Butscha, therefore, had very nearly found the key to the puzzle. With all the anxious solicitude of a hopeless lover, a vassal ever ready to die,—like the soldiers alone and abandoned in the snows of Russia, who still cried out, “Long live the Emperor,”—he meditated how to capture Modeste’s secret for his own private knowledge. So thinking, he followed his patrons to the Chalet that evening, with a cloud of care upon his brow: for he knew it was most important to hide from all these watchful eyes and ears the net, whatever it might be, in which he should entrap his lady. It would have to be, he thought, by some intercepted glance, some sudden start or quiver, as when a surgeon lays his finger on a hidden sore. That evening Gobenheim did not appear, and Butscha was Dumay’s partner against Monsieur and Madame Latournelle. During the few moment’s of Modeste’s absence, about nine o’clock, to prepare for her mother’s bedtime, Madame Mignon and her friends spoke openly to one another; but the poor clerk, depressed by the conviction of Modeste’s love, which had now seized upon him as upon the rest, seemed as remote from the discussion as Gobenheim had been the night before.
“Well, what’s the matter with you, Butscha?” cried Madame Latournelle; “one would really think you hadn’t a friend in the world.”
Tears shone in the eyes of the poor fellow, who was the son of a Swedish sailor, and whose mother was dead.
“I have no one in the world but you,” he answered with a troubled voice; “and your compassion is so much a part of your religion that I can never lose it—and I will never deserve to lose it.”
This answer struck the sensitive chord of true delicacy in the minds of all present.
“We love you, Monsieur Butscha,” said Madame Mignon, with much feeling in her voice.
“I’ve six hundred thousand francs of my own, this day,” cried Dumay, “and you shall be a notary and the successor of Latournelle.”
The American wife took the hand of the poor hunchback and pressed it.
“What! you have six hundred thousand francs!” exclaimed Latournelle, pricking up his ears as Dumay let fall the words; “and you allow these ladies to live as they do! Modeste ought to have a fine horse; and why doesn’t she continue to take lessons in music, and painting, and—”
“Why, he has only had the money a few hours!” cried the little wife.