← catalogue

A Chair on the Boulevard

by Leonard Merrick · English · Gutenberg #9928 · 468,870 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Chair on the Boulevard
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: A Chair on the Boulevard

Author: Leonard Merrick


        
Release date: February 1, 2006 [eBook #9928]
                Most recently updated: December 27, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9928

Credits: Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Ginny Brewer, Tom Allen and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHAIR ON THE BOULEVARD ***




Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Ginny Brewer, Tom Allen and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.










A CHAIR ON THE BOULEVARD



By LEONARD MERRICK




WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY A. NEIL LYONS

1921





CONTENTS

      I    THE TRAGEDY OF A COMIC SONG

     II    TRICOTRIN ENTERTAINS

    III    THE FATAL FLOROZONDE

     IV    THE OPPORTUNITY OF PETITPAS

      V    THE CAFÉ OF THE BROKEN HEART

     VI    THE DRESS CLOTHES OF MONSIEUR POMPONNET

    VII    THE SUICIDES IN THE RUE SOMBRE

   VIII    THE CONSPIRACY FOR CLAUDINE

     IX    THE DOLL IN THE PINK SILK DRESS

      X    THE LAST EFFECT

     XI    AN INVITATION TO DINNER

    XII    THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS

   XIII    THE FAIRY POODLE

    XIV    LITTLE-FLOWER-OF-THE-WOOD

     XV    A MIRACLE IN MONTMARTRE

    XVI    THE DANGER OF BEING A TWIN

   XVII    HERCULES AND APHRODITE

  XVIII    "PARDON, YOU ARE MADEMOISELLE GIRARD!"

    XIX    HOW TRICOTRIN SAW LONDON

     XX    THE INFIDELITY OF MONSIEUR NOULENS





INTRODUCTION

These disjointed thoughts about one of Leonard Merrick's most
articulate books must begin with a personal confession.

For many years I walked about this earth avoiding the works of Leonard
Merrick, as other men might have avoided an onion. This insane aversion
was created in my mind chiefly by admirers of what is called the
"cheerful" note in fiction. Such people are completely agreed in
pronouncing Mr. Merrick to be a pessimistic writer. I hate pessimistic
writers.

Years ago, when I was of an age when the mind responds acutely to
exterior impressions, some well-meaning uncle, or other fool, gave me a
pessimistic book to read. This was a work of fiction which the British
Public had hailed as a masterpiece of humour. It represented, with an
utter fury of pessimism, the spiritual inadequacies of--but why go into
details.

Now, I have to confess that for a long time I did Mr. Merrick the
extraordinary injustice of believing him to be the author of that
popular masterpiece.

The mistake, though intellectually unpardonable, may perhaps be
condoned on other grounds. By virtue of that process of thought which
we call the "association of ideas," I naturally connected Mr. Merrick
with this work of super-pessimism; my friends being so confirmed in
their belief that he was a super-pessimist.

But by virtue of a fortunate accident, I at last got the truth about
Mr. Merrick. This event arose from the action of a right-minded
butcher, who, having exhausted his stock of _The Pigeon-Fancier's
Gazette_, sent me my weekly supply of dog-bones wrapped about with
Leonard Merrick.

These dog-bones happened to reach my house at a moment when no other
kind of literary nutriment was to be had. Having nothing better to read
I read the dog-bone wrappers. Thus, by dog-bones, was I brought to
Merrick: the most jolly, amusing, and optimistic of all spiritual
friends.

The book to which these utterances are prefixed is to my mind one of
the few _really_ amusing books which have been published in
England during my lifetime. But, then, I think that all of Mr.
Merrick's books are amusing: even his "earnest" books, such as _The
Actor-Manager, When Love Flies out o' the Window_, or _The
Position of Peggy Harper_.

It is, of course, true that such novels as these are unlikely to be
found congenial by those persons who derive entertainment from fiction
like my uncle's present. On the other hand, there are people in the
world with a capacity for being amused by psychological inquiry. To
such people I would say: "Don't miss Merrick." The extraordinary
cheerfulness of Mr. Merrick's philosophy is a fact which will impress
itself upon all folk who are able to take a really cheerful view of
life.

All of Mr. Merrick's sermons--I do not hesitate to call his novels
"sermons," because no decent novel can be anything else--all his
sermons, I say, point to this conclusion: that people who go out
deliberately to look for happiness, to kick for it, and fight for it,
or who try to buy it with money, will miss happiness; this being a
state of heart--a mere outgrowth, more often to be found by a careless
and self-forgetful vagrant than by the deliberate and self-conscious
seeker. A cheerful doctrine this. Not only cheerful, but self-evidently
true. How right it is, and how cheerful it is, to think that while
philosophers and clergymen strut about this world looking out, and
smelling out, for its prime experiences, more careless and less
celebrated men are continually finding such things, without effort,
without care, in irregular and unconsecrated places.

In novel after novel, Mr. Merrick has preached the same good-humoured,
cheerful doctrine: the doctrine of anti-fat. He asks us to believe--he
_makes_ us believe--that a man (or woman) is not merely virtuous,
but merely sane, who exchanges the fats of fulfilment for the little
lean pleasures of honourable hope and high endeavour. Oh wise, oh witty
Mr. Merrick!

Mr. Merrick has not, to my knowledge, written one novel in which his
hero is represented as having achieved complacency. Mr. Merrick's
heroes all undergo the very human experience of "hitting a snag." They
are none of them represented as _enjoying_ this experience; but
none of them whimper and none of them "rat."

If anybody could prove to me that Mr. Merrick had ever invented a hero
who submitted tamely to tame success, to fat prosperity; or who had
stepped, were it ever so lightly, into the dirty morass of accepted
comfort, then would I cheerfully admit to anybody that Leonard Merrick
is a Pessimistic Writer. But until this proof be forthcoming, I stick
to my opinion: I stick to the conviction that Mr. Merrick is the
gayest, cheer fullest, and most courageous of living humorists.

This opinion is a general opinion, applicable to Mr. Merrick's general
work. This morning, however, I am asked to narrow my field of view: to
contemplate not so much Mr. Merrick at large as Mr. Merrick in
particular: to look at Mr. Merrick in his relationship to this one
particular book: _A Chair on the Boulevard_.

Now, if I say, as I have said, that Mr. Merrick is cheerful in his
capacity of solemn novelist, what am I to say of Mr. Merrick in his
lighter aspect, that of a writer of _feuilletons?_ Addressing
myself to an imaginary audience of Magazine Enthusiasts, I ask them to
tell me whether, judged even by comparison with their favourite
fiction, some of the stories to be found in this volume are not
exquisitely amusing?

The first story in the book--that which Mr. Merrick calls "The Tragedy
of a Comic Song"--is in my view the funniest story of this century:
but I don't ask or expect the Magazine Enthusiast to share this view or
to endorse that judgment. "The Tragedy of a Comic Song" is essentially
one of those productions in which the reader is expected to
collaborate. The author has deliberately contrived certain voids of
narrative; and his reader is expected to populate these anecdotal
wastes. This is asking more than it is fair to ask of a Magazine
Enthusiast. No genuine Magazine reader cares for the elusive or
allusive style in fiction. "The Tragedy of a Comic Song" won't do for
Bouverie Street, however well and completely it may do for me.

But there are other stories in this book. There is that screaming farce
called "The Suicides in the Rue Sombre." Now, then, you Magazine
zealots, speak up and tell me truly: is there anything too difficult
for you in this? If so, the psychology of what is called "public taste"
becomes a subject not suited to public discussion.

The foregoing remarks and considerations apply equally to such stories
as "The Dress Clothes of M. Pomponnet" and "Tricotrin Entertains."
There are other stories which delight me, as, for example, "Little-
Flower-of-the-Wood": but this jerks us back again to the essential Mr.
Merrick: he who demands collaboration.

There are, again, other stories, and yet others; but to write down all
their titles here would be merely to transcribe the index page of the
book. Neither the reader nor I can afford to waste our time like that.

I have said nothing about the technical qualities of Mr. Merrick's
work. I don't intend to do so. It has long been a conceit of mine to
believe that professional vendors of letterpress should reserve their
mutual discussions of technique for technical occasions, such as those
when men of like mind and occupation sit at table, with a bottle
between them.

I am convinced that Mr. Merrick is a very great and gifted man, deeply
skilled in his profession. I can bring forth arguments and proofs to
support this conviction; but I fail utterly to see why I should do so.
To people who have a sense of that which is sincere and fresh in
fiction, these facts will be apparent. To them my arguments and
illustrations would be profitless. As for those honest persons to whom
the excellencies of Merrick are not apparent, I can only think that
nothing which I or any other man could say would render them obvious.
"Happiness is in ourselves," as the Vicar remarked to the donkey who
was pulling the lawn-mower.

Good luck, Leonard Merrick, and good cheer! I shout my greeting to you
across the ripples of that inky lake which is our common fishery.

A. NEIL LYONS.



A CHAIR ON THE BOULEVARD



THE TRAGEDY OF A COMIC SONG

I like to monopolise a table in a restaurant, unless a friend is with
me, so I resented the young man's presence. Besides, he had a
melancholy face. If it hadn't been for the piano-organ, I don't suppose
I should have spoken to him. As the organ that was afflicting Lisle
Street began to volley a comic song of a day that was dead, he started.

"That tune!" he murmured in French. If I did not deceive myself, tears
sprang to his eyes.

I was curious. Certainly, on both sides of the Channel, we had long ago
had more than enough of the tune--no self-respecting organ-grinder
rattled it now. That the young Frenchman should wince at the tune I
understood. But that he should weep!

I smiled sympathetically. "We suffered from it over here as well," I
remarked.

"I did not know," he said, in English that reproved my French, "it was
sung in London also--'Partant pour le Moulin'?"

"Under another name," I told him, "it was an epidemic."

Clearly, the organ had stirred distressing memories in him, for though
we fell to chatting, I could see that he neither talked nor dined with
any relish. As luck would have it, too, the instrument of torture
resumed its répertoire well within hearing, and when "Partant pour le
Moulin" was reached again, he clasped his head.

"You find it so painful?" I inquired.

"Painful?" he exclaimed. "Monsieur, it is my 'istory, that comic tune!
It is to me romance, tragedy, ruin. Will you hear? Wait! I shall range
my ideas. Listen:"

       *       *       *       *       *

It is Paris, at Montmartre--we are before the door of a laundress. A
girl approaches. Her gaze is troubled, she frowns a little. What ails
her? I shall tell you: the laundress has refused to deliver her washing
until her bill is paid. And the girl cannot pay it--not till Saturday--
and she has need of things to put on. It is a moment of anxiety.

She opens the door. Some minutes pass. The girl reappears, holding
under her arm a little parcel. Good! she has triumphed. In coming out
she sees a young man, pale, abstracted, who stands before the shop. He
does not attempt to enter. He stands motionless, regarding the window
with an air forlorn.

"Ah," she says to herself, "here is another customer who cannot pay his
bill!"

But wait a little. After 'alf an hour what happens? She sees the young
man again! This time he stands before a modest restaurant. Does he go
in? No, again no! He regards the window sorrowfully. He sighs. The
dejection of his attitude would melt a stone.

"Poor boy," she thought; "he cannot pay for a dinner either!"

The affair is not finished. How the summer day is beautiful--she will
do some footing! Figure yourself that once more she perceives the young
man. Now it is before the mont-de-piété, the pawnbroker's. She watches
him attentively. Here, at least, he will enter, she does not doubt. She
is wrong. It is the same thing--he regards, he laments, he turns away!

"Oh, mon Dieu," she said. "Nothing remains to him to pawn even!"

It is too strong! She addressed him:

"Monsieur!"

But, when she has said "Monsieur," there is the question how she shall
continue. Now the young man regards the girl instead of the
pawnbroker's. Her features are pretty--or "pretty well"; her costume
has been made by herself, but it is not bad; and she has chic--above
all she has chic. He asks:

"What can I have the pleasure to do for you?"

Remark that she is bohemian, and he also.

The conversation was like this:

"Monsieur, three times this morning I have seen you. It was impossible
that I resist speaking. You have grief?"

"Frightful!" he said.

"Perhaps," she added timidly, "you have hunger also?"

"A hunger insupportable, mademoiselle!"

"I myself am extremely hard up, monsieur, but will you permit that I
offer you what I can?"

"Angel!" the young man exclaimed. "There must be wings under your coat.
But I beg of you not to fly yet. I shall tell you the reason of my
grief. If you will do me the honour to seat yourself at the café
opposite, we shall be able to talk more pleasantly."

This appeared strange enough, this invitation from a young man who she
had supposed was starving; but wait a little! Her amazement increased
when, to pay for the wine he had ordered, her companion threw on to the
table a bank-note with a gesture absolutely careless.

She was in danger of distrusting her eyes.

"Is it a dream?" she cried. "Is it a vision from the _Thousand and
One Nights_, or is it really a bank-note?"

"Mademoiselle, it is the mess of pottage," the young man answered
gloomily. "It is the cause of my sadness: for that miserable money, and
more that is to come, I have sold my birthright."

She was on a ship--no, what is it, your expression?--"at sea"!

"I am a poet," he explained; "but perhaps you may not know my work; I
am not celebrated. I am Tricotrin, mademoiselle--Gustave Tricotrin, at
your feet! For years I have written, aided by ambition, and an uncle
who manufactures silk in Lyons. Well, the time is arrived when he is
monstrous, this uncle. He says to me, 'Gustave, this cannot last--you
make no living, you make nothing but debts. (My tragedies he ignores.)
Either you must be a poet who makes money, or you must be a partner who
makes silk,' How could I defy him?--he holds the purse. It was
unavoidable that I stooped. He has given me a sum to satisfy my
creditors, and Monday I depart for Lyons. In the meantime, I take
tender farewells of the familiar scenes I shall perhaps never behold
again."

"How I have been mistaken!" she exclaimed. And then: "But the hunger
you confessed?"

"Of the soul, mademoiselle," said the poet--"the most bitter!"

"And you have no difficulties with the laundress?"

"None," he groaned. "But in the bright days of poverty that have fled
for ever, I have had many difficulties with her. This morning I
reconstituted the situation--I imagined myself without a sou, and
without a collar."

"The little restaurant," she questioned, "where I saw you dining on the
odour?"

"I figured fondly to myself that I was ravenous and that I dared not
enter. It was sublime."

"The mont-de-piété?"

"There imagination restored to me the vanished moments when I have
mounted with suspense, and my least deplorable suit of clothes." His
emotion was profound. "It is my youth to which I am bidding adieu!" he
cried. "It is more than that--it is my aspirations and my renown!"

"But you have said that you have no renown," she reminded him.

"So much the more painful," said the young man; "the hussy we could not
win is always the fairest--I part from renown even more despairingly
than from youth."

She felt an amusement, an interest. But soon it was the turn of him to
feel an interest--the interest that had consequences so important, so
'eart-breaking, so _fatales_! He had demanded of her, most
naturally, her history, and this she related to him in a style
dramatic. Myself, I have not the style dramatic, though I avow to you I
admire that.

"We are in a provincial town," she said to the young man, "we are in
Rouen--the workroom of a modiste. Have no embarrassment, monsieur
Tricotrin, you, at least, are invisible to the girls who sew! They sew
all day and talk little--already they are _tristes_, resigned.
Among them sits one who is different--one passionate, ambitious--a girl
who burns to be _divette_, singer, who is devoured by longings for
applause, fashion, wealth. She has made the acquaintance of a little
pastrycook. He has become fascinated, they are affianced. In a month
she will be married."

The young man, Tricotrin, well understood that the girl she described
was herself.

"What does she consider while she sits sewing?" she continued. "That
the pastrycook loves her, that he is generous, that she will do her
most to be to him a good wife? Not at all. Far from that! She
considers, on the contrary, that she was a fool to promise him; she
considers how she shall escape--from him, from Rouen, from her ennui--
she seeks to fly to Paris. Alas! she has no money, not a franc. And she
sews--always she sews in the dull room--and her spirit rebels."

"Good!" said the poet. "It is a capital first instalment."

"The time goes on. There remains only a week to the marriage morning.
The little home is prepared, the little pastrycook is full of joy.
_Alors_, one evening they go out; for her the sole attraction in
the town is the hall of varieties. Yes, it is third class, it is not
great things; however, it is the only one in Rouen. He purchases two
tickets. What a misfortune--it is the last temptation to her! They
stroll back; she takes his arm--under the moon, under the stars; but
she sees only the lamps of Paris!--she sees only that he can say
nothing she cares to hear!"

"Ah, unhappy man!" murmured the poet.

"They sit at a café table, and he talks, the fiancé, of the bliss that
is to come to them. She attends to not a word, not a syllable. While
she smiles, she questions herself, frenzied, how she can escape. She
has commanded a _sirop_. As she lifts her glass to the syphon, her
gaze falls on the ring she wears--the ring of their betrothal. 'To the
future, cher ange!' says the fiancé. 'To the future, vieux chéri!' she
says. And she laughs in her heart--for she resolves to sell the ring!"

