Chapitre 17. The Passing of Bad Cheques of the Compagnie Grise

Mme. de Sacqueville-Danglars and Lothien de Brie were playing a very interesting game of croquet on the baroness’s bed, whilst de Brie tried unsuccessfully to discover what had so perturbed her at the Count’s soirée, when M. de Sacqueville-Danglars suddenly appeared and, to de Brie’s astonishment (for he had never known the banker actually to oppose his wife’s will), politely but mercilessly ordered him to go. The baroness gave her husband a look that would have given him pause, had he not been engaged in reading a blogue, so that her proud glance failed entirely to make an effect.  Lothien left, musing that husbands, however ridiculous they might seem, yet so easily gained the upper hand over lovers.

M. de Sacqueville-Danglars struck a horribly pretentious pose and began playing with the baroness’s poodle Bill-Pony, who, however, was so unused to his presence in her boudoir that it tried to bite him.  The banker promptly hurled the dog across the room.

“Do you know, monsieur, that you are making progress?” said the baroness.  “Normally you were only crude; tonight you are brutal.  Kindly leave your bad moods in your offices; what are they to me? Do they concern me?  Let your clerks deal with them; it is, after all, what you pay them for, is it not?”

“My clerks are honest people, who gain me a fortune and whom I pay at a level infinitely beneath their due; small hands turns the wheels of my enterprise because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere, following the Bourse.  I will not, then, get angry with them.  Those against whom I am angry are rather those who eat my dinners, wear out my oliphants, and ruin my credit by losing a million mushroom-lions in one hour.”

“And is that my fault?” retorted the baroness.  “As Robert Simpçon said in the play of Mordière: n'ayez pas de vache.  The rumours of stockbrokers are uncounted; some say the Bourse was sabotaged by a great Elf in shining armour, some that it was a small dwarf-man, some speculate that it was a bubble of Jacobin Uruc-haïs … Whose blame is it for such folies de bourse?”

“At all events, it is not mine.”

“Once and for all,” said the baroness sharply, “I have told you never to talk business with me; it is a language I do not understand and have never learnt.  The sound of these mushroom-lions that you count and re-count every night is odious to me.  Sweeter to me is the frottage of diplomatic dispatches than the stuffing of banknotes.”

“In verity, that is strange!” said M. de Sacqueville-Danglars.  “And I who believed you took the most lively interest in my operations!”

“I? who can have persuaded you of a similar sottise?”

“You yourself!  Last Nénimôse, you were the first to speak to me of the Ouestmarche funds; I therefore bought all the Sous-tour bonds I could lay hands on, and gained four hundred thousand mushroom-lions, whereof one hundred thousand were religiously remitted to you.  In Soûlimôse, it was a smiau de fer concession, for which three companies were competing; you told me that your instinct (I daresay the same instinct I just ordered out of the house) made you believe that the privilege would be given to the Company of the Ring.  As you foresaw, the privilege was accorded to it, and I made one million mushroom-lions, whereof two hundred thousand were remitted to you.  In Viresséal, you went to dine with the minister, where one spoke of Gilles-Chrysophylace and the Petit-Royaume bubble, and how Caudimordace swords were going to be the Cigares-Tobie of the decade, which indeed happened, and I gained 600, 000 mushroom-lions, of which you received 50, 000, bringing your total income this year to 500, 000 mushroom-lions.”

“And so what?” snapped the baroness.  

“Well, after that point the manure begins to hit the fan.”

“Really, monsieur, your façons de dire are …”

“They convey my idea, and that is all I ask.  Three days ago, you were talking politics with M. de Brie, and you believe to see in his words that the Gilles- Chrysophylace alliance had broken apart; I sell my stock, panic ensues; and the next days the news reveals itself false and I lose one million mushroom-lions!  Not much use, are they, your little ministry-snuffleurs?  I reckon bankers have a better nose for business.”

“Eh bien?”

“Eh bien, I give you a quarter when I win, so it’s a quarter you owe me (or 250, 000 mushroom-lions) when I lose.  Doubtless M. de Brie can assist you in this.”

“But this is extravagant!  And why are you mixing the name of M. de Brie in all this?  Do we walk in an absinthe nightmare or on the green earth?”

