“Let me continue. My wife after telling me this said to Caroline: ‘Don’t be surprised if we frequently meet the Prince when we are out. It is certain that he has remarked you.’”
“Mme. Supia was right,” confessed the Prince with a bow. Mlle. Caroline could not pass unperceived.”
“With the result that both of them imagined — Great Heavens, don’t be upset Prince... it is so extraordinary, what I am going to say—”
“Go on, my dear M. Supia.”
“They imagined that there was in the world — in the world of the linen draper’s trade — a Mlle. Supia who might one day become a Princess.”
“Upon my word you don’t say so!”
“But, my dear Prince, you continue to smile. Does not all this astound you?”
“Why should it astound me, M. Supia? We have progressed considerably since the war. Where are the kings of to-day? Look around us. They are in commerce, industry, trade. The world is in their hands.... No, no, I am not astounded. On the contrary, a prince cannot but be flattered at the thought that he may become the son-in-law of one of these kings of to-day. I am speaking generally, of course. I am not sufficiently enamored of myself or my title to assume that I am going to become M. Supia’s son-in-law.”
“Prince, you are laughing at me.”
“Not at all, I assure you.”
“Are you speaking seriously?”
“Quite seriously.”
“Well, Prince, quite seriously, you were right in making that assumption, for I should not have given you my daughter.”
The Prince, taken aback, dropped his monocle.
“Why would you not have given me your daughter?”
“Because you are not in love with her?”
“Who says that I am not in love with her?”
“Something tells me that you are in love with another.”
“Let’s have done with riddles, M. Supia. I should like to know to whom you refer.”
“You are in love with my goddaughter, Mlle. Antoinette Agagnosc.”
“I? I have never paid her any attention....”
“There are ways of omitting to pay attention to girls or women, my dear Prince, which cannot deceive a man of experience like myself. It is not that I am an adept in affairs of the heart, but I have learnt how to fathom the most secret desires, the most private thoughts; or, if you prefer it, the most cleverly concealed thoughts.”
“Where did you learn all this, M. Supia?”
“In my stores, that’s all. I assure you that kleptomaniacs have a tough job of it in my stores, and it is enough for one of my customers to stare fixedly, at the lace counter for instance, for me to be convinced that she is coveting the pair of silk stockings immediately behind her. Therefore, when I saw you making yourself so agreeable to my daughter, I suspected that you were thinking only of my goddaughter, Antoinette, whom you were not looking at.”
“Tut! Tut!” said the Prince, reflecting that marriage with Antoinette would be no less brilliant than marriage with Caroline. “Tut! Tut! I hardly know if I am — Ah, allow me to say frankly, my dear M. Supia, that you greatly embarrass me.”
“But why?”
“Well.... Try to understand my hesitation.... If I were to confess, in fact, that I am not indifferent to Mlle. Antoinette, possibly you would answer me that I am much to be pitied seeing that your fixed intention was to refuse me her hand were I by chance to think of asking you for it.”
“Well, this time you are wrong. Ask me for Mlle. Antoinette’s hand, and I am quite willing to grant it.”
“You are wonderful, M. Supia. To grant me at the first endeavor the dearest of my wishes!... But tell me — we are here to discuss the matter — suppose Mlle. Antoinette who is always making fun of me....”
“Why Prince, what an indifferent psychologist you are. She is always making fun of you because she is in love with you. Did you not guess as much?”
“Upon my word, no. Are you quite sure?”
“Absolutely sure.”
“Has she told you so?”
“Not ten minutes ago.”
“Are the ladies aware of it?” asked the Prince with a certain misgiving, for despite his self-possession, he was greatly excited by the stroke of good fortune so unexpectedly fallen from the skies.
“I spoke to my wife about it several days ago. Knowing beforehand how it would end, and wishing to cut short the lamentations of my daughter, foolishly mistaken as to your feelings towards her, I took it upon myself to tell them that your views were centered on Mlle. Antoinette and you had not concealed from me that your dearest wish was to make her your Princess as soon as may be.”