Tricotrin had become absolutely enthralled.

"She obtained for the ring forty-five francs the next day--and for the
little pastrycook all is finished. She wrote him a letter--'Good-bye.'
He has lost his reason. Mad with despair, he has flung himself before
an electric car, and is killed.... It is strange," she added to the
poet, who regarded her with consternation, "that I did not think sooner
of the ring that was always on my finger, n'est-ce-pas? It may be that
never before had I felt so furious an impulse to desert him. It may be
also--that there was no ring and no pastrycook!" And she broke into
peals of laughter.

"Ah, mon Dieu," exclaimed the young man, "but you are enchanting! Let
us go to breakfast--you are the kindred soul I have looked for all my
life. By-the-bye, I may as well know your name?"

Then, monsieur, this poor girl who had trembled before her laundress,
she told him a name which was going, in a while, to crowd the
Ambassadeurs and be famous through all Paris--a name which was to mean
caprices, folly, extravagance the most wilful and reckless. She
answered--and it said nothing yet--"My name is Paulette Fleury."

       *       *       *       *       *

The piano-organ stopped short, as if it knew the Frenchman had reached
a crisis in his narrative. He folded his arms and nodded impressively.

"Voilà! Monsieur, I 'ave introduced you to Paulette Fleury! It was her
beginning."

He offered me a cigarette, and frowned, lost in thought, at the lady
who was chopping bread behind the counter.

"Listen," he resumed.

       *       *       *       *       *

They have breakfasted; they have fed the sparrows around their chairs,
and they have strolled under the green trees in the sunshine. She was
singing then at a little café-concert the most obscure. It is arranged,
before they part, that in the evening he shall go to applaud her.

He had a friend, young also, a composer, named Nicolas Pitou. I cannot
express to you the devotion that existed between them. Pitou was
employed at a publisher's, but the publisher paid him not much better
than his art. The comrades have shared everything: the loans from the
mont-de-piété, the attic, and the dreams. In Montmartre it was said
"Tricotrin and Pitou" as one says "Orestes and Pylades." It is
beautiful such affection, hein? Listen!

Tricotrin has recounted to his friend his meeting with Paulette, and
when the hour for the concert is arrived, Pitou accompanied him. The
musician, however, was, perhaps, the more sedate. He has gone with
little expectation; his interest was not high.

What a surprise he has had! He has found her an actress--an artist to
the ends of the fingers. Tricotrin was astonished also. The two
friends, the poet and the composer, said "Mon Dieu!" They regarded the
one the other. They said "Mon Dieu!" again. Soon Pitou has requested of
Tricotrin an introduction. It is agreed. Tricotrin has presented his
friend, and invited the _chanteuse_ to drink a bock--a glass of
beer.... A propos, you take a liqueur, monsieur, yes? What liqueur you
take? Sst, garçon!... Well, you conjecture, no doubt, what I shall say?
Before the bock was finished, they were in love with her--both!

At the door of her lodging, Paulette has given to each a pressure of
the hand, and said gently, "Till to-morrow."

"I worship her!" Tricotrin told Pitou.

"I have found my ideal!" Pitou answered Tricotrin.

It is superb, such friendship, hein?

In the mind of the poet who had accomplished tragedies majestic--in the
mind of the composer, the most classical in Montmartre--there had been
born a new ambition: it was to write a comic song for Paulette Fleury!

It appears to you droll, perhaps? Monsieur, to her lover, the humblest
_divette_ is more than Patti. In all the world there can be no joy
so thrilling as to hear the music of one's brain sung by the woman one
adores--unless it be to hear the woman one adores give forth one's
verse. I believe it has been accepted as a fact, this; nevertheless it
is true.

Yes, already the idea had come to them, and Paulette was well pleased
when they told her of it. Oh, she knew they loved her, both, and with
both she coquetted. But with their intention she did not coquet; as to
that she was in earnest. Every day they discussed it with enthusiasm--
they were to write a song that should make for her a furore.

What happened? I shall tell you. Monday, when Tricotrin was to depart
for Lyons, he informed his uncle that he will not go. No less than
that! His uncle was furious--I do not blame him--but naturally
Tricotrin has argued, "If I am to create for Paulette her great chance,
I must remain in Paris to study Paulette! I cannot create in an
atmosphere of commerce. I require the Montmartrois, the boulevards, the
inspiration of her presence." Isn't it?

And Pitou--whose very soul had been enraptured in his leisure by a
fugue he was composing--Pitou would have no more of it. He allowed the
fugue to grow dusty, while day and night he thought always of refrains
that ran "_Zim-la-zim-la zim-boum-boum!_" Constantly they
conferred, the comrades. They told the one the other how they loved
her; and then they beat their heads, and besought of Providence a fine
idea for the comic song.

It was their thought supreme. The silk manufacturer has washed his
'ands of Tricotrin, but he has not cared--there remained to him still
one of the bank-notes. As for Pitou, who neglected everything except to
find his melody for Paulette, the publisher has given him the sack.
Their acquaintances ridiculed the sacrifices made for her. But,
monsieur, when a man loves truly, to make a sacrifice for the woman is
to make a present to himself.

Nevertheless I avow to you that they fretted because of her coquetry.
One hour it seemed that Pitou had gained her heart; the next her
encouragement has been all to Tricotrin. Sometimes they have said to
her:

"Paulette, it is true we are as Orestes and Pylades, but there can be
only one King of Eden at the time. Is it Orestes, or Pylades that you
mean to crown?"

Then she would laugh and reply:

"How can I say? I like you both so much I can never make up my mind
which to like best."

It was not satisfactory.

And always she added. "In the meantime, where is the song?"

Ah, the song, that song, how they have sought it!--on the Butte, and in
the Bois, and round the Halles. Often they have tramped Paris till
daybreak, meditating the great chance for Paulette. And at last the
poet has discovered it: for each verse a different phase of life, but
through it all, the pursuit of gaiety, the fever of the dance--the
gaiety of youth, the gaiety of dotage, the gaiety of despair! It should
be the song of the pleasure-seekers--the voices of Paris when the lamps
are lit.

Monsieur, if we sat 'ere in the restaurant until it closed, I could not
describe to you how passionately Tricotrin, the devoted Tricotrin,
worked for her. He has studied her without cease; he has studied her
attitudes, her expressions. He has taken his lyric as if it were
material and cut it to her figure; he has taken it as if it were
plaster, and moulded it upon her mannerisms. There was not a
_moue_ that she made, not a pretty trick that she had, not a word
that she liked to sing for which he did not provide an opportunity. At
the last line, when the pen fell from his fingers, he shouted to Pitou,
"Comrade, be brave--I have won her!"

And Pitou? Monsieur, if we sat 'ere till they prepared the tables for
déjeuner to-morrow, I could not describe to you how passionately Pitou,
the devoted Pitou, worked that she might have a grand popularity by his
music. At dawn, when he has found that _strepitoso_ passage, which
is the hurrying of the feet, he wakened the poet and cried, "Mon ami, I
pity you--she is mine!" It was the souls of two men when it was
finished, that comic song they made for her! It was the song the organ
has ground out--"Partant pour le Moulin."

And then they rehearsed it, the three of them, over and over, inventing
always new effects. And then the night for the song is arrived. It has
rained all day, and they have walked together in the rain--the singer,
and the men who loved her, both--to the little café-concert where she
would appear.

They tremble in the room, among the crowd, Pitou and Tricotrin; they
are agitated. There are others who sing--it says nothing to them. In
the room, in the Future, there is only Paulette!

It is very hot in the café-concert, and there is too much noise. At
last they ask her: "Is she nervous?" She shakes her head: "Mais non!"
She smiles to them.

Attend! It is her turn. Ouf; but it is hot in the café-concert, and
there is too much noise! She mounts the platform. The audience are
careless; it continues, the jingle of the glasses, the hum of talk. She
begins. Beneath the table Tricotrin has gripped the hand of Pitou.

Wait! Regard the crowd that look at her! The glasses are silent, now,
hein? The talk has stopped. To a great actress is come her chance.
There is _not_ too much noise in the café-concert!

But, when she finished! What an uproar! Never will she forget it. A
thousand times she has told the story, how it was written--the song--
and how it made her famous. Before two weeks she was the attraction of
the Ambassadeurs, and all Paris has raved of Paulette Fleury.

Tricotrin and Pitou were mad with joy. Certainly Paris did not rave of
Pitou nor Tricotrin--there have not been many that remembered who wrote
the song; and it earned no money for them, either, because it was hers
--the gift of their love. Still, they were enraptured. To both of them
she owed equally, and more than ever it was a question which would be
the happy man.

Listen! When they are gone to call on her one afternoon she was not at
'ome. What had happened? I shall tell you. There was a noodle, rich--
what you call a "Johnnie in the Stalls"--who became infatuated with her
at the Ambassadeurs. He whistled "Partant pour le Moulin" all the days,
and went to hear it all the nights. Well, she was not at 'ome because
she had married him. Absolutely they were married! Her lovers have been
told it at the door.

What a moment! Figure yourself what they have suffered, both! They had
worshipped her, they had made sacrifices for her, they had created for
her her grand success; and, as a consequence of that song, she was the
wife of the "Johnnie in the Stalls"!

       *       *       *       *       *

Far down the street, but yet distinct, the organ revived the tune
again. My Frenchman shuddered, and got up.

"I cannot support it," he murmured. "You understand? The associations
are too pathetic."

"They must be harrowing," I said. "Before you go, there is one thing I
should like to ask you, if I may. Have I had the honour of meeting
monsieur Tricotrin, or monsieur Pitou?"

He stroked his hat, and gazed at me in sad surprise. "Ah, but neither,
monsieur," he groaned. "The associations are much more 'arrowing than
that--I was the 'Johnnie in the Stalls'!"



TRICOTRIN ENTERTAINS

One night when Pitou went home, an unaccustomed perfume floated to
meet him on the stairs. He climbed them in amazement.

"If we lived in an age of miracles I should conclude that Tricotrin was
smoking a cigar," he said to himself. "What can it be?"

The pair occupied a garret in the rue des Trois Frères at this time,
where their window, in sore need of repairs, commanded an unrivalled
view of the dirty steps descending to the passage des Abbesses.
To-night, behold Tricotrin pacing the garret with dignity, between
his lips an Havannah that could have cost no less than a franc. The
composer rubbed his eyes.

"Have they made you an Academician?" he stammered. "Or has your uncle,
the silk manufacturer, died and left you his business?"

"My friend," replied the poet, "prepare yourself forthwith for 'a New
and Powerful Serial of the Most Absorbing Interest'! I am no longer the
young man who went out this evening--I am a celebrity."

"I thought," said the composer, "that it couldn't be you when I saw the
cigar."

"Figure yourself," continued Tricotrin, "that at nine o'clock I was
wandering on the Grand Boulevard with a thirst that could have consumed
a brewery. I might mention that I had also empty pockets, but--"

"It would be to pad the powerful Serial shamelessly," said Pitou:
"there are things that one takes for granted."

"At the corner of the place de l'Opera a fellow passed me whom I knew
and yet did not know; I could not recall where it was we had met. I
turned and followed him, racking my brains the while. Suddenly I
remembered--"

"Pardon me," interrupted the composer, "but I have read _Bel-Ami_
myself. Oh, it is quite evident that you are a celebrity--you have
already forgotten how to be original!"

"There is a resemblance, it is true," admitted Tricotrin. "However,
Maupassant had no copyright in the place de l'Opera. I say that I
remembered the man; I had known him when he was in the advertisement
business in Lyons. Well, we have supped together; he is in a position
to do me a service--he will ask an editor to publish an Interview with
me!"

"An Interview?" exclaimed Pitou. "You are to be Interviewed? Ah, no, my
poor friend, too much meat has unhinged your reason! Go to sleep--you
will be hungry and sane again to-morrow."

"It will startle some of them, hein? 'Gustave Tricotrin at Home'--in
the illustrated edition of _Le Demi-Mot?_"

"Illustrated?" gasped Pitou. He looked round the attic. "Did I
understand you to say 'illustrated'?"

"Well, well," said Tricotrin, "we shall move the beds! And, when the
concierge nods, perhaps we can borrow the palm from the portals. With a
palm and an amiable photographer, an air of splendour is easily arrived
at. I should like a screen--we will raise one from a studio in the rue
Ravignan. Mon Dieu! with a palm and a screen I foresee the most opulent
effects. 'A Corner of the Study'--we can put the screen in front of the
washhand-stand, and litter the table with manuscripts--you will admit
that we have a sufficiency of manuscripts?--no one will know that they
have all been rejected. Also, a painter in the rue Ravignan might lend
us a few of his failures--'Before you go, let me show you my pictures,'
said monsieur Tricotrin: 'I am an ardent collector'!"

In Montmartre the sight of two "types" shifting household gods makes
no sensation--the sails of the remaining windmills still revolve. On
the day that it had its likeness taken, the attic was temporarily
transformed. At least a score of unappreciated masterpieces concealed
the dilapidation of the walls; the broken window was decorated with an
Eastern fabric that had been a cherished "property" of half the
ateliers in Paris; the poet himself--with the palm drooping gracefully
above his head--mused in a massive chair, in which Solomon had been
pronouncing judgment until 12:15, when the poet had called for it. The
appearance of exhaustion observed by admirers of the poet's portrait
was due to the chair's appalling weight. As he staggered under it up
the steps of the passage des Abbesses, the young man had feared he
would expire on the threshold of his fame.

However, the photographer proved as resourceful as could be desired,
and perhaps the most striking feature of the illustration was the
spaciousness of the apartment in which monsieur Tricotrin was presented
to readers of _Le Demi-Mot._ The name of the thoroughfare was not
obtruded.

With what pride was that issue of the journal regarded in the rue des
Trois Frères!

"Aha!" cried Tricotrin, who in moments persuaded himself that he
really occupied such noble quarters, "those who repudiated me in the
days of my struggles will be a little repentant now, hein? Stone Heart
will discover that I was not wrong in relying on my genius!"

"I assume," said Pitou, "that 'Stone Heart' is your newest pet-name for
the silk-manufacturing uncle?"

"You catch my meaning precisely. I propose to send a copy of the paper
to Lyons, with the Interview artistically bordered by laurels; I cannot
draw laurels myself, but there are plenty of persons who can. We will
find someone to do it when we palter with starvation at the Café du Bel
Avenir this evening--or perhaps we had better fast at the Lucullus
Junior, instead; there is occasionally some ink in the bottle there. I
shall put the address in the margin--my uncle will not know where it
is, and on the grounds of euphony I have no fault to find with it. It
would not surprise me if I received an affectionate letter and a
bank-note in reply--the perversity of human nature delights in generosities
to the prosperous."

"It is a fact," said Pitou. "That human nature!"

"Who knows?--he may even renew the allowance that he used to make me!"

"Upon my word, more unlikely things have happened," Pitou conceded.

"Mon Dieu, Nicolas, we shall again have enough to eat!"

"Ah, visionary!" exclaimed Pitou; "are there no bounds to your
imagination?"

Now, the perversity to which the poet referred did inspire monsieur
Rigaud, of Lyons, to loosen his purse-strings. He wrote that he
rejoiced to learn that Gustave was beginning to make his way, and
enclosed a present of two hundred and fifty francs. More, after an
avuncular preamble which the poet skipped--having a literary hatred of
digression in the works of others--he even hinted that the allowance
might be resumed.

What a banquet there was in bohemia! How the glasses jingled afterwards
in La Lune Rousse, and oh, the beautiful hats that Germaine and
Marcelle displayed on the next fine Sunday! Even when the last ripples
of the splash were stilled, the comrades swaggered gallantly on the
boulevard Rochechouart, for by any post might not the first instalment
of that allowance arrive?

Weeks passed; and Tricotrin began to say, "It looks to me as if we
needed another Interview!"

And then came a letter which was no less cordial than its predecessor,
but which stunned the unfortunate recipient like a warrant for his
execution. Monsieur Rigaud stated that business would bring him to
Paris on the following evening and that he anticipated the pleasure of
visiting his nephew; he trusted that his dear Gustave would meet him at
the station. The poet and composer stared at each other with bloodless
faces.

"You must call at his hotel instead," faltered Pitou at last.

"But you may be sure he will wish to see my elegant abode."

"'It is in the hands of the decorators. How unfortunate!'"

"He would propose to offer them suggestions; he is a born suggester."

"'Fever is raging in the house--a most infectious fever'; we will ask a
medical student to give us one."

"It would not explain my lodging in a slum meanwhile."

"Well, let us admit that there is nothing to be done; you will have to
own up!"