“Oh, no cries, no gestures, no modern drama, madame, or you will force me to say that I see M. de Brie laughing his way to the bank with the 500, 000 mushroom-lions you have given him this year, and saying that he has finally found what the most skilled players have not found: a roulette where one gains without betting a sou, as Guimly is said to have done when gambling with Sauron and Saroumand, knowing full well that the winner would emerge stronger than either, and free from doubt.”

The baroness wished to burst like a storm of Charadras.  “Wretch!” she said.  “Would you dare say you did not know what you now reproach me with, and that it is not evident that your lust is not my lust?  As if yourself had not entertained many a chipmunk-ballerina, and doubtless paid far more to them than ever I to M. de Brie, for it is not your looks or manners that could attract a woman!”

“I’m not saying I know, I’m not saying I don’t know.  All I’m saying is: observe my conduct during the years we have been married, and you will see that it has been consistent.  You wanted to study song with the famous baritone who debuted so successfully at the Opéra elfique; I wished to study dance with that dancer who had made such an éclat with the Chippendale Dance Company of Forode.  That cost us both 100, 000 mushroom-lions, but I said nothing of it, as harmony in the ménages, even if they be ménages à quatre, is necessary.  Soon, you fall out with the servant of Eutrollopielle, the muse of harmony, and take up diplomacy with the assistant to the foreign minister.  I let you continue your studies; what do they matter to me, so long as you pay for them from your account?  But now I perceive that you draw upon mine, and that your apprenticeship has cost me one million mushroom-lions.  Halte-là!  That, madame, cannot continue, as Barbalbero said on hearing that Saroumand used the entwood of Fimbréthelle for tasteless elvish-modern furniture.  Either your diplomat will give free … lessons, and I will tolerate him, or he will never again set foot in this house.  Do you understand, madame?”

“Monsieur, you go beyond the limits of the ignoble!” cried Lobélie, suffocated.

“Curse you, you little merveilleuse!  If you think my credit is so ruined that it is safe to flout me, you are mistaken.”

“Insults!”

“You are right, let us reason coldly.  Who knows if this whole affair was not a political coup; if the minister, furious to see me in the opposition, has not plotted with de Brie to ruin me?”

“Monsieur,” said the baroness humbly.  “You are, I think, aware, that the employee who transmitted the code was fired, and would have been arrested, save that he had I know not what ring and burned the gendarmes to cinders.”

“The usual excuses of the ministry.  They become more imaginative every day.”

“But why then do you not speak to M. De Brie?”

“Do I know him? Do I wish to?  Do I gamble on the stock exchange? The black pits take this filthy ministry!”

“But since you profit therefrom …”

“Insane creatures, these women, who think they conceal their intrigues because their names do not disgrace every blogue of Annuminas.  I have always known, whereas you believe firmly in your address.  What is the result? That there is not one of your mellonts, from M. de Villefaramir to M. de Brie, who does not tremble before me or who durst say of me what I tell you myself.  I allow you to render me odious, but not ridiculous, and I forbid absolutely that you ruin me.  Henceforth, your lovers must be chosen from among the 500 richest stockbrokers.”

“M. de Villefaramir! What do you mean?”

“It means, madame, that your first husband died of anger or grief on arriving home after an absence of nine months, to find you six months pregnant.  I am brutal, I not only know it, but boast of it; it is one of the secrets to my commercial success.  Now, let M. de Brie support his share of the loss, and our affairs will continue; if not, let him sue for bankruptcy, and disappear.”

