Fromont and Risler Part 23

When he saw her enter the room, his whole heart had been caught in her net once more.

Desiree suspected nothing, not she! Sidonie's manner was so frank and friendly. And then, they were brother and sister now. Love was no longer possible between them.

But the little cripple had a vague presentiment of woe when Sidonie, standing in the doorway and ready to go, turned carelessly to her brother-in-law and said:

"By the way, Frantz, Risler told me to be sure to bring you back to dine with us to-night. The carriage is below. We will pick him up as we pa.s.s the factory."

Then she added, with the prettiest smile imaginable:

"You will let us have him, won't you, Ziree? Don't be afraid; we will send him back."

And he had the courage to go, the ungrateful wretch!

He went without hesitation, without once turning back, whirled away by his pa.s.sion as by a raging sea, and neither on that day nor the next nor ever after could Mam'zelle Zizi's great easy-chair learn what the interesting communication was that the little low chair had to make to it.

CHAPTER XVI. THE WAITING-ROOM

"Well, yes, I love you, I love you, more than ever and for ever!

What is the use of struggling and fighting against fate? Our sin is stronger than we. But, after all, is it a crime for us to love?

We were destined for each other. Have we not the right to come together, although life has parted us? So, come! It is all over; we will go away. Meet me to-morrow evening, Lyon station, at ten o'clock. The tickets are secured and I shall be there awaiting you.

"FRANTZ."

For a month past Sidonie had been hoping for that letter, a month during which she had brought all her coaxing and cunning into play to lure her brother-in-law on to that written revelation of pa.s.sion. She had difficulty in accomplis.h.i.+ng it. It was no easy matter to pervert an honest young heart like Frantz's to the point of committing a crime; and in that strange contest, in which the one who really loved fought against his own cause, she had often felt that she was at the end of her strength and was almost discouraged. When she was most confident that he was conquered, his sense of right would suddenly rebel, and he would be all ready to flee, to escape her once more.

What a triumph it was for her, therefore, when that letter was handed to her one morning. Madame Dobson happened to be there. She had just arrived, laden with complaints from Georges, who was horribly bored away from his mistress, and was beginning to be alarmed concerning this brother-in-law, who was more attentive, more jealous, more exacting than a husband.

"Oh! the poor, dear fellow, the poor, dear, fellow," said the sentimental American, "if you could see how unhappy he is!"

And, shaking her curls, she unrolled her music-roll and took from it the poor, dear fellow's letters, which she had carefully hidden between the leaves of her songs, delighted to be involved in this love-story, to give vent to her emotion in an atmosphere of intrigue and mystery which melted her cold eyes and suffused her dry, pale complexion.

Strange to say, while lending her aid most willingly to this constant going and coming of love-letters, the youthful and attractive Dobson had never written or received a single one on her own account.

Always on the road between Asnieres and Paris with an amorous message under her wing, that odd carrier-pigeon remained true to her own dovecot and cooed for none but unselfish motives.

When Sidonie showed her Frantz's note, Madame Dobson asked:

"What shall you write in reply?"

"I have already written. I consented."

"What! You will go away with that madman?"

Sidonie laughed scornfully.

"Ha! ha! well, hardly! I consented so that he may go and wait for me at the station. That is all. The least I can do is to give him a quarter of an hour of agony. He has made me miserable enough for the last month.

Just consider that I have changed my whole life for my gentleman! I have had to close my doors and give up seeing my friends and everybody I know who is young and agreeable, beginning with Georges and ending with you.

For you know, my dear, you weren't agreeable to him, and he would have liked to dismiss you with the rest."

The one thing that Sidonie did not mention--and it was the deepest cause of her anger against Frantz--was that he had frightened her terribly by threatening to tell her husband her guilty secret. From that moment she had felt decidedly ill at ease, and her life, her dear life, which she so petted and coddled, had seemed to her to be exposed to serious danger. Yes, the thought that her husband might some day be apprized of her conduct positively terrified her.

