Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 July 1894 — A Promise Under Stress. [ARTICLE]

A Promise Under Stress.

The Comtesse de Moncley—who will soon change her name, as you shall see—is one of the most delicious widows imaginable, and also one of the cleverest I have ever met. From the very first day she knew precisely how to avoid any exaggeration that could be considered bad taste in the expression of her sorrow, without falling into the other extreme and making those who saw her in her widow’s weeds think she must wear red satin under her crape. Early in April she had quietly left her Paris apartment, where no male visitor had set foot since her husband’s death, and it was only by accident that, a week later, I discovered the address she had so carefully concealed from everyone. It was “Sycamore Villa, Chantilly.” On the first of May there might have been seen to arrive at a little bit of a house, situated at a convenient distance from Sycamore Villa, several trunks, an English cart and pony, a saddle horse, a bull-terrier, two servants, and a man bordering on thirty. That man was myself. I hasten to add that, in this circumstance, I acted solely at my own risk and peril, witliout authorization, any right whatever, and with no other motive than my love—my profound love—to prompt me to hope that my change of domicile would not be a dead loss. Ah, well—nothlngventure, nothing win. And what did I venture? The Salon, the May fetes, the Grand Prix, the mob in the AJlee des Po-, teaux, a few balls—what t:«re they in comparison with the charosft of V most attractive neighborhood? i have known men to cross the seas end spend fortunes to follow to the ends of the world adventurosses whose whole body was not worth the tip of Mme. de Moncley’s little finger.

Clarisse’s pretty anger when I presented myself at her house, on the day of my arrival, was my first delightful recompense. In spite of her grand air, I saw that she was touched, and I doubt if ever [over gxperienced so much pbjasure in Being iii£ ibsi. i>y a woman. •She tooknef urn?*'aßout IT, tos, and only pushed mh Irilo tße street after a regulation phillippic, to which I listened very humbly, replying only so much as was necessary to lengthen the lecture, which concluded in these words: “And now do me the favor to return to Paris. The train leaves in an hour.” “An hour!” I objected, timidly. “That is hardly time to ship two horses and a carriage and throw up a lease ” “ What is this !” she cried. “A lease! You have presumed to—go, sir! What audacity 1 A lease ! And, if you please, where is your house ?” “A long distance from here,” I hastened to reply; “atthe other end of the forest. lam sure it must have taken me fully three-quarters of an hour to come here.” To be precise, it had taken me about five minutes. “To think,” she exclaimed, “what a poor woman, deprived of her protector, is exposed to! You would not have dared to do this if my husband were still alive. And to think that he considered you his best friend! Poor Charles!” “He has never had any cause to complain,” I murmured. “Let us talk together of him.” “Never!” “Then let us talk of ourselves, that will be better still.”

This suggestion shocked her so that it took me a long time to calm her. Finally, she did not wish to let me go without having sworn never to set in her house agaip. It is needless to say that it took half an hour to persuade me to make this promise —which I broke the next morning and as often as possible. ~ ~ Mi - ~ »-• ■, I pass over the months that followed, merely declaring that in this vale of tears there is no more happy lot than that of such an unhappy lover as I wqs. Clarisse had the most adorable way of annihilating me with a look from her blue eyes—eyes that were intended for quite another purpose than annihilating—whenever she saw that I was going to fall on my knees before her, and I must confess she saw it at least ten times during every visit I made her, still in despite of her express prohibition. The day she left off crape I profited by the occasion—naturally enough, it seems to me—to propose myself in set terms as a candidate to succeed poor Charles. That evening, it was a June evening, and the acacias made the most of the power which certain vegetables possess of intoxicating one with their perfume—that evening her hand reached for the bell. Clarisse did not threaten this time, she acted. I saw that I was on the point of being put out by her servants—who consisted of an old woman who had been her nurse, and whom 1 could have bowled over with a breath, However, it'was no time for airy persiflage. Without waiting for Nancy to seize me by the collar, I took my hat and fled. When day broke I had not closed my eyes; not that the situation seemed desperate, for I had learned to read Clarisse’s eyes. But, all night long I had repeated over and over again to myself: “Heaven grant that the little hotel iii the Atenue Friedland is still for sale! We would be so comfortable there.” In spite of this I was no further advanced when September came, the last month of my lease. I was no longer shown the door when I suggested ray candidacy, but Clarisse assumed a bored air and calmly talked of something else. Between

