THE WIFE ACCUSED
Monsieur de Maulincour was all the more anxious to
go to this ball because he knew that Madame Jules
would be present. The fete was given by the Prefect
of the Seine, in whose salons the two social worlds
of Paris met as on neutral ground. Auguste passed
through the rooms without finding the woman who now
exercised so mighty an influence on his fate.
He entered an empty boudoir where card-tables were
placed awaiting players; and sitting down on a divan
he gave himself up to the most contradictory thoughts
about her. A man presently took the young officer
by the arm, and looking up the baron was stupefied
to behold the pauper of the rue Coquilliere, the Ferragus
of Ida, the lodger in the rue Soly, the Bourignard
of Justin, the convict of the police, and the dead
man of the day before.
“Monsieur, not a sound, not a word,” said
Bourignard, whose voice he recognized. The man
was elegantly dressed; he wore the order of the Golden-Fleece,
and a medal on his coat. “Monsieur,”
he continued, and his voice was sibilant like that
of a hyena, “you increase my efforts against
you by having recourse to the police. You will
perish, monsieur; it has now become necessary.
Do you love Madame Jules? Are you beloved by
her? By what right do you trouble her peaceful
life, and blacken her virtue?”
Some one entered the card-room. Ferragus rose
to go.
“Do you know this man?” asked Monsieur
de Maulincour of the new-comer, seizing Ferragus by
the collar. But Ferragus quickly disengaged himself,
took Monsieur de Maulincour by the hair, and shook
his head rapidly.
“Must you have lead in it to make it steady?”
he said.
“I do not know him personally,” replied
Henri de Marsay, the spectator of this scene, “but
I know that he is Monsieur de Funcal, a rich Portuguese.”
Monsieur de Funcal had disappeared. The baron
followed but without being able to overtake him until
he reached the peristyle, where he saw Ferragus, who
looked at him with a jeering laugh from a brilliant
equipage which was driven away at high speed.
“Monsieur,” said Auguste, re-entering
the salon and addressing de Marsay, whom he knew,
“I entreat you to tell me where Monsieur de
Funcal lives.”
“I do not know; but some one here can no doubt
tell you.”
The baron, having questioned the prefect, ascertained
that the Comte de Funcal lived at the Portuguese embassy.
At this moment, while he still felt the icy fingers
of that strange man in his hair, he saw Madame Jules
in all her dazzling beauty, fresh, gracious, artless,
resplendent with the sanctity of womanhood which had
won his love. This creature, now infernal to
him, excited no emotion in his soul but that of hatred;
and this hatred shone in a savage, terrible look from
his eyes. He watched for a moment when he could
speak to her unheard, and then he said:—
