"What will strike you as very strange," said Antonin Goulard, "is that the party at Cinq-Cygne have just sent Mademoiselle Anicette, the maid of the Princesse de Cadignan, in the Cinq-Cygne carriage, with a note to the stranger, and he is going now to pa.s.s the night there."

"_Ah ca_!" said Olivier Vinet, "then he is not a man; he's a devil, a phoenix, he will poculate--"

"Ah, fie! monsieur," said Madame Mollot, "you use words that are really--"

"'Poculate' is a word of the highest latinity, madame," replied Vinet, gravely. "So, as I said, he will poculate with Louis Philippe in the morning, and banquet at the Holy-Rood with Charles the Tenth at night. There is but one reason that allows a decent man to go to both camps--from Montague to Capulet! Ha, ha! I know who that stranger is.

He's--"

"The president of a railway from Paris to Lyons, or Paris to Dijon, or from Montereau to Troyes."

"That's true," said Antonin. "You have it. There's nothing but speculation that is welcomed everywhere."

"Yes, just see how great names, great families, the old and the new peerage are rushing hot-foot into enterprises and partnerships," said Achille Pigoult.

"Francs attract the Franks," remarked Olivier Vinet, without a smile.

"You are not an _olive_-branch of peace," said Madame Mollot, laughing.

"But is it not demoralizing to see such names as Verneuil, Maufrigneuse, and Herouville side by side with those of du Tillet and Nucingen in the Bourse speculations?"

"Our great Unknown is undoubtedly an embryo railway," said Olivier Vinet.

"Well, to-morrow all Arcis will be upside-down about it," said Achille Pigoult. "I shall call upon the Unknown and ask him to make me notary of the affair. There'll be two thousand deeds to draw, at the least."

"Our romance is turning into a locomotive," said Ernestine to Cecile.

"A count with a railway is all the more marriageable," remarked Achille Pigoult. "But who knows whether he is a bachelor?"

"Oh! I shall know that to-morrow from grandpapa," cried Cecile, with pretended enthusiasm.

"What a jest!" said Madame Mollot. "You can't really mean, my little Cecile, that you are thinking of that stranger?"

"But the husband is always the stranger," interposed Olivier Vinet, making a sign to Mademoiselle Beauvisage which she fully understood.

"Why shouldn't I think of him?" asked Cecile; "that isn't compromising.

Besides, he is, so these gentlemen say, either some great speculator, or some great seigneur, and either would suit me. I love Paris; and I want a house, a carriage, an opera-box, etc., in Paris."

"That's right," said Vinet. "When people dream, they needn't refuse themselves anything. If I had the pleasure of being your brother I should marry you to the young Marquis de Cinq-Cygne, who seems to me a lively young scamp who will make the money dance, and will laugh at his mother's prejudices against the actors in the famous Simeuse melodrama."

"It would be easier for you to make yourself prime-minister,"

said Madame Marion. "There will never be any alliance between the granddaughter of Grevin and the Cinq-Cygnes."

"Romeo came within an ace of marrying Juliet," remarked Achille Pigoult, "and Mademoiselle is more beautiful than--"

"Oh! if you are going to quote operas and opera beauties!" said Herbelot the notary, naively, having finished his game of whist.

"My legal brother," said Achille Pigoult, "is not very strong on the history of the middle ages."

"Come, Malvina!" said the stout notary to his wife, making no reply to his young a.s.sociate.

"Tell me, Monsieur Antonin," said Cecile to the sub-prefect, "you spoke of Anicette, the maid of the Princesse de Cadignan; do you know her?"

"No, but Julien does; she is the G.o.ddaughter of his father, and they are good friends together."

"Then try, through Julien, to get her to live with us. Mamma wouldn't consider wages."

"Mademoiselle, to hear is to obey, as they say to despots in Asia,"

replied the sub-prefect. "Just see to what lengths I will go in order to serve you."

And he left the room to give Julien orders to go with Anicette in the chariot and coax her away from the princess at any price.

XI. IN WHICH THE CANDIDATE BEGINS TO LOSE VOTES

At this moment Simon Giguet, who had got through his bowing and sc.r.a.ping to all the influential men of Arcis, and who regarded himself as sure of his election, joined the circle around Cecile and Mademoiselle Mollot.

The evening was far advanced. Ten o'clock had struck. After an enormous consumption of cakes, orgeat, punch, lemonade, and various syrups, those who had come that evening solely for political reasons and who were not accustomed to Madame Marion's floors, to them aristocratic, departed,--all the more willingly, because they were unaccustomed to sitting up so late. The evening then began to take on its usual air of intimacy. Simon Giguet hoped that he could now exchange a few words with Cecile, and he looked at her like a conqueror. The look displeased her.

"My dear fellow," said Antonin to Simon, observing on his friend's face the glory of success, "you come at a moment when the noses of all the young men in Arcis are put out of joint."

"Very much so," said Ernestine, whom Cecile had nudged with her elbow.

"We are distracted, Cecile and I, about the great Unknown, and we are quarrelling for him."

"But," said Cecile, "he is no longer unknown; he is a count."

"Some adventurer!" replied Simon Giguet, with an air of contempt.

"Will you say that, Monsieur Simon," answered Cecile, feeling piqued, "of a man to whom the Princesse de Cadignan has just sent her servants, who dined at Gondreville to-day, and is to spend this evening with the Marquise de Cinq-Cygne?"

This was said sharply, and in so hard a tone that Simon was disconcerted.

"Ah, mademoiselle," said Olivier Vinet, "if we said to each other's faces what we all say behind our backs, social life wouldn't be possible. The pleasures of society, especially in the provinces, are to slander and backbite our neighbors."

"Monsieur Simon is jealous of your enthusiasm for the mysterious count,"

said Ernestine.

"It seems to me," said Cecile, "that Monsieur Simon has no right to be jealous of my affections."

After which remark, uttered in a way to dumfound Simon, Cecile rose; the others made way for her and she went to her mother, who was just finishing her rubber of whist.

"My dearest!" cried Madame Marion, hurrying after the heiress, "I think you are rather hard on my poor Simon."

"What has she done, my dear little kitten?" asked Madame Beauvisage.

"Mamma, Monsieur Simon called my great Unknown an adventurer!"

Simon had followed his aunt and was now beside the card-table. The four persons whose interests were concerned were thus in the middle of the salon,--Cecile and her mother on one side of the table, Madame Marion and her nephew on the other.