Pride: One of the Seven Cardinal Sins

"I must hasten to rejoin Olivier, my dear commander," said Gerald, to escape the veteran's thanks. "His suspicions are sure to be aroused by a longer conversation."

"So you have a secret with my uncle," cried Olivier, as soon as his friend rejoined him.

"Oh, yes, you know I'm a man of mysteries; and, by the way, before we adjourn to Madame Herbaut's, I have another and very mysterious favour to ask of you."

"Let me hear it."

"You know all about this neighbourhood. Can't you recommend some quiet lodgings in a retired street hereabouts?"

"What! You are thinking of deserting the Faubourg St. Germain for the Batignolles? How delightful!"

"Nonsense! Listen to me. Of course, living in my mother's house I cannot receive my friends indiscriminately, – you understand."

"Very well."

"So I have had some rooms elsewhere, but the house has changed hands, and the new owner is such a strictly moral man that he has warned me that I have got to leave when my month is up, – that is, day after to-morrow."

"All the better. It is a very fortunate thing, I think. You're about to marry, so bid farewell to your amours."

"Olivier, you have heard my ideas on the subject. Your uncle approves them. I am resolved to change none of my bachelor habits in advance, and if I should abandon the idea of marriage altogether, think of my desolate situation, homeless and loveless! No, no, I am much too cautious and far-sighted not to – to preserve a pear to quench my thirst."

"You're a man of infinite precautions, certainly. Very well, as I go and come I'll look at the notices of rooms to rent in the windows."

"Two little rooms, with a private hall, is all I need. I'll look myself when we leave Madame Herbaut's, for time presses. Day after to-morrow is the fatal day. Say, Olivier, wouldn't it be strange if I should discover what I need right here? Do you remember the lines:

"'What if in this same quiet spot
I both sweet love and friendship true should find?'

"The lines seem to me a fit motto for a shepherd's pipe; but what of that? Truth needs no ornamentation. But now on, on to the house of Madame Herbaut!"

"You still insist? Consider well."

"Olivier, you are really intolerable. I'll go alone if you won't accompany me."

"Come, then, the die is cast. It is understood that you are simply Gerald Senneterre, a former comrade of mine."

"Senneterre? No; that would be too imprudent. You had better call me Gerald Auvernay, for I am adorned with the marquisate of Auvernay, my dear Olivier, though you may not be aware of the fact."

"You are M. Gerald Auvernay, then; that is decided. But the devil!"

"What's the matter now?"

"But what else are you going to be?"

"What else am I going to be?"

"Yes; what is to be your occupation?"

"Why, a bachelor of the new school."

"Pshaw! I can't introduce you to Madame Herbaut as a young man who is living on the income of the money he saved while in the army. Besides, Madame Herbaut receives no idlers. You would excite her suspicions at once, for the worthy woman strongly distrusts young men who have nothing to do but court pretty girls, for you'll find that her girls are pretty."

"All this is certainly very amusing. Well, what do you want me to be?"

"I haven't the slightest idea."

"Let me see," said Gerald, laughing. "How would you like me to be an apothecary?"

"That would do very well, I should think."

"Oh, no, I was only joking; that wouldn't answer at all."

"But there are some very nice and gentlemanly apothecaries, I assure you, Gerald."

"But really I shouldn't dare to look any one of those pretty girls in the face."

"Let's try to think of something else, then. What do you say to being the clerk of a notary? How does that suit you?"

"Admirably. My mother has an interminable lawsuit on hand, and I drop in to see her notary and lawyer occasionally, so I can study the part from nature."

"Very well, follow me, then, and I will introduce you as Gerald Auvernay, clerk to a notary."

"Chief clerk to a notary," corrected Gerald, with great emphasis.

"Come on, ambitious youth!"

Gerald, thanks to Olivier's recommendation, was received by Madame Herbaut with great cordiality.

On the afternoon of that same day grim M. Bouffard called for the rent Commander Bernard owed him. Madame Barbançon paid him, overcoming with great difficulty her strong desire to disfigure the ferocious landlord's face with her nails.

Unfortunately, the money thus obtained, instead of appeasing M. Bouffard's greed, seemed to imbue him with increased energy to collect his dues, and persuaded that, but for his persistent dunning and abuse, Madame Barbançon would not have paid him, he hastened off to the Rue Monceau where Herminie lived, resolved to treat the poor girl with increased severity, and thus secure the payment of the rent she owed him.

CHAPTER XXVII

THE ABODE OF THE DUCHESS

Herminie lived on the Rue de Monceau in one of the numerous dwellings of which M. Bouffard was the owner. She occupied a room on the ground floor, reached by a small hallway opening under the archway of the porte-cochère. The two windows looked out upon a pretty garden, enclosed on one side by an evergreen hedge, and on the other by a tall lattice that separated it from the adjoining street.

This garden really pertained to a much larger apartment on the ground floor, an apartment which, together with another suite of rooms on the third floor, was unoccupied, – an unpleasant state of things, which considerably increased M. Bouffard's ill-humour towards his delinquent tenants.

Nothing could have been simpler, yet in better taste, than this abode of the duchess.

A cheap but exceedingly fresh and pretty chintz covered the walls and rather low ceiling of the room. In the daytime full draperies of the same material concealed a large alcove in which the bed stood, as well as two glass doors near it, one of which opened into a tiny dressing-room, and the other into the hall, a sort of antechamber about eight feet square.

Chintz curtains, lined with pink, veiled the windows, which were also decorated with pretty white muslin sash curtains, tied back with pink ribbons. A carpet, with a white ground, with small bouquets of pink roses dropped here and there, – this carpet had been the most expensive item in Herminie's furnishing, – covered the floor. The mantel drapery, beautifully embroidered by Herminie herself, was pale blue, with garlands of roses and jonquils. Two candlesticks of exquisite Pompeian design stood, one on either side of a white marble clock, surmounted by a statuette of Joan of Arc, while at each end of the mantel stood two tall vases of grès verni, a wonderful invention, by the way. These vases, which were of the purest Etruscan form, held big bunches of fresh roses, which filled the room with their delicious fragrance.

These modest mantel decorations, being all of the cheapest materials, were of slight intrinsic value, having cost not more than fifty or sixty francs, but from an artistic point of view they were irreproachable.

Opposite the fireplace stood Herminie's piano, her bread-winner. Between the two windows was a table, which also served as a bookcase, the duchess having arranged several works by her favourite authors upon it, as well as a few books which she had received as prizes during her school-days.