“After?” some one had said, interrogatively.
“After,” answered a man whose voice had grown hoarser and thicker, as the empty bottles about the legs of the president had become more numerous, “my stripling has refused me a little bank-note of a thousand francs. Thou art too dear, my friend, he has said to me; that has been paid already, and enough largely. Besides, that was not great things. Ah! ha! I said, thou art there, my drôle; you begin to fatigue yourself of your confederate. He is too much. Very well; he has his pride, he also. Thou art the last of men, and I say to you, adieu, Monsieur Launcelot Darrell.”
This was the name that struck upon Eleanor’s ear, and aroused the old feeling in all its strength. The snake had only been scotched after all. It reared its head at the sound of that name, like a war-horse at the blast of a trumpet. Eleanor, starting to her feet, turned round and faced the party in the next box. The man who had spoken had risen also, and was leaning across the table to reach a bottle on the other side. Thus it was that the faces of the two were opposite to each other; and Victor Bourdon, the commercial traveller, recognized Gilbert Monckton’s missing wife.
He dropped the glass that he was filling, and poured some wine into the cuff of his coat, while he stared at Eleanor in drunken surprise.
“You are here, madame?” he cried, with a look in which astonishment was blended with intense delight, a sort of tipsy radiance that illuminated the Frenchman’s fat face. Even in the midst of her surprise at seeing him, Eleanor perceived that blending of expression and wondered at it.
Before she could speak, Monsieur Bourdon had left his party and had deliberately seated himself in the empty chair next her. He seized her hand in both his own, and bent over her as she shrank away from him.
“Do not recoil from me, madame,” he said, always speaking in French that was considerably disguised by wine. “Ah, you do not know. I can be of the last service to you; and you can be of the last service to me also. I have embroiled myself with this Monsieur Long—cell—lotte, for always; after that which I have done for him, he is an ingrate, he is less than that,” Monsieur Bourdon struck the nail of his thumb upon his front tooth with a gesture of ineffable contempt. “But why do I tell you this, madame? You were in the garden when this poor old,—this Monsieur de Crespigny, was lying dead. You remember; you know. Never mind, I lose myself the head; I have dined a little generously. Will you find yourself to-morrow, madame, in the gardens of the Palais Royal, at five hours? There is music all the Tuesdays. I have something of the last importance to tell you. Remember you that I know everything. I know that you hate this Long—cellotte. I will give you your revenge. You will come; is it not?”
“Yes,” Eleanor answered, quickly.
“Upon the five hours? I shall wait for you near to the fountain.”
“Yes.”