Nothing could be simpler than the apartment of the Vicomte de Mauleon, in the second story of a quiet old-fashioned street. It had been furnished at small cost out of his savings. Yet, on the whole, it evinced the good taste of a man who had once been among the exquisites of the polite world. You felt that you were in the apartment of a gentleman, and a gentleman of somewhat severe tastes, and of sober matured years. He was sitting the next morning in the room which he used as a private study. Along the walls were arranged dwarf bookcases, as yet occupied by few books, most of them books of reference, others cheap editions of the French classics in prose—no poets, no romance-writers, with a few Latin authors also in prose,—Cicero, Sallust, Tacitus. He was engaged at his desk writing,—a book with its leaves open before him, “Paul Louis Courier,” that model of political irony and masculine style of composition. There was a ring at his door-bell. The Vicomte kept no servant. He rose and answered the summons. He recoiled a few paces on recognizing his visitor in M. Hennequin.
The Prefet this time did not withdraw his hand; he extended it, but it was with a certain awkwardness and timidity. “I thought it my duty to call on you, Vicomte, thus early, having already seen M. Enguerrand de Vandemar. He has shown me the copies of the pieces which were inspected by your distinguished kinsmen, and which completely clear you of the charge that—grant me your pardon when I say—seemed to me still to remain unanswered when I had the honour to meet you last night.”
“It appears to me, Monsieur Hennequin, that you, as an avocat so eminent, might have convinced yourself very readily of that fact.”
“Monsieur le Vicomte, I was in Switzerland with my wife at the time of the unfortunate affair in which you were involved.”
“But when you returned to Paris, you might perhaps have deigned to make inquiries so affecting the honour of one you had called a friend, and for whom you had professed”—De Mauleon paused; he disdained to add—“an eternal gratitude.”
Hennequin coloured slightly, but replied with self-possession.
“I certainly did inquire. I did hear that the charge against you with regard to the abstraction of the jewels was withdrawn, that you were therefore acquitted by law; but I heard also that society did not acquit you, and that, finding this, you had quitted France. Pardon me again, no one would listen to me when I attempted to speak on your behalf but now that so many years have elapsed, that the story is imperfectly remembered, that relations so high-placed receive you so cordially,—now I rejoice to think that you will have no difficulty in regaining a social position never really lost, but for a time resigned.”
“I am duly sensible of the friendly joy you express. I was reading the other day in a lively author some pleasant remarks on the effects of medisance or calumny upon our impressionable Parisian public. ‘If,’ says the writer, ‘I found myself accused of having put the two towers of Notre Dame into my waistcoat-pocket I should not dream of defending myself; I should take to flight. And,’ adds the writer, ‘if my best friend were under the same accusation, I should be so afraid of being considered his accomplice that I should put my best friend outside the door.’ Perhaps, Monsieur Hennequin, I was seized with the first alarm. Why should I blame you if seized with the second? Happily, this good city of Paris has its reactions. And you can now offer me your hand. Paris has by this time discovered that the two towers of Notre Dame are not in my pocket.”
There was a pause. De Mauleon had resettled himself at his desk, bending over his papers, and his manner seemed to imply that he considered the conversation at an end.
But a pang of shame, of remorse, of tender remembrance, shot across the heart of the decorous, worldly, self-seeking man, who owed all that he now was to the ci-devant vaurien before him. Again he stretched forth his hand, and this time grasped De Mauleon’s warmly. “Forgive me,” he said, feelingly and hoarsely; “forgive me, I was to blame. By character, and perhaps by the necessities of my career, I am over-timid to public opinion, public scandal. Forgive me. Say if in anything now I can requite, though but slightly, the service I owe you.”