and miraculous coats worn by the wealthy citizens of Rotterdam.
"Is that all that hinders you?" returned Van Klopen, carelessly. "Wait a moment." He left the room, and in another moment his voice was heard. "I am sorry, ladies, very sorry, on my word; but I am busy with my silk mercer. I shall not be very long." "We will wait," returned the ladies in chorus. "That is the way," remarked Van Klopen, as he returned to the consulting-room.
She and monsieur have been quarrelling for a good half-hour. And, heavenly powers, isn't he tantalizing!" The most intense curiosity gleamed in the eyes of Pascal's conductor, and with an airy of secrecy, he asked: "What is the cause of the rumpus? That Fernand, no doubt or some one else?" "No; this morning it's about M. Van Klopen." "Madame's dressmaker?" "The same.
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