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Updated: May 16, 2025
He opened Le Petit Journal, Coil Blas, Galignani, and the New York Tom-Tom, one by one. Yes, it was there, with pictures of himself and Andree. A screaming sensation. Extracts, too, from the English papers by telegram. He read them all unflinchingly. There was one paragraph which he did not understand: There was a previous friend of the lady, unknown to the public, called Zoug-Zoug.
Meyerbeer flushed at last. "You're rubbing it in," he said angrily. He did wish to be introduced to a good London club. "The question isn't personal, I guess. It's this: Who's Zoug-Zoug?" Smoke had come trailing out of Belward's nose, his head thrown back, his eyes on the ceiling. It stopped, and came out of his mouth on one long, straight whiff.
"What the devil does this mean? Not Andree, surely not Andree! Yet I wasn't called Zoug-Zoug before that. It was Bagshot's insolent inspiration at Auvergne. Well, well!" He got up, drew over a portfolio of sketches, took out two or three, put them in a row against a divan, sat down, and looked at them half quizzically.
"You said you'd tell me." "No. I said I'd tell you if I knew Zoug-Zoug. I do." "That's all you'll tell me?" "That's all. And see, scavenger, take my advice and let Zoug-Zoug alone. He's a man of influence; and he's possessed of a devil. He'll make you sorry, if you meddle with him!" He rose, and Meyerbeer did the same, saying: "You'd better tell me." "Now, don't bother me.
Meyerbeer, who had not yet discovered his man, though he had a pretty scandal well-nigh brewed. Count Ploare was no more, Gaston Belward was. Zoug-Zoug was in the country at Fontainebleau, working at his picture. He had left on the morning after Gaston discovered Andree. He had written, asking his nephew to come for some final sittings.
"The woman is Mademoiselle Victorine, the dompteuse." "Ah, I've not seen her yet. She burst upon Paris while I was away. Now, straight: no lies: who are the others?" Meyerbeer hesitated; for, of course, he did not wish to speak of Gaston at this stage in the game. But he said: "Count Ploare and Zoug-Zoug." "Why don't you tell me the truth?" "I do. Now, who is Zoug-Zoug?" "Find out."
Gaston saw something strange in the little incident; but he presently forgot it for many a day, and then remembered it for many a day, when the wheel had spun through a wild arc. When they rose from the table, Meyerbeer went to Bagshot, and said: "Say, who's Zoug-Zoug, anyway?" Bagshot coolly replied: "I'm acting for another paper. What price?" "Fifty dollars," in a low voice, eagerly.
She said it just as the manager and Meyerbeer passed her. Meyerbeer heard it, and saw the look in the faces of both: in hers, bewildered, warm, penetrating; in Gaston's, eager, glowing, bold, with a distant kind of trouble. Here was a thickening plot for Paul Pry. He hugged himself. But who was Zoug-Zoug? If he could but get at that! He asked the manager, who said he did not know.
"Douarnenez, for Audierne, Brittany," was the legend written in Meyerbeer's note-book. And after that: "Journey twenty hours change at Rennes, Redon, and Quimpere." "Too far. I've enough for now," said Meyerbeer, chuckling, as he walked away. "But I'd give five hundred dollars to know who Zoug-Zoug is. I'll make another try." So he held his sensation back for a while yet.
Fancourt sent self-conscious glances down the table towards Gaston; and then a young American, newly come to Paris, said: "Who's Zoug-Zoug, and what's Zoug-Zoug?" "It's milk for babes, youngster," answered Bagshot quickly, and changed the conversation.
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