"Are you insane? It is improvident youths like you, who come to lament
their wasted lives. If I could receive him this once as he expects to
be received, we cannot doubt that it would mean an income of two
thousand francs to me. Prosperity dangles before us--shall I fail to
clutch it? Mon Dieu, what a catastrophe, his coming to Paris! Why
cannot he conduct his business in Lyons? Is there not enough money in
the city of Lyons to satisfy him? O grasper! what greed! Nicolas, my
more than brother, if it were night when I took him to a sumptuous
apartment, he might not notice the name of the street--I could talk
brilliantly as we turned the corner. Also I could scintillate as I led
him away. He would never know that it was not the rue des Trois
Frères."

"You are right," agreed Pitou; "but which is the pauper in our social
circle whose sumptuous apartment you propose to acquire?"

"One must consider," said Tricotrin. "Obviously, I am compelled to
entertain in somebody's; fortunately, I have two days to find it in. I
shall now go forth!"

It was a genial morning, and the first person he accosted in the rue
Ravignan was Goujaud, painting in the patch of garden before the
studios. "Tell me, Goujaud," exclaimed the poet, "have you any gilded
acquaintance who would permit me the use of his apartment for two hours
to-morrow evening?"

Goujaud reflected for some seconds, with his head to one side. "I have
never done anything so fine as this before," he observed; "regard the
atmosphere of it!"

"It is execrable!" replied Tricotrin, and went next door to Flamant.
"My old one," he explained, "I have urgent need of a regal apartment
for two hours to-morrow--have you a wealthy friend who would
accommodate me?"

"You may beautify your bedroom with all my possessions," returned
Flamant heartily. "I have a stuffed parrot that is most decorative, but
I have not a friend that is wealthy."

"You express yourself like a First Course for the Foreigner," said
Tricotrin, much annoyed. "Devil take your stuffed parrot!"

The heat of the sun increased towards midday, and drops began to
trickle under the young man's hat. By four o'clock he had called upon
sixty-two persons, exclusive of Sanquereau, whom he had been unable to
wake. He bethought himself of Lajeunie, the novelist; but Lajeunie
could offer him nothing more serviceable than a pass for the Elysée-
Montmartre. "Now how is it possible that I spend my life among such
imbeciles?" groaned the unhappy poet; "one offers me a parrot, and
another a pass for a dancing-hall! Can I assure my uncle, who is a
married man, and produces silk in vast quantities, that I reside in a
dancing-hall? Besides, we know those passes--they are available only
for ladies."

"It is true that you could not get in by it," assented Lajeunie, "but I
give it to you freely. Take it, my poor fellow! Though it may appear
inadequate to the occasion, who knows but what it will prove to be the
basis of a fortune?"

"You are as crazy as the stories you write," said Tricotrin, "Still, it
can go in my pocket." And he made, exhausted, for a bench in the place
Dancourt, where he apostrophised his fate.

Thus occupied, he fell asleep; and presently a young woman sauntered
from the sidewalk across the square. In the shady little place Dancourt
is the little white Theatre Montmartre, and she first perused the
play-bill, and then contemplated the sleeping poet. It may have been that
she found something attractive in his bearing, or it may have been that
ragamuffins sprawled elsewhere; but, having determined to wait awhile,
she selected the bench on which he reposed, and forthwith woke him.

"Now this is nice!" he exclaimed, realising his lapse with a start.

"Oh, monsieur!" said she, blushing.

"Pardon; I referred to my having dozed when every moment is of
consequence," he explained. "And yet," he went on ruefully, "upon my
soul, I cannot conjecture where I shall go next!"

Her response was so sympathetic that it tempted him to remain a little
longer, and in five minutes she was recounting her own perplexities. It
transpired that she was a lady's-maid with a holiday, and the problem
before her was whether to spend her money on a theatre, or on a ball.

"Now that is a question which is disposed of instantly," said
Tricotrin, "You shall spend your money on a theatre, and go to a ball
as well." And out fluttered the pink pass presented to him by Lajeunie.

The girl's tongue was as lively as her gratitude. She was, she told
him, maid to the famous Colette Aubray, who had gone unattended that
afternoon to visit the owner of a villa in the country, where she would
stay until the next day but one. "So you see, monsieur, we poor
servants are left alone in the flat to amuse ourselves as best we can!"

"Mon Dieu!" ejaculated Tricotrin, and added mentally, "It was decidedly
the good kind fairies that pointed to this bench!"

He proceeded to pay the young woman such ardent attentions that she
assumed he meant to accompany her to the ball, and her disappointment
was extreme when he had to own that the state of his finances forbade
it. "All I can suggest, my dear Léonie," he concluded, "is that I shall
be your escort when you leave. It is abominable that you must have
other partners in the meantime, but I feel that you will be constant to
me in your thoughts. I shall have much to tell you--I shall whisper a
secret in your ear; for, incredible as it may sound, my sweet child,
you alone in Paris have the power to save me!"

"Oh, monsieur!" faltered the admiring lady's-maid, "it has always been
my great ambition to save a young man, especially a young man who used
such lovely language. I am sure, by the way you talk, that you must be
a poet!"

"Extraordinary," mused Tricotrin, "that all the world recognises me as
a poet, excepting when it reads my poetry!" And this led him to reflect
that he must sell some of it, in order to provide refreshment for
Léonie before he begged her aid. Accordingly, he arranged to meet her
when the ball finished, and limped back to the attic, where he made up
a choice assortment of his wares.

He had resolved to try the office of _Le Demi-Mot;_ but his
reception there was cold. "You should not presume on our good nature,"
demurred the Editor; "only last month we had an article on you, saying
that you were highly talented, and now you ask us to publish your work
besides. There must be a limit to such things."

He examined the collection, nevertheless, with a depreciatory
countenance, and offered ten francs for three of the finest specimens.
"From _Le Demi-Mot_ I would counsel you to accept low terms," he
said, with engaging interest, "on account of the prestige you, derive
from appearing in it."

"In truth it is a noble thing, prestige," admitted Tricotrin; "but,
monsieur, I have never known a man able to make a meal of it when he
was starving, or to warm himself before it when he was without a fire.
Still--though it is a jumble-sale price--let them go!"

"Payment will be made in due course," said the Editor, and became
immersed in correspondence.

Tricotrin paled to the lips, and the next five minutes were terrible;
indeed, he did not doubt that he would have to limp elsewhere. At last
he cried, "Well, let us say seven francs, cash! Seven francs in one's
fist are worth ten in due course." And thus the bargain was concluded.

"It was well for Hercules that none of his labours was the extraction
of payment from an editor!" panted the poet on the doorstep. But he was
now enabled to fête the lady's-maid in grand style, and--not to be
outdone in generosity--she placed mademoiselle Aubray's flat at his
disposal directly he asked for it.

"You have accomplished a miracle!" averred Pitou, in the small hours,
when he heard the news.

Tricotrin waved a careless hand. "To a man of resource all things are
possible!" he murmured.

The next evening the silk manufacturer was warmly embraced on the
platform, and not a little surprised to learn that his nephew expected
a visit at once. However, the young man's consternation was so profound
when objections were made that, in the end, they were withdrawn.
Tricotrin directed the driver after monsieur Rigaud was in the cab,
and, on their reaching the courtyard, there was Léonie, all frills,
ready to carry the handbag.

"Your servant?" inquired monsieur Rigaud, with some disapproval, as
they went upstairs; "she is rather fancifully dressed, hein?"

"Is it so?" answered Tricotrin. "Perhaps a bachelor is not sufficiently
observant in these matters. Still, she is an attentive domestic. Take
off your things, my dear uncle, and make yourself at home. What joy it
gives me to see you here!"

"Mon Dieu," exclaimed the silk manufacturer, looking about him, "you
have a place fit for a prince! It must have cost a pretty penny."

"Between ourselves," said Tricotrin, "I often reproach myself for what
I spent on it; I could make very good use to-day of some of the money I
squandered."

"What curtains!" murmured monsieur Rigaud, fingering the silk
enraptured. "The quality is superb! What may they have charged you for
these curtains?"

"It was years ago--upon my word I do not remember," drawled Tricotrin,
who had no idea whether he ought to say five hundred francs, or five
thousand. "Also, you must not think I have bought everything you see--
many of the pictures and bronzes are presents from admirers of my work.
It is gratifying, hein?"

"I--I--To confess the truth, we had not heard of your triumphs,"
admitted monsieur Rigaud; "I did not dream you were so successful."

"Ah, it is in a very modest way," Tricotrin replied. "I am not a
millionaire, I assure you! On the contrary, it is often difficult to
make both ends meet--although," he added hurriedly, "I live with the
utmost economy, my uncle. The days of my thoughtlessness are past. A
man should save, a man should provide for the future."

At this moment he was astonished to see Léonie open the door and
announce that dinner was served. She had been even better than her
word.

"Dinner?" cried monsieur Rigaud. "Ah, now I understand why you were so
dejected when I would not come!"

"Bah, it will be a very simple meal," said his nephew, "but after a
journey one must eat. Let us go in." He was turning the wrong way, but
Léonie's eye saved him.

"Come," he proceeded, taking his seat, "some soup--some good soup! What
will you drink, my uncle?"

"On the sideboard I see champagne," chuckled monsieur Rigaud; "you
treat the old man well, you rogue!"

"Hah," said Tricotrin, who had not observed it, "the cellar, I own, is
an extravagance of mine! Alone, I drink only mineral waters, or a
little claret, much diluted; but to my dearest friends I must give the
dearest wines. Léonie, champagne!" It was a capital dinner, and the
cigars and cigarettes that Léonie put on the table with the coffee were
of the highest excellence. Agreeable conversation whiled away some
hours, and Tricotrin began to look for his uncle to get up. But it was
raining smartly, and monsieur Rigaud was reluctant to bestir himself.
Another hour lagged by, and at last Tricotrin faltered:

"I fear I must beg you to excuse me for leaving you, my uncle; it is
most annoying, but I am compelled to go out. The fact is, I have
consented to collaborate with Capus, and he is so eccentric, this dear
Alfred--we shall be at work all night."

"Go, my good Gustave," said his uncle readily; "and, as I am very
tired, if you have no objection, I will occupy your bed."

Tricotrin's jaw dropped, and it was by a supreme effort that he
stammered how pleased the arrangement would make him. To intensify the
fix, Leonie and the cook had disappeared--doubtless to the mansarde in
which they slept--and he was left to cope with the catastrophe alone.
However, having switched on the lights, he conducted the elderly
gentleman to an enticing apartment. He wished him an affectionate
"good-night," and after promising to wake him early, made for home,
leaving the manufacturer sleepily surveying the room's imperial
splendour.

"What magnificence!" soliloquised monsieur Rigaud. "What toilet
articles!" He got into bed. "What a coverlet--there must be twenty
thousand francs on top of me!"

He had not slumbered under them long when he was aroused by such a
commotion that he feared for the action of his heart. Blinking in the
glare, he perceived Léonie in scanty attire, distracted on her knees--
and, by the bedside, a beautiful lady in a travelling cloak, raging
with the air of a lioness.

"Go away!" quavered the manufacturer. "What is the meaning of this
intrusion?"

"Intrusion?" raved the lady. "That is what you will explain, monsieur!
How comes it that you are in my bed?"

"Yours?" ejaculated monsieur Rigaud. "What is it you say? You are
making a grave error, for which you will apologise, madame!"

"Ah, hold me back," pleaded the lady, throwing up her eyes, "hold me
back or I shall assault him!" She flung to Leonie. "Wretched girl, you
shall pay for this! Not content with lavishing my champagne and my
friend's cigars on your lover, you must put him to recuperate in my
room!"

"Oh!" gasped the manufacturer, and hid his head under the priceless
coverlet. "Such an imputation is unpardonable," he roared, reappearing.
"I am monsieur Rigaud, of Lyons; the flat belongs to my nephew,
monsieur Tricotrin; I request you to retire!"

"Imbecile!" screamed the lady; "the flat belongs to _me_--Colette
Aubray. And your presence may ruin me--I expect a visitor on most
important business! He has not my self-control; if he finds you here he
will most certainly send you a challenge. He is the best swordsman in
Paris! I advise you to believe me, for you have just five minutes to
save your life!"

"Monsieur," wailed Léonie, "you have been deceived!" And, between her
sobs, she confessed the circumstances, which he heard with the greatest
difficulty, owing to the chattering of his teeth.

The rain was descending in cataracts when monsieur Rigaud got outside,
but though the trams and the trains had both stopped running, and cabs
were as dear as radium, his fury was so tempestuous that nothing could
deter him from reaching the poet's real abode. His attack on the front
door warned Tricotrin and Pitou what had happened, and they raised
themselves, blanched, from their pillows, to receive his curses. It was
impossible to reason with him, and he launched the most frightful
denunciation at his nephew for an hour, when the abatement of the
downpour permitted him to depart. More, at noon, who should arrive but
Leonie in tears! She had been dismissed from her employment, and came
to beg the poet to intercede for her.

"What calamities!" groaned Tricotrin. "How fruitless are man's noblest
endeavours without the favouring breeze! I shall drown myself at eight
o'clock. However, I will readily plead for you first, if your mistress
will receive me."

By the maid's advice he presented himself late in the day, and when he
had cooled his heels in the salon for some time, a lady entered, who
was of such ravishing appearance that his head swam.

"Monsieur Tricotrin?" she inquired haughtily. "I have heard your name
from your uncle, monsieur. Are you here to visit my servant?"

"Mademoiselle," he faltered, "I am here to throw myself on your mercy.
At eight o'clock I have decided to commit suicide, for I am ruined. The
only hope left me is to win your pardon before I die."

"I suppose your uncle has disowned you?" she said. "Naturally! It was a
pretty situation to put him in. How would you care to be in it
yourself?"

"Alas, mademoiselle," sighed Tricotrin, "there are situations to which
a poor poet may not aspire!"

After regarding him silently she exclaimed, "I cannot understand what a
boy with eyes like yours saw in Léonie?"

"Merely good nature and a means to an end, believe me! If you would
ease my last moments, reinstate her in your service. Do not let me
drown with the knowledge that another is suffering for my fault!
Mademoiselle, I entreat you--take her back!"

"And why should I ease your last moments?" she demurred.

"Because I have no right to ask it; because I have no defence for my
sin towards you; because you would be justified in trampling on me--and
to pardon would be sublime!"

"You are very eloquent for my maid," returned the lady.

He shook his head. "Ah, no--I fear I am pleading for myself. For, if
you reinstate the girl, it will prove that you forgive the man--and I
want your forgiveness so much!" He fell at her feet.

"Does your engagement for eight o'clock press, monsieur?" murmured the
lady, smiling. "If you could dine here again to-night, I might relent
by degrees."

"And she is adorable!" he told Pitou. "I passed the most delicious
evening of my life!" "It is fortunate," observed Pitou, "for that, and
your uncle's undying enmity, are all you have obtained by your
imposture. Remember that the evening cost two thousand francs a year!"

"Ah, misanthrope," cried Tricotrin radiantly, "there must be a crumpled
roseleaf in every Eden!"



THE FATAL FLOROZONDE

Before Pitou, the composer, left for the Hague, he called on Théophile
de Fronsac, the poet. _La Voix Parisienne_ had lately appointed de
Fronsac to its staff, on condition that he contributed no poetry.

"Good-evening," said de Fronsac. "Mon Dieu! what shall I write about?"

"Write about my music," said Pitou, whose compositions had been
rejected in every arrondissement of Paris.

"Let us talk sanely," demurred de Fronsac. "My causerie is half a
column short. Tell me something interesting."

"Woman!" replied Pitou.

De Fronsac flicked his cigarette ash. "You remind me," he said, "how
much I need a love affair; my sensibilities should be stimulated. To
continue to write with fervour I require to adore again."

"It is very easy to adore," observed Pitou.

"Not at forty," lamented the other; "especially to a man in Class A.
Don't forget, my young friend, that I have loved and been loved
persistently for twenty-three years. I cannot adore a repetition, and
it is impossible for me to discover a new type."

"All of which I understand," said Pitou, "excepting 'Class A.'"

"There are three kinds of men," explained the poet. "Class A are the
men to whom women inevitably surrender. Class B consists of those whom
they trust by instinct and confide in on the second day; these men
acquire an extensive knowledge of the sex--but they always fall short
of winning the women for themselves. Class C women think of merely as
'the others'--they do not count; eventually they marry, and try to
persuade their wives that they were devils of fellows when they were
young. However, such reflections will not assist me to finish my
causerie, for I wrote them all last week."

"Talking of women," remarked Pitou, "a little blonde has come to live
opposite our lodging. So far we have only bowed from our windows, but I
have christened her 'Lynette,' and Tricotrin has made a poem about her.
It is pathetic. The last verse--the others are not written yet--goes:

   "'O window I watched in the days that are dead,
     Are you watched by a lover to-day?
     Are glimpses caught now of another blonde head
     By a youth who lives over the way?
     Does _she_ repeat words that Lynette's lips have said--
     And does _he_ say what _I_ used to say?'"

