XXXIII
RECONCILIATION
"Which do you prefer, Mademoiselle? The multi-coloured cockades or thebows of ribbon in one shade? We have both in satin of the bestquality."
Wilhelmine de Naarboveck hesitated. The representative from "TheLadies' Paradise" continued:
"The cockades of various colours do very well: they are gay, lookbright; but the bows of ribbon also produce an excellent effect--sodistinguished! Both articles are in great demand."
Wilhelmine answered at random:
"Oh, put in half of each!"
"And what quantity, Mademoiselle?"
"Oh, three hundred will be sufficient, I should think."
The shopwoman displayed her assortment of cotillion objects. She didher part ably. But Wilhelmine de Naarboveck gave but a perfunctoryattention to this choosing of cotillion accessories.
The saleswoman was more and more astonished. She considered that wereher customer's orders executed to the letter she would have the oddestassortment of cotillion accessories that could be imagined. Sheadroitly called Wilhelmine's attention to this.
Realising that she had been giving orders at random, the absent-mindedgirl came to a decision.
"We have every confidence in your house being able to supply us with acotillion complete in every detail. You know better than I what isnecessary. I will leave it to you, then, to see that everything isdone as well as possible."
The saleswoman was full of delighted protestations. Though satisfiedwith a decision that simplified her task, she was surprised that ayoung girl as free to act and order as Mademoiselle de Naarboveckseemed to be, did not take interest in the details of a fete which, asrumour had it, was given in her honour.
"Ah!" said the young woman, as she collected the patterns scatteredover a table in the hall, "if all our customers were like you,Mademoiselle, and allowed us to carry out our own ideas, we should domarvellous things!"
Wilhelmine smiled, but--would this saleswoman never have done!
"Of course, Mademoiselle, we make similar ribbons for you and yourpartner; but would you kindly tell me if the gentleman is tall orshort? It is better to make the ribbons of a length proportionate tothe height."
This question troubled Wilhelmine.... The leader of the cotillionshould have been Henri de Loubersac. Was not their betrothal to havebeen announced at the ball?... But the painful interview atSaint-Sulpice seemed to have put an end to all relations between them!
Who, then, would lead with her?
Little she cared!
"Really, Madame," replied Wilhelmine to the woman, who was astonishedat her indifference: "I do not know how tall or short my partner is,for the very good reason that I do not know who he is!... Provide,then, a set of ribbons which may suit anybody!"
When the representative of "The Ladies' Paradise" had taken herdeparture, Wilhelmine went up to the library. Except for the stiff andsolemn household staff, Wilhelmine was alone in the house. Her fatherwas still absent: Mademoiselle Berthe had vanished.
The house was turned upside down from top to bottom. Decorators andelectricians were in possession. Hammering had been going on all theafternoon. Furniture had been displaced, pushed hither and thither.The hall had been denuded of all but the table; even the privacy ofthe library had been invaded--and all in preparation for the ball ofthe day after to-morrow, to which the baron de Naarboveck had invitedthe highest personages of the aristocratic and official worlds.
What a lively interest Wilhelmine had at first taken in this fete!
The baron was giving it to set a public seal on his diplomaticposition, for hitherto he had not been definitely attached to hisembassy; now he was to be the accredited ambassador of a certainforeign power. Also he intended to announce the betrothal of the youngcouple.
Alas! this latter project had suffered shipwreck!
As Wilhelmine sat in lonely state in the library, she saw a dismalfuture opening before her. Not only had her heart been torn by thebrusque rupture with Henri de Loubersac, but everything which made upher home life, such as it was, seemed falling to pieces.... No doubtthe diplomat was obliged to be continually absent, but Wilhelminesuffered from this solitude, this abandonment.... She had becomeattached to the gay and companionable Mademoiselle Berthe, who hadbeen the life and soul of the house. She had disappeared: no tidingsof her doings or whereabouts had reached Wilhelmine. There must besome very serious reason for this....
The mysterious occurrences of the past weeks had altered her world,shaken it to its insecure foundations, and inevitably affected heroutlook. Life seemed a melancholy thing: how gloomy, how helpless heroutlook!
More than ever before she felt in every fibre of her being that shewas not the daughter of the baron de Naarboveck, that she was indeedTherese Auvernois. But what a fatal destiny must be hers! An existenceopen to the attacks of misfortune, at the mercy of a being, enigmatic,indefatigable, who, time and again, had thrown his horrible influenceacross her destiny, was throwing it now--the sinister Fantomas!
