Balsamo contemplated the lovely face without perceiving a twinge, wrinkle or color, as she helped them to the dish, cooked by Labrie, furnished by Gilbert, and maligned by the baron.
"Are you admiring the salt dish again, baron?"
"No, the arm of your daughter."
"Capital! the reply is worthy the gallant Richelieu. That piece of plate was ordered of Goldsmith Lucas by the Regent of Orleans. Subject: the Amours of the Bacchantes and Satyrs – rather free."
More than free, obscene – but Balsamo admired the calm unconcern of Andrea, not blenching as she presented the plate.
"Do eat," said the host; "do not fancy that another dish is coming, for you will be dreadfully disappointed."
"Excuse me, father," interrupted the girl with habitual coolness, "but if Nicole has understood me, she will have made a cake of which I told her the recipe."
"You gave Nicole the recipe of a cake? Your waiting maid does the cooking now, eh? The next thing will be your doing it yourself. Do you find duchesses and countesses playing the kitchen-wench? On the contrary, the king makes omelets for them. Gracious! that I have lived to see women-cooks under my roof. Pray excuse my daughter, baron."
"We must eat, father," rebuked Andrea tranquilly. "Dish up, Legay!" she called out, and the girl brought in a pancake of appetizing smell.
"I know one who won't touch the stuff," cried Taverney, furiously dashing his plate to pieces.
"But the gentleman, perhaps, will," said the lady coldly. "By the way, father, that leaves only seventeen pieces in that set, which comes to me from my mother."
The guest's spirit of observation found plenty of food in this corner of life in the country. The salt dish alone revealed a facet of Taverney's character or rather all its sides. From curiosity or otherwise, he stared at Andrea with such perseverance that she tried to frown him down; but finally she gave way and yielded to his mesmeric influence and command.
Meanwhile the baron was storming, grumbling, snarling and nipping the arm of Labrie, who happened to get into his way. He would have done the same to Nicole's when the baron's gaze fell on her hands.
"Just look at what pretty fingers this lass has," he exclaimed. "They would be supremely pretty only for her kitchen work having made corns at the tips. That is right; perk up, my girl! I can tell you, my dear guest, that Nicole Legay is not a prude like her mistress and compliments do not frighten her."
Watching the baron's daughter, Balsamo noticed the highest disdain on her beauteous face. He harmonized his features with hers and this pleased her, spite of herself, for she looked at him with less harshness, or, better, with less disquiet.
"This girl, only think," continued the poor noble, chucking the girl's chin with the back of his hand, "was at the nunnery with my daughter and picked up as much schooling. She does not leave her mistress a moment. This devotion would rejoice the philosophers, who grant souls to her class."
"Father, Nicole stays with me because I order her to do so," observed Andrea, discontented.
By the curl of the servant's lip, Balsamo saw that she was not insensible to the humiliations from her proud superior. But the expression flitted; and to hide a tear, perhaps, the girl looked aside to a window on the yard. Everything interested the visitor, and he perceived a man's face at the panes.
Each in this curious abode had a secret, he thought; "I hope not to be an hour here without learning Andrea's. Already I know her father's, and I guess Nicole's."
Taverney perceived his short absence of mind.
"What! are you dreaming?" he questioned. "We are all at it, here; but you might have waited for bedtime. Reverie is a catching complaint. My daughter broods; Nicole is wool-gathering; and I get puzzling about that dawdler who killed these birds – and dreams when he kills them. Gilbert is a philosopher, like Labrie. I hope you are not friendly with them? I forewarn you that philosophers do not go down with me."
"They are neither friends nor foes to me," replied the visitor; "I do not have anything to do with them."
"Very good. Zounds, they are scoundrelly vermin, more venomous than ugly. They will ruin the monarchy with their maxims, like 'People can hardly be virtuous under a monarchy;' or, 'Genuine monarchy is an institution devised to corrupt popular manners, and make slaves;' or yet, 'Royal authority may come by the grace of God, but so do plagues and miseries of mankind.' Pretty flummery, all this! What good would a virtuous people be, I beg? Things are going to the bad, since his Majesty spoke to Voltaire and read Diderot's book."
At this Balsamo fancied again to spy the pale face at the window, but it vanished as soon as he fixed his eyes upon it.
"Is your daughter a philosopher?" he asked, smiling.
"I do not know what philosophy is; I only know that I like serious matters," was Andrea's reply.
"The most serious thing is to live; stick to that," said her father.
"But the young lady cannot hate life," said the stranger.
"All depends," she said.
"Another stupid saying," interrupted Taverney. "That is just the nonsense my son talks. I have the misfortune to have a son. The Viscount of Taverney is cornet in the dauphin's horse-guards – a nice boy; another philosopher! The other day he talked to me about doing away with negro slavery. 'What are we to do for sugar?' I retorted, for I like my coffee heavily sweetened, as does Louis XV. 'We must do without sugar to benefit a suffering race.' 'Suffering monkeys!' I returned, 'and that is paying them a compliment.' Whereupon he asserted that all men were brothers! Madness must be in the air. I, brother of a blackamoor!"
"This is going too far," observed Balsamo.
"Of course. I told you I was in luck. My children are – one an angel, the other an apostle. Drink, though my wine is detestable."
"I think it exquisite," said the guest, watching Andrea.
"Then you are a philosopher! In my time we learnt pleasant things; we played cards, fought duels, though against the law; and wasted our time on duchesses and money on opera dancers. That is my story in a nutshell. Taverney went wholly into the opera-house; which is all I sorrow for, since a poor noble is nothing of a man. I look aged, do I not? Only because I am impoverished and dwell in a kennel, with a tattered wig, and gothic coat; but my friend the marshal duke, with his house in town and two hundred thousand a year – he is young, in his new clothes and brushed up perukes – he is still alert, brisk and pleasure-seeking, though ten years my senior, my dear sir, ten years."
"I am astonished that, with powerful friends like the Duke of Richelieu, you quitted the court."
"Only a temporary retreat, and I am going back one day," said the lord, darting a strange glance on his daughter, which the visitor intercepted.
"But, I suppose, the duke befriends your son?"
"He holds the son of his friend in horror, for he is a philosopher, and he execrates them."
"The feeling is reciprocal," observed Andrea with perfect calm. "Clear away, Legay!"
Startled from her vigilant watch on the window, the maid ran back to the table.
"We used to stay at the board to two A. M. We had luxuries for supper, then, that's why! and we drank when we could eat no more. But how can one drink vinegar when there is nothing to eat? Legay, let us have the Maraschino, provided there is any."
"Liqueurs," said Andrea to the maid, who took her orders from the baron thus second-hand.
Her master sank back in his armchair and sighed with grotesque melancholy while keeping his eyes closed.
"Albeit the duke may execrate your son – quite right, too, as he is a philosopher," said Balsamo, "he ought to preserve his liking for you, who are nothing of the kind. I presume you have claims on the king, whom you must have served?"
"Fifteen years in the army. I was the marshal's aid-de-camp, and we went through the Mahon campaign together.