Conscience Part 41

And she rose.

Before she could leave the room, Joseph entered.

"Doctor Balzajette," he said.

"You see!" Phillis cried.

Without replying, Saniel made a sign to Joseph to admit Doctor Balzajette, and while Phillis silently disappeared, he went toward the parlor.

Balzajette came forward with both hands extended.

"Good-day, my young 'confrere'. I am enchanted to meet you."

The reception was benevolent, amicable, and protecting, and Saniel replied at his best.

"Since we met the other day," Balzajette continued, "I have thought of you. And nothing more natural than that, for you inspired me with a quick sympathy. The first time you came to see me you pleased me immediately, and I told you you would make your way. Do you remember?"

a.s.suredly he remembered; and of all the visits that he made to the doctors and druggists of his quarter, that to Balzajette was the hardest. It was impossible to show more pride, haughtiness, and disdain than Balzajette had put into his reception of the then unknown young man.

"I told you what I thought of you," continued Balzajette. "It is with regard to this patient of whom you spoke to me; you remember?"

"Madame Dammauville?"

"Exactly. I put her on her feet, as I told you, but since then this bad weather has compelled her to take to her bed again. Without doubt, it is only an affair of a few days; but in the mean time, the poor woman is irritable and impatient. You know women, young 'confrere'. To calm this impatience, I spontaneously proposed a consultation, and naturally p.r.o.nounced your name, which is well known by your fine work on the medullary lesions. I supported it, as was proper, with the esteem that it has acquired, and I have the satisfaction to see it accepted."

Saniel thanked him as if he believed in the perfect sincerity of this spontaneous proposition.

"I like the young, and whenever an occasion presents itself, I shall be happy to introduce you to my clientage. For Madame Dammauville, when can you go with me to see her?"

As Saniel appeared to hesitate, Balzajette, mistaking the cause of his silence, persisted.

"She is impatient," he said. "Let us go the first day that is possible."

He must reply, and in these conditions a refusal would be inexplicable.

"Will to-morrow suit you?" he asked.

"To-morrow, by all means. At what hour?"

Before replying, Saniel went to his desk and consulted an almanac, which appeared perfectly ridiculous to Balzajette.

"Does he imagine, the young 'confrere', that I am going to believe his time so fully occupied that he must make a special arrangement to give me an hour?"

But it was not an arrangement of this kind that Saniel sought. His almanac gave the rising and the setting of the sun, and it was the exact hour of sunset that he wished: "26 March, 6h. 20m." At this moment it would not be dark enough at Madame Dammauville's for lamps to be lighted, and yet it would be dark enough to prevent her from seeing him clearly in the uncertain light of evening.

"Will a quarter past six suit you? I will call for you at six o'clock."

"Very well. Only I shall ask you to be very exact; I have a dinner at seven o'clock in the Rue Royale."

Saniel promised promptness. The dinner was a favorable circ.u.mstance, enabling him to escape from Madame Dammauville's before the lamps would be lighted.

When Balzajette was gone, he rejoined Phillis in the dining-room.

"A consultation is arranged for to-morrow at six o'clock, at Madame Dammauville's."

She threw herself on his breast.

"I knew that you would forgive me."

CHAPTER x.x.xII. THE FATAL LIGHT

It was not without emotion that the next day Saniel saw the afternoon slip away, and although he worked to employ his time, he interrupted himself at each instant to look at the clock.

Sometimes he found the time pa.s.sing quickly, and then all at once it seemed to stand still.

This agitation exasperated him, for calmness had never been more necessary than at this moment. A danger was before him, and it was only in being master of himself that he could be saved. He must have the coolness of a surgeon during an operation, the glance of a general in a battle; and the coolness and the glance were not found among the nervous and agitated.

Could he escape from this danger?

This was the question that he asked himself unceasingly, although he knew the uselessness of it. What good was it to study the chances for or against him?

Either he had succeeded in rendering himself unrecognizable or he had not; but it was done, and now he could do nothing more. He did the best he could in choosing an hour when the dim evening light put the chances on his side; for the rest he must trust to Fortune.

All day he studied the sky, because for the success of his plan it must be neither too bright nor too dark: if it were too bright Madame Dammauville could see him clearly; if it were too dark the lamps would be lighted. He remembered that it was by lamplight she had seen him.

Until evening the weather was uncertain, with a sky sometimes sunny, sometimes cloudy; but at this hour the clouds were driven away by a wind from the north, and the weather became decidedly cold, with the pink and pale clearness of the end of March when it still freezes.

On examining himself he had the satisfaction to feel that he was calmer than in the morning, and that as the moment of attack approached, his agitation decreased; decision, firmness, and coolness came to him; he felt master of his will, and capable of obeying it.

At six o'clock precisely he rang at Balzajette's door, and they started immediately for the Rue Sainte-Anne. Happy to have a complaisant listener, Balzajette did all the talking, so that Saniel had only to reply "yes" or "no" from time to time, and of course it was not of Madame Dammauville that he spoke, but other matters--of a first representation on the previous evening at the Opera Comique; of politics; of the next salon.

At exactly a quarter past six they reached the house in the Rue Sainte-Anne, where Saniel had not been since Caffies death. On pa.s.sing the old concierge's lodge he felt satisfied with himself; his heart did not beat too quickly, his ideas were firm and clear. Should danger arrive, he felt a.s.sured of mastery over himself, without excitement, as without brutality.

Balzajette rang the bell, and the door was opened by a maid, who was, evidently, placed in the vestibule to await their arrival. Balzajette entered first, and Saniel followed him, giving a hasty glance at the rooms through which they pa.s.sed. They reached a door at which Balzajette knocked twice.

"Enter," replied a feminine voice in a firm tone.

This was the decisive moment; the day was everything that could be wished, neither too light nor too dark. What would Madame Dammauville's first glance mean?

"My confrere, Doctor Saniel," Balzajette said on going toward Madame Dammauville, and taking her hand.

She was lying on the little bed of which Phillis had spoken, but not against the windows, rather in the middle of the room, placed there evidently after the experience of a sick person who knows that to be examined she must be easily seen.

Profiting by this arrangement, Saniel immediately pa.s.sed between the bed and the windows in such a way that the daylight was behind him, and consequently his face was in shadow. This was done naturally, without affectation, and it seemed that he only took this side of the bed because Balzajette took the other.

Directed by Saniel, the examination commenced with a clearness and a precision that pleased Balzajette. He did not lose himself in idle words, the young 'confrere', any more than in useless details. He went straight to the end, only asking and seeking the indispensable; and as Madame Dammauville's replies were as precise as his questions, while listening and putting in a word from time to time he said to himself that his dinner would not be delayed, which was the chief point of his preoccupation. Decidedly, he understood life, the young 'confrere'; he might be called in consultation with his heavy appearance and careless toilet, there was no danger of rivalry.