“Now I understand,” exclaimed the Prince.
“That’s because you are so clever! Have you ever doubted it?”
“I doubt it to-day.... Hang it all, I feel a child compared with a man like you. You have such a way of hustling things.”
“That’s business methods, my dear Prince. Talking of business, confess that you are not making a bad bargain.”
“Oh, I know nothing of business.”
“Still the dowry has some attraction for you.”
“Good Heavens!...”
“Tut! Tut! As Antoinette says, you are cleared out....”
“Ah, Mlle. Antoinette said that, did she?”
“You live by makeshifts.”
“What?”
“But that belongs to the past, and the past is no affair of mine.”
“My dear M. Supia,” said the Prince in his most charming and languid voice, suggestive of the near East, “money has always been a second consideration with me where love is concerned. I have told you that I love Mlle. Antoinette.”
“Tut! Tut! Business is business. Two million francs in the hands of her trustees... and her share which is very large in Bella Nissa!... That’s clear. And the present is nothing compared with what the future will be.”
“How do you mean, M. Supia?”
“Yes! You will put the two million francs in Bella Nissa and you will double your income.”
“Allow me.... Allow me.”
“What! Are you by chance hesitating?”
“I don’t say that, but a moment ago you were good enough to hint at certain rumors about me. Allow me to say in turn that there are regrettable rumors in the town about Bella Nissa. The profits are said to have greatly decreased within the last two years.”
“That’s true, but there is nothing regrettable in that. We have had enormous expenses but they are already practically paid off. Moreover, with Antoinette’s two million francs — your two millions my dear Prince — the business will receive a new impetus.”
“I daresay.... I daresay.”
“If you don’t like the affair, say so.”
“But I don’t say so. Only when Prince Hippothadee marries, you understand, there will be considerable expenses.... Moreover, I have debts....”
“I suspected as much.”
“If I marry I must repay that admirable woman, the Comtesse Domingo d’Azila, who during the last five years has advanced me the wherewithal to live on, or else there would be a frightful scandal.”
“There will be no scandal seeing that nothing will he changed in your relations with this lady. You will continue to visit her as often as you please. Antoinette declares that she will be as fond of you when you are away from her as when you are with her. She will retire to the country and leave you in town. The Comtesse Domingo d’Azila will be all the better pleased for you will cost her less.”
The Prince rose from his seat, flushing to the temples. “What do you take me for?”
“I’m not taking you. I’m buying you.”
“Not at a high price, at all events.”
“Do you think so? I am guaranteeing you one hundred and fifty thousand francs a year.”
“I would remind you, Monsieur, to whom you are speaking. If I marry I must have a million.”
“My duty as trustee does not allow that. One hundred and fifty
thousand francs a year or nothing.”
“And I shall be paid monthly. You will be charitable, M. Supia.... All this might pass, if as a wedding present....”
“Not another word or I shall begin to believe that you are not in love with my goddaughter, and then I shall be compelled to ask myself what a prince of high descent like you, ruined like you, can have visited my humble abode for, unless it were in search of a dowry. What can have been the attraction here? Shall I have long to seek Hippothadee?”
The last sentence was rapped out in so doleful a tone and the hand which lay on the hapless Prince’s shoulder gripped him with so much unsuspected force, that the Prince dropped into his chair, worsted in the fight by this grotesque and formidable being.
“Oh, I am too devoted to Mlle. Antoinette to continue any longer a discussion which exhausts me. But you are very hard in business, M. Supia.”
The other chuckled and held out his hand.
“Your hand upon it. I am guaranteeing your future, prodigal son. Rely on father Supia, on the ‘tyrant’ as I am called here. You will, of course, often meet ‘tyrants’ like me to bring you on a charger, an income of one hundred and fifty thousand francs, and a handsome girl like Antoinette!... Are you really to be pitied?”
