His daughter's waiting-woman! The thought was distracting. That she should enter Clarisse's room every morning, carry her breakfast, see her in bed, assist at each detail of her toilet, fresh from the young man's embraces, his caresses still warm on her lips! And these things were taking place under his roof!
He left the room agitated but resolved. It was very simple. To-morrow she would be discharged the first thing, and he also should be turned out, the hypocrite who, with all his smiling, respectful airs, defiled his roof. He did well to get himself protected by priests, and Monsieur de Rohan, a nice present he had made!
All the young man's qualities, all the satisfaction he had given him, disappeared before this one brutal fact. He would not be sorry, either, to be able to say to the Abbé de Saint-Vaast—
"You know the young man you recommended me. Well, I surprised him in the garret with a servant-maid, and I turned him out like a lackey. But even lackeys respect my house."
He had now crossed the corridor and was descending the stairs, still rehearsing the scene in his mind. Smarting under his wounded self-love, he exaggerated everything. Had they not forgotten the respect due to him, Monsieur de Pontivy, to his house, and worse still, had they not mockingly set him at defiance? He smiled grimly at the thought. He had now reached the last step of the second staircase, and was turning into the corridor of the ground floor.
"Decidedly," he muttered, "I was mistaken in my estimate of that young man. He is a fool!"
All at once he stopped. He caught the sound of whispering, and the noise of a door being softly and cautiously closed. Some one here, at this hour! Who can it be? He blew out the candle, and gliding along the wall, he approached, but suddenly recoiled, for in the grey light of the dawn he had recognised Robespierre. The young man was advancing quietly in the direction of the stairs.
The truth, all the awful, maddening truth, the endless shame and dishonour, rushed on Monsieur de Pontivy in a moment, and stunned him like a blow.
Robespierre had come from Clarisse's room!
Everything swam before him. He held in his hand the extinguished candle, with such force that the bronze candlestick entered his flesh. He made a movement as if to use it as a weapon, and kill the wretch there and then. At that instant the young man saw him. He turned deadly pale and tried to escape, but Monsieur de Pontivy threw himself on him, and seized him by the throat.