I
General d'Arny lived in an old house in the Boulevard St. Germain, one of the few monuments still existing to the golden age of Récamier and the salons. He did not care a scudo for the literary and artistic associations of this gloomy mansion, but much for the fact that he paid little rent. Beaumarchais had lived there on the eve of his flight to Holland; the great rooms had known Fleury and his fellows, Balzac and Saint-Beuve—a very panel of genius written across the centuries.
It all meant very little to Hubert d'Arny, the bulk of whose fortune went into the trough at Panama; the residue into the hands of the jobbers on the Bourse. The general was notoriously a financial derelict; as notoriously a suspect to his many enemies in the Chamber.
He had married late in life—some years after the war—and his wife died in childbirth. One daughter, Claudine, was alternately the object of a maudlin affection and of sentimental regret. She cost a great deal of money, and had the indecency to arrive at a marriageable age. When Captain Issy-Ferrault, a son of one of the oldest aristocracies in France, came forward, the general assented in spite of his democratic principles. The business of providing for the girl aged him pathetically. The newspapers said it was Morocco; but the trouble lay much nearer home.
As it chanced, John Faber arrived in Paris in the midst of the preparations for Claudine's wedding. He knew nothing of it; no one had guessed that he had any interest in the daughter of the French Minister of Artillery, or she in him. Claudine went to America at the invitation of the French Ambassador, whose children were her friends. When Faber was introduced to her upon the ship, she said frankly that she did not like him. His manners were gauche, and his eyes inquisitive. She avoided him with a sure instinct, being ignorant that he knew anything of her or her family. This was a great misfortune, for she had many qualities which appeal to men, and Faber was not the kind of man to remain insensible to them.
In Paris, upon her return, she entered the promised land of preparation. The general swore loudly while he signed the cheques, but signed them none the less. Dressmakers flocked to the Boulevard St. Germain, and their mouths were full of pins. Claudine was of a romantic temperament, but it could stoop to laces and fine linen. She argle-bargled with her father like a wench at a fair, and when he discounted the list, she declared that she would not be married at all. A scandal was the potent weapon in her armament. He could not have a scandal.
This extravagance of idea filled her bedroom to overflowing; to say nothing of other bedrooms. She would sit curled up amid a tangle of the most delicate draperies—transparencies which should have come from a fairy godmother; masterpieces in velvets and satins—she would wonder if life were long enough to wear them all. These things were hidden in her virgin holy of holies, but she ticked off the days which shut the door against the One Unknown, and often fell to a young girl's awe in the presence of the mysteries. Then came the last night of all—the maids had left her; the house was at rest. A dirty fluff of snow fell upon the streets of Paris. She was to be married at St. Eustache to-morrow!
Claudine undressed herself, and putting on the most wonderful of lace robes, she sat before a fire of wood and warmed her pink and white feet at the blaze. There should have been regrets at the life she was leaving: she might have dwelt with some affection upon her passing girlhood, and the home which had sheltered her. But she did nothing of the kind. Her thoughts were entirely devoted to St. Eustache and afterwards. What an exciting day it must be! Every friend she had would be in the church. One of the canons was to marry them, and afterwards there would be a great feast and many speeches in the old ballroom downstairs. At four in the afternoon, Justin's motor-car was to take them to the old château, near Rambouillet, where the first week was to be spent. She pictured the lonely drive over the whitened roads, through the forests—then the château, grim, old and moated. They would dine together—and then—then she would know what love was!
Her ideas were truly French, and English sentiment could have offered them little sympathy. Perhaps Captain Issy-Ferrault stood to her less for the man than for a man. She had been educated in convents where saintly women shuddered at the mere footsteps of their common enemy and provoked a thousand curiosities by their very holiness. Then had come a few short years of the world—it had taught Claudine that all life began from the hour when a man first took a woman into his arms and the Church blessed the proceeding. Afterwards there were other things. The first step was sufficient for her vigil that night.
Her wedding dress had been laid upon a little bed in the adjoining room. She went there on tip-toe as though afraid that someone might spy upon her while she touched the satin and laces with delighted fingers. Strong scents perfumed the room and the odour of blossoms. Claudine went and stood before a long mirror of the wardrobe and studied herself in many attitudes. She did not know whether she was really pretty. Justin, her fiancé, had paid her many compliments, and she tried to believe them. A greater source of encouragement was her figure—the fine rounded limbs, the pink and white of a young girl's skin. For an instant she remembered the ordeal of discovery which awaited her to-morrow; then with a light laugh, she returned to her bedroom. Other brides had suffered and survived—she took courage.