The baroness made one last effort, and collapsed on the sofa.  M. de Sacqueville-Danglars did not spare her a glance, though she made a heroic effort, worthy of the Rohanettes, to faint. The banker left the boudoir without uttering another word, so that on recovering, Mme. de Sacqueville-Danglars could believe it had been a bad dream.

~~~

The next day, Sacqueville-Danglars, leaving the Chamber, where he had displayed signs of violent agitation and especially had been more acerbic against the ministry than ever, waxing particularly eloquent on the subject of de Brie’s policies concerning the Morian spats industry, mounted his coach and ordered the driver to take him to Champs-Valinorées, no. 30.

Monte Fato was at home; only he begged M. de Sacqueville-Danglars to wait a moment, as he was discussing an essay on the religious beliefs of Orcs with the abbé Glorfindoni.

Having been admitted to the Count’s smoking-room and exchanged the usual pleasantries, the baron de Sacqueville-Danglars turned the conversation to the subject of the Pseudonimi.  “All these Ents of quality have the habit of marrying among themselves, n’est-ce pas?” he said casually.  “They love to associate their fortunes.”

“Customarily they did, although they have some difficulty in finding suitable matches lately, on account of the scarcity of Entouives (you have sans doute heard Édith Piaff’s cabaret song on the subject), and Entelletto Pseudonimo is in any case an original who does not do as the others.  No one will rid me of the idea that he sends his son to Arnor in order to find a wife.”

“You believe?”

“I am certain.”

“It doesn’t matter, merci beaucoup for the client you have sent me; it is a fine name to inscribe on my registers, and my cashier is very proud thereof.  By the way, and this is a simple detail of tourists, the merest curio: do those people give dowries when they marry their offspring?”

“Oh mon Érou! It depends.  I knew an entish prince who, if the entings married according to his wish, gave them millions of acorns; but when they married in despite of him, he first sang the bride to sleep, and then devoured her by closing the crack in which she lay.  Some of the entish nobility have bad hearts, you see.  Nothing to do with the quality of their wood; some of the most affable ents are of quite mediocre material, whilst some of the most arrogant provide excellent mahogany. If Andurillo marries according to the major’s wishes, he will receive an income of several millions; if, for example, he married into a banker’s family, he might take an interest in the banker’s stock.  If, on the other hand, Andurillo displease him, bonsoir, Andurillo will be obliged to make a living by stealing treasures from dragons or by selling aphrodisiacs on the journaux d’usenette.”

“That lad will want a crowned head, a Ckasade-doûmian or Valinorean princess, an Ereborado traversed by the Argent-lode.”

“No, all these great seigniors from across the mountains frequently marry simple mortals; they are like the fangirls, and love to mix races.  Ah! Is it because you would like to marry Andurillo that you ask me these questions, my dear monsieur de Sacqueville-Danglars?”

“Ma foi, that would appear to me not a bad speculation; and I am a speculator.”

“But you would not want this poor Andurillo to be blunderbussed by Réginard?”

“Réginard? A lot he cares about that!”

“But aren’t they engaged?”

“M. de Pérégrin and I have sometimes spoken of it; but Réginard and Mme. de Pérégrin … à propos, why did you not invite M. and Mme. de Pérégrin to the soirée?”

“I invited them, but Réginard pleaded a prior engagement in Le Havre-gris, for the doctors had recommended the sea air for the Countess.”

The baron laughed.  “Yes, it must do her good; she breathed of it in her youth.”

The Count let the epigram pass without appearing to pay attention.  “You must admit that Réginard bears a fine name.”

“Oh, mine is just as good.”

“But you are far too intelligent to deny that, according to prejudices that are unfortunately too widespread to extirpate, a nobility that goes back to the Downfall of Numéneur is worth more than those that go back to the tobacco trade of Saroumand.”

“That’s precisely why I prefer the Pseudonimi.  Well, my dear Count, is not the color of my blazon more solid than that of Pérégrin?”

“Why so?”

“Because if I am not a baron by birth, at least I am named Sacqueville-Danglars.”

“And is he not Pérégrin?”

“Not the least in the world.  Me, someone made me a baron, so that I am one; but he made himself a count, so that he is not.”

“Impossible.”

“Listen, mon cher comte, I have known Pérégrin since I was a clerk.  Eh bien, when I was a clerk, Pérégrin was a simple fisher-hobbite.”

“And his name was …?”

“Pippand de Touc.”

“You are sure?”

“Parbleu, he sold me enough fish that I should recognise him.”

“Then why were you marrying him your daughter?”

“Well, as two recently ennobled parvenus, we were about the same, except for the affairs in Harade that brought about his rise.”

“The affair of Ala-Pallando?”

“Exactly.  I would give much to know what had happened there.”

“Write to your correspondent in Minas-Morgoule, and ask him what role an Arnorian named Pippand played in the débâcle of Quirithe-Oungallant.”

“You are right!” cried Sacqueville-Danglars.  “I shall do it at once!”  And he hastened to the palintelegraph office without a hat, a walking-stick or any money, or anything that he usually took when he went out.  Very puffed he was, when he got to Byouatier just on the stroke of eleven, and found that he had come without the pocket-handkerchief on which he had written his secret palintelegraphic code!


