La Constantin | Page 9

with one fond look he might have
won pardon for far greater neglect.
An hour before the treasurer's arrival there had been a knock at the door
of the old house, and Maitre Quennebert, curled, pomaded, and
prepared for conquest, had presented himself at the widow's. She
received him with a more languishing air than usual, and shot such
arrows at him froth her eyes that to escape a fatal wound he pretended
to give way by degrees to deep sadness. The widow, becoming alarmed,
asked with tenderness--
"What ails you this evening?"
He rose, feeling he had nothing to fear from his rival, and, being master
of the field, might henceforth advance or recede as seemed best for his
interests.
"What ails me?" he repeated, with a deep sigh. "I might deceive you,
might give you a misleading answer, but to you I cannot lie. I am in
great trouble, and how to get out of it I don't know."
"But tell me what it is," said the widow, standing up in her turn.
Maitre Quennebert took three long strides, which brought him to the far
end of the room, and asked--
"Why do you want to know? You can't help me. My trouble is of a kind
a man does not generally confide to women."

"What is it? An affair of honour?
"Yes."
"Good God! You are going to fight!" she exclaimed, trying to seize him
by the arm. "You are going to fight!"
"Ah! if it were nothing worse than that!" said Quennebert, pacing up
and down the room: "but you need not be alarmed; it is only a money
trouble. I lent a large sum, a few months ago, to a friend, but the knave
has run away and left me in the lurch. It was trust money, and must be
replaced within three days. But where am I to get two thousand
francs?"
"Yes, that is a large sum, and not easy to raise at such short notice."
"I shall be obliged to have recourse to some Jew, who will drain me dry.
But I must save my good name at all costs."
Madame Rapally gazed at him in consternation. Maitre Quennebert,
divining her thought, hastened to add--
"I have just one-third of what is needed."
"Only one-third?"
"With great care, and by scraping together all I possess, I can make up
eight hundred livres. But may I be damned in the next world, or
punished as a swindler in this, and one's as bad as the other to me, if I
can raise one farthing more."
"But suppose someone should lend you the twelve hundred francs,
what then?"
"Pardieu! I should accept them," cried the notary as if he had not the
least suspicion whom she could mean. "Do you happen to know anyone,
my dear Madame Rapally?"
The widow nodded affirmatively, at the same time giving him a

passionate glance.
"Tell me quick the name of this delightful person, and I shall go to him
to-morrow morning. You don't know what a service you are rendering
me. And I was so near not telling you of the fix I was in, lest you
should torment yourself uselessly. Tell me his name."
"Can you not guess it?"
"How should I guess it?"
"Think well. Does no one occur to you?"
"No, no one," said Quennebert, with the utmost innocence.
"Have you no friends?"
"One or two."
"Would they not be glad to help you?"
"They might. But I have mentioned the matter to no one."
"To no one?"
"Except you."
"Well?"
"Well, Madame Rapally--I hope I don't understand you; it's not possible;
you would not humiliate me. Come, come, it's a riddle, and I am too
stupid to solve it. I give it up. Don't tantalise me any longer; tell me the
name."
The widow, somewhat abashed by this exhibition of delicacy on the
part of Maitre Quennebert, blushed, cast down her eyes, and did not
venture to speak.
As the silence lasted some time, it occurred to the notary that he had

been perhaps too hasty in his supposition, and he began to cast round
for the best means of retrieving his blunder.
"You do not speak," he said; "I see it was all a joke."
"No," said the widow at last in a timid voice, "it was no joke; I was
quite in earnest. But the way you take things is not very encouraging."
"What do you mean?"
"Pray, do you imagine that I can go on while you glare at me with that
angry frown puckering your forehead, as if you had someone before
you who had tried to insult you?"
A sweet smile chased the frown from the notary's brow. Encouraged by
the suspension of hostilities, Madame Rapally with sudden boldness
approached him,