Wilhelmine was torn from her miserable reflections by the irruption ofa domestic, who announced:
"Monsieur de Loubersac is asking if Mademoiselle can receive him!"
Wilhelmine rose from the divan on which she had been reclining. In anexpressionless voice she said:
"Show him in."
When the young officer of cuirassiers appeared, his air wasembarrassed, his head was bent.
"You here, Monsieur?" Wilhelmine's voice and manner expressedindignation.
But Henri de Loubersac was no longer the arrogant unbeliever of theSaint-Sulpice interview.
"Excuse me!" he murmured.
"What do you want?" demanded Wilhelmine, her head held high.
"Your forgiveness," he said in a voice barely audible.
De Loubersac had come to his senses.
His intense jealousy had distorted his judgment.
Desperate after the Saint-Sulpice interview, when, so it had seemed tohim, Wilhelmine had avoided a categorical denial of his accusationregarding her liaison with Captain Brocq, the frantic lover had flownto Juve and had poured out his soul to the sympathetic detective.
Juve had shown himself no sceptic. He believed Wilhelmine's story andstatements. They coincided with his own prognostications: theyexplained why Wilhelmine went regularly to pray at Lady Beltham'stomb: they corroborated his conjectures, they confirmed his forecasts.
If he did not confess it to de Loubersac, he knew in his own mind thatthese statements indicated that between this Baron de Naarboveck andthe redoubtable bandit he was pursuing so determinedly there was someconnection, possibly as yet unfathomed, but in his heart of hearts hebelieved he had lighted on the truth. His conviction that deNaarboveck and Fantomas had relations of some sort dated from thenight of his own arrest as Vagualame in the house of de Naarboveck. Hehad gone further than that.
"Yes," he had said to himself: "de Naarboveck must be a manifestationof Fantomas!"
Corporal Vinson's revelations regarding the den in the rue Monge hadbut strengthened Juve's impression. He had said to himself after that,"De Naarboveck, Vagualame, Fantomas, are but one."
Juve had reassured de Loubersac: he declared that Wilhelmine hadspoken the truth, that she certainly was Therese Auvernois and themost honest girl in the world.
Juve calmed and finally convinced de Loubersac.
It only remained for the repentant lover to reinstate himself inWilhelmine's good graces--if that were possible. Now, more ardentlythan ever before, he desired to make Wilhelmine his wife. See her, bereconciled to her, he must!
He arrived at a favourable moment. The poor girl, lonely and alone,was a prey to the most gloomy forebodings. Life had lost all itssavour. She was in the depths of despair.
De Loubersac, standing before her, as at a judgment bar, againimplored her forgiveness.
"Oh, how I regret the brutal, wounding things I said to you,Wilhelmine!" he murmured humbly, sorrowfully.
The innocent girl, so bitterly wro
nged by his thoughts and words,crimsoned with indignation at the memory of them. Her tone was icy.
"I may be able to forgive you, Monsieur, but that is all you can hopefor."
"Will you never be able to love me again?" begged Henri, with thehumble simplicity of a boy.
"No, Monsieur." Wilhelmine's voice was hard.
It was all Henri could do not to burst into tears of humiliation anddespair.
"Wilhelmine--you are cruel!... If you could only know how you aremaking me suffer! Oh, I know I deserve to suffer! I recognise that!...All I can say now is--Farewell!... Farewell for ever!"
Wilhelmine sat silent, her face hidden in her hands.
Henri went on:
"I leave Paris shortly. I have asked for an exchange. I am to be sentto Africa, to the outposts of Morocco. I shall carry with me thememory--how cherished--of your adorable self, dearest of the dear!...It shall live in my heart until the day when, if Heaven but hear myprayers, I shall die at the head of my troops."
With that de Loubersac moved slowly to the door, overwhelmed by theconviction that he had irreparably wounded the girl he adored, that hehad destroyed for ever the love she had borne him!
A stifled cry caught his ear.
"Henri!"...
"Wilhelmine!"
They were in each others' arms and in tears.
How the lovers talked! What plans they made! How happy would be theircoming life together! What bliss!
Wilhelmine broke off:
"Henri, do you know that it is past midnight?"
"I seem only to have come!" cried her lover.
"Ah, but you should not have stayed so late, my Henri!... The baron isnot here. I am alone!... Indeed, indeed, you must go!"
"Oh," laughed the happy Henri: "Why, of course the baron is nothere!"...
Wilhelmine, all smiles, shook a finger at Henri.
"Be off with you!... Do, do be off with you!"
"Wilhelmine!"...
"Henri!"...
The lovers kissed each other--a long, lingering kiss....