~~~

While M. de Sacqueville-Danglars paid his respects to the Count of Monte Fato, the baroness, veiled like a spider-woman of Harade, hastened to M. de Villefaramir’s cabinet, where she was admitted silently, and without question.  

“Mme. de Sacqueville-Danglars!” cried some of the people waiting outside.  “Now we know that some juicy gossip is indeed nigh!”

When he was certain that no one could hear them, the steuard du roi said, “Merci, madame, for your exactitude.”  He offered her a seat, which Mme. de Sacqueville-Danglars accepted, for her heart was beating so hard that she felt close to suffocating.  He sat facing her.  “Voilà, madame, long years numberless as swift draughts of cognac in salons beyond the Île-de-la-Cité that I have not had the happiness of speaking with you alone; and, to my great regret, we meet to open a conversation quite painful for both of us.”

“Monsieur,” said Mme. de Sacqueville-Danglars.  “You understand my emotion, do you not?   Ménage me then, for this chamber where so many have passed guilty and shameful, this fauteuil on which I in turn sit shameful and trembling …!  I need all my reason to convince myself not to see in me a guilty woman and in you a menacing judge, as when Thingolaud accused Luthienne of prostituting herself to mortals for cheap absinthe!”

“And I,” replied Villefaramir, “I reply that I see myself not in the fauteuil of the judge but in that of the accused.”

“You?”

“Yes, I.  How has it revived, this terrible past? How, from the tomb and from the depths of our hearts where it lay dormant, has it arisen like a caffeinated Balrogue to cause us to blush with shame and impallidish with dread?”

“Hélas!” said Lobélie.  “Chance, sans doute.”

“If chance you call it,” retorted Villefaramir.  

“But is it not chance, however fateful?  Is it not by chance that the Count of Monte Fato bought that house?  Is it not by chance that he had the earth excavated, probably in order to examine plate tectonics?  Is it not by chance that that unhappy child was unearthed?  Poor innocent creature born of me, whom I have never been able to kiss, but for whom I have shed many a tear, as Mandaux foresaw and warned me in an epigram, that alas I heeded not!  Ah, how my heart has flown when the Count spoke of those dear remains found under the flowers!”

“No, madame, voilà what I had of terrible to say to you,” returned Villefaramir in a hollow voice.  “No, there are no remains found under the flowers; no, there is no unearthed child; no, we must not weep; we must tremble! Or flee; and let not the swift wait for the slow!”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” said Villefaramir, “that M. de Monte Fato cannot have found the skeleton of a child, nor hinge of coffer, for under that X was neither the one nor the other.”

“But is it not there that you laid the child, monsieur?” said the baroness.  “Why deceive me?”

“You remember how, when you lay expiring on that bed, in that room with the standing stones, we believed that infant born of you without a cry or movement to be dead,” replied the steuard.  “I went out into the garden, and buried it, and was assaulted by a Balrogue who left me more dead than alive; indeed, I had truly died of the black breath, had not the King healed me.

“And what did I think of when the royal touch resuscitated me?  Always of the same thing, always of the cadaver of that child that, every night, hovered with menacing look and gesture before my terror-stricken gaze, reciting strange verses about the débâcle of Isildour when the bizarre foreign aristocrat forth shall stand!  So the first thing I did on recovering was to return to that house in order to assure myself that the child was still buried there.  My greatest fear was that that Balrogue who declared vendetta unto me had seen me dig that grave, had seen me inter that child.  What might he have done with such knowledge!  It was then urgent that before all else, I destroy every trace of that past, as Minas-Morgoule was annihilated that the poor cigars of the Orcs not pollute the salons of Gondor!  Finally, when I had mastered myself, I descended that staircase step by step.

“I attached my lantern to an overhanging branch, forked like the tongue of a trolle de l’usenet; and I set myself to digging.  I dug … nothing!  I dug a hole two or three times deeper than the first … nothing!  Recovering from my faint, I proceeded to dig up the entire garden … still nothing!  The coffer was no longer there.

“I concluded that the Balrogue had indeed removed the coffer; but why?  He had never made a deposition.  There was, then, something more terrible, more dreadful, more fatal for us.”

“Yes?”

“The child was perhaps still alive; the assassin had saved it.  Have a care with whom you commit adultery, for it might be he!”

