“Indeed!” said Madame de Bonmont.
She had made up her mind that when M. Guitrel became Bishop of Tourcoing she would make him a present of an episcopal ring set with a large amethyst.
Madame Hortha’s trumpets again rang out:
“My dear, my dear, are we not to see M. Raoul Marcien to-night? Are we not to have the pleasure of seeing the dear man?”
The cosmopolitan lady was well worthy of admiration, in that, although acquainted with every grade of society under the sun, she avoided making a hopeless muddle of them all. Her brain was a directory of all the drawing-rooms of all the capitals of Europe, and she was not wanting in a certain worldly judgment; her kindness of heart, too, was universal. If she had mentioned Raoul Marcien, it was in all innocence. She was innocence personified, and knew nothing of evil. She was a good wife and a good mother, whose home was a sleeping-car or a wagon-lit, yet a domesticated woman for all that. Under the corsage of jet and steel that glittered as she moved with a sound as of hail, she wore coarse grey cotton stays. Even her lady’s-maids never questioned her virtue.
“My dear, my dear, of course you know that M. Raoul Marcien has fought a duel with M. Isidore Mayer?”
And in a voice that made one think of international bureaux and tourist inquiry offices, she related the story which Madame de Bonmont knew by heart.
She told how M. Isidore Mayer, a Jew, both well known and highly respected in the financial world, went into a café in the Boulevard des Capucines, sat down at a table and asked for the Army List. Having a son in the Army, he wished to make sure of the names of the officers in his regiment. Just as he was about to take the book from a waiter M. Raoul Marcien strode up, and said: “Monsieur, I forbid you to lay a hand on that book. It is sacred to the French Army!” “Why?” asked M. Isidore Mayer. “Because you are of the same religion as the traitor!”
M. Isidore Mayer shrugged his shoulders, upon which M. Raoul Marcien struck him full in the face. An encounter was arranged, and two shots fired without effect.
“My dear, my dear, do you understand why he did it? I must say I do not.”