"What is that?" asked she, stooping down to pick it up.
"Nothing," answered Bathilde quickly, forgetting that Nanette could not read, "only a paper which has fallen out of my pocket." Then, after an instant's pause, and with a visible effort, "and which you may throw on the fire," continued she."But perhaps it may be something important; see what it is, at all events, mademoiselle." And Nanette presented the letter to Bathilde.
"Nothing," answered Bathilde quickly, forgetting that Nanette could not read, "only a paper which has fallen out of my pocket." Then, after an instant's pause, and with a visible effort, "and which you may throw on the fire," continued she."But perhaps it may be something important; see what it is, at all events, mademoiselle." And Nanette presented the letter to Bathilde.
The temptation was too strong to resist. Bathilde cast her eyes on the paper, affecting an air of indifference as well as she could, and read as follows:
"They say you are an orphan: I have no parents; we are, then, brother and sister before God. This evening I run a great danger; but I hope to come out of it safe and sound if my sisterBathildewill pray for her brother Raoul."
"You are right," said Bathilde, in a moved voice, and taking the paper from the hands of Nanette, "that paper is more important than I thought;" and she put D'Harmental's letter in the pocket of her apron. Five minutes after Nanette, who came in twenty times a day without any particular reason, went out as she had entered, and left Bathilde alone.
Bathilde had only just glanced at the letter, and it had seemed to dazzle her. As soon as Nanette was gone she read it a second time.
It would have been impossible to have said more in fewer words. If D'Harmental had taken a whole day to combine every word of the billet, instead of writing on the spur of the moment, he could not have done it better. Indeed, he established a similarity of position between himself and the orphan; he interested Bathilde in her neighbor's fate on account of a menacing danger, a danger which would appear all the greater to the young girl from her not knowing its nature; and, finally, the expression brother and sister, so skillfully glided in at the end, and to ask a simple prayer, excluded from these first advances all idea of love.
It followed, therefore, that, if at this moment Bathilde had found herself visavis with D'Harmental, instead of being embarrassed and blushing, as a young girl would who had just received her first loveletter, she would have taken him by the hand and said to him, smiling"Be satisfied, I will pray for you." There remained, however, on the mind of Bathilde something more dangerous than all the declarations in the world, and that was the idea of the peril which her neighbor ran. By a sort of presentiment with which she had been seized on seeing him, with a face so different from his ordinary expression, nail the crimson ribbon to his window, and withdraw it directly the captain entered, she was almost sure that the danger was somehow connected with this new personage, whom she had never seen before. But how did this danger concern him? What was the nature of the danger itself? This was what she asked herself in vain. She thought of a duel, but to a man such as the chevalier appeared to be, a duel was not one of those dangers for which one asks the prayers of women; besides, the hour named was not suitable to duels. Bathilde lost herself in her conjectures; but, in losing herself, she thought of the chevalier, always of the chevalier, and of nothing but the chevalier; and, if he had calculated upon such an effect, it must be owned that his calculations were wofully true for poor Bathilde.
The day passed; and, whether it was intentional, or whether it was that he was otherwise employed, Bathilde saw him no more, and his window remained closed. When Buvat came home as usual, at ten minutes after four, he found the young girl so much preoccupied that, although his perspicacity was not great in such matters, he asked her three or four times if anything was wrong; each time she answered by one of those smiles which supplied Buvat with enough to do in looking at her; and it followed that, in spite of these repeated questions, Bathilde kept her secret.
After dinner M. Chaulieu's servant enteredhe came to ask Buvat to spend the evening with his master. The Abbe Chaulieu was one of Buvat's best patrons, and often came to his house, for he had taken a great liking for Bathilde. The poor abbe became blind, but not so entirely as not to be able to recognize a pretty face; though it is true that he saw it across a cloud. The abbe had told Bathilde, in his sexagenarian gallantry, that his only consolation was that it is thus that one sees the angels.
Bathilde thanked the good abbe from the bottom of her heart for thus getting her an evening's solitude. She knew that when Buvat went to the Abbe Chaulieu he ordinarily stayed some time; she hoped, then, that he would stop late as usual. Poor Buvat went out, without imagining that for the first time she desired his absence.