ourselves, I would rather she rung the bell, for I divined that she was thinking: “My dear friend, you do not displease me; quite the contrary. But you must confess that, in the solitude of Chantilly I have scarcely had opportunity to enjoy my widowhood. Let me see if it is really worthy of its reputation. In a year or two we can talk of your affair.” In a year or two! Pretty and charming as she was, Clarisse would have a score of adorers around her, and adorers around the woman one wants to marry are like flies in the milk; they may do no great harm, but they certainly do not improve the milk. Early in September Mme. de Moncley informed me one day that she was going to Paris on the morrow to have a look at her apartment. “I sincerely hope,” she added, in a severe tone, “that you do not think of accompanying me.” “How can you suggest such a thing?” said I, with apparent submission. “You leave at ” “At eight in the evening, as I do not wish to be seen. I shall send Nancy in the afternoon to prepare my room. Ah, poor Paris!” She rio longer said “Poor Charles I” I admit that this “Poor Paris!” made me much more uneasy. The next evening, at eight o’clock, the doors of the express train, which stops hardly a minute, were already closed. Clarisse had not appeared. She reached the station just as the bell rang. “Quick, hurry up, madame!” cried the railroad official. “Hurry!” I repeated, opening a compartment at random and helping her in. But instead of getting in, she fell back, almost fainting, in my arms. Here is what she had seen, and I, too, had seen over her shoulder; The seats of the compartment were unoccupied, and three men, perched like monkeys on the back of the seats, held to their shoulders three guns, whereof the barrels shone in the lamplight like cannons. One of them, as we opened the door, had shouted in a terrible voice: “Don’t come in, /or ”

I had closed the door so quickly thai we had not heard the end of the sentence. Then Clarisse and I bundled ourselves into the next compartment without quite knowing what we were doing. The train was alrtudy under way. We were alone. Mme. de Moncley seemed half dead with fear, and I must confess I was violently shaken. “Did you see them?” she cried. “What can be happening in that compartment? They are going to fight—to kill each other! What terrible tragedy is to be enacted right beside us?” “I replied. “Only"Sh£ explanation sSems possible to me. They are hunters who nave suddenly go tie crfizy. Otherwise, why should they climb upon the seats? If they simply wanted to kill each other, they could do it without all that gymnustics.” “No,” suggested Clarisse, “it is some dreadful American kind of duel. In such a case, it seems, they climb up on anything they can find. But why didn’t they stop them at Chantilly?” "The train itself scarcely stopped there.”. “Did you hear how they called out ‘Don’t come in!’? The wretches, they don’t want to be disturbed while they are killing themselves. Goodness 1 Just listen 1” The fusillade had commenced right beside us. Several gun-shots had sounded, dominated by a shrill, piercing cry, which still rings in my ears. Then a deathly silence ensued; they were all dead, however bad shots they might have been. Though we were making about fifty miles an hour at the time, I made ready to get out upon the step and find out what was going on in our neighbor’s compartment. As I lowered the window two arms seized me and a voice broken with anguish—but which sounded very sweet, just the same—gasped behind me: ‘ Philip, if you love me, do not go! They will kill you!”

I saw the advantage of my situation, and I resolved to profit by it. I profited by it so well that, afer a dialogue too intimate to be repeated Jiere, I was in a position to sing—if I ha<i k voice, which I havn’t—“Thouoq ha-ast it.” For she had said it. Poor Charles was distanced now. She had said the sweet words: “I love you.” A prey to emotions bordering on the hysterical,..Clarisse sobbed and clung to me with all her strength, though I had not the faintest desire to intrude on the massacre next door. As for me, I was very much occupied just then. That is why, early the next morning, I hurried to my lawyer to speak to him about the little hotel in the Avenue Friedland, which was still for sale, but thank fortune, is now no longer in the market. Decorators and furnishers are at work in it, and when January comes, you will see it occupied by a certain young couple that I know of. But let us not anticipate. When the train pulled into the city, my companion and I had quite forgotten our neighbors, or what was left of them; but now the authorities must be informed and the bodies removed. I had jumped out and was looking for a sergeant de ville, when I beheld the door of the famous compartment open and the three hunters calmly descend from it, carrying, rolled up in a rug, an inert mass which looked as if it might be the body of a young child. Without an instant’s hesitation, I seized one of the assassins by the collar.

“Scoundrel!” I cried. “What have you got in that rug!” “Don’t make such a row,” he replied, “or we’ll have a hundred people at our backs. It is only my poor dog.” “Dog!” I repeated, indignant at the man’s coolness. “Come, come, you cannot deceive me. I saw it all.” My captive, whom I still held by the collar, opened a corner of the rug and showed me a setter’s muzzle with flecks of foam on it dappled with blood. I dropped my hold on the man’s collar in the greatest confusion.” “Really, J scarcely know how to

apologize,” I said. “But, frankly, j it is not astonishing that I should have been deceived—three men crouching on the seats of the carriage | and shooting “Still, the explanation is very simple. My dog was bitten three weeks ago. I had the wound cauterized, and thought the animal was saved. We had been hunting all day near Creil, were we on the train than hydrophobia developed and the animal began to J snap at us. To attempt to put the beast out was to tempt death, and there was nothing for it but us to climb up on the seats and shoot the dog. We were not able to do so until after we left Chantilly, for the poor brute had taken refuge under the seat. Finally, by calling it, I persuaded it to put its head out, and then we shot it. I tell you, it’s a trip I shall not soon forget.” “Nor shall I,” I replied, and I rejoined Clarisse, who was waiting for me at a little distance and whose curiosity was vastly excited to see me thus politely take leave of the assassins. “Well, then,” she said, making a little face when I had told her story, “that doesn’t count. I take back what I said.” But at the same time she softly squeezed my arm with her own, and I saw in her eyes that “that” did “count.”—[From the French, in the Argonaut.