第54章

I passed eight days without hearing anything further in regard to the Prefere establishment.Then, feeling myself unable to remain any longer without some news of Clementine's daughter, and feeling furthermore that I owed it as a duty to myself not to cease my visits with the school without more serious cause, I took my way to Les Ternes.

the parlour seemed to me more cold, more damp, more inhospitable, and more insidious than ever before; and the servant much more silent and much more scared.I asked to see Mademoiselle Jeanne;but, after a very considerable time, it was Mademoiselle Prefere who made her appearance instead--severe and pale, with lips compressed and a hard look in her eyes.

"Monsieur," she said, folding her arms over her pelerine, I regret very much that I cannot allow you to see Mademoiselle Alexandre to-day; but I cannot possibly do it."

"Why not?" I asked in astonishment.

"Monsieur," she replied, "the reasons which compel me to request that your visits shall be less frequent hereafter are of an excessively delicate nature; and I must beg you to spare me the unpleasantness of mentioning them.""Madame," I replied, "I have been authorized by Jeanne's guardian to see his ward every day.Will you please to inform me of your reasons for opposing the will of Monsieur Mouche?""The guardian of Mademoiselle Alexandre," she replied (and she dwelt upon that word "guardian" as upon a solid support), "desires, quite as strongly as I myself do, that your assiduities may come to an end as soon as possible.""Then, if that be the case," I said, "be kind enough to let me know his reasons and your own."She looked up at the little spiral of paper on the ceiling, and then replied, with stern composure, "You insist upon it? Well, although such explanations are very painful for a woman to make, I will yield to your exaction.This house, Monsieur is an honourable house.I have my responsibility.

I have to watch like a mother over each one of my pupils.Your assiduities in regard to Mademoiselle Alexandre could not possibly be continued without serious injury to the young girl herself; and it is my duty to insist that they shall cease.""I do not really understand you," I replied--and I was telling the plain truth.Then she deliberately resumed:

"Your assiduities in this house are being interpreted, by the most respectable and the least suspicious persons, in such a manner that I find myself obliged, both in the interest of my establishment and in the interest of Mademoiselle Alexandre, to see that they end at once.""Madame," I cried, "I have heard a great many silly things in my life, but never anything so silly as what you have just said!"She answered me quietly, "Your words of abuse will not affect me in the slightest.When one has a duty to accomplish, one is strong enough to endure all."And she pressed her pelerine over her heart once more--not perhaps on this occasion to restrain, but doubtless only to caress that generous heart.

"Madame," I said, shaking my finger at her, "you have wantonly aroused the indignation of an aged man.Be good enough to act in such a fashion that the old man may be able at least to forget your existence, and do not add fresh insults to those which I have already sustained from your lips.I give you fair warning that I shall never cease to look after Mademoiselle Alexandre; and that should you attempt to do her any harm, in any manner whatsoever, you will have serious reason to regret it!"The more I became excited, the more she became cool; and she answered in a tone of superb indifference:

"Monsieur, I am much too well informed in regard to the nature of the interest which you take in this young girl, not to withdraw her immediately from that very surveillance with which you threaten me.

After observing the more than equivocal intimacy in which you are living with your housekeeper, I ought to have taken measures at once to render it impossible for you ever to come into contact with an innocent child.In the future I shall certainly do it.If up to this time I have been too trustful, it is for Mademoiselle Alexandre, and not for you, to reproach me with it.But she is too artless and too pure--thanks to me!--ever to have suspected the nature of that danger into which you were trying to lead her.I scarecly suppose that you will place me under the necessity of enlightening her upon the subject.""Come, my poor old Bonnard," I said to myself, as I shrugged my shoulders--"so you had to live as long as this in order to learn for the first time exactly what a wicked woman is.And now your knowledge of the subject is complete."I went out without replying; and I had the pleasure of observing, from the sudden flush which overspread the face of the schoolmistress, that my silence had wounded her far more than my words.

As I passed through the court I looked about me in every direction for Jeanne.She was watching for me, and she ran to me.

"If anybody touches one little hair of your head, Jeanne, write to me! Good-bye!""No, not good-bye."

I replied, "Well, no--not good-bye! Write to me!"I went straight to Madame de Gabry's residence.

"Madame is at Rome with Monsieur.Did not Monsieur know it?""Why, yes," I replied."Madame wrote to me."...

She had indeed written to me in regard to her leaving home; but my head must have become very much confused, so that I had forgotten all about it.The servant seemed to be of the same opinion, for he looked at me in a way that seemed to signify, "Monsieur Bonnard is doting"--and he leaned down over the balustrade of the stairway to see if I was not going to do something extraordinary before Igot to the bottom.But I descended the stairs rationally enough;and then he drew back his head in disappointment.

On returning home I was informed that Monsieur Gelis was waiting for me in the parlour.(This young man has become a constant visitor.