Buvat was a lounger, as every bourgeois of Paris ought to be. From one end to the other of the Palais Royal, he stared at the shops, stopping for the thousandth time before the things which generally drew his attention. On leaving the colonnade, he heard singing, and saw a group of men and women, who were listening to the songs; he joined them, and listened too. At the moment of the collection he went away, not from a bad heart, nor that he would have wished to refuse the admirable musician the reward which was his due, but that by an old habit, of which time had proved the advantage, he always came out without money, so that by whatever he was tempted he was sure to overcome the temptation. This evening he was much tempted to drop a sou into the singer's bowl, but as he had not a sou in his pocket, he was obliged to go away. He made his way then, as we have seen, toward the Barriere des Sergents, passed up the Rue du Coq, crossed the PontNeuf, returned along the quay so far as the Rue Mazarine; it was in the Rue Mazarine that the Abbe Chaulieu lived.
The Abbe Chaulieu recognized Buvat, whose excellent qualities he had appreciated during their two years' acquaintance, and with much pressing on his part, and many difficulties on Buvat's, made him sit down near himself, before a table covered with papers. It is true that at first Buvat sat on the very edge of his chair; gradually, however, he got further and further onput his hat on the groundtook his cane between his legs, and found himself sitting almost like any one else.
The work that there was to be done did not promise a short sitting; there were thirty or forty poems on the table to be classifiednumbered, and, as the abbe's servant was his amanuensis, corrected; so that it was eleven o'clock before they thought that it had struck nine. They had just finished and Buvat rose, horrified at having to come home at such an hour. It was the first time such a thing had ever happened to him; he rolled up the manuscript, tied it with a red ribbon, which had probably served as a sash to Mademoiselle de Launay, put it in his pocket, took his cane, picked up his hat, and left the house, abridging his leavetaking as much as possible. To add to his misfortunes there was no moonlight, the night was cloudy. Buvat regretted not having two sous in his pocket to cross the ferry which was then where now stands the Pont des Arts; but we have already explained Buvat's theory to our readers, and he was obliged to return as he had comeby the Quai Conti, the Rue PontNeuf, the Rue du Coq, and the Rue Saint Honoré.
Everything had gone right so far, and except the statue of Henri IV. of which Buvat had forgotten either the existence or the place, and which had frightened him terribly, and the Samaritaine, which, fifty steps off, had struck the halfhour without any preparation, the noise of which had made poor belated Buvat tremble from head to foot, he had run no real peril, but on arriving at the Rue des Bons Enfants things took a different look. In the first place, the aspect of the street itself, long, narrow, and only lighted by two flickering lanterns in the whole length, was not reassuring, and this evening it had to Buvat a very singular appearance; he did not know whether he was asleep or awake; he fancied that he saw before him some fantastic vision, such as he had heard told of the old Flemish sorceries; the streets seemed alivethe posts seemed to oppose themselves to his passagethe recesses of the doors whispered to each othermen crossed like shadows from one side of the street to the other; at last, when he had arrived at No. 24, he was stopped, as we have seen, by the chevalier and the captain. It was then that D'Harmental had recognized him, and had protected him against the first impulse of Roquefinette, inviting him to continue his route as quickly as possible. There was no need to repeat the requestBuvat set off at a trot, gained the Place des Victoires, the Rue du Mail, the Rue Montmartre, and at last arrived at his own house, No. 4, Rue du TempsPerdu, where, nevertheless, he did not think himself safe till he had shut the door and bolted it behind him.
There he stopped an instant to breathe and to light his candlethen ascended the stairs, but he felt in his legs the effect of the occurrence, for he trembled so that he could hardly get to the top.
As to Bathilde, she had remained alone, getting more and more uneasy as the evening advanced. Up to seven o'clock she had seen a light in her neighbor's room, but at that time the lamp had been extinguished, and had not been relighted. Then Bathilde's time became divided between two occupationsone of which consisted in standing at her window to see if her neighbor did not return; the other in kneeling before the crucifix, where she said her evening prayers. She heard nine, ten, eleven, and halfpast eleven, strike successively. She had heard all the noises in the streets die away one by one, and sink gradually into that vague and heavy sound which seems the breathing of a sleeping town; and all this without bringing her the slightest inkling as to whether he who had called himself her brother had sunk under the danger which hung over his head, or come triumphant through the crisis.