The Professor / Учитель. Книга для чтения на английском языке

“Because M. Pelet has just married the lady whom you and Mr. Brown assigned to me as my wife[439].”

“Oh, indeed!” replied Hunsden with a short laugh; “so you’ve lost both your wife and your place?”

“Precisely so.”

I saw him give a quick, covert glance all round my room; he marked its narrow limits, its scanty furniture: in an instant he had comprehended the state of matters – had absolved me from the crime of prosperity. A curious effect this discovery wrought in his strange mind; I am morally certain that if he had found me installed in a handsome parlour, lounging on a soft couch, with a pretty, wealthy wife at my side, he would have hated me; a brief, cold, haughty visit, would in such a case have been the extreme limit of his civilities, and never would he have come near me more, so long as the tide of fortune bore me smoothly on its surface; but the painted furniture, the bare walls, the cheerless solitude of my room relaxed his rigid pride, and I know not what softening change had taken place both in his voice and look ere he spoke again.

“You have got another place?”

“No.”

“You are in the way of getting one?”

“No.”

“That is bad; have you applied to Brown?”

“No, indeed.”

“You had better[440]; he often has it in his power to give useful information in such matters.”

“He served me once very well; I have no claim on him, and am not in the humour to bother him again.”

“Oh, if you’re bashful, and dread being intrusive, you need only commission me. I shall see him to-night; I can put in a word.”

“I beg you will not, Mr. Hunsden; I am in your debt already; you did me an important service when I was at X – — ; got me out of a den where I was dying: that service I have never repaid, and at present I decline positively adding another item to the account.”

“If the wind sits that way[441], I’m satisfied. I thought my unexampled generosity in turning you out of that accursed counting-house would be duly appreciated some day: ‘Cast your bread on the waters[442], and it shall be found after many days,’ say the Scriptures. Yes, that’s right, lad – make much of me – I’m a nonpareil: there’s nothing like me in the common herd. In the meantime, to put all humbug aside and talk sense for a few moments, you would be greatly the better of a situation, and what is more, you are a fool if you refuse to take one from any hand that offers it.”

“Very well, Mr. Hunsden; now you have settled that point, talk of something else. What news from X – — ?”

“I have not settled that point, or at least there is another to settle before we get to X – — . Is this Miss Zenobie” (Zoraïde, interposed I) – “well, Zoraïde – is she really married to Pelet?”

“I tell you yes – and if you don’t believe me, go and ask the cure of St. Jacques.”

“And your heart is broken?”

“I am not aware that it is; it feels all right – beats as usual.”

“Then your feelings are less superfine than I took them to be; you must be a coarse, callous character, to bear such a thwack without staggering under it.”

“Staggering under it? What the deuce is there to stagger under in the circumstance of a Belgian schoolmistress marrying a French schoolmaster? The progeny will doubtless be a strange hybrid race; but that’s their look out – not mine.”

“He indulges in scurrilous jests, and the bride was his afianced one!”

“Who said so?”

“Brown.”

“I’ll tell you what, Hunsden – Brown is an old gossip[443].”

“He is; but in the meantime, if his gossip be founded on less than fact – if you took no particular interest in Miss Zoraïde – why, O youthful pedagogue! did you leave your place in consequence of her becoming Madame Pelet?”

“Because – ” I felt my face grow a little hot; “because – in short, Mr. Hunsden, I decline answering any more questions,” and I plunged my hands deep in my breeches pocket.

Hunsden triumphed: his eyes – his laugh announced victory.

“What the deuce are you laughing at, Mr. Hunsden?”

“At your exemplary composure. Well, lad, I’ll not bore you; I see how it is: Zoraïde has jilted you – married some one richer, as any sensible woman would have done if she had had the chance.”

I made no reply – I let him think so, not feeling inclined to enter into an explanation of the real state of things, and as little to forge a false account; but it was not easy to blind Hunsden; my very silence, instead of convincing him that he had hit the truth, seemed to render him doubtful about it; he went on: