“No; I will not. He wants help, and you will not help him.”
He marched to the door in a rage, but came back again, and stood with his great hands resting on the table, palms downward.
“You are a woman, a foolish woman, and talk of things you don’t understand. You suppose that no one will have the heart to hurt your dear Léon; and that when they hear that fine story of his, judge and jury will be so much impressed that it will require no more to make them acquit him. A baron, the Baron de Beaudrillart, the master of Poissy, one of the oldest names in the country—you flatter yourself, no doubt, that all this will prepossess them in his favour, to say nothing of a weeping wife, clasping her hands and crying, ‘Gentlemen, gentlemen, for the love of Heaven!’ You know nothing at all, my girl. Baron, and Beaudrillart, and Poissy, and descent—all this grandeur—is exactly what will tell against him. In these days it is a fine thing for a miserable little tallow-chandler, or a creature like Leroux, to sit in the jury-box, and feel, ‘Now it is my turn. Down with these seigneurs and their accursed pride!’ If he were an upstart of a washer-woman’s son, picked out of the gutter, he would have a chance, but as it is,”—he stopped and blew out a whiff of air—“there! That is what his is worth! And as for the love of Heaven—peste! few of them will think twice of that.”
Till these last words, Nathalie had bent her head before the pitiless storm. Now she raised it confidently.
“Yet it will not fail us,” she said. “If Léon does what is right, I do not fear.”
His anger was on the point of overpowering him, but he mastered it by a great effort so far as to mutter:
“Perhaps it is as well I should not see your husband, lest I should lose patience. But you had better let him hear my opinion. He can send in and let me know, if it isn’t too late.”
“Will you not have the carriage?”
He refused curtly, and, without listening to the words with which she tried to thank him, took himself out of the room, down the stairs, and out into the broad sweep. Poissy had never looked more beautiful. It was one of those grey, languorous days in which thunder threatens, and the dark, rich tones of a cloudy sky threw the mellow stone-work and its delicate ornamentation into high relief. The court side was the more picturesque and broken, but the noble simplicity of the lines of the front had always powerfully affected M. Bourget, and he was ready to vow that nothing could exceed the grace of the chimneys or the fine proportion of the windows. And now, as he looked, the pride with which he had dwelt upon it broke forth in an angry snort, which was really a groan. Unfortunately for himself, Jean Charpentier was on his way round the house. It was very well known in the household how the father of Mme. Léon was regarded by Mme. de Beaudrillart and her daughters, and Jean held, if possible, yet stouter aristocratic opinions. The sight, therefore, of M. Bourget’s square and sturdy figure, planted on the drive, and tragically gesticulating, stretched his face into a broad grin, which he took no pains to hide. In a moment he found himself in the clutch of the avenger. M. Bourget, gripping his collar, rained down blows upon him with his cane until he roared for mercy, and the ex-builder, wrathfully sending him staggering, expressed a hope that the castigation would have a good and much-needed effect upon his manners.
At any rate, this little incident had a soothing influence upon M. Bourget. It made him hot, but it restored his sense of power, and he went on his way home with a feeling that his visit had not been all in vain. Jean ran into the house, smarting for revenge, but it was an unlucky day for him, as the first person he fell upon was his father. Jacques listened to the tale, spluttered out between threats of vengeance, and when it was ended took his son by the ear.