The Mesmerist's Victim

A SHIVER ran through the watcher as the girl rose from her chair. With her alabaster hands she pulled out her hairpins one by one while the wrapper, slipping down upon her shoulders, disclosed her pure and graceful neck, and her arms, carelessly arched over her head, threw out the lower curve of the body to the advantage of the exquisite throat, quivering under the linen.

Gilbert felt a touch of madness and was on the verge of rushing forward, yelling:

“You are lovely, but you must not be too proud of your beauty since you owe it to me – it was I saved your life!”

Suddenly a knot in the corset string irritated Andrea who stamped her foot and rang the bell.

This knell recalled the lover to reason. Nicole had left the door open so as to run back. She would come.

He wanted to dart out of the house, but the baron had closed the other doors as he came along. He was forced to take refuge in Nicole’s room.

From there he saw her hurry in to her mistress, assist her to bed and retire, after a short chat, in which she displayed all the fawning of a maid who wishes to win her forgiveness for delinquency.

Singing to make her peace of mind be believed, she was going through on the way to the garden when Gilbert showed himself in a moonbeam.

She was going to scream but taking him for another, she said, conquering her fright:

“Oh, it is you – what rashness!”

“Yes, it is I – but do not scream any louder for me than the other,” said Gilbert.

“Why, whatever are you doing here?” she challenged, knowing her fellow-dependent at Taverney. “But I guess – you are still after my mistress. But though you love her, she does not care for you.”

“Really?”

“Mind that I do not expose you and have you thrown out,” she said in a threatening tone.

“One may be thrown out, but it will be Nicole to whom stones are tossed over the wall.”

“That is nothing to the piece of our mistress’s dress found in your hand on Louis XV Square, as Master Philip told his father. He does not see far into the matter yet, but I may help him.”

“Take care, Nicole, or they may learn that the stones thrown over the wall are wrapped in love-letters.”

“It is not true!” Then recovering her coolness, she added: “It is no crime to receive a love-letter – not like sneaking in to peep at poor young mistress in her private room.”

“But it is a crime for a waiting-maid to slip keys under garden doors and keep tryst with soldiers in the greenhouse!”

“Gilbert, Gilbert!”

“Such is the Nicole Virtue! Now, assert that I am in love with Mdlle. Andrea and I will say I am in love with my playfellow Nicole and they will believe that the sooner. Then you will be packed off. Instead of going to the Trianon Palace with your mistress, and coqueting with the fine fops around the Dauphiness, you will have to hang around the barracks to see your lover the corporal of the Guards. A low fall, and Nicole’s ambition ought to have carried her higher. Nicole, a dangler on a guardsman!”

And he began to hum a popular song:

“In the French Guards my sweetheart marches!”

“For pity’s sake, Gilbert, do not eye me thus – it alarms me.”

“Open the door and get that swashbuckler out of the way in ten minutes when I may take my leave.”

Subjugated by his imperious air, Nicole obeyed. When she returned after dismissing the corporal, her first lover was gone.

Alone in his attic, Gilbert cherished of his recollections solely the picture of Andrea letting down her fine tresses.

CHAPTER VII

THE TRAP TO CATCH PHILOSOPHERS

INDIFFERENT to everything since he had learnt of Andrea’s going soon to the court, Gilbert had forgotten the excursion of Rousseau and his brother botanist on Sunday. He would have preferred to pass the day at his garret window, watching his idol.

Rousseau had not only taken special pains over his attire, but arrayed Gilbert in the best, though Therese had thought overalls and a smockfrock quite good enough to wander in the woods, picking up weeds.

He was not wrong for Dr. Jussieu came in his carriage, powdered, pommaded and freshened up like springtime: Indian satin coat, lilac taffety vest, extremely fine white silk stockings and polished gold buckled shoes composed his botanist’s outfit.

“How gay you are!” exclaimed Rousseau.

“Not at all, I have dressed lightly to get over the ground better.”

“Your silk hose will never stand the wet.”

“We will pick our steps. Can one be too fine to court Mother Nature?”

The Genevan Philosopher said no more – an invocation to Nature usually shutting him up. Gilbert looked at Jussieu with envy. If he were arrayed like him, perhaps Andrea would look at him.

An hour after the start, the party reached Bougival, where they alighted and took the Chestnut Walk. On coming in sight of the summerhouse of Luciennes, where Gilbert had been conducted by Mdlle. Chon when he was picked up by her, a poor boy on the highway, he trembled. For he had repaid her succor by fleeing when she had wished to make a buffoon of him as a peer to Countess Dubarry’s black boy, Zamore.

“It is nine o’clock,” observed Dr. Jussieu, “suppose we have breakfast?”

“Where? did you bring eatables in your carriage?”

“No, but I see a kiosk over there where a modest meal may be had. We can herborize as we walk there.”

“Very well, Gilbert may be hungry. What is the name of your inn?”

“The Trap.”

“How queer!”

“The country folks have droll ideas. But it is not an inn; only a shooting-box where the gamekeepers offer hospitality to gentlemen.”

“Of course you know the owner’s name?” said Rousseau, suspicious.

“Not at all: Lady Mirepoix or Lady Egmont – or – it does not matter if the butter and the bread are fresh.”

The good-humored way in which he spoke disarmed the philosopher who besides had his appetite whetted by the early stroll. Jussieu led the march, Rousseau followed, gleaning, and Gilbert guarded the rear, thinking of Andrea and how to see her at Trianon Palace.

At the top of the hill, rather painfully climbed by the three botanists, rose one of those imitation rustic cottages invented by the gardeners of England and giving a stamp of originality to the scene. The walls were of brick and the shelly stone found naturally in mosaic patterns on the riverside.

The single room was large enough to hold a table and half-a-dozen chairs. The windows were glazed in different colors so that you could by selection view the landscape in the red of sunset, the blue of a cloudy day or the still colder slate hue of a December day.