I had become a fashionable dandy. I was a member of the Jockey Club, was seen at the theatres and at all fashionable places of public entertainment. I opened my palatial residence to fashionable society, and took my wife to all social amusements fitted to her station in life. I took pride in the elegance of her toilette, and was jealously careful that her equipage should outshine all others.
Still I cannot say that this constant, tender consideration and attention to her affected her in my favour. On the contrary, I found that of late her glance had a troubled, I may say, puzzled expression when it rested on me; and when occasionally I entered her room unexpectedly I saw that she hastily concealed in a drawer a small and well-worn note-book. I supposed she was calculating what this expensive rate of living might cost. If she only computed what I spent officially, so to speak—that is to say, on herself and the household—she must have made it some four hundred thousand francs. The income on her million of florins would amount, at the utmost, to one hundred thousand francs, so she must naturally have come to the conclusion that her securities were scattered to the winds.
At that time the rosewood chest with the bonds, in exactly the same condition as when she had given them to me on our wedding night, was in my own possession again, and locked up in my safe. It had been my first care to take it home from the banking-house where it had been deposited. I had repaid the amount of the loan, received the securities, and found them all in excellent order.
By this time the period of Flamma's confinement had arrived, and a son was born. I had made her a proposition to postpone the christening for a month, and only then to give our aristocratic family connections at home information of the happy event. She consented, and by the time the christening took place she had fully recovered her health and beauty, or, rather, she had become more beautiful than ever; for, from a girlish maiden, she had developed into a blooming woman.
The little boy we christened William James. He was a well-formed, healthy child, and I myself had conscientiously selected a nurse for him.
When at last no harm was to be feared from excitement, and Flamma's health was fully established, I wrote her a line that I should like to have some conversation with her on money matters that afternoon. She wrote me in reply that I had anticipated her own wishes, and that she would be ready to receive me.
At the appointed time I carried the rosewood chest with her dowry to her room. I found her engaged with the same worn-looking note-book that I had already noticed, but this time she did not hide it upon my entrance. She offered me a seat, but I set the chest on the table in front of her, and, looking her in the face, I said—
"Madame, to-day it is seven months since that eventful evening on which you made me certain confidential disclosures. At that time I did not make any remark on the subject, because the state of your health was such that, in my capacity as a physician, conscientious scruples prohibited me from creating in you any excitement which might prove fatal to yourself and to another being. You will not refuse to bear witness that I have paid you all the care and attention which your condition required, and that I have done everything that was possible, under the circumstances, to save you from emotions which might be injurious. I have nursed you conscientiously, and omitted nothing which I thought necessary to your health and that of your child. But now your health is fully established, your child is christened, and I have given him an honourable name and a good nurse, which is all that he requires for the present. Now the time has come when I may express my real sentiments to you. I shall even now forbear to reproach you. In this whole baneful connection between us the fault has been mine alone. It was my boundless vanity, my absurd conceit, which led me to believe that a beautiful, wealthy, and high-born young lady would choose me, of all men, for her husband, without any secret motive or hidden reason to prompt her. I ought to have known my own worthlessness better, and not yielded to a flattering self-conceit. You see, I acknowledge my fault fully, and I own that I have deserved my punishment. I have no accusation against you. You were desperate; you had to save your reputation, and you did not stop to consider what it might cost me so long as it served your purpose. Of course, the pride and honour of Countess Vernöczy were of much higher importance than the life, the honour, of an insignificant fool like myself. Move over, you paid for the services you had procured with admirable magnanimity. You placed your whole dowry at my disposal. But now your honour and reputation are saved; so is that of your child. There is no need of my suffering longer for a fault for which I have bitterly atoned. Now, pray, let me restore to you the money which you placed in my hands on that memorable night. Let me beg you to take slate and pencil, and convince yourself of the entire correctness of the amount."
She looked at me as if mesmerised, and mechanically she obeyed me. I opened the chest, took out the papers, and, as she had done on the night of our wedding, I dictated to her the titles of the various deeds and securities, and she wrote as I dictated.
The amount was correct. "You see that the coupons are inside," I said; "those of last year and those of this year also. Not one has been touched."