The Grandissimes Part 23

Silence followed.

"Whom do--"

"I wish to see M. Honore Grandissime."

"That is my name, madame."

"Ah!"--with an angelic smile; she had collected her wits now, and was ready for war. "You are not one of his clerks?"

M. Grandissime smiled softly, while he said to himself: "You little honey-bee, you want to sting me, eh?" and then he answered her question.

"No, madame; I am the gentleman you are looking for."

"The gentleman she was look--" her pride resented the fact.

"Me!"--thought she--"I am the lady whom, I have not a doubt, you have been longing to meet ever since the ball;" but her look was unmoved gravity. She touched her handkerchief to her lips and handed him the rent notice.

"I received that from your office the Monday before last."

There was a slight emphasis in the announcement of the time; it was the day of the run-over.

Honore Grandissime, stopping with the rent-notice only half unfolded, saw the advisability of calling up all the resources of his sagacity and wit in order to answer wisely; and as they answered his call a brighter n.o.bility so overspread face and person that Aurora inwardly exclaimed at it even while she exulted in her thrust.

"Monday before last?"

She slightly bowed.

"A serious misfortune befell me that day," said M. Grandissime.

"Ah?" replied the lady, raising her brows with polite distress, "but you have entirely recovered, I suppose."

"It was I, madame, who that evening caused you a mortification for which I fear you will accept no apology."

"On the contrary," said Aurora, with an air of generous protestation, "it is I who should apologize; I fear I injured your horse."

M. Grandissime only smiled, and opening the rent-notice dropped his glance upon it while he said in a preoccupied tone:

"My horse is very well, I thank you."

But as he read the paper, his face a.s.sumed a serious air and he seemed to take an unnecessary length of time to reach the bottom of it.

"He is trying to think how he will get rid of me," thought Aurora; "he is making up some pretext with which to dismiss me, and when the tenth of March comes we shall be put into the street."

M. Grandissime extended the letter toward her, but she did not lift her hands.

"I beg to a.s.sure you, madame, I could never have permitted this notice to reach you from my office; I am not the Honore Grandissime for whom this is signed."

Aurora smiled in a way to signify clearly that that was just the subterfuge she had been antic.i.p.ating. Had she been at home she would have thrown herself, face downward, upon the bed; but she only smiled meditatively upward at the picture of an East Indian harbor and made an unnecessary rearrangement of her handkerchief under her folded hands.

"There are, you know,"--began Honore, with a smile which changed the meaning to "You know very well there are"--"two Honore Grandissimes.

This one who sent you this letter is a man of color--"

"Oh!" exclaimed Aurora, with a sudden malicious sparkle.

"If you will entrust this paper to me," said Honore, quietly, "I will see him and do now engage that you shall have no further trouble about it. Of course, I do not mean that I will pay it, myself; I dare not offer to take such a liberty."

Then he felt that a warm impulse had carried him a step too far.

Aurora rose up with a refusal as firm as it was silent. She neither smiled nor scintillated now, but wore an expression of amiable practicality as she presently said, receiving back the rent-notice as she spoke:

"I thank you, sir, but it might seem strange to him to find his notice in the hands of a person who can claim no interest in the matter. I shall have to attend to it myself."

"Ah! little enchantress," thought her grave-faced listener, as he gave attention, "this, after all--ball and all--is the mood in which you look your very, very best"--a fact which n.o.body knew better than the enchantress herself.

He walked beside her toward the open door leading back into the counting-room, and the dozen or more clerks, who, each by some ingenuity of his own, managed to secure a glimpse of them, could not fail to feel that they had never before seen quite so fair a couple. But she dropped her veil, bowed M. Grandissime a polite "No farther," and pa.s.sed out.

M. Grandissime walked once up and down his private office, gave the door a soft push with his foot and lighted a cigar.

The clerk who had before acted as usher came in and handed him a slip of paper with a name written on it. M. Grandissime folded it twice, gazed out the window, and finally nodded. The clerk disappeared, and Joseph Frowenfeld paused an instant in the door and then advanced, with a buoyant good-morning.

"Good-morning," responded M. Grandissime.

He smiled and extended his hand, yet there was a mechanical and preoccupied air that was not what Joseph felt justified in expecting.

"How can I serve you, Mr. Frhowenfeld?" asked the merchant, glancing through into the counting-room. His coldness was almost all in Joseph's imagination, but to the apothecary it seemed such that he was nearly induced to walk away without answering. However, he replied:

"A young man whom I have employed refers to you to recommend him."

"Yes, sir? Prhay, who is that?"

"Your cousin, I believe, Mr. Raoul Innerarity."

M. Grandissime gave a low, short laugh, and took two steps toward his desk.

"Rhaoul? Oh yes, I rhecommend Rhaoul to you. As an a.s.sistant in yo'

sto'?--the best man you could find."

"Thank you, sir," said Joseph, coldly. "Good-morning!" he added turning to go.

"Mr. Frhowenfeld," said the other, "do you evva rhide?"

"I used to ride," replied the apothecary, turning, hat in hand, and wondering what such a question could mean.

"If I send a saddle-hoss to yo' do' on day aftah to-morrhow evening at fo' o'clock, will you rhide out with me for-h about a hour-h and a half--just for a little pleasu'e?"

Joseph was yet more astonished than before. He hesitated, accepted the invitation, and once more said good-morning.