36
THE NABOB.
!¦:
the crowd like successive appeals to your ex-
cited attention? We should not laugh at
those magnetic and nervous impressions, be-
cause they constitute a power to suffer. Al-
ready in the swelling and ever-renewed sea of
visitors, Felicia had thought several times that
she recognized the curly head of Paul de Gery,
when all at once she uttered an exclamation of
delight. Yet it was not he, but somebody who
resembled him much, whose regular and placid
countenance ever mixed itself now with that of
friend Paul in her mind, owing to a resemblance,
moral rather than physical, and the same gentle
authority which they both exercised over her
thoughts.
"Aline!"
"Felicia!"
There is nothing more problematic than
the friendship of two women who share the
queenship which society confers on beauty,
even though they lavish on each other flatter-
ing epithets, and the pretty graceful ways of
feminine affection. On the other hand, affec-
tions contracted in childhood preserve in woman
a freedom of demeanor which distinguishes them
and causes them to be known among all others;
they are bonds innocently but strongly woven,
just like those pieces of needlework sewn by the
inexperienced hands of little girls, full of
stitches and knots, or like plants grown in virgin
soil, full of blossoms and of strong roots, full of
sap and of green shoots. How happy when,
hand in hand—dancing rings of the boarding-
school, where are you? they can, evoking com-
mon souvenirs, retrace their steps with an equal
knowledge of the way and of its minute inci-
dents, and with the same feeling laugh! Stand-
ing a little apart from the crowd, the two young
girls, who, at the very first sight they caught of
each other, have forgotten a five years' es-
trangement, exchange greetings and recollec-
tions, whilst little Monsieur Joyeuse, his red
face lighted by a new white tie, draws himself
up proudly on seeing his daughter made so much
of by a celebrated woman. And he is right to
be proud ; for that little Parisian girl, even when
she stands by the side of her brilliant friend,
beams with gracefulness, youth, and candor,
with her twenty downy and golden years, which
the joy of meeting has ripened into a bouquet of
fresh flowers.
"How happy you must be! I have not yet
seen anything; but I hear everybody say it is
very beautiful."
" I am above all happy to see you again, dear
Aline.    It is so long since------"
"It is, indeed,  you naught------   But whose
fault------?"
And in the deepest recess of her memory, Fe-
licia finds that the date of her last visit coin-
cides with another date, when her youth with-
ered in a scene never to be forgotten.
"And what have you done, darling, since
that time?"
" Who, I? Always the same thing. Nothing
to speak of."
' ' Yes, I know what it is you call doing
nothing, you brave little girl, it is sacrificing
yourself for others, is it not?"
But Aline was not listening any more. She
smiled straight before her; and Felicia, turning
round to see whom that smile went to, per-
ceived Paul de Gery, who was returning the
discreet and tender greeting of Mademoiselle
Joyeuse.
" What! you know each other?"
"Know Monsieur Paul? I should think so,
indeed. We often speak of you. Did he never
tell you?"
' ' Never !   He is terribly sly------"
She suddenly stopped short, her mind lighted
up by a thought; and rapidly, without heeding
De Gery, who was approaching to congratulate
her on her success, she bent to Aline, and whis-
pered to her. The latter blushed, defended
herself with a smile, with low-spoken words:
" You don't think of it! At my age, a grand-
mamma------!"   And she seized her father's arm
to escape some friendly joke.
• When Felicia had watched the two young
people going away together, when she had
'thoroughly realized what they did not know
themselves, namely, that they loved one another
she experienced the sensation of a tremendous
fall within her. It was her dream that had
crumbled down into a thousand fragments over
which she began to trample furiously : " Well
after all, he was right to prefer that little Aline'
Would an honest man ever dare to marrv
Mademoiselle Ruys? She, a home, a family'
Nonsense!   .   ,    . You are a courtesan's daugh-
ter, my dear.    If you want to be anything, you
must be a courtesan yourself."
