The War of Women. Volume 1

"Without bidding me adieu!" cried Canolles. "He is a consummate boor."

"Oh no, my dear baron; he's a man in a hurry, that's all."

Canolles frowned.

"What extraordinary manners!" said he. "Where was the fellow brought up? Richon, my friend, I tell you frankly that he does you no credit. That's not the way gentlemen should treat one another. Corbleu! if I had him here, I believe I would box his ears. The devil fly away with his father, who, from stinginess, I doubt not, gave him no governor."

"Don't lose your temper, baron," said Richon, with a laugh; "the viscount isn't so ill-bred as you think; for, as he went away, he bade me express to you his deep regret, and to say a thousand complimentary things to you."

"Nonsense! nonsense!" said Canolles; "court holy water, which transforms a piece of arrant impudence into a trifling rudeness; that's all of that. Corbleu! I'm in a ferocious humor! Pick a quarrel with me, Richon! You refuse? Wait a moment. Sarpejeu! Richon, my friend, I consider you an ill-favored villain!"

Richon began to laugh.

"In this mood, baron," said he, "you would be quite capable of winning a hundred pistoles from me this evening, if we should play. Luck, you know, always favors the disappointed."

Richon knew Canolles, and designedly opened this vent for his ill-humor.

"Ah! pardieu!" he cried; "let us play. You are right, my friend, and the suggestion reconciles me to your company. Richon, you are a very agreeable fellow; you are as handsome as Adonis, Richon, and I forgive Monsieur de Cambes. – Cards, Castorin!"

Castorin hurried in, accompanied by Biscarros; together they prepared a table, and the two guests began to play. Castorin, who had been dreaming for ten years of a martingale at trente-et-quarante, and Biscarros, whose eye gleamed covetously at the sight of money, stood on either side of the table looking on. In less than an hour, notwithstanding his prediction, Richon had won forty pistoles from his opponent, whereupon Canolles, who had no more money about him, bade Castorin bring him a further supply from his valise.

"It's not worth while," said Richon, who overheard the order; "I haven't time to give you your revenge."

"What's that? you haven't time?" exclaimed Canolles.

"No; it is eleven o'clock," said Richon, "and at midnight I must be at my post."

"Nonsense! you are joking!" rejoined Canolles.

"Monsieur le Baron," observed Richon, gravely, "you are a soldier, and consequently you know the rigorous rules of the service."

"Then why didn't you go before you won my money?" retorted Canolles, half-smiling, half-angry.

"Do you mean to reproach me for calling upon you?"

"God forbid! But consider; I haven't the slightest inclination to sleep, and I shall be frightfully bored here. Suppose I should propose to bear you company, Richon?"

"I should decline the honor, baron. Affairs of the nature of that upon which I am engaged are transacted without witnesses."

"Very good! You are going – in what direction?"

"I was about to beg you not to ask me that question."

"In what direction has the viscount gone?"

"I am obliged to tell you that I have no idea."

Canolles looked at Richon to make sure that there was no raillery in his disobliging answers; but the kindly eye and frank smile of the governor of Vayres disarmed his curiosity, if not his impatience.

"Well, well, you are a perfect treasure-house of mysteries, my dear Richon; but no compulsion. I should have been disgusted enough if any one had followed me three hours ago, although, after all, the man who followed me would have been as disappointed as I was myself. So one last glass of Callioure and good luck to you!"

With that, Canolles refilled the glasses, and Richon, having emptied his to the baron's health, took his leave; nor did it once occur to the baron to watch to see in which direction he went. Left to his own resources, amid the half-burned candles, empty bottles, and scattered cards, he fell a prey to one of those fits of depression which no one can understand without experiencing them, for his jovial humor throughout the evening had its origin in a disappointment which he had labored to forget, with but partial success.