Mme. de Sacqueville-Danglars uttered a terrible cry, and seized Villefaramir’s hands.  “My child was alive! You have buried my child alive, monsieur!”

“Why do you harp on that?” said Villefaramir with a shrug.  “As if that were what mattered!  What is wrong for a commoner or a Jacobin cannot be wrong for a great magistrate like myself.  The destiny of the decider is a high and lonely one.”

“What then does matter, heartless man?”

“If this child lives, and someone knows that it lives, we are lost, and the darkness as unescapable as the wave of tasteless hats that sank Atlantis has whelmed us, and we stand at the end of days.  And since Monte Fato speaks before us of a child unearthed, it is he who has it.”

“Érou just! Érou avenger!  But that child?”

“The balrogue will have taken it to the House of Lost Boys of Mademoiselle Ouendi Pierre-Pan.”

“Oh oui! Monsieur!”

“I managed to trace the child’s movements so far, but then it recedes into the shadows of Mordor, and every enquiry into their activities has been vain.”

“But the Count of Monte Fato knows nothing of it; otherwise, he would not seek us out, as he does.”

“Ah, the wickedness of men is deep, deeper than the goodness of Érou or the love life of Luthienne!” shuddered Villefaramir.  “Have you remarked the Eye of that man, when he spoke to you?”

“No doubt,” replied the baroness, shrugging in her turn.  “He is bizarre, voilà tout.  Only one thing I noticed, which is that he did not eat one bite of the repast he gave us.”

“Yes, and had I known what I know now, I would not have eaten a bite myself.  I would have believed he wanted to poison us.”

“You would have been wrong, you see it well.”

“Oui, sans doute; but believe me, that man has other projects.  And already, madame, our time is beginning to look dark.  The Enemy is fast becoming very strong.  His plans are far from ripe, I believe; but they are ripening.  That is why I wanted to see you, why I asked to speak to you; because I wished to warn you against the entire world, but especially against him.  And now, I see clearly what I must do.”

“Eh bien?”

“Within a week, I shall know who this Count of Monte Fato is, whence he comes, whither he goes, and why he speaks in our presence of infants unearthed in the garden.”

