SLAVES OF PARIS (Complete Edition) - Emile Gaboriau

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picture on the easel. He remembered what the garrulous old portress had said about the veiled lady who sometimes visited the painter, and that there had been some delay in admitting him when he first knocked. Then he considered, for whom had the painter dressed himself with such care? and why had he requested him not to smoke? From all these facts Paul came to the conclusion that Andre was expecting the lady’s visit, and that the veiled picture was her portrait. He therefore determined to see it; and with this end in view, he walked round the studio, admiring all the paintings on the walls, maneuvering in such a manner as to imperceptibly draw nearer to the easel.

      “And this,” said he, suddenly extending his hand toward the cover, “is, I presume, the gem of your studio?”

      But Andre was by no means dull, and had divined Paul’s intention, and grasped the young man’s outstretched hand just as it touched the curtain.

      “If I veil this picture,” said he, “it is because I do not wish it to be seen.”

      “Excuse me,” answered Paul, trying to pass over the matter as a jest, though in reality he was boiling over with rage at the manner and tone of the painter, and considered his caution utterly ridiculous.

      “At any rate,” said he to himself, “I will lengthen out my visit, and have a glimpse of the original instead of her picture;” and, with this amiable resolution, he sat down by the artist’s table, and commenced an apparently interminable story, resolved not to attend to any hints his friend might throw out, who was glancing at the clock with the utmost anxiety, comparing it every now and then with his watch.

      As Paul talked on, he saw close to him on the table the photograph of a young lady, and, taking advantage of the artist’s preoccupation, looked at it.

      “Pretty, very pretty!” remarked he.

      At these words the painter flushed crimson, and snatching away the photograph with some little degree of violence, thrust it between the leaves of a book.

      Andre was so evidently in a patina, that Paul rose to his feet, and for a second or two the men looked into each other’s eyes as two adversaries do when about to engage in a mortal duel. They knew but little of each other, and the same chance which had brought them together might separate them again at any moment, but each felt that the other exercised some influence over his life.

      Andre was the first to recover himself.

      “You must excuse me; but I was wrong to leave so precious an article about.”

      Paul bowed with the air of a man who accepts an apology which he considers his due; and Andre went on,—

      “I very rarely receive any one except my friends; but to-day I have broken through my rule.”

      Paul interrupted him with a magniloquent wave of the hand.

      “Believe me, sir,” said he, in a voice which he endeavoured to render cutting and sarcastic, “had it not been for the imperative duty I before alluded to, I should not have intruded.”

      And with these words he left the room, slamming the door behind him.

      “The deuce take the impudent fool!” muttered Andre. “I was strongly tempted to pitch him out of the window.”

      Paul was in a furious rage for having visited the studio with the kindly desire of humiliating the painter. He could not but feel that the tables had been turned upon himself.

      “He shall not have it all his own way,” muttered he; “for I will see the lady,” and not reflecting on the meanness of his conduct, he crossed the street, and took up a position from which he could obtain a good view of the house where Andre resided. It was snowing; but Paul disregarded the inclemency of the weather in his eagerness to act the spy.

      He had waited for fully half an hour, when a cab drove up. Two women alighted from it. The one was eminently aristocratic in appearance, while the other looked like a respectable servant. Paul drew closer; and, in spite of a thick veil, recognized the features he had seen in the photograph.

      “Ah!” said he, “after all, Rose is more to my taste, and I will get back to her. We will pay up Loupins, and get out of his horrible den.”

      Chapter VIII.

       Mademoiselle de Mussidan

       Table of Contents

      Paul had not been the only watcher; for at the sound of the carriage wheels the ancient portress took up her position in the doorway, with her eyes fixed on the face of the young lady. When the two women had ascended the stairs, a sudden inspiration seized her, and she went out and spoke to the cabman.

      “Nasty night,” remarked she; “I don’t envy you in such weather as this.”

      “You may well say that,” replied the driver; “my feet are like lumps of ice.”

      “Have you come far?”

      “Rather; I picked them up in the Champs Elysees, near the Avenue de Matignon.”

      “That is a distance.”

      “Yes; and only five sous for drink money. Hang your respectable women!”

      “Oh! they are respectable, are they?”

      “I’ll answer for that. The other lot are far more open-handed. I know both of them.”

      And with these words and a knowing wink, he touched up his horse and drove away; and the portress, only half satisfied, went back to her lodge.

      “Why that is the quarter where all the swells live,” murmured she. “I’ll tip the maid next time, and she’ll let out everything.”

      After Paul’s departure, Andre could not remain quiet; for it appeared to him as if each second was a century. He had thrown open the door of his studio, and ran to the head of the stairs at every sound.

      At last their footsteps really sounded on the steps. The sweetest music in the world is the rustle of the beloved one’s dress. Leaning over the banisters, he gazed fondly down. Soon she appeared, and in a short time had gained the open door of the studio.

      “You see, Andre,” said she, extending her hand, “you see that I am true to my time.”

      Pale, and trembling with emotion, Andre pressed the little hand to his lips.

      “Ah! Mademoiselle Sabine, how kind you are! Thanks, a thousand thanks.”

      Yes, it was indeed Sabine, the scion of the lordly house of Mussidan, who had come to visit the poor foundling of the Hotel de Vendome in his studio, and who thus risked all that was most precious to her in the world, her honor and her reputation. Yes, regardless of the conventionalities among which she had been reared, dared to cross that social abyss which separates the Avenue de Matignon from the Rue de la Tour d’Auvergne. Cold reason finds no excuse for such a step, but the heart can easily solve this seeming riddle. Sabine and Andre had been lovers for more than two years. Their first acquaintance had commenced at the Chateau de Mussidan. At the end of the summer of 1865, Andre, whose constant application to work had told upon his health, determined to take a change, when his master, Jean Lanier, called him, and said,—

      “If you wish for a change, and at the same time to earn three or four hundred francs, now is your time. An architect has written to me, asking me for a skilled stone carver, to do some work in the country at a magnificent mansion in the midst of the most superb scenery. Would you care about undertaking this?”

      The proposal was a most acceptable one to Andre, and in a week’s time he was on his way to his work with a prospect of living for a month in pure country air. Upon his arrival at the Chateau, he made a thorough examination of the work with which he had been entrusted. He saw that he could finish it with perfect ease, for it was only to restore the carved work on a balcony, which would not take more than a fortnight. He did not, however, press on the work, for

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