"What is the answer?" asked de Fronsac. "Is it a conundrum? In any case
it is a poor substitute for a half a column of prose in _La Voix_.
How on earth am I to arrive at the bottom of the page? If I am short in
my copy, I shall be short in my rent; if I am short in my rent, I shall
be put out of doors; if I am put out of doors, I shall die of exposure.
And much good it will do me that they erect a statue to me in the next
generation! Upon my word, I would stand a dinner--at the two-franc
place where you may eat all you can hold--if you could give me a
subject."

"It happens," said Pitou, "that I can give you a very strange one. As I
am going to a foreign land, I have been to the country to bid farewell
to my parents; I came across an extraordinary girl."

"One who disliked presents?" inquired de Fronsac.

"I am not jesting. She is a dancer in a travelling circus. The flare
and the drum wooed me one night, and I went in. As a circus, well, you
may imagine--a tent in a fair. My fauteuil was a plank, and the
orchestra surpassed the worst tortures of the Inquisition. And then,
after the decrepit horses, and a mangy lion, a girl came into the ring,
with the most marvellous eyes I have ever seen in a human face. They
are green eyes, with golden lights in them."

"Really?" murmured the poet. "I have never been loved by a girl who had
green eyes with golden lights in them."

"I am glad you have never been loved by this one," returned the
composer gravely; "she has a curious history. All her lovers, without
exception, have committed suicide."

"What?" said de Fronsac, staring.

"It is very queer. One of them had just inherited a hundred thousand
francs--he hanged himself. Another, an author from Italy, took poison,
while all Rome was reading his novel. To be infatuated by her is
harmless enough, but to win her is invariably fatal within a few weeks.
Some time ago she attached herself to one of the troupe, and soon
afterwards he discovered she was deceiving him. He resolved to shoot
her. He pointed a pistol at her breast. She simply laughed--and
_looked at him_. He turned the pistol on himself, and blew his
brains out!"

De Fronsac had already written: "Here is the extraordinary history of a
girl whom I discovered in a fair." The next moment:

"But you repeat a rumour," he objected. "_La Voix Parisienne_ has
a reputation; odd as the fact may appear to you, people read it. If
this is published in _La Voix_ it will attract attention. Soon she
will be promoted from a tent in a fair to a stage in Paris. Well, what
happens? You tell me she is beautiful, so she will have hundreds of
admirers. Among the hundreds there will be one she favours. And then?
Unless he committed suicide in a few weeks, the paper would be proved a
liar. I should not be able to sleep of nights for fear he would not
kill himself."

"My dear," exclaimed Pitou with emotion, "would I add to your
anxieties? Rather than you should be disturbed by anybody's living, let
us dismiss the subject, and the dinner, and talk of my new Symphony. On
the other hand, I fail to see that the paper's reputation is your
affair--it is not your wife; and I am more than usually empty to-day."

"Your argument is sound," said de Fronsac. "Besides, the Editor refuses
my poetry." And he wrote without cessation for ten minutes.

The two-franc table-d'hôte excelled itself that evening, and Pitou did
ample justice to the menu.

Behold how capricious is the jade, Fame! The poet whose verses had left
him obscure, accomplished in ten minutes a paragraph that fascinated
all Paris. On the morrow people pointed it out to one another; the
morning after, other journals referred to it; in the afternoon the
Editor of _La Voix Parisienne_ was importuned with questions. No
one believed the story to be true, but not a soul could help wondering
if it might be so.

When a day or two had passed, Pitou received from de Fronsac a note
which ran:

"Send to me at once, I entreat thee, the name of that girl, and say
where she can be found. The managers of three variety theatres of the
first class have sought me out and are eager to engage her."

"Decidedly," said Pitou, "I have mistaken my vocation--I ought to have
been a novelist!" And he replied:

"The girl whose eyes suggested the story to me is called on the
programmes 'Florozonde.' For the rest, I know nothing, except that thou
didst offer a dinner and I was hungry."

However, when he had written this, he destroyed it.

"Though I am unappreciated myself, and shall probably conclude in the
Morgue," he mused, "that is no excuse for my withholding prosperity
from others. Doubtless the poor girl would rejoice to appear at three
variety theatres of the first class, or even at one of them." He
answered simply:

"Her name is 'Florozonde'; she will be found in a circus at Chartres"--
and nearly suffocated with laughter.

Then a little later the papers announced that Mlle. Florozonde--whose
love by a strange series of coincidences had always proved fatal--would
be seen at La Coupole. Posters bearing the name of "Florozonde"--yellow
on black--invaded the boulevards. Her portrait caused crowds to
assemble, and "That girl who, they say, deals death, that Florozonde!"
was to be heard as constantly as ragtime.

By now Pitou was at the Hague, his necessities having driven him into
the employment of a Parisian who had opened a shop there for the sale
of music and French pianos. When he read the Paris papers, Pitou
trembled so violently that the onlookers thought he must have ague.
Hilarity struggled with envy in his breast. "Ma foi!" he would say to
himself, "it seems that my destiny is to create successes for others.
Here am I, exiled, and condemned to play cadenzas all day in a piano
warehouse, while she whom I invented, dances jubilant in Paris. I do
not doubt that she breakfasts at Armenonville, and dines at
Paillard's."

And it was a fact that Florozonde was the fashion. As regards her eyes,
at any rate, the young man had not exaggerated more than was to be
forgiven in an artist; her eyes were superb, supernatural; and now that
the spangled finery of a fair was replaced by the most triumphant of
audacities--now that a circus band had been exchanged for the orchestra
of La Coupole--she danced as she had not danced before. You say that a
gorgeous costume cannot improve a woman's dancing? Let a woman realise
that you improve her appearance, and you improve everything that she
can do!

Nevertheless one does not pretend that it was owing to her talent, or
her costume, or the weird melody proposed by the chef d'orchestre, that
she became the rage. Not at all. That was due to her reputation.
Sceptics might smile and murmur the French for "Rats!" but, again,
nobody could say positively that the tragedies had not occurred. And
above all, there were the eyes--it was conceded that a woman with eyes
like that _ought_ to be abnormal. La Coupole was thronged every
night, and the stage doorkeeper grew rich, so numerous were the daring
spirits, coquetting with death, who tendered notes inviting the Fatal
One to supper.

Somehow the suppers were rather dreary. The cause may have been that
the guest was handicapped by circumstances--to be good company without
discarding the fatal air was extremely difficult; also the cause may
have been that the daring spirits felt their courage forsake them in a
tête-à-tête; but it is certain that once when Florozonde drove home in
the small hours to the tattered aunt who lived on her, she exclaimed
violently that, "All this silly fake was giving her the hump, and that
she wished she were 'on the road' again, with a jolly good fellow who
was not afraid of her!"

Then the tattered aunt cooed to her, reminding her that little
ducklings had run to her already roasted, and adding that she (the
tattered aunt) had never heard of equal luck in all the years she had
been in the show business.

"Ah, zut!" cried Florozonde. "It does not please me to be treated as if
I had scarlet fever. If I lean towards a man, he turns pale."

"Life is good," said her aunt philosophically, "and men have no wish to
die for the sake of an embrace--remember your reputation! II faut
souffrir pour être fatale. Look at your salary, sweetie--and you have
had nothing to do but hold your tongue! Ah, was anything ever heard
like it? A miracle of le bon Dieu!"

"It was monsieur de Fronsac, the journalist, who started it," said
Florozonde. "I supposed he had made it up, to give me a lift; but, ma
foi, I think _he_ half believes it, too! What can have put it in
his head? I have a mind to ask him the next time he comes behind."

"What a madness!" exclaimed the old woman; "you might queer your pitch!
Never, never perform a trick with a confederate when you can work
alone; that is one of the first rules of life. If he thinks it is true,
so much the better. Now get to bed, lovey, and think of pleasant
things--what did you have for supper?"

Florozonde was correct in her surmise--de Fronsac did half believe it,
and de Fronsac was accordingly much perturbed. Consider his dilemma!
The nature of his pursuits had demanded a love affair, and he had
endeavoured conscientiously to comply, for the man was nothing if not
an artist. But, as he had said to Pitou, he had loved so much, and so
many, that the thing was practically impossible for him, He was like
the pastrycook's boy who is habituated and bilious. Then suddenly a new
type, which he had despaired of finding, was displayed. His curiosity
awoke; and, fascinated in the first instance by her ghastly reputation,
he was fascinated gradually by her physical charms. Again he found
himself enslaved by a woman--and the woman, who owed her fame to his
services, was clearly appreciative. But he had a strong objection to
committing suicide.

His eagerness for her love was only equalled by his dread of what might
happen if she gave it to him. Alternately he yearned, and shuddered, On
Monday he cried, "Idiot, to be frightened by such blague!" and on
Tuesday he told himself, "All the same, there may be something in it!"
It was thus tortured that he paid his respects to Florozonde at the
theatre on the evening after she complained to her aunt. She was in her
dressing-room, making ready to go.

"You have danced divinely," he said to her. "There is no longer a
programme at La Coupole--there is only 'Florozonde.'"

She smiled the mysterious smile that she was cultivating. "What have
you been doing with yourself, monsieur? I have not seen you all the
week."

De Fronsac sighed expressively. "At my age one has the wisdom to avoid
temptation."

"May it not be rather unkind to temptation?" she suggested, raising her
marvellous eyes.

De Fronsac drew a step back. "Also I have had a great deal to do," he
added formally; "I am a busy man. For example, much as I should like to
converse with you now.--" But his resolution forsook him and he was
unable to say that he had looked in only for a minute.

"Much as you would like to converse with me--?" questioned Florozonde.

"I ought, by rights, to be seated at my desk," he concluded lamely.

"I am pleased that you are not seated at your desk," she said.

"Because?" murmured de Fronsac, with unspeakable emotions.

"Because I have never thanked you enough for your interest in me, and I
want to tell you that I remember." She gave him her hand. He held it,
battling with terror.

"Mademoiselle," he returned tremulously, "when I wrote the causerie you
refer to, my interest in you was purely the interest of a journalist,
so for that I do not deserve your thanks. But since I have had the
honour to meet you I have experienced an interest altogether different;
the interest of a man, of a--a--" Here his teeth chattered, and he
paused.

"Of a what?" she asked softly, with a dreamy air.

"Of a friend," he muttered. A gust of fear had made the "friend" an
iceberg. But her clasp tightened.

"I am glad," she said. "Ah, you have been good to me, monsieur! And if,
in spite of everything, I am sometimes sad, I am, at least, never
ungrateful."

"You are sad?" faltered the vacillating victim. "Why?"

Her bosom rose. "Is success all a woman wants?"

"Ah!" exclaimed de Fronsac, in an impassioned quaver, "is that not
life? To all of us there is the unattainable--to you, to me!"

"To you?" she murmured. Her eyes were transcendental. Admiration and
alarm tore him in halves.

"In truth," he gasped, "I am the most miserable of men! What is genius,
what is fame, when one is lonely and unloved?"

She moved impetuously closer--so close that the perfume of her hair
intoxicated him. His heart seemed to knock against his ribs, and he
felt the perspiration burst out on his brow. For an instant he
hesitated--on the edge of his grave, he thought. Then he dropped her
hand, and backed from her. "But why should I bore you with my griefs?"
he stammered. "Au revoir, mademoiselle!"

Outside the stage door he gave thanks for his self-control. Also, pale
with the crisis, he registered an oath not to approach her again.

Meanwhile the expatriated Pitou had remained disconsolate. Though the
people at the Hague spoke French, they said foreign things to him in
it. He missed Montmartre--the interests of home. While he waxed
eloquent to customers on the tone of pianos, or the excellence of rival
composers' melodies, he was envying Florozonde in Paris. Florozonde,
whom he had created, obsessed the young man. In the evening he read
about her at Van der Pyl's; on Sundays, when the train carried him to
drink beer at Scheveningen, he read about her in the Kurhaus. And then
the unexpected happened. In this way:

Pitou was discharged.

Few things could have surprised him more, and, to tell the truth, few
things could have troubled him less. "It is better to starve in Paris
than grow fat in Holland," he observed. He jingled his capital in his
trouser-pocket, in fancy savoured his dinner cooking at the Café du Bel
Avenir, and sped from the piano shop as if it had been on fire.

The clock pointed to a quarter to six as Nicolas Pitou, composer,
emerged from the gare du Nord, and lightly swinging the valise that
contained his wardrobe, proceeded to the rue des Trois Frères. Never
had it looked dirtier, or sweeter. He threw himself on Tricotrin's
neck; embraced the concierge--which took her breath away, since she was
ill-favoured and most disagreeable; fared sumptuously for one franc
fifty at the Café du Bel Avenir--where he narrated adventures abroad
that surpassed de Rougemont's; and went to La Coupole.

And there, jostled by the crowd, the poor fellow looked across the
theatre at the triumphant woman he had invented--and fell in love with
her.

One would have said there was more than the width of a theatre between
them--one would have said the distance was interminable. Who in the
audience could suspect that Florozonde would have been unknown but for
a boy in the Promenoir?

Yes, he fell in love--with her beauty, her grace--perhaps also with the
circumstances. The theatre rang with plaudits; the curtain hid her; and
he went out, dizzy with romance. He could not hope to speak to her
to-night, but he was curious to see her when she left. He decided that on
the morrow he would call upon de Fronsac, whom she doubtless knew now,
and ask him for an introduction. Promising himself this, he reached the
stage door--where de Fronsac, with trembling limbs, stood giving thanks
for his self-control.

"My friend!" cried Pitou enthusiastically, "how rejoiced I am to meet
you!" and nearly wrung his hand off.

"Aïe! Gently!" expostulated de Fronsac, writhing. "Aïe, aïe! I did not
know you loved me so much. So you are back from Sweden, hein?"

"Yes. I have not been there, but why should we argue about geography?
What were you doing as I came up--reciting your poems? By the way, I
have a favour to ask; I want you to introduce me to Florozonde."

"Never!" answered the poet firmly; "I have too much affection for you--
I have just resolved not to see her again myself. Besides, I thought
you knew her in the circus?"

"I never spoke to her there--I simply admired her from the plank. Come,
take me inside, and present me!"

"It is impossible," persisted de Fronsac; "I tell you I will not
venture near her any more. Also, she is coming out--that is her coupé
that you see waiting."

She came out as he spoke, and, affecting not to recognise him, moved
rapidly towards the carriage. But this would not do for Pitou at all.
"Mademoiselle!" he exclaimed, sweeping his hat nearly to the pavement.

"Yes, well?" she said sharply, turning.

"I have just begged my friend de Fronsac to present me to you, and he
feared you might not pardon his presumption. May I implore you to
pardon mine?"

She smiled. There was the instant in which neither the man nor the
woman knows who will speak next, nor what is to be said--the instant on
which destinies hang. Pitou seized it.

"Mademoiselle, I returned to France only this evening. All the journey
my thought was--to see you as soon as I arrived!"

"Your friend," she said, with a scornful glance towards de Fronsac, who
sauntered gracefully away, "would warn you that you are rash."

"I am not afraid of his warning."

"Are you not afraid of _me_?"

"Afraid only that you will banish me too soon."

"Mon Dieu! then you must be the bravest man in Paris," she said.

"At any rate I am the luckiest for the moment."

It was a delightful change to Florozonde to meet a man who was not
alarmed by her; and it pleased her to show de Fronsac that his
cowardice had not left her inconsolable. She laughed loud enough for
him to hear.

"I ought not to be affording you the luck," she answered. "I have
friends waiting for me at the Café de Paris." "I expected some such
blow," said Pitou. "And how can I suppose you will disappoint your
friends in order to sup with me at the Café du Bel Avenir instead?"

"The Café du--?" She was puzzled.

"Bel Avenir."

"I do not know it."

"Nor would your coachman. We should walk there--and our supper would
cost three francs, wine included."

"Is it an invitation?"

"It is a prayer."

"Who are you?"

"My name is Nicolas Pitou,"

"Of Paris?"

"Of bohemia."

"What do you do in it?"

"Hunger, and make music."

"Unsuccessful?"

"Not to-night!"

"Take me to the Bel Avenir," she said, and sent the carriage away.

De Fronsac, looking back as they departed, was distressed to see the
young man risking his life.

At the Bel Avenir their entrance made a sensation. She removed her
cloak, and Pitou arranged it over two chairs. Then she threw her gloves
out of the way, in the bread-basket; and the waiter and the
proprietress, and all the family, did homage to her toilette.

"Who would have supposed?" she smiled, and her smile forgot to be
mysterious.

"That the restaurant would be so proud?"

"That I should be supping with you in it! Tell me, you had no hope of
this on your journey? It was true about your journey, hein?"

"Ah, really! No, how could I hope? I went round after your dance simply
to see you closer; and then I met de Fronsac, and then--"

"And then you were very cheeky. Answer! Why do I interest you? Because
of what they say of me?"

"Not altogether."

"What else?"

"Because you are so beautiful. Answer! Why did you come to supper with
me? To annoy some other fellow?"

"Not altogether."

