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Updated: May 29, 2025
Jansoulet arraying himself in Jenkins' ribbon would speedily be punished for unlawfully wearing a decoration. But a coup de théâtre is not necessarily logical; this particular one led to an effusion of sentiment, embraces, a generous combat between the two men, the result being that Jenkins restored the objects to his pocket, talking about protests, letters to the newspapers.
Madame Jenkins had gone, and only two or three women, strangers to Jansoulet, remained, among whom the mistress of the house seemed to be seeking refuge from him. But Hemerlingue was at liberty, and the Nabob joined him just as he was sidling furtively away in the direction of his offices, which were on the same floor opposite the state apartments.
Then he had whirled away again behind his sovereign, having had hardly time to embrace his old mother, who had retained naught of that great joy, so impatiently awaited, save a few newspaper pictures, in which Bernard Jansoulet was exhibited arriving at the château with Ahmed and presenting his aged mother to him, is not that the way in which kings and queens have their family reunions illustrated in the journals? plus a cedar of Lebanon, brought from the end of the world, a great caramantran of a tree, which was as costly to move and as much in the way as the obelisk being hoisted and planted by force of men and money and horses; a tree which had wrought confusion among the shrubbery as the price of setting up a souvenir commemorative of the royal visit.
The serious interview, the decisive explanation that Paul was so desirous to have with him, Jansoulet would not have at any price. He passed his evenings at the club, his mornings in bed, and as soon as he was awake had his bedroom full of people, who talked to him while he was dressing, and to whom he replied with his face in his wash-bowl.
And, finally, Jansoulet, so kind, so generous, for whom he felt in his heart so much gratitude, he knew him to be fallen into the hands of a gang of brigands, a brigand himself and well worthy of the conspiracy organized to cause him to disgorge his millions. Was it possible, and how much of it was he to be obliged to believe?
A heavy step on the staircase, a loud, sweet voice saying, very softly, "It is I; don't move," and Jansoulet appeared. He knew his mother's habits, how her lamp was the last to go out, so when every one in the castle was in bed, he came to see her, to chat with her for a little, to rejoice her heart with an affection he could not show before the others.
Her nostrils dilated, quivered, and, as Jansoulet bowed, she quickened her step, carrying her head high and erect, and letting fall from her thin lips an Arab word which no one else could understand but of which the Nabob himself well appreciated the insult; for, as he raised his head again, his tanned face was of the colour of baked earthenware as it leaves the furnace.
Their quarrel had arisen out of Hemerlingue's marriage with one of the favourites of the last Bey. "A story with a woman at the bottom of it, in short," said Jansoulet, and a story which he would have been glad to see come to an end, since his exuberant nature found every antipathy oppressive.
He thought of poor Jansoulet, whose honor and whose life might perhaps be saved by the money he was bringing, of his dear Aline, the thought of whom had not left him once during his journey, any more than the portrait she had given him.
That cry, that voice, his wife's evident intimacy with his lieutenant Jansoulet stopped, his frantic anger passed away, and he rushed from the room, throwing the doors open, more eager to escape the disaster and the horror whose presence he felt in his own house, than to go elsewhere to seek the help that had been promised him.
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