The Prince took the hand held out to him if not with effusion at least with as much good faith as he was capable of. It was then that they became accomplices. It was a critical and stirring moment. M. Supia did not let go his hold. Pie had the look of a man who had taken permanent possession of a friend from whom he was entitled to expect the utmost. Possibly he was about to give him the accolade as is the custom in French middle-class households, but the maid came in to tell him that “the ladies had just returned” and “were waiting for him in the dining room.”
“They still frown upon you,” said Supia, smiling. “Come and make your peace with them, my dear Hippothadee.”
The ladies were in fact in the dining-room. They affected the greatest surprise to see the Prince though the maid had told them that he was in the drawing-room with M. Supia.
Mme. Supia was still a very handsome woman though somewhat corpulent. Her plump neck was bedecked with a magnificent pearl necklace, her podgy wrists shook with heavy gold bracelets, and other substantial jewels lay scattered over her bust carefully clad in silk and velvet.
Thélise’s vigorous appearance stood out more fully when contrasted with the hatchet profile of her bilious-looking husband. Any other woman would have died of despair on the morrow of her honeymoon on discovering how greatly she had been deceived in him and on calculating the years of wretchedness that lay before her. But Thélise was a true daughter of this enchanting country where grief finds no place.
Biding her time, she said to herself that she was still young, and a third experience might be more fortunate than those which had gone before. It was this hope which buoyed her up in her disappointment. The years sped by. Was there a third experience? Was there more than one before Prince Hippothadee crossed her path?
At all events it would be a mistake to assume that she had not thought of having at last captured the bird of paradise for which she was seeking. But her ill-fortune continued, and she had barely tasted the consoling joy of her new adventure when Supia told her that her prince charming had asked for Antoinette’s hand. It was to succeed with Antoinette that he had paid his court to her!
For two days Thélise was like a person distraught. Caroline had no suspicion that there was any reason for her mother’s dejection other than disappointment on her account. For, Caroline had made no secret to anyone, still less to the Prince, of her hope to become a princess. Thélise made the most of this candor to give full rein to her resentment against the Prince.
Moreover, mother and daughter’s soreness was increased tenfold by the thought that the princely favor was accorded to the youthful Antoinette, incapable of behaving in society with propriety. Princess of Transylvania! Was it not enough to make them die of laughter? Meantime they wept at the thought of it.
It was to no purpose that M. Supia condescended to explain, in order to pacify his daughter, that in making Antoinette a present of the Prince, he was making a gift to himself which would not fail to be of advantage to Caroline later on when he was dead. She declined to entertain the thought of so simple a plan. M. Supia had an easier task with Thélise. To put the break on her outbursts, it had sufficed for him to look her steadily in the face and say:
“If you persist in refusing to understand me I shall begin to believe that love which was blind is deaf as well.... When I speak of love, my dear Thélise, I mean, of course, the love of a mother for her daughter.”
This second sentence, which punctuated so felicitously the first, did not quite restore her confidence, and she remained, for some moments, under the crushing weight of the first.
We have said enough to enable the reader to picture the lunch which brought together so charming a family around its head to celebrate a coming event — an event, seeming to possess its humorous side, but which bore within it the seeds of the cruellest tragedy. It was the starting point of terrible and mysterious dramas which for long convulsed an entire neighborhood hitherto devoted to the lighter side of life.
But since we are only at the beginning of the masquerade which is, as yet, still behind the scenes, we may be amused by M. Supia’s ill-humor. In spite of his artificial spirits, he failed to get a word out of Caroline or to induce Thélise to eat anything. It was the first time in her life that she had lost her appetite.
She might well have done so. For the rest, she confided herself strictly to her duties as the mistress of the house. Antoinette, clad more or less becomingly in her best with a new ribbon in her hair, entered under the tutelage of Mlle. Lévadette, still suffering from toothache, Thélise, then, after a look from the “tyrant,” pointed to a chair next the Prince, and then uttered these words in a somewhat harsh voice:
“I believe we are now all here. We can sit at table.” And they all “sat at table.”
