Chapter Thirty Four.
Dregs of Life.
“If you two men would understand how you both have been ensnared and betrayed, listen to the facts I will relate,” said Gabrielle, leaning on the table before her.
“Lies,” observed Valérie, as if speaking to herself.
“A few years ago in Paris,” continued Mademoiselle Debriège, turning to her companions, “there lived, as you know, three artists, named Holt, Glanville, and Egerton. At that time I, too, lived in the Quartier Latin and became acquainted with them by meeting them frequently at the Chat Noir, whither I sometimes went in company with the man who had promised me marriage. The latter, however, forsook me—bah! it was the usual story—a woman’s foolish trust in a man who cast her off like a frayed glove. You understand?”
She paused, and the colour mounted to her cheeks.
“Ruin came,” she went on; “my father, a small tradesman, turned me from his door, and I found myself wandering friendless, forsaken, and homeless in the great city. Eventually I obtained an engagement as a figurante at the Opera, and while there I first met the woman before you, Valérie Duvauchel. Although a gay coquette, she confided in me the fact that she was living under the protection of Victor Bérard, a convicted thief. I was poor, earning scarcely enough to keep body and soul together, when she asked me to assist her and her lover in their various schemes of robbery. This temptation proved too great, for I was to receive a fair share of the plunder. The first occasion on which I participated in the crusade against riches was at a burglary at Auteuil. We were successful, and I received a thousand francs for my services. During the nine months I was connected with them I assisted at a number of robberies of jewellery and plate, sometimes as a decoy, at others pilfering myself.”
“I never knew you allied yourself in that manner with them,” remarked the artist in surprise, “although I often thought the dresses you wore cost you more than you obtained at the Opera.”
“In order to carry out our plans, I was compelled to dress well,” she replied. “But that has little to do with the events that followed. While assisting Bérard, I frequently spent days about the ateliers, and Glanville, the student of the Quai Montabello, and I became enamoured of one another. He had more money at his command than the average denizen of the Ile de la Cité, therefore I was not averse to accompanying him to cafés, balls, and theatres, especially as I had given up my engagement of the Opera, and was dependent entirely upon the proceeds of Victor’s depredations. After a few months at this life I discovered, by mere accident, that my English lover was not so devoted as I believed, and—that he knew Valérie. The affection between this woman and Egerton was a matter of comment among the students living on the Quai, but no one suspected that she favoured Glanville, whom everybody believed idolised me.”