The Regent's Daughter & The Conspirators (Historical Novels). Alexandre Dumas

Demoiselles Denis were so exactly what they ought to be, that is to say, in such perfect harmony with their position and education, why was Bathilde, who seemed their equal in rank, as visibly distinguished as they were vulgar? Whence came this immense difference between girls of the same class and age? There must be some secret, which the chevalier would no doubt know some day or other. A second pressure of the Abbe Brigaud's foot against his made him understand that, however true his reflections were, he had chosen a bad moment for abandoning himself to them. Indeed, Madame Denis took so sovereign an air of dignity, that D'Harmental saw that he had not an instant to lose if he wished to efface from her mind the bad impression which his distraction had caused.

      "Madame," said he directly, with the most gracious air he could assume, "that which I already see of your family fills me with the most lively desire to know the rest. Is not your son at home, and shall not I have the pleasure of seeing him?"

      "Monsieur," answered Madame Denis, to whom so amiable an address had restored all her good humor, "my son is with M. Joulu, his master; and, unless his business brings him this way, it is improbable that he will make your acquaintance."

      "Parbleu! my dear pupil," said the Abbe Brigaud, extending his hand toward the door; "you are like Aladdin. It is enough for you to express a wish, and it is fulfilled."

      Indeed, at this moment they heard on the staircase the song about Marlborough, which at this time had all the charm of novelty; the door was thrown open, and gave entrance to a boy with a laughing face, who much resembled Mademoiselle Athenais.

      "Good, good, good," said the newcomer, crossing his arms, and remarking the ordinary number of his family increased by the abbe and the chevalier. "Not bad, Madame Denis; she sends Boniface to his office with a bit of bread and cheese, saying, 'Beware of indigestion,' and, in his absence, she gives feasts and suppers. Luckily, poor Boniface has a good nose. He comes through the Rue Montmartre; he snuffs the wind, and says, 'What is going on there at No. 5, Rue du Temps Perdu?' So he came, and here he is. Make a place for one."

      And, joining the action to the word, Boniface drew a chair to the table, and sat down between the abbe and the chevalier.

      "Monsieur Boniface," said Madame Denis, trying to assume a severe air, "do you not see that there are strangers here?"

      "Strangers!" said Boniface, taking a dish from the table, and setting it before himself; "and who are the strangers? Are you one, Papa Brigaud? Are you one, Monsieur Raoul? You are not a stranger, you are a lodger." And, taking a knife and fork, he set to work in a manner to make up for lost time.

      "Pardieu! madame," said the chevalier, "I see with pleasure that I am further advanced than I thought I was. I did not know that I had the honor of being known to Monsieur Boniface."

      "It would be odd if I did not know you," said the lawyer's clerk, with his mouth full; "you have got my bedroom."

      "How, Madame Denis!" said D'Harmental, "and you left me in ignorance that I had the honor to succeed in my room to the heir apparent of your family? I am no longer astonished to find my room so gayly fitted up; I recognize the cares of a mother."

      "Yes, much good may it do you; but I have one bit of advice to give you. Don't look out of window too much."

      "Why?" asked D'Harmental.

      "Why? because you have a certain neighbor opposite you."

      "Mademoiselle Bathilde," said the chevalier, carried away by his first impulse.

      "Ah! you know that already?" answered Boniface; "good, good, good; that will do."——"Will you be quiet, monsieur!" cried Madame Denis.

      "Listen!" answered Boniface; "one must inform one's lodgers when one has prohibited things about one's house. You are not in a lawyer's office; you do not know that."

      "The child is full of wit," said the Abbe Brigaud in that bantering tone, thanks to which it was impossible to know whether he was serious or not.

      "But," answered Madame Denis, "what would you have in common between Monsieur Raoul and Bathilde?"

      "What in common? Why, in a week, he will be madly in love with her, and it is not worth loving a coquette."

      "A coquette?" said D'Harmental.

      "Yes, a coquette, a coquette," said Boniface; "I have said it, and I do not draw back. A coquette, who flirts with the young men and lives with an old one, without counting that little brute of a Mirza, who eats up all my bon-bons, and now bites me every time she meets me."

      "Leave the room, mesdemoiselles," cried Madame Denis, rising and making her daughters rise also. "Leave the room. Ears so pure as yours ought not to hear such things."

      And she pushed Mademoiselle Athenais and Mademoiselle Emilie toward the door of their room, where she entered with them.

      As to D'Harmental, he felt a violent desire to break Boniface's head with a wine-bottle. Nevertheless, seeing the absurdity of the situation, he made an effort and restrained himself.

      "But," said he, "I thought that the bourgeois whom I saw on the terrace—for no doubt it is of him that you speak, Monsieur Boniface—"

      "Of himself, the old rascal; what did you think of him?"

      "That he was her father."

      "Her father! not quite. Mademoiselle Bathilde has no father."

      "Then, at least, her uncle?"

      "Her uncle after the Bretagne fashion, but in no other manner."

      "Monsieur," said Madame Denis, majestically coming out of the room, to the most distant part of which she had doubtless consigned her daughters, "I have asked you, once for all, not to talk improprieties before your sisters."

      "Ah, yes," said Boniface, "my sisters; do you believe that, at their age, they cannot understand what I said, particularly Emilie, who is three-and-twenty years old?"

      "Emilie is as innocent as a new-born child," said Madame Denis, seating herself between Brigaud and D'Harmental.

      "I should advise you not to reckon on that. I found a pretty romance for Lent in our innocent's room. I will show it to you, Pere Brigaud; you are her confessor, and we shall see if you gave her permission to read her prayers from it."

      "Hold your tongue, mischief-maker," said the abbe, "do you not see how you are grieving your mother?"

      Indeed Madame Denis, ashamed of this scene passing before a young man on whom, with a mother's foresight, she had already begun to cast an eye, was nearly fainting. There is nothing in which men believe less than in women's faintings, and nothing to which they give way more easily. Whether he believed in it or not, D'Harmental was too polite not to show his hostess some attention in such circumstances. He advanced toward her with his arms extended. Madame Denis no sooner saw this support offered to her than she let herself fall, and, throwing her head back, fainted in the chevalier's arms.

      "Abbe," said D'Harmental, while Boniface profited by the circumstance to fill his pockets with all the bon-bons left on the table, "bring a chair."

      The abbe pushed forward a chair with the nonchalance of a man familiar with such accidents, and who is beforehand quite secure as to the result.

      They seated Madame Denis, and D'Harmental gave her some salts, while the Abbe Brigaud tapped her softly in the hollow of the hand; but, in spite of these cares, Madame Denis did not appear disposed to return to herself; when all at once, when they least expected it, she started to her feet as if by a spring, and gave a loud cry.

      D'Harmental thought that a fit of hysterics was following the fainting. He was truly frightened, there was such an accent of reality in the scream that the poor woman gave.

      "It is nothing," said Boniface, "I have only just emptied the water-bottle down her back. That is what brought her to; you saw that she did not know how to manage it. Well, what?" continued the pitiless fellow, seeing Madame Denis look angrily at him; "it is I; do you not recognize me, Mother Denis? It is your little Boniface, who loves you so."

      "Madame," said