Mme. Supia then subsided. To her husband’, who pressed her to take part in the feast, she said:
“I have already ‘done myself the pleasure’ of telling you that I have no appetite to-day.”
M. Supia, without stopping to serve his daughter, on the point, he felt, of bursting into tears, passed the dish to Mlle. Lévadette. But, Mlle. Lévadette, what with her toothache and the literal distress into which she was plunged whenever Mme. Supia indulged before the Prince, in any one of those expressions which showed that, in spite of her admission to upper middle-class society, she was still a daughter of the people, was in no mood to respond to M. Supia’s culinary advances.
The Prince for his part scarcely touched anything. He vainly sought to catch the eye of Thélise and Caroline. But to all appearances he did not exist for either of them. Antoinette had not yet addressed a word to him; and he dreaded nothing so much as being spoken to by her. She herself was immensely amused. But she kept her thoughts to herself, and the gloomy and tedious lunch pursued its course.
Suddenly the clarion-like voice of the terrible child came from the depths of the plate over which she was leaning:
“It must be very funny to be called Madame Hippothadee.”’
The old servant was the only one to burst out laughing at this absurdly fantastic remark, and she was straightway turned out of the room by M. Supia, who apologized for his goddaughter’s unbecoming playfulness and for the maid’s notorious stupidity. After which he seized the opportunity to settle the matter so that it should no longer be in question.
“Antoinette, you are a silly little thing,” he said.
“Yes, godfather.”
“And you don’t deserve the great honor in store for you.”
“What honor, godfather?”
“Prince Hippothadee has surprised and flattered my pride by asking for your hand.”
“You are making game of me. That’s tommy rot.”
“Hold your tongue, w
retched girl, or be good enough to use different language. When one is to become a Princess....”
“Oh, there’s plenty of time to talk about that. I don’t know even if he cares for me....”
“Prince, I beg you to excuse her. She acquired these manners in the country, and we haven’t had time to rid her of them.”
“Oh, I find Mlle. Antoinette delightful,” said the Prince, toying with the cord of his monocle, and craftily assuming his most agreeable air. “Under her freedom of speech I perceive an impulsive and clever nature capable of great development. We shall make a society lady of her. Mlle. Antoinette has only to set her mind to it to throw into the shade the best of them, I am sure.”
At these words Thélise’s eyes filled with tears and Caroline, growing as white as the table cloth, bit her lip till the blood came. The Prince congratulated himself on having thus roused from their icy and scornful attitude the two ladies whom he still regarded as his property. Then languidly bending over Antoinette, he went on: “You said something just now which immensely disturbed me. You must know” — here he cast a sly look at Thélise and Caroline— “that real love is shy. But however great my reserve may have been I hoped that you had in some degree guessed what my feelings were towards you.”
“Well, Monsieur le Prince, how could I have guessed them?” Antoinette made answer with her terrible candor. “Up to now you have only kissed my aunt and cousin!” The effect was instantaneous, and indubitably more complete than the Prince had expected. Thélise let fall, and shattered to pieces, a carafe from which she was pouring out some water. As to Caroline, she took the opportunity of giving way to her first attack of hysterics. The tumult disturbed M. Supia himself, who with the Prince, rushed to her assistance. Mlle. Lévadette, tormented by a raging tooth, left the room on the plea of going for the smelling salts. Antoinette alone retained her self-possession, explaining in a calm voice that there was no reason to make so much fuss because the Prince had kissed her aunt and cousin on their birthdays. No one had ever wished her many happy returns of the day which was the reason, perhaps, why the Prince hadn’t kissed her....
M. Supia could have killed her; the Prince paid no further attention to her. Thélise took her daughter in her arms. M. Supia went to her assistance, but she pushed him aside without ceremony.
Collected Works of Gaston Leroux Page 408