The day was fast waning. A more stirring
crowd, with empty spaces here and thfcre, was
beginning to flow out by the archway, with an
occasional eddy round the successful works of
the year, glutted, tired, but nevertheless excited
by that atmosphere laden with art electricity.
A grand blaze of the sun—the four o'clock sun
— lighted the stained glass of the rose-window,
and strewed the sandy avenues with the colors
of a rainbow, gently rising on the bronze or
marble statues, covering their beautiful naked
limbs with many hues, and filling tho vast re-
pository with the variegated life of a garden.
Felicia, sunk in a deep and melancholy reverie,
did not see him who was approaching her—
magnificent, elegant, fascinating—through the
crowd which opened respectfully as the name
of "Mora" was everywhere whispered.
"Well! Mademoiselle, this is a splendid suc-
cess for you. I only regret one thing, the
wicked symbol which lies hidden in your chef
d'œuvre. "
On seeing the Duke before her, she shud-
dered.
"Ah! yes; the symbol!" said she, raising to-
wards him a disheartened smile; and leaning
against the side of a great voluptuous statue
near which she stood, she murmured very low,
very low indeed, her eyes shut, like a woman
who gives or abandons herself:
"Rabelais is a liar like other men. The
truth is, the fox is exhausted, breathless, de-
spairing, and nearly falling into the ditch; and
if the greyhound persists------"
Mora trembled with emotion, grew a little
paler; all his blood rushed back to his heart.
Two jets of somber fire flashed from their eyes;
two words were rapidly whispered; and the
Duke, bowing deeply, moved away with winged
steps, as if the gods were bearing him.
There was, at that moment, but one man in
the palace as happy as he. That man was the
Nabob. Surrounded by his friends, he seemed
to hold, and fill up alone, the long avenue,
speaking aloud, gesticulating, so happy that he
almost looked handsome; as if, in his long,
naive contemplation of his own bust, he had re-
ceived from it a little of that splendid idealiza-
tion which the artist had thrown like a glory
around the vulgarity of his type.
His head, three-quarters raised, rising boldly
out of his broad open collar, attracted the notice
of the visitors, and provoked contradictory re-
marks respecting the resemblance; so that the
name of Jansoulet, repeated so many times in
the electoral ballot-boxes, was re-echoed now
by the prettiest mouths and the most powerful
voices of Paris. Any other man than the Na-
bob would have been put out, on hearing those
exclamations of the curious, which were far
from being always kind. But the platform
the sprmgmg-board, seemed to suit the nature of
this man, who really felt braver under the glare
of men's eyes, like certain women who are wit-
ty and beautiful in society only, and whom the
slightest token of admiration transfigures and
perfects.
When his delirious joy was becoming as-
suaged, when he thought ho had drunk to the
last drop the cup of inebriating pride, he had
only to say to himself: " Depute ! I am a de-
pute ! ' and the triumphant beverage foamed
again to overflowing. To be a depute meant the
embargo taken off all his property, it meant
awaking out of a two-months' nightmare it
meant the blast of the mistral sweeping away
aU his troubles, all his uneasiness, down to the
affront of Saint-Romans, with all the crushing
weight it left in his memory.
Depute',!
He laughed aloud as he thought of the Baron's
face on learning the news, of the Bey's stupe-
faction in front of his bust; and suddenly at
the idea that he was no longer a mere advent-
urer steeped in gold and exciting the stupid ad-
miration of the crowd, like an enormous nug-
get in the shop-front of a money-changer but
that, wherever he passed, the people saw in
him one of the elect of the national will his
good-natured, simple and expressive face tried
to assume a certain gravity. He conceived
plans for the future, plans of reform, and a de-
sire to take to heart the lessons which fate had
lately given him. Already, remembering the
promise he had made to De Gery, he showed to
the hungry pack whieh wriggled sordidly under
his heel, a certain disdainful coldness a resolu-
tion to assort himself. He mentally called the
Marquis de Bois-Landry "my good fellow"
sternly reproved the Governor whose enthu-
siasm was becoming scandalous, and swore
to himself that he would soon get rid all of that
mendicant and compromising crew. Suddenly
a good opportunity offered itself to him to be-
gin the premeditated execution.
