CHAPTER VII
OLIVIER DU PRAT
The second telegram arrived, and on the following Monday, at two o'clock, Pierre Hautefeuille was at the station at Cannes, awaiting the arrival of the express. It was the train he had taken to come from Paris in November, while still suffering from the attack of pleurisy that had been nearly fatal to him. Any one who had seen him getting out of the train on that November afternoon, thin, pale, shivering in spite of his furs, would never have recognized the invalid, the feverish convalescent, in the handsome young fellow who crossed the track four months later, supple and erect, rosy-cheeked and smiling, and with his eyes lit up with a happy reflection that brightened all his visage. Between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five, in that period of life when the vital principle is ripe and intact, the most timid of men have at times a keen joy in life which betrays itself in every gesture. It is a sign that they love, that they are beloved, that all around smiles upon their love. And the sensation that no obstacle stands between them and their passions fills them to overflowing with happiness. Their very physique seems to be transfigured, to be exalted. They have a different bearing, another look, a prouder attitude. It is as though some magnetic current emanated from happy lovers, that clothes them with a momentary beauty intelligible to every woman. They recognize at once the "enraptured lover," and hate him or sympathize with him, according as they are envious or indulgent, prosaic or romantic.
To this latter class belonged the two people whom Hautefeuille met face to face on the little central platform that serves as a sort of waiting-place at the Cannes station. One of these was Yvonne de Chésy, accompanied by her husband and Horace Brion. The other was the Marchesa Bonnacorsi,—as she still called herself,—escorted by her brother, Navagero. To reach them, the young man had to work his way through the fashionable crowd gathered there, as is usual at this hour, awaiting the train that is to carry them to Monte Carlo. The comments exchanged between the two women and their escorts during the few minutes that this operation took proved once more that the pettiness of malignant jealousy is not the characteristic of the gentler sex solely.
"Hallo! there is Hautefeuille!" said Madame de Chésy. "How pleased his sister will be to see him so wonderfully changed!—Don't you think he is a very handsome young fellow?"
"Yes, very handsome," assented the Venetian, "and the prettiest part of it is that he does not seem to be aware of it."
"He won't keep that quality long," said Brion. "It is 'Hautefeuille here, 'Hautefeuille' there! You hear of nothing but Hautefeuille at your house," addressing Yvonne, "at Madame Bonnacorsi's, at Madame de Carlsberg's. He was simply a good, little, inoffensive, insignificant youngster. You are going to make him frightfully conceited."
"Without considering that he will compromise one of you sooner or later if it continues," said Navagero, glancing at his sister.
Since the trip to Genoa the artful Italian had noticed an unusual air about Andryana and had been seeking the motive of it, but in the wrong direction.
"Ah! That's it, is it?" cried Yvonne, laughingly. "Well, just to punish you I am going to ask him to come into our compartment, and shall invite him to dine with us at Monte Carlo, so that he can take charge of Gontran—who needs some one to look after him. I say, Pierre," she went on, addressing the young man who was now standing before her, "I attach you to my service for the afternoon and evening.—You will report it to me if my lord and master loses more than one hundred louis.—He lost a thousand the day before yesterday at trente-et-quarante. Two affairs like that every week throughout the winter would be a nice income.—I shall have to begin thinking of how I am to earn the living expenses."
Chésy did not reply. He tugged at his mustache nervously, shrugging his shoulders. But his features contracted with a forced smile that was very different from the one his wife's witty sallies usually provoked. The catastrophe Dickie Marsh had predicted was slowly drawing near, and the unfortunate fellow was childish enough to try to offset the imminent disaster by risking the little means he had left upon the green cloth at Monte Carlo. Heedless to say, his wife was entirely ignorant of the truth. Thus Yvonne's remark was singularly cruel for him, and for her, uttered as it was, in the presence of Brion, the professional banker of needy mondaines. Hautefeuille, who had been enlightened by his conversations with Corancez and Madame de Carlsberg, felt the irony hidden in the pretty little woman's conversation at such a moment, and said:—