Baron Trigaults Vengeance | Page 7

when they come up out of the water; he just shakes his
head and troubles himself no more about it. He has decidedly the best
of the row. He has furnished the goods, and he'll have to be paid sooner
or later----"
"What! hasn't he been paid then?"
"I don't know; he's still here."
A terrible crash of breaking china interrupted this edifying conversation.
"There!" exclaimed one of the footmen, "that's monsieur; he has
smashed two or three hundred francs' worth of dishes. He MUST be
rich to pay such a price for his angry fits."
"Well," observed the other, "if I were in monsieur's place I should be
angry too. Would you let your wife have her dresses fitted on by a man?
I says that it's indecent. I'm only a servant, but----"
"Nonsense, it's the fashion. Besides, monsieur does not care about that.
A man who----"
He stopped short; in fact, the others had motioned him to be silent. The
baron was surrounded by exceptional servants, and the presence of a
stranger acted as a restraint upon them. For this reason, one of them,
after asking Pascal for his card, opened a door and ushered him into a
small room, saying: "I will go and inform the baron. Please wait here."
"Here," as he called it, was a sort of smoking-room hung with cashmere
of fantastic design and gorgeous hues, and encircled by a low,
cushioned divan, covered with the same material. A profusion of rare
and costly objects was to be seen on all sides, armor, statuary, pictures,
and richly ornamented weapons. But Pascal, already amazed by the
conversation of the servants, did not think of examining these objects
of virtu. Through a partially open doorway, directly opposite the one he
had entered by, came the sound of loud voices in excited conversation.
Baron Trigault, the baroness, and the famous Van Klopen were
evidently in the adjoining room. It was a woman, the baroness, who
was speaking, and the quivering of her clear and somewhat shrill voice
betrayed a violent irritation, which was only restrained with the greatest
difficulty. "It is hard for the wife of one of the richest men in Paris to
see a bill for absolute necessities disputed in this style," she was saying.
A man's voice, with a strong Teutonic accent, the voice of Van Klopen,

the Hollander, caught up the refrain. "Yes, strict necessities, one can
swear to that. And if, before flying into a passion, Monsieur le Baron
had taken the trouble to glance over my little bill, he would have
seen----"
"No more! You bore me to death. Besides I haven't time to listen to
your nonsense; they are waiting for me to play a game of whist at the
club."
This time it was the master of the house, Baron Trigault, who spoke,
and Pascal recognized his voice instantly.
"If monsieur would only allow me to read the items. It will take but a
moment," rejoined Van Klopen. And as if he had construed the oath
that answered him as an exclamation of assent, he began: "In June, a
Hungarian costume with jacket and sash, two train dresses with upper
skirts and trimmings of lace, a Medicis polonaise, a jockey costume, a
walking costume, a riding-habit, two morning-dresses, a Velleda
costume, an evening dress."
"I was obliged to attend the races very frequently during the month of
June," remarked the baroness.
But the illustrious adorner of female loveliness had already resumed his
reading. "In July we have: two morning-jackets, one promenade
costume, one sailor suit, one Watteau shepherdess costume, one
ordinary bathing-suit, with material for parasol and shoes to match, one
Pompadour bathing-suit, one dressing-gown, one close-fitting Medicis
mantle, two opera cloaks----"
"And I was certainly not the most elegantly attired of the ladies at
Trouville, where I spent the month of July," interrupted the baroness.
"There are but few entries in the month of August," continued Van
Klopen. "We have: a morning-dress, a travelling-dress, with
trimmings----" And he went on and on, gasping for breath, rattling off
the ridiculous names which he gave to his "creations," and interrupted
every now and then by the blow of a clinched fist on the table, or by a
savage oath.
Pascal stood in the smoking-room, motionless with astonishment. He
did not know what surprised him the most, Van Klopen's impudence in
daring to read such a bill, the foolishness of the woman who had
ordered all these things, or the patience of the husband who was
undoubtedly going to pay for them. At last, after what seemed an

interminable enumeration, Van Klopen exclaimed: "And that's all!"
"Yes, that's all," repeated the baroness, like an echo.
"That's all!" exclaimed the baron--"that's all! That is to say, in four
months, at least seven hundred yards