Piercing the crowd, Moëssard, handsome
Moëssard—pale and puffy, in a light-blue
cravat, and a fashionable frock-coat—seeing
that the Nabob, after having gone twenty times
round the sculpture room, was now advancin"-
to the door, rushed towards him, and passin"
his arm under his:
" You take me with you, you know."
In the latter times it was, during'the electoral
period, that he had chiefly assumed, in the
Place Vendôme, an authority almost equal to,
though far more impudent than, that of Monpa'
von; for in impudence the queen's lover had
not his equal upon the footpaths between the
Rue Drouot and the Madeleine. For once,
however, he was not in luck. The muscular
arm wliich he pressed shook him off violently,
and the Nabob answered him dryly :
" Sorry, my friend; but 1 have no room for
you in my carriage."
No room in a carriage as big as a house, and
which had brought five of them to the exhibi-
tion!
Moëssard looked at him speechless with
amazement.
"I had a few words to say about an urgent
affair, " said he. " It is with respect to my note.
You received it, did you not?"
" I did; and Monsieur de Gery must have an-
swered it this morning. What you ask is im-
possible. Twenty thousand francs! A big
lump, by Jove!"
" But I think my services------" stammered
the insipid fellow.
" Have been well paid for; so think I. Two
hundred thousand francs in five months? We
will stop there, if you please. You have long
claws, young man—they must be pared."
They were walking, as they spoke, carried
onward by the sea of people towards the egress.
Moëssard stopped.
"Is that your last word?"
The Nabob hesitated one moment, seized by
an evil foreboding before that wicked, pale
mouth. But remembering his promise to his
friend:
" It is my last word," he said.
"Well, then! we shall see," said handsome
Moëssard, whose switch cleft the air with the
hissing of a viper; and turning on his heels, he
walked hurriedly off, like a man who is expected
somewhere on urgent business. Jansoulet con-
tinued his triumphant march. On that day it
would have required a good deal to disturb the
equilibrium of his happiness. Nay, he felt rather
pleased with the work he had so sharply done.
The immense vestibule was filled with a compact
crowd who were hastening to leave, as the hour
for closing approached, but who were kept under
the porch, on the well-trodden and sandy
ground, by one of those sudden showers which
seeni to be part of the programme on the open-
ing day. The whole aspect was curious, thor-
oughly Parisian, and reminded one of the. en-
trance to the circus, where dandies in full dress
are wont to congregate.
Outside, the long sunbeams crossing the rain
made the limpid fillets shine like sharp and brill-
iant blades, so that the proverb "it rains hal-
berds " was fully justified. The young verdure
of the Champs Elysees, the clumps of rhodo-
dendrons, rustling and dripping, the carriages
standing in rows along the avenue, the coach-
men s waterproofs, the splendid harness of
horses, to which the water and the sun gave an
increase of brilliancy and dash, and the blue
color reflected by every object—that blue of a
sky about to smile between two showers—such
was the prospect outside! •
_ Within, bursts of laughter, gossipings, greet-
ings, fits of impatience, skirts turned up, "puffy
silks on the small tucked petticoats, the light-
colored stripes of silk stockings, and abundance
ot fringes, lace, and flounces, held up like heavy
parcels m one hand, and all crumpled! Then,
to connect the two sides of the picture, the vis-
itors, held prisoners under the arch of the porch,
in the obscurity of its shadow, with an immense
background of light. Then again, footmen
running under their umbrellas, names of coach-
men and masters called out, carriages approach-
ing with a slow step, and couples getting into
them in disarray.
" Monsieur Jansoulet's carriage?"
Everybody turned to look at him; but, you