That blessed letter put an end to all her fears. It was impossible now for Frantz to expose her, even in the frenzy of his disappointment, knowing that she had such a weapon in her hands; and if he did speak, she would show the letter, and all his accusations would become in Risler's eyes calumny pure and simple. Ah, master judge, we have you now!

"I am born again--I am born again!" she cried to Madame Dobson. She ran out into the garden, gathered great bouquets for her salon, threw the windows wide open to the sunlight, gave orders to the cook, the coachman, the gardener. The house must be made to look beautiful, for Georges was coming back, and for a beginning she organized a grand dinner-party for the end of the week.

The next evening Sidonie, Risler, and Madame Dobson were together in the salon. While honest Risler turned the leaves of an old handbook of mechanics, Sidonie sang to Madame Dobson's accompaniment. Suddenly she stopped in the middle of her aria and burst into a peal of laughter. The clock had just struck ten.

Risler looked up quickly.

"What are you laughing at?"

"Nothing-an idea that came into my head," replied Sidonie, winking of Madame Dobson and pointing at the clock.

It was the hour appointed for the meeting, and she was thinking of her lover's torture as he waited for her to come.

Since the return of the messenger bringing from Sidonie the "yes" he had so feverishly awaited, a great calm had come over his troubled mind, like the sudden removal of a heavy burden. No more uncertainty, no more clas.h.i.+ng between pa.s.sion and duty.

Not once did it occur to him that on the other side of the landing some one was weeping and sighing because of him. Not once did he think of his brother's despair, of the ghastly drama they were to leave behind them.

He saw a sweet little pale face resting beside his in the railway train, a blooming lip within reach of his lip, and two fathomless eyes looking at him by the soft light of the lamp, to the soothing accompaniment of the wheels and the steam.

Two hours before the opening of the gate for the designated train, Frantz was already at the Lyon station, that gloomy station which, in the distant quarter of Paris in which it is situated, seems like a first halting-place in the provinces. He sat down in the darkest corner and remained there without stirring, as if dazed.

Instinctively, although the appointed hour was still distant, he looked among the people who were hurrying along, calling to one another, to see if he could not discern that graceful figure suddenly emerging from the crowd and thrusting it aside at every step with the radiance of her beauty.

After many departures and arrivals and shrill whistles, the station suddenly became empty, as deserted as a church on weekdays. The time for the ten o'clock train was drawing near. There was no other train before that. Frantz rose. In a quarter of an hour, half an hour at the least, she would be there.

Frantz went hither and thither, watching the carriages that arrived.

Each new arrival made him start. He fancied that he saw her enter, closely veiled, hesitating, a little embarra.s.sed. How quickly he would be by her side, to comfort her, to protect her!

The hour for the departure of the train was approaching. He looked at the clock. There was but a quarter of an hour more. It alarmed him; but the bell at the wicket, which had now been opened, summoned him. He ran thither and took his place in the long line.

"Two first-cla.s.s for Ma.r.s.eilles," he said. It seemed to him as if that were equivalent to taking possession.

He made his way back to his post of observation through the luggage-laden wagons and the late-comers who jostled him as they ran.

The drivers shouted, "Take care!" He stood there among the wheels of the cabs, under the horses' feet, with deaf ears and staring eyes. Only five minutes more. It was almost impossible for her to arrive in time.

At last she appeared.

Yes, there she is, it is certainly she--a woman in black, slender and graceful, accompanied by another shorter woman--Madame Dobson, no doubt.

But a second glance undeceived him. It was a young woman who resembled her, a woman of fas.h.i.+on like her, with a happy face. A man, also young, joined them. It was evidently a wedding-party; the mother accompanied them, to see them safely on board the train.

Now there is the confusion of departure, the last stroke of the bell, the steam escaping with a hissing sound, mingled with the hurried footsteps of belated pa.s.sengers, the slamming of doors and the rumbling of the heavy omnibuses. Sidonie comes not. And Frantz still waits.

At that moment a hand is placed on his shoulder.