"What else?"

"Because you were not frightened of me. Are you sure you are not
frightened? Oh, remember, remember your horrible fate if I should like
you too much!"

"It would be a thumping advertisement for you," said Pitou. "Let me
urge you to try to secure it."

"Reckless boy!" she laughed, "Pour out some more wine. Ah, it is good,
this! it is like old times. The strings of onions on the dear, dirty
walls, and the serviettes that are so nice and damp! It was in
restaurants like this, if my salary was paid, I used to sup on fête
days."

"And if it was not paid?"

"I supped in imagination. My dear, I have had a cigarette for a supper,
and the grass for a bed. I have tramped by the caravan while the stars
faded, and breakfasted on the drum in the tent. And you--on a bench in
the Champs Elysées, hein?"

"It has occurred."

"And you watched the sun rise, and made music, and wished _you_
could rise, too? I must hear your music some day. You shall write me a
dance. Is it agreed?"

"The contract is already stamped," said Pitou.

"I am glad I met you--it is the best supper I have had in Paris. Why
are you calculating the expenses on the back of the bill of fare?"

"I am not. I am composing your dance," said Pitou. "Don't speak for a
minute, it will be sublime! Also it will be a souvenir when you have
gone."

But she did not go for a long while. It was late when they left the
Café du Bel Avenir, still talking--and there was always more to say. By
this time Pitou did not merely love her beauty--he adored the woman. As
for Florozonde, she no longer merely loved his courage--she approved
the man.

Listen: he was young, fervid, and an artist; his proposal was made
before they reached her doorstep, and she consented!

Their attachment was the talk of the town, and everybody waited to hear
that Pitou had killed himself. His name was widely known at last. But
weeks and months went by; Florozonde's protracted season came to an
end; and still he looked radiantly well. Pitou was the most unpopular
man in Paris.

In the rue Dauphine, one day, he met de Fronsac.

"So you are still alive!" snarled the poet.

"Never better," declared Pitou. "It turns out," he added
confidentially, "there was nothing in that story--it was all fudge."

"Evidently! I must congratulate you," said de Fronsac, looking
bomb-shells.



THE OPPORTUNITY OF PETITPAS

In Bordeaux, on the 21st of December, monsieur Petitpas, a clerk with
bohemian yearnings, packed his portmanteau for a week's holiday. In
Paris, on the same date, monsieur Tricotrin, poet and pauper, was
commissioned by the Editor of _Le Demi-Mot_ to convert a rough
translation into literary French. These two disparate incidents were
destined by Fate--always mysterious in her workings--to be united in a
narrative for the present volume.

Three evenings later the poet's concierge climbed the stairs and rapped
peremptorily at the door.

"Well?" cried Tricotrin, raising bloodshot eyes from the manuscript;
"who disturbs me now? Come in!"

"I have come in," panted madame Dubois, who had not waited for his
invitation, "and I am here to tell you, monsieur, that you cannot be
allowed to groan in this agonised fashion. Your lamentations can be
heard even in the basement."

"Is it in my agreement, madame, that I shall not groan if I am so
disposed?" inquired the poet haughtily.

"There are things tacitly understood. It is enough that you are in
arrears with your rent, without your doing your best to drive away the
other tenants. For two days they have all complained that it would be
less disturbing to reside in a hospital."

"Well, they have my permission to remove there," said Tricotrin. "Now
that the matter is settled, let me get on with my work!" And with the
groan of a soul in Hades, he perused another line.

"There you go again!" expostulated the woman angrily, "It is not to be
endured, monsieur. What is the matter with you, for goodness' sake?"

"With me, madame, there is nothing the matter; the fault lies with an
infernal Spanish novel. A misguided editor has commissioned me to
rewrite it from a translation made by a foreigner. How can I avoid
groans when I read his rot? Miranda exclaims, 'May heaven confound you,
bandit!' And the fiancé of the ingénue addresses her as 'Angel of this
house!'"

"Well, at least groan quietly," begged the concierge; "do not bellow
your sufferings to the cellar."

"To oblige you I will be as Spartan as I can," agreed Tricotrin. "Now I
have lost my place in the masterpiece. Ah, here we are! 'I feel she
brings bad tidings--she wears a disastrous mien.' It is sprightly
dialogue! If the hundred and fifty francs were not essential to keep a
roof over my head, I would send the Editor a challenge for offering me
the job."

Perspiration bespangled the young man's brow as he continued his task.
When another hour had worn by he thirsted to do the foreign translator
a bodily injury, and so intense was his exasperation that, by way of
interlude, he placed the manuscript on the floor and jumped on it. But
the climax was reached in Chapter XXVII; under the provocation of the
love scene in Chapter XXVII frenzy mastered him, and with a yell of
torture he hurled the whole novel through the window, and burst into
hysterical tears.

The novel, which was of considerable bulk, descended on the landlord,
who was just approaching the house to collect his dues.

"What does it mean," gasped monsieur Gouge, when he had recovered his
equilibrium, and his hat; "what does it mean that I cannot approach my
own property without being assaulted with a ton of paper? Who has dared
to throw such a thing from a window?"

"Monsieur," stammered the concierge, "I do not doubt that it was the
top-floor poet; he has been behaving like a lunatic for days."

"Aha, the top-floor poet?" snorted monsieur Gouge. "I shall soon
dispose of _him_!" And Tricotrin's tears were scarcely dried when
_bang_ came another knock at his door.

"So, monsieur," exclaimed the landlord, with fine satire, "your poems
are of small account, it appears, since you use them as missiles? The
value you put upon your scribbling does not encourage me to wait for my
rent!"

"Mine?" faltered Tricotrin, casting an indignant glance at the muddy
manuscript restored to him; "you accuse _me_ of having perpetrated
that atrocity? Oh, this is too much! I have a reputation to preserve,
monsieur, and I swear by all the Immortals that it was no work of
mine."

"Did you not throw it?"

"Throw it? Yes, assuredly I threw it. But I did not write it."

"Morbleu! what do I care who wrote it?" roared monsieur Gouge, purple
with spleen. "Does its authorship improve the condition of my hat? My
grievance is its arrival on my head, not its literary quality. Let me
tell you that you expose yourself to actions at law, pitching weights
like this from a respectable house into a public street."

"I should plead insanity," said Tricotrin; "twenty-seven chapters of
that novel, translated into a Spaniard's French, would suffice to
people an asylum. Nevertheless, if it arrived on your hat, I owe you an
apology."

"You also owe me two hundred francs!" shouted the other, "and I have
shown you more patience than you deserve. Well, my folly is finished!
You settle up, or you get out, right off!"

"Have you reflected that it is Christmas Eve--do we live in a
melodrama, that I should wander homeless on Christmas Eve? Seriously,
you cannot expect a man of taste to lend himself to so hackneyed a
situation? Besides, I share this apartment with the composer monsieur
Nicolas Pitou. Consider how poignant he would find the room's
associations if he returned to dwell here alone!"

"Monsieur Pitou will not be admitted when he returns--there is not a
pin to choose between the pair of you. You hand me the two hundred
francs, or you go this minute--and I shall detain your wardrobe till
you pay. Where is it?"

"It is divided between my person and a shelf at the pawnbroker's,"
explained the poet; "but I have a soiled collar in the left-hand corner
drawer. However, I can offer you more valuable security for this
trifling debt than you would dare to ask; the bureau is full of pearls
--metrical, but beyond price. I beg your tenderest care of them,
especially my tragedy in seven acts. Do not play jinks with the
contents of that bureau, or Posterity will gibbet you and the name of
'Gouge' will one day be execrated throughout France. Garbage,
farewell!"

"Here, take your shaving paper with you!" cried monsieur Gouge,
flinging the Spanish novel down the stairs. And the next moment the man
of letters stood dejected on the pavement, with the fatal manuscript
under his arm.

"Ah, Miranda, Miranda, thou little knowest what mischief thou hast
done!" he murmured, unconsciously plagiarising. "She brought bad
tidings indeed, with her disastrous mien," he added. "What is to become
of me now?"

The moon, to which he had naturally addressed this query, made no
answer; and, fingering the sou in his trouser-pocket, he trudged in the
direction of the rue Ravignan. "The situation would look well in
print," he reflected, "but the load under my arm should, dramatically,
be a bundle of my own poems. Doubtless the matter will be put right by
my biographer. I wonder if I can get half a bed from Goujaud?"

Encouraged by the thought of the painter's hospitality, he proceeded to
the studio; but he was informed in sour tones that monsieur Goujaud
would not sleep there that night.

"So much the better," he remarked, "for I can have all his bed, instead
of half of it! Believe me, I shall put you to no trouble, madame."

"I believe it fully," answered the woman, "for you will not come
inside--not monsieur Goujaud, nor you, nor any other of his vagabond
friends. So, there!"

"Ah, is that how the wind blows--the fellow has not paid his rent?"
said Tricotrin. "How disgraceful of him, to be sure! Fortunately
Sanquereau lives in the next house."

He pulled the bell there forthwith, and the peal had scarcely sounded
when Sanquereau rushed to the door, crying, "Welcome, my Beautiful!"

"Mon Dieu, what worthless acquaintances I possess!" moaned the unhappy
poet. "Since you are expecting your Beautiful I need not go into
details."

"What on earth did you want?" muttered Sanquereau, crestfallen.

"I came to tell you the latest Stop Press news--Goujaud's landlord has
turned him out and I have no bed to lie on. Au revoir!"

After another apostrophe to the heavens, "That inane moon, which makes
no response, is beginning to get on my nerves," he soliloquised. "Let
me see now! There is certainly master Criqueboeuf, but it is a long
journey to the quartier Latin, and when I get there his social
engagements may annoy me as keenly as Sanquereau's. It appears to me I
am likely to try the open-air cure to-night. In the meanwhile I may as
well find Miranda a seat and think things over."

Accordingly he bent his steps to the place Dancourt, and having
deposited the incubus beside him, stretched his limbs on a bench
beneath a tree. His attitude, and his luxuriant locks, to say nothing
of his melancholy aspect, rendered him a noticeable figure in the
little square, and monsieur Petitpas, from Bordeaux, under the awning
of the café opposite, stood regarding him with enthusiasm.

"Upon my word of honour," mused Petitpas, rubbing his hands, "I believe
I see a Genius in the dumps! At last I behold the Paris of my dreams.
If I have read my Murger to any purpose, I am on the verge of an epoch.
What a delightful adventure!"

Taking out his Marylands, Petitpas sauntered towards the bench with a
great show of carelessness, and made a pretence of feeling in his
pockets for a match. "Tschut!" he exclaimed; then, affecting to observe
Tricotrin for the first time, "May I beg you to oblige me with a light,
monsieur?" he asked deferentially. A puff of wind provided an excuse
for sitting down to guard the flame; and the next moment the Genius had
accepted a cigarette, and acknowledged that the weather was mild for
the time of year.

Excitement thrilled Petitpas. How often, after business hours, he had
perused his well-thumbed copy of _La Vie de Bohème_ and in fancy
consorted with the gay descendants of Rodolphe and Marcel; how often he
had regretted secretly that he, himself, did not woo a Muse and jest at
want in a garret, instead of totting up figures, and eating three meals
a day in comfort! And now positively one of the fascinating beings of
his imagination lolled by his side! The little clerk on a holiday
longed to play the generous comrade. In his purse he had a couple of
louis, designed for sight-seeing, and, with a rush of emotion, he
pictured himself squandering five or six francs in half an hour and
startling the artist by his prodigality.

"If I am not mistaken, I have the honour to address an author,
monsieur?" he ventured.

"Your instincts have not misled you," replied the poet; "I am
Tricotrin, monsieur--Gustave Tricotrin. The name, however, is to be
found, as yet, on no statues."

"My own name," said the clerk, "is Adolphe Petitpas. I am a stranger in
Paris, and I count myself fortunate indeed to have made monsieur
Tricotrin's acquaintance so soon."

"He expresses himself with some discretion, this person," reflected
Tricotrin. "And his cigarette was certainly providential!"

"To meet an author has always been an ambition of mine," Petitpas
continued; "I dare to say that I have the artistic temperament, though
circumstances have condemned me to commercial pursuits. You have no
idea how enviable the literary life appears to me, monsieur!"

"Its privileges are perhaps more monotonous than you suppose," drawled
the homeless poet. "Also, I had to work for many years before I
attained my present position."

"This noble book, for instance," began the clerk, laying a reverent
hand on the abominable manuscript.

"Hein?" exclaimed its victim, starting.

"To have written this noble book must be a joy compared with which my
own prosperity is valueless."

"The damned thing is no work of mine," cried Tricotrin; "and if we are
to avoid a quarrel, I will ask you not to accuse me of it! A joy,
indeed? In that block of drivel you view the cause of my deepest
misfortunes."

"A thousand apologies!" stammered his companion; "my inference was
hasty. But what you say interests me beyond words. This manuscript, of
seeming innocence, is the cause of misfortunes? May I crave an enormous
favour; may I beg you to regard me as a friend and give me your
confidence?"

"I see no reason why I should refuse it," answered Tricotrin, on whom
the boast of "prosperity" had made a deep impression. "You must know,
then, that this ineptitude, inflicted on me by an eccentric editor for
translation, drove me to madness, and not an hour ago I cast it from my
window in disgust. It is a novel entirely devoid of taste and tact, and
it had the clumsiness to alight on my landlord's head. Being a man of
small nature, he retaliated by demanding his rent."

"Which it was not convenient to pay?" interrupted Petitpas, all the
pages of _La Vie de Bohème_ playing leapfrog through his brain.

"I regret to bore you by so trite a situation. 'Which it was not
convenient to pay'! Indeed, I was not responsible for all of it, for I
occupied the room with a composer named Pitou. Well, you can construct
the next scene without a collaborator; the landlord has a speech, and
the tragedy is entitled 'Tricotrin in Quest of a Home.'"

"What of the composer?" inquired the delighted clerk; "what has become
of monsieur Pitou?"

"Monsieur Pitou was not on in that Act. The part of Pitou will attain
prominence when he returns and finds himself locked out."

"But, my dear monsieur Tricotrin, in such an extremity you should have
sought the services of a friend."

"I had that inspiration myself; I sought a painter called Goujaud. And
observe how careless is Reality in the matter of coincidences! I learnt
from his concierge that precisely the same thing had befallen monsieur
Goujaud. He, too, is Christmassing alfresco."

"Mon Dieu," faltered the clerk, "how it rejoices me that I have met
you! All my life I have looked forward to encountering a genius in such
a fix."

"Alas!" sighed Tricotrin, with a pensive smile, "to the genius the fix
is less spicy. Without a supper--"

"Without a supper!" crowed Petitpas.

"Without a bed--"

"Without a bed!" babbled Petitpas, enravished.

"With nothing but a pen and the sacred fire, one may be forgiven
sadness."

"Not so, not so," shouted Petitpas, smacking him on the back. "You are
omitting _me_ from your list of assets! Listen, I am staying at an
hotel. You cannot decline to accord me the honour of welcoming you
there as my guest for the night. Hang the expense! I am no longer in
business, I am a bohemian, like yourself; some supper, a bed, and a
little breakfast will not ruin me. What do you say, monsieur?"

"I say, drop the 'monsieur,' old chap," responded Tricotrin. "Your
suggestions for the tragedy are cordially accepted. I have never known
a collaborator to improve a plot so much. And understand this: I feel
more earnestly than I speak; henceforth we are pals, you and I."

"Brothers!" cried Petitpas, in ecstasy. "You shall hear all about a
novel that I have projected for years. I should like to have your
opinion of it."

"I shall be enchanted," said Tricotrin, his jaw dropping.

"You must introduce me to your circle--the painters, and the models,
and the actresses. Your friends shall be _my_ friends in future."

"Don't doubt it! When I tell them what a brick you are, they will be
proud to know you."

"No ceremony, mind!"

"Not a bit. You shall be another chum. Already I feel as if we had been
confidants in our cradles."

"It is the same with me. How true it is that kindred spirits recognise
each other in an instant. What is environment? Bah! A man may be a
bohemian and an artist although his occupations are commercial?"

"Perfectly! I nearly pined amid commercial occupations myself."

"What an extraordinary coincidence! Ah, that is the last bond between
us! You can realise my most complex moods, you can penetrate to the
most distant suburbs of my soul! Gustave, if I had been free to choose
my career, I should have become a famous man." "My poor Adolphe!
Still, prosperity is not an unmixed evil. You must seek compensation in
your wealth," murmured the poet, who began to think that one might pay
too high a price for a bed.

"Oh--er--to be sure!" said the little clerk, reminded that he was
pledged to a larger outlay than he had originally proposed. "That is to
say, I am not precisely 'wealthy.'" He saw his pocket-money during the
trip much curtailed, and rather wished that his impulse had been less
expansive.

"A snug income is no stigma, whether one derives it from Parnassus or
the Bourse," continued Tricotrin. "Hold! Who is that I see, slouching
over there? As I live, it's Pitou, the composer, whose dilemma I told
you of!"