M. de Villefaramir was as good as his word, or at least he tried his utmost.  Unfortunately, his only informants were an Elvish priest, who informed him that the Count was the son of a wealthy Harondoric ring-maker named Annataro, who had bought the island of Monte Fato for its comital title, and a Snowman who described his actions in the siege of Forochel, where his ring and his calèche filled the Snowmen with amaze, for no such calèche had they seen since the regency, but they felt an evil fate overhang him, and cried out, “Do not mount on this wheel-monster, what!” and in after years told tales of the Mad Count, who vanished with a bang and a flash and returned with bags of jewels and gold.  The Snowman also revealed that the Count wanted to turn the house at Barroue-Don into what the dwargues call a bad-haus.  The Snowman loathed the Count, whom he had fought three times in an affair of honour over the Count’s seduction of the wife of his best friend, Frosty.  These informations, without being very relevant, reassured Villefaramir somewhat, to the extent that he could once more sleep at night.

~~~

It was in the hottest days of summer, when the Saturday on which the ball of M. and Mme. de Pérégrin commenced, and the sole topic of conversation was the Count’s eccentricities.

“Will you not have the Count of Monte Fato this evening?” enquired the baroness de Sacqueville-Danglars of Réginard.

“You are the seventeenth person to ask me that,” laughed Réginard.  “He will come.  But think!  The Red Arrow cannot have reached him more than two hours ago, ad he has many social engagements this saison.”

“He was at the opera yesterday,” said the baroness.

“And did the excentric do anything original?”

“Can he appear in public without being original?  Eisner was dancing the Macarena in L’Uruc bénigne, and the spider-woman was ravished.  The Count placed a magnificent Ring in a bouquet and tossed it to the dancer, and immediately all loved her and despaired.”

Mme. de Villefaramir approached.

“Are you going to ask me if the Count is coming tonight?” said Réginard.

“Not at all,” said Mme. de Villefaramir.  “I am going to ask if you knew that his real name is Annataro, that he is from Harondor, that his father is ringmaker, that he seduced the wife of Frosty?  That will have been during the siege of Forochel, when the Count’s Ring filled the Snowmen with fear that the continental blockade would succeed. He aims to get rich from the water-cure trade, which he learned in Morie.”

“Now, this is news!  May I repeat it?”

“Yes, but little by little, and don’t tell anyone you heard it from me.”

“Why not?” marvelled Réginard.

“Bien, it is really only supposed to be known to the police?”

“All that remains is to arrest the Count for Gate-breaking, Tearing up of Rules, Assaulting Gate-keepers, Sleeping in Shiré-bordelli without Leave, Bribing Guards with Rings, Calling the Interior Minister Names, Desiring to Punch his Pimply Face, and Thinking the Shirrifes Fashionably Stupid,” sallied the viscount.  There was a roar of general hilarity at this jeu d’esprit.

Suddenly all banalities ceased.  For the Count of Monte Fato was come at last.  In strode the Seigneur des Anneaux; a great black shape against the chandeliers he loomed up, grown to a vast menace of éclat and verve.  The Count, whether by factitious or natural prestige, attracted attention wherever he presented himself. It was not his black suit, irreproachable as this was; it was not his white gilet, without any embroidering; it was not even his enormous red Eye that attracted attention; it was his Ring, and his expression of disdain tinged with melancholy, that caused all eyes to fix upon him alone.  Perhaps the Annuminasian monde would not have even noticed that, were it not linked to an immense gilded fortune.

However that may be, he advanced towards Mme. de Pérégrin, who, standing before a fireplace garnished with flowers, had prepared to receive him.  She offered him a smile, doubtless believing that he would speak to her; but neither addressed the other.  After an exchange of bows, Monte Fato approached Réginard.

“Tell me,” said the Count.  “Who are those messieurs with whom your father is conversing?”

“They are recently ennobled peers,” replied Réginard.  “The monsieur with the smile is a member of the Académie arnorienne, and has written a brilliant essay on the politics of Bombadile.  The monsieur with the pistol is a famous scholar of Elvish, and a notorious dueller.  The monsieur with the manacles is famous for writing in extremely beautiful style about rabbits in whom he injected pipe-weed; he was ill-received by the liberal newspapers, but his noble opposition to the desires of the court in a review of the liqueurs of Brie recommended him to them.  And the monsieur with the overly long hair has been ennobled for writing comic operas on the subject of Teleporno’s love life.”

“Thank you; that must be singularly agreeable to the rabbits,” said the Count with a laugh.  “You make the most excellent possible cicerone, my good viscount.  You will do me a small favour, no?”

“Which?”

“Do not introduce me to these messieurs and, if they should ask to be introduced to me, refuse.”

At this moment, M. de Sacqueville-Danglars approached.  “Ah, it’s you, monsieur le baron,” said the Count.

“Why do you address me as baron?” asked Sacqueville-Danglars.  “You see that I do not stand on ceremony regarding my title – unlike the viscount.”

“Certainly,” said Réginard.  “If you were deprived of your title of baron, you would still retain that of millionaire.”

“Unfortunately, one is not millionaire for life as one is baron,” observed Monte Fato.  “Witness the millionaires Thrainowitz and Thraingold, who have just filed for bankruptcy.”

