“No one at all, sir,” replied that double-dyed villain, Pierre. “It isn’t judicious to know all sorts of people. I intend to forget some I know.”
Monsieur Bouchard turned in his chair and looked at Pierre; the fellow really seemed changed into another man from what he had been for thirty years. But to Monsieur Bouchard the change was not displeasing. He felt a bond between himself and Pierre, stronger in the last half-hour than in the thirty years they had been master and man. They exchanged looks—it might even be said winks—and Monsieur Bouchard poured out another glass of champagne—his third. And what with the wine and the dinner, he was in that state of exhilaration which the sense of liberty newly acquired always brings.
“Monsieur won’t want me any more to-night?” asked Pierre.
“No,” replied Monsieur Bouchard, “but—be sure to be here at—” he meant to say at ten o’clock that night, but changed his mind and said, “seven o’clock to-morrow morning.”
“Certainly, sir,” answered Pierre. “I expect to be home and in bed before three.”
And he said this with such a debonair manner that Monsieur Bouchard was secretly charmed, and privately determined to acquire something of the same tone.
Pierre gone, Monsieur Bouchard made himself comfortable in an easychair and began toying with a fourth cigar. How agreeable were these modern apartments, after all—everything furnished, every want anticipated—all a tenant had to do was to walk in and hang up his hat. Then his thoughts wandered to that very pretty woman who had travelled in the same train with him that day to St. Germains, and the day before to Verneuil, whither he had gone to look after some property of Léontine’s. Madame Vernet was her name—it was on her travelling bag—and she was a widow—that fact had leaked out ten seconds after he met her. But she was so very demure, so modest, not to say bashful, that she seemed more like a nun than a widow. And so timid—everything frightened her. She trembled when the guard asked her for her ticket, and clung quite desperately to Monsieur Bouchard’s arm in the station at Verneuil. She had expected her aunt and uncle to meet her, and when they were not to be found, blushingly accepted Monsieur Bouchard’s services in getting a cab. And that day, on stepping into the railway carriage to go to St. Germains, there was the dear little diffident thing again. She was charmed to see her friend of the day before, and explained that she was to spend the day with another uncle and aunt she had living at St. Germains. Knowing her inability to care for herself in a crowd, Monsieur Bouchard had meant to put her into a cab, as he had done the day before. But just as the train stopped he was seized by a couple of snuffy old antiquarians and hustled off by them before he could even offer to take charge of the quiet, the retiring, the clinging and helpless Madame Vernet.
Monsieur Bouchard lay back in his chair recalling her prim but pretty gray gown, her fleecy veil of gray gauze, that covered but did not conceal her charming features, and her extremely natty boots. He could not for the life of him remember whether he had mentioned to her on their first meeting that he was going to St. Germains next day. While he was cogitating this point he was rudely disturbed by the opening of the door, and Captain de Meneval walked in briskly.
Now, this good-looking captain of artillery, who had married Monsieur Bouchard’s ward, Léontine, was not exactly to Monsieur’s taste. It is true he had never been able to find out anything to de Meneval’s discredit—and he had looked pretty closely into the captain’s affairs at the time of Léontine’s marriage. As for Léontine herself, she was devoted to her captain and always represented him as being the kindest as well as the most agreeable of husbands. True, he was always complaining about the modest income that Papa Bouchard allowed them, but Léontine herself was ever doing that, and urged de Meneval on in his complaints. Monsieur Bouchard was a little annoyed at de Meneval’s entrance, especially as the artillery captain had adopted a hail-fellow-well-met air, highly objectionable on the part of a man toward another man who practically holds the purse-strings for number one.
Therefore, Monsieur Bouchard rather stiffly gave Captain de Meneval three fingers and offered him a chair.