"Another?" quavered the clerk, dismayed.

"Hé, Nicolas! Turn your symphonic gaze this way! 'Tis I, Gustave!"

"Ah, mon vieux!" exclaimed the young musician joyfully; "I was
wondering what your fate might be. I have only just come from the
house. Madame Dubois refused me admission; she informed me that you had
been firing Spanish novels at Gouge's head. Why Spanish? Is the Spanish
variety deadlier? So the villain has had the effrontery to turn us
out?"

"Let me make your affinities known to each other," said Tricotrin. "My
brother Nicolas--my brother Adolphe. Brother Adolphe has received a
scenario of the tragedy already, and he has a knack of inventing
brilliant 'curtains.'"

Behind Pitou's back he winked at Petitpas, as if to say, "He little
suspects what a surprise you have in store for him!"

"Oh--er--I am grieved to hear of your trouble, monsieur Pitou," said
Petitpas feebly.

"What? 'Grieved'? Come, that isn't all about it!" cried Tricotrin, who
attributed his restraint to nothing but diffidence. In an undertone he
added, "Don't be nervous, dear boy. Your invitation won't offend him in
the least!"

Petitpas breathed heavily. He aspired to prove himself a true bohemian,
but his heart quailed at the thought of such expense. Two suppers, two
beds, and two little breakfasts as a supplement to his bill would be no
joke. It was with a very poor grace that he stammered at last, "I hope
you will allow me to suggest a way out, monsieur Pitou? A room at my
hotel seems to dispose of the difficulty."

"Hem?" exclaimed Pitou. "Is that room a mirage, or are you serious?"

"'Serious'?" echoed Tricotrin. "He is as serious as an English
adaptation of a French farce." He went on, under his breath, "You
mustn't judge him by his manner, I can see that he has turned a little
shy. Believe me, he is the King of Trumps."

"Well, upon my word I shall be delighted, monsieur," responded Pitou.
"It was evidently the good kind fairies that led me to the place
Dancourt. I would ask you to step over the way and have a bock, but my
finances forbid."

"Your finances need cause no drought--Adolphe will be paymaster!"
declared Tricotrin gaily, shouldering his manuscript. "Come, let us
adjourn and give the Réveillon its due!"

Petitpas suppressed a moan. "By all means," he assented; "I was about
to propose it myself. I am a real bohemian, you know, and think nothing
of ordering several bocks at once."

"Are you sure he is all you say?" whispered Pitou to Tricotrin, with
misgiving.

"A shade embarrassed, that is all," pronounced the poet. And then, as
the trio moved arm-in-arm toward the café, a second solitary figure
emerged from the obscurity of the square.

"Bless my soul!" ejaculated Tricotrin; "am I mistaken, or--Look, look,
Adolphe! I would bet ten to one in sonnets that it is Goujaud, the
painter, whose plight I mentioned to you!"

"Yet another?" gasped Petitpas, panic-stricken.

"Sst! Hé, Goujaud! Come here, you vagrant, and be entertaining!"

"Well met, you fellows!" sighed Goujaud. "Where are you off to?"

"We are going to give Miranda a drink," said the poet; "she is drier
than ever. Let there be no strangers--my brother Adolphe, my brother
Théodose! What is your secret woe, Théo? Your face is as long as this
Spaniard's novel, Adolphe, have you a recipe in your pocket for the
hump?"

"Perhaps monsieur Goujaud will join us in a glass of beer?" said
Petitpas very coldly.

"There are more unlikely things than that!" affirmed the painter; and
when the café was entered, he swallowed his bock like one who has a
void to fill. "The fact is," he confided to the group, "I was about to
celebrate the Réveillon on a bench. That insolent landlord of mine has
kicked me out."

"And you will not get inside," said Tricotrin, "'not you, nor I, nor
any other of your vagabond friends. So there!' I had the privilege of
conversing with your concierge earlier in the evening."

"Ah, then, you know all about it. Well, now that I have run across you,
you can give me a shakedown in your attic. Good business!"

"I discern only one drawback to the scheme," said Pitou; "we haven't
any attic. It must be something in the air--all the landlords seem to
have the same complaint."

"But if you decide in the bench's favour, after all, you may pillow
your curls on Miranda," put in Tricotrin. "She would be exhilarating
company for him, Adolphe, hein? What do you think?" He murmured aside,
"Give him a dig in the ribs and say, 'You silly ass, _I_ can fix
you up all right!' That's the way we issue invitations in Montmartre."

The clerk's countenance was livid; his tongue stuck to his front teeth.
At last, wrenching the words out, he groaned, "If monsieur Goujaud will
accept my hospitality, I shall be charmed!" He was not without a hope
that his frigid bearing would beget a refusal.

"Ah, my dear old chap!" shouted Goujaud without an instant's
hesitation, "consider it done!" And now there were to be three suppers,
three beds, and three little breakfasts, distorting the account!

Petitpas sipped his bock faintly, affecting not to notice that his
guests' glasses had been emptied. With all his soul he repented the
impulse that had led to his predicament. Amid the throes of his mental
arithmetic he recognised that he had been deceived in himself, that he
had no abiding passion for bohemia. How much more pleasing than to
board and lodge this disreputable collection would have been the daily
round of amusements that he had planned! Even now--he caught his
breath--even now it was not too late; he might pay for the drinks and
escape! Why shouldn't he run away?

"Gentlemen," cried Petitpas, "I shall go and fetch a cab for us all.
Make yourselves comfortable till I come back!"

When the café closed, messieurs Tricotrin, Goujaud, and Pitou crept
forlornly across the square and disposed themselves for slumber on the
bench.

"Well, there is this to be said," yawned the poet, "if the little
bounder had kept his word, it would have been an extraordinary
conclusion to our adventures--as persons of literary discretion, we can
hardly regret that a story did not end so improbably.... My children,
Miranda, good-night--and a Merry Christmas!"



THE CAFÉ OF THE BROKEN HEART

On the last day of the year, towards the dinner-hour, a young and
attractive woman, whose costume proclaimed her a widow, entered the
Café of the Broken Heart. That modest restaurant is situated near the
Cemetery of Mont-martre. The lady, quoting from an announcement over
the window, requested the proprietor to conduct her to the "Apartment
reserved for Those Desirous of Weeping Alone."

The proprietor's shoulders became apologetic. "A thousand regrets,
madame," he murmured; "the Weeping Alone apartment is at present
occupied."

This visibly annoyed the customer.

"It is the second anniversary of my bereavement," she complained, "and
already I have wept here twice. The woe of an habituée should find a
welcome!"

Her reproof, still more her air of being well-to-do, had an effect on
Brochat. He looked at his wife, and his wife said hesitatingly:

"Perhaps the young man would consent to oblige madame if you asked him
nicely. After all, he engaged the room for seven o'clock, and it is not
yet half-past six."

"That is true," said Brochat. "Alors, I shall see what can be arranged!
I beg that madame will put herself to the trouble of sitting down while
I make the biggest endeavours."

But he returned after a few minutes to declare that the young man's
sorrow was so profound that no reply could be extracted from him.

The lady showed signs of temper. "Has this person the monopoly of
sorrowing on your premises?" she demanded. "Whom does he lament? Surely
the loss of a husband should give me prior claim?"

"I cannot rightly say whom the gentleman laments," stammered Brochat;
"the circumstances are, in fact, somewhat unusual. I would mention,
however, that the apartment is a spacious one, as madame doubtless
recalls, and no further mourners are expected for half an hour. If in
the meantime madame would be so amiable as to weep in the young man's
presence, I can assure her that she would find him too stricken to
stare."

The widow considered. "Well," she said, after the pause, "if you can
guarantee his abstraction, so be it! It is a matter of conscience with
me to behave in precisely the same way each year, and, rather than miss
my meditations there altogether, I am willing to make the best of him."

Brochat, having taken her order for refreshments--for which he always
charged slightly higher prices on the first floor--preceded her up the
stairs. The single gas-flame that had been kindled in the room was very
low, and the lady received but a momentary impression of a man's figure
bowed over a white table. She chose a chair at once with her back
towards him, and resting her brow on her forefinger, disposed herself
for desolation.

It may have been that the stranger's proximity told on her nerves, or
it may have been that Time had done something to heal the wound.
Whatever the cause, the frame of mind that she invited was slow in
arriving, and when the bouillon and biscottes appeared she was not
averse from trifling with them. Meanwhile, for any sound that he had
made, the young man might have been as defunct as Henri IV; but as she
took her second sip, a groan of such violence escaped him that she
nearly upset her cup.

His abandonment of despair seemed to reflect upon her own
insensibility; and, partly to raise herself in his esteem, the lady a
moment later uttered a long-drawn, wistful sigh. No sooner had she done
so, however, than she deeply regretted the indiscretion, for it
stimulated the young man to a howl positively harrowing.

An impatient movement of her graceful shoulders protested against these
demonstrations, but as she had her back to him, she could not tell
whether he observed her. Stealing a glance, she discovered that his
face was buried in his hands, and that the white table seemed to be
laid for ten covers. Scrutiny revealed ten bottles of wine around it,
the neck of each bottle embellished with a large crape bow. Curiosity
now held the lady wide-eyed, and, as luck would have it, the young man,
at this moment, raised his head.

"I trust that my agony does not disturb you, madame?" he inquired,
meeting her gaze with some embarrassment.

"I must confess, monsieur," said she, "that you have been carrying it
rather far."

He accepted the rebuke humbly. "If you divined the intensity of my
sufferings, you would be lenient," he murmured. "Nevertheless, it was
dishonest of me to moan so bitterly before seven o'clock, when my claim
to the room legally begins. I entreat your pardon."

"It is accorded freely," said the lady, mollified by his penitence.
"She would be a poor mourner who quarrelled with the affliction of
another."

Again she indulged in a plaintive sigh, and this time the young man's
response was tactfully harmonious.

"Life is a vale of tears, madame," he remarked, with more solicitude
than originality.

"You may indeed say so, monsieur," she assented. "To have lost one who
was beloved--"

"It must be a heavy blow; I can imagine it!"

He had made a curious answer. She stared at him, perplexed.

"You can 'imagine' it?"

"Very well."

"But you yourself have experienced such a loss, monsieur?" faltered the
widow nervously. Had trouble unhinged his brain?

"No," said the young man; "to speak by the clock, my own loss has not
yet occurred."

A brief silence fell, during which she cast uneasy glances towards the
door.

He added, as if anxious that she should do him justice: "But I would
not have you consider my lamentations premature."

"How true it is," breathed the lady, "that in this world no human soul
can wholly comprehend another!"

"Mine is a very painful history," he warned her, taking the hint; "yet
if it will serve to divert your mind from your own misfortune, I shall
be honoured to confide it to you. Stay, the tenth invitation, which an
accident prevented my dispatching, would explain the circumstances
tersely: but I much fear that the room is too dark for you to decipher
all the subtleties. Have I your permission to turn up the gas?"

"Do so, by all means, monsieur," said the lady graciously. And the
light displayed to her, first, as personable a young man as she could
have desired to see; second, an imposing card, which was inscribed as
follows:

       MONSIEUR ACHILLE FLAMANT, ARTIST,

           Forewarns you of the

           DEATH OF HIS CAREER

   The Interment will take place at the
        Café of the Broken Heart
          on December 31st.

   _Valedictory            N.B.--A sympathetic costume
     Victuals                   will be appreciated.
      7 p.m._

"I would call your attention to the border of cypress, and to the tomb
in the corner," said the young man, with melancholy pride. "You may
also look favourably on the figure with the shovel, which, of course,
depicts me in the act of burying my hopes. It is a symbolic touch that
no hope is visible."

"It is a very artistic production altogether," said the widow,
dissembling her astonishment. "So you are a painter, monsieur Flamant?"

"Again speaking by the clock, I am a painter," he concurred; "but at
midnight I shall no longer be in a position to say so--in the morning I
am pledged to the life commercial. You will not marvel at my misery
when I inform you that the existence of Achille Flamant, the artist,
will terminate in five hours and twenty odd minutes!"

"Well, I am commercial myself," she said. "I am madame Aurore, the
Beauty Specialist, of the rue Baba. Do not think me wanting in the
finer emotions, but I assure you that a lucrative establishment is not
a calamity."

"Madame Aurore," demurred the painter, with a bow, "your own business
is but a sister art. In your atelier, the saffron of a bad complexion
blooms to the fairness of a rose, and the bunch of a lumpy figure is
modelled to the grace of Galatea. With me it will be a different pair
of shoes; I shall be condemned to perch on a stool in the office of a
wine-merchant, and invoice vintages which my thirty francs a week will
not allow me to drink. No comparison can be drawn between your lot and
my little."

"Certainly I should not like to perch," she confessed.

"Would you rejoice at the thirty francs a week?"

"Well, and the thirty francs a week are also poignant. But you may
rise, monsieur; who shall foretell the future? Once I had to make both
ends meet with less to coax them than the salary you mention. Even when
my poor husband was taken from me--heigho!" she raised a miniature
handkerchief delicately to her eyes--"when I was left alone in the
world, monsieur, my affairs were greatly involved--I had practically
nothing but my resolve to succeed."

"And the witchery of your personal attractions, madame," said the
painter politely.

"Ah!" A pensive smile rewarded him. "The business was still in its
infancy, monsieur; yet to-day I have the smartest clientèle in Paris. I
might remove to the rue de la Paix to-morrow if I pleased. But, I say,
why should I do that? I say, why a reckless rental for the sake of a
fashionable address, when the fashionable men and women come to me
where I am?"

"You show profound judgment, madame," said Flamant. "Why, indeed!"

"And you, too, will show good judgment, I am convinced," continued
madame Aurore, regarding him with approval. "You have an air of
intellect. If your eyebrows were elongated a fraction towards the
temples--an improvement that might be effected easily enough by regular
use of my Persian Pomade--you would acquire the appearance of a born
conqueror."

"Alas," sighed Flamant, "my finances forbid my profiting by the tip!"

"Monsieur, you wrong me," murmured the specialist reproachfully. "I was
speaking with no professional intent. On the contrary, if you will
permit me, I shall take joy in forwarding a pot to you gratis."

"Is it possible?" cried Flamant: "you would really do this for me? You
feel for my sufferings so much?"

"Indeed, I regret that I cannot persuade you to reduce the sufferings,"
she replied. "But tell me why you have selected the vocation of a
wine-merchant's clerk."

"Fate, not I, has determined my cul-de-sac in life," rejoined her
companion. "It is like this: my father, who lacks an artistic soul,
consented to my becoming a painter only upon the understanding that I
should gain the Prix de Rome and pursue my studies in Italy free of any
expense to him. This being arranged, he agreed to make me a minute
allowance in the meanwhile. By a concatenation of catastrophes upon
which it is unnecessary to dwell, the Beaux-Arts did not accord the
prize to me; and, at the end of last year, my parent reminded me of our
compact, with a vigour which nothing but the relationship prevents my
describing as 'inhuman'. He insisted that I must bid farewell to
aspiration and renounce the brush of an artist for the quill of a
clerk! Distraught, I flung myself upon my knees. I implored him to
reconsider. My tribulation would have moved a rock--it even moved his
heart!"

"He showed you mercy?"

"He allowed me a respite."

"It was for twelve months?"

"Precisely. What rapid intuitions you have!--if I could remain in
Paris, we should become great friends. He allowed me twelve months'
respite. If, at the end of that time, Art was still inadequate to
supply my board and lodging, it was covenanted that, without any more
ado, I should resign myself to clerical employment at Nantes. The
merchant there is a friend of the family, and had offered to
demonstrate his friendship by paying me too little to live on. Enfin,
Fame has continued coy. The year expires to-night. I have begged a few
comrades to attend a valedictory dinner--and at the stroke of midnight,
despairing I depart!"

"Is there a train?"

"I do not depart from Paris till after breakfast to-morrow; but at
midnight I depart from myself, I depart psychologically--the Achille
Flamant of the Hitherto will be no more."

"I understand," said madame Aurore, moved. "As you say, in my own way I
am an artist, too, there is a bond between us. Poor fellow, it is
indeed a crisis in your life!... Who put the crape bows on the
bottles? they are badly tied. Shall I tie them properly for you?"

"It would be a sweet service," said Flamant, "and I should be grateful.
How gentle you are to me--pomade, bows, nothing is too much for you!"

"You must give me your Nantes address," she said, "and I will post the
pot without fail."

"I shall always keep it," he vowed--"not the pomade, but the pot--as a
souvenir. Will you write a few lines to me at the same time?"

Her gaze was averted; she toyed with her spoon. "The directions will be
on the label," she said timidly.

"It was not of my eyebrows I was thinking," murmured the man.

"What should I say? The latest quotation for artificial lashes, or a
development in dimple culture, would hardly be engrossing to you."

"I am inclined to believe that anything that concerned you would
engross me."