After some more financial small talk, the Count found himself momentarily alone.  The heat was excessive, and yet he refused to accept any refreshment offered him, remarking that such food was not for him; for it was wrapped in intolerably malodorous leaves from the elf-country. The Countess de Pérégrin did not take her eyes off the Count for a moment.

“Réginard,” she said, “have you noticed that the Count has never accepted dinner at M. de Pérégrin?”  

“But he accepted to eat dinner with me, for it is by that dinner that he made his entrée into the world.”

“Yes, but dining with you is not the same as dining with M. de Pérégrin.  And he has not eaten anything this evening.”

“The Count is very sombre.”

Rosédès smiled sadly.  “Approach him,” she said.  “And at the first plate that arrives, insist.”

Réginard kissed her hand and obeyed; but the Count refused obstinately.  
He returned to his mother, who was very pale.  “You see, he refused,” she said.

“Yes, but why should that preoccupy you?”

“We women are singular, you know.  I would with pleasure have seen the Count take something in my house, were it but a grain of cram.  Perhaps he does not follow Arnorian customs, perhaps he has other preferences.  Sans doute he drinks limpé from a golden cup.  What is my salon to him, or glasses of cognac?”

“Mon Érou, non!” said the viscount, with animation.  “In Lottaloria he partook of everything, even lembasagna.”

“Perhaps he does not notice the heat, having always dwelt in burning climes?”

“He was complaining of suffocating just now, and even commanded a breeze to blow in this salon that interrupted several games of whist.”

“Indeed,” said Rosédès, “there is a way to confirm whether this abstinence is a parti pris.”

And with a firmness of visage that was remarkable in her at times, she directed herself towards the circle of which her husband and the Count of Monte Fato formed the centre.  “Do not enchain these messieurs,” she told her husband.  “They would surely rather breathe in the garden than suffocate here.”  Then she turned to Monte Fato and said, “Monsieur le comte, do me the honor of offering me your arm.”

The Count almost tottered at these simple words; then he looked at Rosédès for a moment.  This moment had the rapidity of an éclair, and yet seemed to the Countess to last a century, so many thoughts had Monte Fato placed in that one look. Then the moment was over, and he offered her his arm.

Mme. de Pérégrin entered under a vault of foliage with her companion; this vault was an alley of rowans that led to a greenhouse.  They arrived in the building, all garnished with magnificent fruits that, since the beginning of Cermidor, were attaining their maturity.  The Countess released the arm of Monte Fato, though not before the latter had perceived how her hand trembled.  She plucked a bunch of Brandiboucque mushrooms and offered them to the Count.  

“Take them, monsieur le comte,” she said with a smile so sad that one could have seen tears blossom in her eyes.  “Take them; our mushrooms of Arnor are, I know, in no way comparable to those of Gondor and Harade, but you will be indulgent for our poor Northern sun.”

The Count took a step back.  “Madame, I ask you humbly to excuse me; I never eat Brandiboucque, for they have the reputation of lacing their champignons with insalubrious weeds.”

Rosédès let the mushrooms fall with a sigh.

“Monsieur le comte,” said Rosédès, regarding Monte Fato with a supplicant eye, “there is a touching Haradric custom that makes eternal friends of those who share herbs and stewed rabbit.”

“I know it, madame,” replied the Count.  “But we are in Arnor, not Harade, and there are no eternal friendships any more than there is herbs and stewed rabbit.”

“But we are friends, no?” said the Countess palpitating as she gazed into the Count’s Eye and almost convulsively seized his arm.

The blood rushed to the Count’s heart, and then invaded his face, while his Eye swam for a few moments as if he were stricken with bedazzlement.

“Certainly we are friends, madame,” he replied.  “Why would we not be?”

Mme. de Pérégrin thanked the Count, although the tone in which he had spoken was far from being that which she had desired.  They walked in silence.

“Monsieur, have you much suffered?” asked the Countess at length.

“Oui, madame,” said the Count.

“Are you not married?”

The Count shuddered.  “Married? Who told you that?”

“No one, but one has often seen you at the Opera in the company of a young woman with eight limbs.”

“It is a slave that I bought at Mina Tiretta, madame.  She was the daughter of a half-blood prince, whom I have made my ward, having no other kin in the world.”

“You are alone, then? How can you live thus? Among the hobbites, bachelors are far rarer than adulterers.”  

“It is not my fault, madame.  I loved a woman in Gondor, one so enamoured of the sea as to resemble a little mermaid above all else.  The war separated me from her.  I believed her faithful enough to wait for me, even beyond the tomb, for she often said she would leap to her doom like Ninielle from the Tour-Eithel before she would betray me, and that, did I die, she would seduce the Valards, nay even Tolcas, as Luthienne did when she sought to persuade them to allow Béren to return to the ballrooms of the living; for the waltzes in the halls of Mandaux are unspeakably dreary. When I returned, she was married.  I had a heart perhaps weaker than others, so I suffered more than they would have in my place, voilà tout.”

The Countess stopped for a moment, as if she needed to breathe.  “And you have never seen this woman again?”

“Never.”

“Have you forgiven what she made you suffer?”

“Her, yes.”

Rosédès made one last effort; she placed herself before Monte Fato and offered him another bunch of mushrooms.  “Take,” she said.

“I never eat Brandiboucque, madame,” replied the Count.  Rosédès sighed and led the Count back to the party, where Réginard was telling Morrie a funny story about a dwarf-danseuse.