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Updated: June 9, 2025
Before an immense table, covered with papers, sat Count Ville-Handry. He had grown sadly old. His lower lip hung down, giving him a painful expression of weakness of mind; and his watery eyes looked almost senile. Still his efforts to look young had not been abandoned. He was rouged and dyed as carefully as ever.
"It had at its head a man who in his day was looked up to as a statesman endowed with rare administrative talents, and whose reputation as a man of sterling integrity seemed to lie above all suspicion. "Need we say that this was the 'high and mighty Count Ville-Handry'? "Hence they did not spare this great and noble name, but proclaimed it aloud on the housetops.
M. de Brevan, having been made aware of his importunate attentions, seemed to check his indignation only with great difficulty. He yielded; but he said after careful consideration, "This abominable persecution cannot go on, madam: this man compromises you too dreadfully. You ought to lay your complaint before Count Ville-Handry."
But, in spite of all that, if my fears should be well founded, as I apprehend they are, I should not hesitate to say to you, whatever might be the consequences, Henrietta, and even if we should have to part forever, we must try our utmost, we must employ all possible means in our power, to prevent a marriage between Count Ville-Handry and Sarah Brandon."
Count Ville-Handry stood in the centre of the room, swelling with almost comic happiness; and at every moment, in replying to his friends, used the words, "My wife," like a sweet morsel which he rolled on his tongue. Still a careful observer might have noticed underneath his victorious airs a trace of almost painful restraint.
That entire fortune which once belonged to Count Ville-Handry, and which he thinks has been lost in unlucky speculations, the whole of it is in my hands. Ah! I have suffered horribly, to have to play for two long years the loving wife to this decrepit old man. But I thought of you, my much beloved, my Daniel; and that thought sustained me.
But his terrible excitement did not keep him from manipulating the other letter, addressed to Count Ville-Handry, in the same manner. The operation was successful; and, without the slightest hesitation, he read: "Dear father, Broken down with anxiety, and faint from exhaustion, I have waited till this morning for an answer to my humble letter, which I had written to you on my knees.
Gathering all her courage, and looking whiter and colder than the marble of the statues in the vestibule, she went to the reception-room, opened the door, and entered stiffly. "Here you are!" exclaimed Count Ville-Handry, restored to a certain degree of calmness by the very excess of his wrath, "here you are!" "Yes, father." "Where have you been?"
It became soon known, thanks to the Countess Bois, who went about telling everybody with inexhaustible volubility, that she had just met Miss Ville-Handry in the street. When the last name had been signed, nobody was, therefore, surprised at seeing Count Ville-Handry give his arm to his wife, and hand her hurriedly to her carriage, a magnificent state-carriage.
Count Ville-Handry shrugged his shoulders almost imperceptibly; and then he said, taking his wife by the hand, "Would you love me less if I were ruined?" She looked at him with her beautiful eyes as if overflowing with affection, and replied in a voice full of emotion,
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