"It would be so unconventional," she objected dreamily.

"To send a brief message of encouragement? Have we not talked like
confidants?"

"That is queerer still."

"I admit it. Just now I was unaware of your existence, and suddenly you
dominate my thoughts. How do you work these miracles, madame? Do you
know that I have an enormous favour to crave of you?"

"What, another one?"

"Actually! Is it not audacious of me? Yet for a man on the verge of
parting from his identity, I venture to hope that you will strain a
point."

"The circumstances are in the man's favour," she owned. "Nevertheless,
much depends on what the point is."

"Well, I ask nothing less than that you accept the invitation on the
card that you examined; I beg you to soothe my last hours by remaining
to dine."

"Oh, but really," she exclaimed. "I am afraid--"

"You cannot urge that you are required at your atelier so late. And as
to any social engagement, I do not hesitate to affirm that my
approaching death in life puts forth the stronger claim."

"On me? When all is said, a new acquaintance!"

"What is Time?" demanded the painter. And she was not prepared with a
reply.

"Your comrades will be strangers to me," she argued.

"It is a fact that now I wish they were not coming," acknowledged the
host; "but they are young men of the loftiest genius, and some day it
may provide a piquant anecdote to relate how you met them all in the
period of their obscurity."

"My friend," she said, hurt, "if I consented, it would not be to garner
anecdotes."

"Ah, a million regrets!" he cried; "I spoke foolishly."

"It was tactless."

"Yes--I am a man. Do you forgive?"

"Yes--I am a woman. Well, I must take my bonnet off!"

"Oh, you are not a woman, but an angel! What beautiful hair you have!
And your hands, how I should love to paint them!"

"I have painted them, myself--with many preparations. My hands have
known labour, believe me; they have washed up plates and dishes, and
often the dishes had provided little to eat."

"Poor girl! One would never suspect that you had struggled like that."

"How feelingly you say it! There have been few to show me sympathy. Oh,
I assure you, my life has been a hard one; it is a hard one now, in
spite of my success. Constantly, when customers moan before my mirrors,
I envy them, if they did but know it. I think: 'Yes, you have a double
chin, and your eyes have lost their fire, and nasty curly little veins
are spoiling the pallor of your nose; but you have the affection of
husband and child, while _I_ have nothing but fees.' What is my
destiny? To hear great-grandmothers grumble because I cannot give them
back their girlhood for a thousand francs! To devote myself to making
other women beloved, while _I_ remain loveless in my shop!"

"Honestly, my heart aches for you. If I might presume to advise, I
would say, 'Do not allow the business to absorb your youth--you were
meant to be worshipped.' And yet, while I recommend it, I hate to think
of another man worshipping you."

"Why should you care, my dear? But there is no likelihood of that; I am
far too busy to seek worshippers. A propos an idea has just occurred to
me which might be advantageous to us both. If you could inform your
father that you would be able to earn rather more next year by
remaining in Paris than by going to Nantes, would it be satisfactory?"

"Satisfactory?" ejaculated Flamant. "It would be ecstatic! But how
shall I acquire such information?"

"Would you like to paint a couple of portraits of me?"

"I should like to paint a thousand."

"My establishment is not a picture-gallery. Listen. I offer you a
commission for two portraits: one, present day, let us say, moderately
attractive--"

"I decline to libel you."

"O, flatterer! The other, depicting my faded aspect before I discovered
the priceless secrets of the treatment that I practise in the rue Baba.
I shall hang them both in the reception-room. I must look at least a
decade older in the 'Before' than in the 'After,' and it must, of
course, present the appearance of having been painted some years ago.
That can be faked?"

"Perfectly."

"You accept?" "I embrace your feet. You have saved my life; you have
preserved my hopefulness, you have restored my youth!"

"It is my profession to preserve and restore."

"Ah, mon Dieu!" gasped Flamant in a paroxysm of adoration. "Aurore, I
can no longer refrain from avowing that--"

At this instant the door opened, and there entered solemnly nine young
men, garbed in such habiliments of woe as had never before been seen
perambulating, even on the figures of undertakers. The foremost bore a
wreath of immortelles, which he laid in devout silence on the dinner-table.

"Permit me," said Flamant, recovering himself by a stupendous effort:
"monsieur Tricotrin, the poet--madame Aurore."

"Enchanted!" said the poet, in lugubrious tones. "I have a heavy cold,
thank you, owing to my having passed the early hours of Christmas Day
on a bench, in default of a bed. It is superfluous to inquire as to the
health of madame."

"Monsieur Goujaud, a colleague."

"Overjoyed!" responded Goujaud, with a violent sneeze.

"Goujaud was with me," said Tricotrin.

"Monsieur Pitou, the composer."

"I ab hodoured. I trust badabe is dot dervous of gerbs? There is
nothing to fear," said Pitou.

"So was Pitou!" added Tricotrin.

"Monsieur Sanquereau, the sculptor; monsieur Lajeunie, the novelist,"
continued the host. But before he could present the rest of the
company, Brochat was respectfully intimating to the widow that her
position in the Weeping Alone apartment was now untenable. He was
immediately commanded to lay another cover.

"Madame and comrades," declaimed Tricotrin, unrolling a voluminous
manuscript, as they took their seats around the pot-au-feu, "I have
composed for this piteous occasion a brief poem!"

"I must beseech your pardon," stammered Flamant, rising in deep
confusion; "I have nine apologies to tender. Gentlemen, this touching
wreath for the tomb of my career finds the tomb unready. These
affecting garments which you have hired at, I fear, ruinous expense,
should be exchanged for bunting; that immortal poem with which our
friend would favour us has been suddenly deprived of all its point."

"Explain! explain!" volleyed from nine throats.

"I shall still read it," insisted Tricotrin, "it is good."

"The lady--nay, the goddess--whom you behold, has showered commissions,
and for one year more I shall still be in your midst. Brothers in art,
brothers in heart, I ask you to charge your glasses, and let your
voices ring. The toast is, 'Madame Aurore and her gift of the New
Year!'"

"Madame Aurore and her gift of the New Year!" shrieked the nine young
men, springing to their feet.

"In a year much may happen," said the lady tremulously.

And when they had all sat down again, Flamant was thrilled to find her
hand in his beneath the table.



THE DRESS CLOTHES OF MONSIEUR POMPONNET

It was thanks to Touquet that she was able to look so chic--the little
baggage!--yet of all her suitors Touquet was the one she favoured
least. He was the costumier at the corner of the rue des Martyrs, and
made a very fair thing of the second-hand clothes. It was to Touquet's
that the tradesmen of the quarter turned as a matter of course to hire
dress-suits for their nuptials; it was in the well-cleaned satins of
Touquet that the brides' mothers and the lady guests cut such imposing
figures when they were photographed after the wedding breakfasts; it
was even Touquet who sometimes supplied a gown to one or another of the
humble actresses at the Théâtre Montmartre, and received a couple of
free tickets in addition to his fee. I tell you that Touquet was not a
person to be sneezed at, though he had passed the first flush of youth,
and was never an Adonis.

Besides, who was she, this little Lisette, who had the impudence to
flout him? A girl in a florist's, if you can believe me, with no
particular beauty herself, and not a son by way of dot! And yet--one
must confess it--she turned a head as swiftly as she made a
"buttonhole"; and Pomponnet, the pastrycook, was paying court to her,
too--to say nothing of the homage of messieurs Tricotrin, the poet, and
Goujaud, the painter, and Lajeunie, the novelist. You would never have
guessed that her wages were only twenty francs a week, as you watched
her waltz with Tricotrin at the ball on Saturday evening, or as you saw
her enter Pomponnet's shop, when the shutters were drawn, to feast on
his strawberry tarts. Her costumes were the cynosure of the boulevard
Rochechouart!

And they were all due to Touquet, Touquet the infatuated, who lent the
fine feathers to her for the sake of a glance, or a pressure of the
hand--and wept on his counter afterwards while he wondered whose arms
might be embracing her in the costumes that he had cleaned and pressed
with so much care. Often he swore that his folly should end--that she
should be affianced to him, or go shabby; but, lo! in a day or two she
would make her appearance again, to coax for the loan of a smart
blouse, or "that hat with the giant rose and the ostrich plume"--and
Touquet would be as weak as ever.

Judge, then, of his despair when he heard that she had agreed to marry
Pomponnet! She told him the news with the air of an amiable gossip when
she came to return a ball-dress that she had borrowed.

"Enfin," she said--perched on the counter, and swinging her remorseless
feet--"it is arranged; I desert the flowers for the pastry, and become
the mistress of a shop. I shall have to beg from my good friend
monsieur Touquet no more--not at all! I shall be his client, like the
rest. It will be better, hein?"

Touquet groaned. "You know well, Lisette," he answered, "that it has
been a joy to me to place the stock at your disposal, even though it
was to make you more attractive in the eyes of other men. Everything
here that you have worn possesses a charm to me. I fondle the garments
when you bring them back; I take them down from the pegs and dream over
them. Truly! There is no limit to my weakness, for often when a client
proposes to hire a frock that you have had, I cannot bear that she
should profane it, and I say that it is engaged."

"You dear, kind monsieur Touquet," murmured the coquette; "how
agreeable you are!"

"I have always hoped for the day when the stock would be all your own,
Lisette. And by-and-by we might have removed to a better position--
even down the hill. Who knows? We might have opened a business in the
Madeleine quarter. That would suit you better than a little cake-shop
up a side street? And I would have risked it for you--I know how you
incline to fashion. When I have taken you to a theatre, did you choose
the Montmartre--where we might have gone for nothing--or the Moncey?
Not you!--that might do for other girls. _You_ have always
demanded the theatres of the Grand Boulevard; a cup of coffee at the
Café de la Paix is more to your taste than a bottle of beer and
hard-boiled eggs at The Nimble Rabbit. Heaven knows I trust you will be
happy, but I cannot persuade myself that this Pomponnet shares your
ambitions; with his slum and his stale pastry he is quite content."

"It is not stale," she said.

"Well, we will pass his pastry--though, word of honour, I bought some
there last week that might have been baked before the Commune; but to
recur to his soul, is it an affinity?"

"Affinities are always hard up," she pouted.

"Zut!" exclaimed Touquet; "now your mind is running on that monsieur
Tricotrin--by 'affinities' I do not mean hungry poets. Why not have
entrusted your happiness to _me_? I adore you, I have told you a
thousand times that I adore you. Lisette, consider before it is too
late! You cannot love this--this obscure baker?"

She gave a shrug. "It is a fact that devotion has not robbed me of my
appetite," she confessed. "But what would you have? His business goes
far better than you imagine--I have seen his books; and anyhow, my
sentiment for you is friendship, and no more."

"To the devil with friendship!" cried the unhappy wardrobe-dealer; "did
I dress you like the Empress Joséphine for friendship?"

"Do not mock yourself of it," she said reprovingly; "remember that
'Friendship is a beautiful flower, of which esteem is the stem.'" And,
having thrown the adage to him, coupled with a glance that drove him to
distraction, the little flirt jumped off the counter and was gone.

Much more reluctantly she contemplated parting with him whom the
costumier had described as a "hungry poet"; but matrimony did not enter
the poet's scheme of things, nor for that matter had she ever regarded
him as a possible parti. Yet a woman may give her fancy where her
reason refuses to follow, and when she imparted her news to Tricotrin
there was no smile on her lips.

"We shall not go to balls any more, old dear," she said. "Monsieur
Pomponnet has proposed marriage to me--and I settle down."

"Heartless girl," exclaimed the young man, with tears in his eyes. "So
much for woman's constancy!"

"Mon Dieu," she faltered, "did you then love me, Gustave--really?"

"I do not know," said Tricotrin, "but since I am to lose you, I prefer
to think so. Ah, do not grieve for me--fortunately, there is always the
Seine! And first I shall pour my misery into song; and in years to
come, fair daughters at your side will read the deathless poem, little
dreaming that the Lisette I sang to is their mother. Some time--long
after I am in my grave, when France has honoured me at last--you may
stand before a statue that bears my name, and think, 'He loved me, and
I broke his heart!'"

"Oh," she whimpered, "rather than break your heart I--I might break the
engagement! I might consider again, Gustave."

"No, no," returned Tricotrin, "I will not reproach myself with the
thought that I have marred your life; I will leave you free. Besides,
as I say, I am not certain that I should want you so much but for the
fact that I have lost you. After all, you will not appreciate the poem
that immortalises you, and if I lived, many of your remarks about it
would doubtless infuriate me."

"Why shall I not appreciate it? Am I so stupid?"

"It is not that you are stupid, my Soul," he explained; "it is that I
am transcendentally clever. To understand the virtues of my work one
must have sipped from all the flowers of Literature. 'There is to be
found in it Racine, Voltaire, Flaubert, Renan--and always Gustave
Tricotrin,' as Lemaître has written. He wrote, '--and always Anatole
France,' but I paraphrase him slightly. So you are going to marry
Pomponnet? Mon Dieu, when I have any sous in my pocket, I will ruin
myself, for the rapture of regretting you among the pastry!"

"I thought," she said, a little mortified, "that you were going to
drown yourself?"

"Am I not to write my Lament to you? I must eat while I write it--why
not pastry? Also, when I am penniless and starving, you may sometimes,
in your prosperity--And yet, perhaps, it is too much to ask?"

"Give you tick, do you mean, dear? But yes, Gustave; how can you doubt
that I will do that? In memory of--"

"In memory of the love that has been, you will permit me to run up a
small score for cakes, will you not, Lisette?"

"I will, indeed!" she promised. "But, but--Oh, it's quite true, I
should never understand you! A minute ago you made me think of you in
the Morgue, and now you make me think of you in the cake-shop. What are
you laughing at?"

"I laugh, like Figaro," said Tricotrin, "that I may not be obliged to
weep. When are you going to throw yourself away, my little Lisette? Has
my accursed rival induced you to fix a date?'

"We are to be married in a fortnight's time," she said. "And if you
could undertake to be sensible, I would ask Alphonse to invite you to
the breakfast."

"In a fortnight's time hunger and a hopeless passion will probably have
made an end of me," replied the poet; "however, if I survive, the
breakfast will certainly be welcome. Where is it to be held? I can
recommend a restaurant that is especially fine at such affairs, and
most moderate. 'Photographs of the party are taken gratuitously in the
Jardin d'Acclimatation, and pianos are at the disposal of the ladies';
I quote from the menu--I study it in the window every time I pass.
There are wedding breakfasts from six to twelve francs per head. At six
francs, the party have their choice of two soups and three hors
d'oeuvres. Then comes 'poisson'--I fear it may be whiting--filet de
boeuf with tomates farcies, bouchées à la Reine, chicken, pigeons,
salad, two vegetables, an ice, assorted fruits, and biscuits. The wines
are madeira, a bottle of mâcon to each person, a bottle of bordeaux
among four persons, and a bottle of champagne among ten persons. Also
coffee and liqueurs. At six francs a head! It is good, hein? At seven
francs there is a bottle of champagne among every eight persons--
Pomponnet will, of course, do as he thinks best. At eight francs, a
bottle is provided for every six persons. I have too much delicacy to
make suggestions, but should he be willing to soar to twelve francs a
head, I might eat enough to last a week--and of such quality! The soups
would then be bisque d'écrevisse and consommé Rachel. Rissoles de foies
gras would appear. Asparagus 'in branches,' and compote of peaches
flavoured with maraschino would be included. Also, in the twelve-franc
breakfast, the champagne begins to have a human name on the label!"

Now, it is not certain how much of this information Lisette repeated to
Pomponnet, but Pomponnet, having a will of his own, refused to
entertain monsieur Tricotrin at any price at all. More-over, he found
it unconventional that she should desire the poet's company,
considering the attentions that he had paid her; and she was forced to
listen, with an air of humility which she was far from feeling, to a
lecture on the responsibilities of her new position.

"I am not a jealous man," said the pastrycook, who was as jealous a man
as ever baked a pie; "but it would be discreet that you dropped this
acquaintance now that we are engaged. I know well that you have never
taken the addresses of such a fellow seriously, and that it is only in
the goodness of your heart you wish to present him with a blow-out.
Nevertheless, the betrothal of a man in my circumstances is much
remarked; all the daughters of the hairdresser next door have had their
hopes of me--indeed, there is scarcely a neighbour who is not chagrined
at the turn events have taken--and the world would be only too glad of
an excuse to call me 'fool.' Pomponnet's wife must be above suspicion.
You will remember that a little lightness of conduct which might be
forgiven in the employée of the florist would be unseemly in my
fiancée. No more conversation with monsieur Tricotrin, Lisette! Some
dignity--some coldness in the bow when you pass him. The boulevard will
observe it, it will be approved."

