For more than fifty years the first proscenium box on the ground floor, to the left, at the Opera, had belonged exclusively to ten members of the jockey Club, in the name of the oldest member of which the box is taken. When a place becomes vacant through any cause, the nine remaining subscribers vote on the admission of a new candidate for the vacant chair; it is a sort of academy within the national Academy of Music.
When this plan was originated, that particular corner was called “the infernal box,” but the name has fallen into desuetude since the dedication of the fine monument of M. Gamier. Nevertheless, as it is counted a high privilege to be numbered among these select subscribers, changes are rare among them; besides, the members are not, as a rule, men in their first youth. They have seen, within those walls, the blooming and the renewal of several generations of pretty women; and the number of singers and dancers to whom they have paid court in the coulisses is still greater.
From their post of observation nothing that occurs either before or behind the curtain escapes their analysis—an analysis undoubtedly benevolent on the part of men who have seen much of life, and who accord willingly, to their younger fellow-members, a little of that indulgence of which they stand in need themselves.
An event so unexpected as the enthronement of Zibeline in one of the two large boxes between the columns, in company with the Duchesse de Montgeron, Madame de Lisieux, and Madame de Nointel, did not escape their observation and comment.
“The Duchess is never thoughtless in her choice of associates,” said one of the ten. “There must be some very powerful motive to induce her to shield with her patronage a foreigner who sets so completely at defiance anything that people may say about her.”
“Nonsense! What is it, after all, that they say about this young woman?” demanded the senior member of the party. “That she rides alone on horseback. If she were to ride with a groom, some one would be sure to say that he was her lover. They say that she drives out without any female chaperon beside her in the carriage. Well, if she had one, they would probably find some other malicious thing to say. Paris has become like a little country town in its gossip.”
“And all this,” added a third member, “because she is as lovely as a dream, and because she drives the handsomest turnout in the Bois. If she were ugly, and contented herself with a hired carriage, she would be absolved without confession!”
“Where the deuce does Christian charity come in, in all this gossip?” said Henri de Prerolles to himself, who had just entered the box and overheard the last remarks. “Will you grant me your hospitality until the beginning of the next act, gentlemen?” he said aloud. “My sister’s box is full of guests and transient visitors; she can not admit even me!”
The General was a great favorite with the members of the club. One of them rose to offer him his place.
“I shall stay only a moment, to escape a cloud of questioners in the foyer. Every one that stops me asks—”
“About the new recruit in the Duchess’s box, eh?” said a member. “We, too, wish to inquire about her; we are all leagued together.”
“Thank you, no,” said the General.
“But if it is a secret—”
“There is no secret about it,” the General replied; and in a few words he explained the enigma.
“Why, then,” exclaimed the senior member, “she is indeed the fowl that lays the golden eggs! What a lucky bird will be the one that mates with her!”
The rising curtain sent the spectators back to their places. The augurs of the Duchess’s box reinstalled themselves before it where they could examine at their ease through their lorgnettes the fair stranger of whom so much had been said; and, mounting to the next floor, the General was at last able to find room among his sister’s guests.
“You can see for yourself that our young friend is altogether charming,” whispered Madame de Nointel, behind the shelter of her fan, and indicating Zibeline.
“If you pronounce her so, Madame, she can receive no higher praise,” said Henri.
“Say at once that you think me exasperating,” laughed the lady.
“Was it not you that first called her Zibeline?” Henri inquired.
“Yes, but she calls herself Valentine—which rhymes, after all. Not richly enough for her, I know, but her means allow her to do without the supporting consonant. See how beautiful she is to-night!”
In fact, twenty-four hours had sufficed to change the lonely stranger of the day before into the heroine of this evening, and the satisfaction that shone in her face tempered the somewhat haughty and disdainful expression that had hitherto characterized her.
“You have not yet said ‘good-evening’ to Mademoiselle de Vermont, Henri,” said the Duchess to her brother, and he changed his place in order to act upon her hint.
“Ah, is it you, General?” said Zibeline, affecting not to have seen him until that moment. “It seems that music interests you less than comedy.”
“What has made you form that opinion, Mademoiselle?”
“The fact that you arrive much later at the opera than at the Comedie Francaise.”
“Have you, then, kept watch upon my movements?”
“Only a passing observation of signs—quite allowable in warfare!”
“But I thought we had made a compact of peace.”
“True enough, we did make it, but suppose it were only an armistice?”
“You are ready, then, to resume hostilities?” said Henri.
“Now that I have Madame la Duchesse, your sister, for an ally, I fear no enemies.”