He dragged his feet along toward his bedroom, casting a sidelong glance, half regretful, half-angry, through the window in the hall toward the isolated house, where a single window, through which a reddish light shone, intercepted from time to time by more than one shadow, proved with sufficient certainty that Mademoiselle de Lartigues was passing a less lonely evening than himself.

On the first stair, the toe of Canolles' boot came in contact with some object; he stooped and picked up one of the viscount's diminutive pearl-gray gloves, which he had dropped in his haste to leave Master Biscarros' hostelry, and which he probably did not consider of sufficient value to waste his time in searching for it.

Whatever may have been Canolles' reflections in a moment of misanthropy not to be wondered at in an offended lover, there was not at the isolated house a whit more real satisfaction than at the Golden Calf.

Nanon was restless and anxious throughout the night, revolving in her mind a thousand schemes to warn Canolles, and she resorted to every device that a well-developed female brain could suggest in the way of cunning and trickery to extricate herself from her precarious situation. Her only object was to steal one minute from the duke to speak to Francinette, or two minutes to write a line to Canolles upon a scrap of paper.

But you would have said that the duke, suspecting all that was passing through her mind, and reading her anxiety through the mask of cheerfulness which her face wore, had sworn to himself that he would not vouchsafe to her one moment of that liberty which was so essential to her peace of mind.

Nanon had a sick-headache; Monsieur d'Épernon would not hear of her rising to get her bottle of salts, but went to look for it himself.

Nanon pricked herself with a pin, and a ruby drop appeared at the end of her taper finger; she essayed to go to her toilet-case for a piece of the famous rose-taffeta, which was just coming into favor, but Monsieur d'Épernon, with indefatigable devotion to her comfort, rose, prepared the rose-taffeta with disheartening dexterity, and locked the toilet-case.

Nanon thereupon pretended to be sleeping soundly; almost immediately the duke began to snore. At that, Nanon opened her eyes, and by the glimmer of the night-light in its alabaster vessel on a table by the bed, she tried to take the duke's own tablets from his doublet, which was within her reach; but just as she had the pencil in her hand, and was about tearing off a leaf of paper, the duke opened one eye.

"What are you doing, my love?" he asked.

"I was looking to see if there isn't a calendar in your tablets."

"For what purpose?"

"To see when your birthday comes."

"My name is Louis, and my birthday falls on August 25th, as you know; so you have abundant time to prepare for it, dear heart."

And he took the tablets from her hands and replaced them in his doublet.

By this last manœuvre, Nanon had at all events secured pencil and paper. She stowed them away under her bolster, and very adroitly overturned the night-light, hoping to be able to write in the dark; but the duke immediately rang for Francinette, and loudly demanded a light, declaring that he could not sleep unless he could see. Francinette came running in before Nanon had had time to write half of her sentence, and the duke, to avoid another similar mishap, bade the maid place two candles on the chimney-piece. Thereupon Nanon declared that she could not sleep with so much light, and resolutely turned her face to the wall, awaiting the dawn in feverish impatience and anxiety easy to understand.

The dreaded day broke at last, and bedimmed the light of the two candles. Monsieur le Duc d'Épernon, who prided himself upon his strict adherence to a military mode of life, rose as the first ray of dawn stole in through the jalousies, dressed without assistance, in order not to leave his little Nanon for an instant, donned his robe de chambre, and rang to ask if there were any news.

Francinette replied by handing him a bundle of despatches which Courtauvaux, his favorite outrider, had brought during the night.

The duke began to unseal them and to read with one eye; the other eye, to which he sought to impart the most affectionate expression he could command, he did not once remove from Nanon.

Nanon would have torn him in pieces if she could.

"Do you know what you ought to do, my dear?" said he, after he had read a portion of the despatches.

"No, monseigneur; but if you will give your orders, they shall be obeyed."

"You should send for your brother," said the duke. "I have here a letter from Bordeaux containing the information I desired, and he might start instantly, so that when he returned, I should have an excuse for giving him the promotion you suggest."

The duke's face was a picture of open-hearted benevolence.