“Oh,” said the other modestly, “just
a few canvases. Painting is so dear now, it is
a taste so difficult to satisfy, a true passion de
luxe—a passion for a Nabob,”
said he, smiling, with a furtive look over his glasses.
They were two prudent players, face to face; but Jansoulet
was a little astray in this new situation, where he
who only knew how to be bold, had to be on his guard.
“When I think,” murmured the lawyer, “that
I have been ten years covering these walls, and that
I have still this panel to fill.”
In fact, at the most conspicuous place on the wall
there was an empty place, emptied rather, for a great
gold-headed nail near the ceiling showed the visible,
almost clumsy, trace of a snare laid for the poor
simpleton, who let himself be taken in it so foolishly.
“My dear M. Le Merquier,” said he with
his engaging, good-natured voice, “I have a
Virgin of Tintoretto’s just the size of your
panel.”
Impossible to read anything in the eyes of the lawyer,
this time hidden under their overhanging brows.
“Permit me to hang it there, opposite your table.
That will help you to think sometimes of me.”
“And to soften the severities of my report,
too, sir?” cried Le Merquier, formidable and
upright, his hand on the bell. “I have seen
many shameless things in my life, but never anything
like this. Such offers to me, in my own house!”
“But, my dear colleague, I swear to you——”
“Show him out,” said the lawyer to the
hang-dog servant who had just entered; and from the
middle of his office, whose door remained open, before
all the waiting-room, where the paternosters were silent,
he pursued Jansoulet—who slunk off murmuring
excuses to the door—with these terrible
words:
“You have outraged the honour of the Chamber
in my person, sir. Our colleagues shall be informed
of it this very day; and, this crime coming after
your others, you will learn to your cost that Paris
is not the East, and that here we do not make shameless
traffic of the human conscience.”
Then, after having chased the seller from the temple,
the just man closed his door, and approaching the
mysterious green curtain, said in a tone that sounded
soft amidst his pretended anger:
“Is that what you wanted, Baroness Marie?”
That morning there were no guests to lunch at 32 Place
Vendome, so that towards one o’clock might have
been seen the majestic form of M. Barreau, gleaming
white at the gate, among four or five of his scullions
in their cook’s caps, and as many stable-boys
in Scotch caps—an imposing group, which
gave to the house the aspect of an hotel where the
staff was taking the air between the arrivals of the
trains. To complete the resemblance, a cab drew
up before the door and the driver took down an old
leather trunk, while a tall old woman, her upright
figure wrapped in a little green shawl, jumped lightly
to the footpath, a basket on her arm, looked at the
number with great attention, then approached the servants
to ask if it was there that M. Bernard Jansoulet lived.