“Not even if I should call for aid upon the camp of Desvanneaux?”
“Alceste leagued with Tartufe? That idea never occurred to Moliere,” said Zibeline, mischievously.
“Take care!” said the Duchess, interrupting this skirmishing, “you will fall over into the orchestra! It is growing late, and if Mademoiselle de Vermont does not wish to remain to see the final conflagration, we might go now, before the crowd begins to leave.”
“I await your orders, Madame la Duchesse,” said Zibeline, rising.
The other ladies followed her example, receiving their cloaks from the hands of their cavaliers, and the occupants of the box made their exit in the following order: Zibeline, on the arm of the Duke; the Comtesse de Lisieux, leaning upon M. de Nointel; Madame de Nointel with the General; the Duchess bringing up the procession with M. de Lisieux.
As soon as they reached the outer lobby their footmen ran to find their carriages, and that of the Duc de Montgeron advanced first.
“I beg, Madame, that you will not trouble yourself to wait here until my carriage comes,” said Mademoiselle de Vermont to the Duchess, who hesitated to leave her guest alone.
“Since you wish it, I will leave you, then,” said the Duchess, “and we thank you for giving us your society this evening. My brother will accompany you to your carriage.”
When Zibeline’s vehicle drove up to the entrance in its turn, the General conducted his charge to the door of a marvellously equipped brougham, to which was harnessed a carriage-horse of powerful frame, well suited to the kind of vehicle he drew.
A thaw had begun, not yet transforming the gutters into yellow torrents rushing toward the openings of the sewer, but covering the streets with thick, black mud, over which the wheels rolled noiselessly.
“Your carriage is late, is it not?” said Zibeline, after the General had handed her into the brougham.
“My carriage?” said the General. “Behold it!”
He pointed to a passing fiacre, at the same time hailing the driver.
“Don’t call him. I will take you home myself,” said Zibeline, as if such a suggestion were the most natural thing in the world.
“You know that in France it is not the custom,” said the General.
“What! Do you bother yourself with such things at your age?”
“If my age seems to you a sufficient guaranty, that is different. I accept your invitation.”
“To the Hotel de Montgeron,” said Zibeline to her footman.
“I never shall forget your sister’s kindness to me,” she continued, as the carriage rolled away. “She fulfils my idea of the great lady better than any other woman I have seen.”
“You may be proud of her friendship,” said Henri. “When once she likes a person, it is forever. I am like her in that respect. Only I am rather slow in forming friendships.”
“And so am I.”
“That is obvious, else you would have been married ere this.”
“No doubt—to some one like young Desvanneaux, perhaps. You are very flattering! If you think that I would sacrifice my independence for a man like that—”
“But surely you do not intend to remain unmarried.”
“Perhaps I shall—if I do not meet my ideal.”
“All women say that, but they usually change their minds in the end.”
“Mine is one and indivisible. If I do not give all I give nothing.”
“And shall you wait patiently until your ideal presents himself?”
“On the contrary, I am always looking for him.”
“Did you come to Europe for that purpose?”
“For that and for nothing else.”
“And suppose, should you find your ideal, that he himself raises obstacles?”
“I shall try to smooth them away.”
“Do you believe, then, that the power of money is irresistible?”
“Far from it! A great fortune is only a trust which Providence has placed in our hands, in order that we may repair, in its name, the injustices of fate. But I have another string to my bow.”
“What is it?”
“The force of my will.”
“You have plenty of that! But suppose, by some impossible chance, your ideal resists you even then?”
“Then I know what will remain for me to do.”
“You will resort to the pistol?”
“Not for him, but for myself,” she replied, in a tone so resolute as to exclude any suggestion of bravado.
Zibeline’s horse, which was a rapid trotter, now stopped before the Hotel de Montgeron, arriving just in advance of the Duchess’s carriage, for which the Swiss was watching at the threshold of the open Porte cochere. He drew himself up; the brougham entered the gate at a swift pace, described a circle, and halted under the marquee at the main entrance. The General sprang lightly to the ground.
“I thank you, Mademoiselle,” bowing, hat in hand, to his charming conductor.
“Call me Valentine, please,” she responded, with her usual ease of manner.
“Even in the character of a stage father, that would be rather too familiar,” said the Marquis.
“Not so much so as to call me Zibeline,” said Mademoiselle de Vermont, laughing.
“Ha! ha! You know your sobriquet, then?”
“I have known it a long time! Good-night, General! We shall meet again.”
Then, addressing her footman, she said in English: “Home!”
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