"You, of course, know best, my dear Alphonse," she returned meekly; "I
am only an inexperienced girl, and I am thankful to have your advice to
guide me. But let me say that never, never has there been any
'lightness of conduct,' to distress you. Monsieur Tricotrin and I have
been merely friends. If I have gone to a ball with him sometimes--and I
acknowledge that has happened--it has been because nobody more to my
taste has offered to take me." She had ground her little teeth under
the infliction of his homily, and it was only by dint of thinking hard
of his profits that she abstained from retorting that he might marry
all the daughters of the hairdresser and go to Uganda.

However, during the next week or so, she did not chance to meet the
poet on the boulevard; and since she wished to conquer her tenderness
for him, one cannot doubt that all would have been well but for the
Editor of _L'Echo de la Butte._ By a freak of fate, the Editor of
_L'Echo de la Butte_ was moved to invite monsieur Tricotrin to an
affair of ceremony two days previous to the wedding. What followed?
Naturally Tricotrin must present himself in evening dress. Naturally,
also, he must go to Touquet's to hire the suit.

"Regard," said the costumier, "here is a suit that I have just
acquired. Monsieur will observe that it is of the most distinguished
cut--quite in the latest fashion. I will whisper to monsieur that it
comes to me through the valet of the Comte de St.-Nom-la-Bretèche-
Forêt-de-Marly."

"Mon Dieu!" said Tricotrin, "let me try it on!" And he was so gratified
by his appearance in it that he barely winced at the thought of the
expense. "I am improving my position," he soliloquised; "if I have not
precisely inherited the mantle of Victor Hugo, I have, at any rate,
hired the dress-suit of the Comte de St.-Nom-la-Bretèche-Forêt-de-
Marly!"

Never had a more impressive spectacle been witnessed in Montmartre than
Tricotrin's departure from his latest lodging shortly after six
o'clock. Wearing a shirt of Pitou's, Flamant's patent-leather boots,
and a white tie contributed by Goujaud, the young man sallied forth
with the deportment of the Count himself. Only one thing more did he
desire, a flower for his buttonhole--and Lisette remained in her
situation until the morrow! What more natural, finally, than that he
should hie him to the florist's?

It was the first time that she had seen her lover in evening dress, and
sentiment overpowered her as he entered.

"Thou!" she murmured, paling.

On the poet, too, the influence of the clothes was very strong; attired
like a jeune premier, he craved with all the dramatic instinct of his
nature for a love scene; and, instead of fulfilling his intention to
beg for a rosebud at cost price, he gazed at her soulfully and breathed
"Lisette!"

"So we have met again!" she said.

"The world is small," returned the poet, ignoring the fact that he had
come to the shop. "And am I yet remembered?"

"It is not likely I should forget you in a few days," she said, more
practically; "I didn't forget about the breakfast, either, but Alphonse
put his foot down."

"Pig!" said the poet. "And yet it may be better so! How could I eat in
such an hour?"

"However, you are not disconsolate this evening?" she suggested. "Mais
vrai! what a swell you are!"

"Flûte! some fashionable assembly that will bore me beyond endurance,"
he sighed. "With you alone, Lisette, have I known true happiness--the
train rides on summer nights that were joyous because we loved; the
simple meals that were sweetened by your smile!"

"Ah, Gustave!" she said. "Wait, I must give you a flower for your
coat!"

"I shall keep it all my life!" vowed Tricotrin. "Tell me, little one--I
dare not stay now, because my host lives a long way off--but this
evening, could you not meet me once again? For the last time, to say
farewell? I have nearly two francs fifty, and we might go to supper, if
you agree."

It was arranged before he took leave of her that she should meet him
outside the _débit_ at the corner of the rue de Sontay at eleven
o'clock, and sup with him there, in a locality where she was unlikely
to be recognised. Rash enough, this conduct, for a young woman who was
to be married to another man on the next day but one! But a greater
imprudence was to follow. They supped, they sentimentalised, and when
they parted in the Champs Elysées and the moonshine, she gave him from
her bosom a little rose-coloured envelope that contained nothing less
than a lock of her hair.

The poet placed it tenderly in his waistcoat pocket; and, after he had
wept, and quoted poetry to the stars, forgot it. He began to wish that
he had not mixed his liquors quite so impartially; and, on the morrow,
when he woke, he was mindful of nothing more grievous than a splitting
headache.

Now Touquet, who could not sleep of nights because the pastrycook was
going to marry Lisette, made a practice of examining the pockets of all
garments returned to him, with an eye to stray sous; and when he
proceeded to examine the pockets of the dress-suit returned by monsieur
Tricotrin, what befell but that he drew forth a rose-tinted envelope
containing a tress of hair, and inscribed, "To Gustave, from Lisette.
Adieu."

And the Editor who invited monsieur Tricotrin had never heard of
Lisette; never heard of Pomponnet; did not know that such a person as
Touquet existed; yet the editorial caprice had manipulated destinies.
How powerful are Editors! How complicated is life!

But a truce to philosophy--let us deal with the emotions of the soul!
The shop reeled before Touquet. All the good and the bad in his
character battled tumultuously. In one moment he aspired to be generous
and restore to Lisette the evidence of her guilt; in the next he sank
to the base thought of displaying it to Pomponnet and breaking off the
match. The discovery fired his brain. No longer was he a nonentity, the
odd man out--chance had transformed him to the master of the situation.
Full well he knew that there would be no nuptials next day were
Pomponnet aware of his fiancée's perfidy; it needed but to go to him
and say, "Monsieur, my sense of duty compels me to inform you--." How
easy it would be! He laughed hysterically.

But Lisette would never pardon such a meanness--she would always
despise and hate him! He would have torn her from his rival's arms, it
was true, yet his own would still be empty. "Ah, Lisette, Lisette!"
groaned the wretched man; and, swept to evil by the force of passion,
he cudgelled his mind to devise some piece of trickery, some diabolical
artifice, by which the incriminating token might be placed in the
pastrycook's hands as if by accident.

And while he pondered--his "whole soul a chaos"--in that hour Pomponnet
entered to hire a dress-suit for his wedding!

Touquet raised his head, blanched to the lips.

"Regard," he said, with a forced calm terrible to behold; "here is a
suit that I have just acquired. Monsieur will observe that it is of the
most distinguished cut--quite in the latest fashion. I will whisper to
monsieur that it comes to me through the valet of the Comte de St. Nom-
la-Bretéche-Forét-de-Marly." And, unseen by the guileless bridegroom,
he slipped the damning proof into a pocket of the trousers, where his
knowledge of the pastrycook's attitudes assured him that it was even
more certain to be found than in the waistcoat.

"Mon Dieu!" said the other, duly impressed by the suit's pedigree; "let
me try it on.... The coat is rather tight," he complained, "but it has
undeniably an air."

"No more than one client has worn it," gasped the wardrobe dealer
haggardly: _"monsieur Gustave Tricotrin, the poet, who hired it last
night!_ The suit is practically new; I have no other in the
establishment to compare with it. Listen, monsieur Pomponnet! To an old
client like yourself, I will be liberal; wear it this evening for an
hour in your home--if you find it not to your figure, there will be
time to make another selection before the ceremony to-morrow. You shall
have this on trial, I will make no extra charge."

Such munificence was bound to have its effect, and five minutes later
Touquet's plot had progressed. But the tension had been frightful; the
door had scarcely closed when he sank into a chair, trembling in every
limb, and for the rest of the day he attended to his business like one
moving in a trance.

Meanwhile, the unsuspecting Pomponnet reviewed the arrangement with
considerable satisfaction; and when he came to attire himself, after
the cake-shop was shut, his reflected image pleased him so well that he
was tempted to stroll abroad. He decided to call on his betrothed, and
to exhibit himself a little on the boulevard. Accordingly, he put some
money in the pocket of the waistcoat, oiled his silk hat, to give it an
additional lustre, and sallied forth in high good-humour.

"How splendid you look, my dear Alphonse!" exclaimed Lisette, little
dreaming it was the same suit that she had approved on Tricotrin the
previous evening.

Her innocent admiration was agreeable to Pomponnet; he patted her on
the cheek.

"In truth," he said carelessly, "I had forgotten that I had it on! But I
was so impatient for to-morrow, my pet angel, that I could not remain
alone and I had to come to see you."

They were talking on her doorstep, for she had no apartment in which it
would have been _convenable_ to entertain him, and it appeared to
him that the terrace of a café would be more congenial.

"Run upstairs and make your toilette, my loving duck," he suggested,
"and I shall take you out for a tasse. While you are getting ready, I
will smoke a cigar." And he drew his cigar-case from the breast-pocket
of the coat, and took a match-box from the pocket where he had put his
cash.

It was a balmy evening, sweet with the odour of spring, and the streets
were full of life. As he promenaded with her on the boulevard,
Pomponnet did not fail to remark the attention commanded by his
costume. He strutted proudly, and when they reached the café and took
their seats, he gave his order with the authority of the President.

"Ah!" he remarked, "it is good here, hein?" And then, stretching his
legs, he thrust both his hands into the pockets of his trousers.
"_Comment?_" he murmured. "What have I found?... Now is not this
amusing--I swear it is a billet-doux!" He bent, chuckling, to the
light--and bounded in his chair with an oath that turned a dozen heads
towards them. "Traitress," roared Pomponnet, "miserable traitress! It
is _your_ name! It is your _writing_! It is your _hair_!
Do not deny it; give me your head--it matches to a shade! Jezebel, last
night you met monsieur Tricotrin--you have deceived me!"

Lisette, who had jumped as high as he in recognising the envelope, sat
like one paralysed now. Her tongue refused to move. For an instant, the
catastrophe seemed to her of supernatural agency--it was as if a
miracle had happened, as she saw her fiancé produce her lover's
keepsake. All she could stammer at last was:

"Let us go away--pay for the coffee!"

"I will not pay," shouted monsieur Pomponnet. "Pay for it yourself,
jade--I have done with you!" And, leaving her spellbound at the table,
he strode from the terrace like a madman before the waiters could stop
him.

Oh, of course, he was well known at the café, and they did not detain
Lisette, but it was a most ignominious position for a young woman. And
there was no wedding next day, and everybody knew why. The little
coquette, who had mocked suitors by the dozen, was jilted almost on the
threshold of the Mairie. She smacked Tricotrin's face in the morning,
but her humiliation was so acute that it demanded the salve of
immediate marriage; and at the moment she could think of no one better
than Touquet.

So Touquet won her after all. And though by this time she may guess how
he accomplished it, he will tell you--word of honour!--that never,
never has he had occasion for regret.



THE SUICIDES IN THE RUE SOMBRE

Having bought the rope, Tournicquot wondered where he should hang
himself. The lath-and-plaster ceiling of his room might decline to
support him, and while the streets were populous a lamp-post was out of
the question. As he hesitated on the kerb, he reflected that a pan of
charcoal would have been more convenient after all; but the coil of
rope in the doorway of a shop had lured his fancy, and now it would be
laughable to throw it away.

Tournicquot was much averse from being laughed at in private life--
perhaps because Fate had willed that he should be laughed at so much in
his public capacity. Could he have had his way, indeed, Tournicquot
would have been a great tragedian, instead of a little droll, whose
portraits, with a bright red nose and a scarlet wig, grimaced on the
hoardings; and he resolved that, at any rate, the element of humour
should not mar his suicide.

As to the motive for his death, it was as romantic as his heart
desired. He adored "La Belle Lucèrce," the fascinating Snake Charmer,
and somewhere in the background the artiste had a husband. Little the
audience suspected the passion that devoured their grotesque comedian
while he cut his capers and turned love to ridicule; little they
divined the pathos of a situation which condemned him behind the scenes
to whisper the most sentimental assurances of devotion when disfigured
by a flaming wig and a nose that was daubed vermilion! How nearly it
has been said, One half of the world does not know how the other half
loves!

But such incongruities would distress Tournicquot no more--to-day he
was to die; he had worn his chessboard trousers and his little green
coat for the last time! For the last time had the relentless virtue of
Lucrèce driven him to despair! When he was discovered inanimate,
hanging to a beam, nothing comic about him, perhaps the world would
admit that his soul had been solemn, though his "line of business" had
been funny; perhaps Lucrèce would even drop warm tears on his tomb!

It was early in the evening. Dusk was gathering over Paris, the promise
of dinner was in the breeze. The white glare of electric globes began
to flood the streets; and before the cafés, waiters bustled among the
tables, bearing the vermouth and absinthe of the hour. Instinctively
shunning the more frequented thoroughfares, Tournicquot crossed the
boulevard des Batignolles, and wandered, lost in reverie, along the
melancholy continuation of the rue de Rome until he perceived that he
had reached a neighbourhood unknown to him--that he stood at the corner
of a street which bore the name "Rue Sombre." Opposite, one of the
houses was being rebuilt, and as he gazed at it--this skeleton of a
home in which the workmen's hammers were silenced for the night--
Tournicquot recognised that his journey was at an end. Here, he could
not doubt that he would find the last, grim hospitality that he sought.
The house had no door to bar his entrance, but--as if in omen--above
the gap where a door had been, the sinister number "13" was still to be
discerned. He cast a glance over his shoulder, and, grasping the rope
with a firm hand, crept inside.

It was dark within, so dark that at first he could discern nothing but
the gleam of bare walls. He stole along the passage, and, mounting a
flight of steps, on which his feet sprung mournful echoes, proceeded
stealthily towards an apartment on the first floor. At this point the
darkness became impenetrable, for the _volets_ had been closed,
and in order to make his arrangements, it was necessary that he should
have a light. He paused, fumbling in his pocket; and then, with his
next step, blundered against a body, which swung from the contact, like
a human being suspended in mid-air.

Tournicquot leapt backwards in terror. A cold sweat bespangled him, and
for some seconds he shook so violently that he was unable to strike a
match. At last, when he accomplished it, he beheld a man, apparently
dead, hanging by a rope in the doorway.

"Ah, mon Dieu!" gasped Tournicquot. And the thudding of his heart
seemed to resound through the deserted house.

Humanity impelled him to rescue the poor wretch, if it was still to be
done. Shuddering, he whipped out his knife, and sawed at the cord
desperately. The cord was stout, and the blade of the knife but small;
an eternity seemed to pass while he sawed in the darkness. Presently
one of the strands gave way. He set his teeth and pressed harder, and
harder yet. Suddenly the rope yielded and the body fell to the ground.
Tournicquot threw himself beside it, tearing open the collar, and using
frantic efforts to restore animation. There was no result. He
persevered, but the body lay perfectly inert. He began to reflect that
it was his duty to inform the police of the discovery, and he asked
himself how he should account for his presence on the scene. Just as he
was considering this, he felt the stir of life. As if by a miracle the
man groaned.

"Courage, my poor fellow!" panted Tournicquot. "Courage--all is well!"

The man groaned again; and after an appalling silence, during which
Tournicquot began to tremble for his fate anew, asked feebly, "Where am
I?"

"You would have hanged yourself," explained Tournicquot. "Thanks to
Heaven, I arrived in time to save your life!"

In the darkness they could not see each other, but he felt for the
man's hand and pressed it warmly. To his consternation, he received,
for response, a thump in the chest.

"Morbleu, what an infernal cheek!" croaked the man. "So you have cut me
down? You meddlesome idiot, by what right did you poke your nose into
my affairs, hein?"

Dismay held Tournicquot dumb.

"Hein?" wheezed the man; "what concern was it of yours, if you please?
Never in my life before have I met with such a piece of presumption!"

"My poor friend," stammered Tournicquot, "you do not know what you say
--you are not yourself! By-and-by you will be grateful, you will fall on
your knees and bless me."

"By-and-by I shall punch you in the eye," returned the man, "just as
soon as I am feeling better! What have you done to my collar, too? I
declare you have played the devil with me!" His annoyance rose. "Who
are you, and what are you doing here, anyhow? You are a trespasser--I
shall give you in charge."

"Come, come," said Tournicquot, conciliatingly, "if your misfortunes
are more than you can bear, I regret that I was obliged to save you;
but, after all, there is no need to make such a grievance of it--you
can hang yourself another day."

"And why should I be put to the trouble twice?" grumbled the other. "Do
you figure yourself that it is agreeable to hang? I passed a very bad
time, I can assure you. If you had experienced it, you would not talk
so lightly about 'another day.' The more I think of your impudent
interference, the more it vexes me. And how dark it is! Get up and
light the candle--it gives me the hump here."

"I have no candle, I have no candle," babbled Tournicquot; "I do not
carry candles in my pocket."

"There is a bit on the mantelpiece," replied the man angrily; "I saw it
when I came in. Go and feel for it--hunt about! Do not keep me lying
here in the dark--the least you can do is to make me as comfortable as
you can."

Tournicquot, not a little perturbed by the threat of assault, groped
obediently; but the room appeared to be of the dimensions of a park,
and he arrived at the candle stump only after a prolonged excursion.
The flame revealed to him a man of about his own age, who leant against
the wall regarding him with indignant eyes. Revealed also was the coil
of rope that the comedian had brought for his own use; and the man
pointed to it.

"What is that? It was not here just now."

"It belongs to me," admitted Tournicquot, nervously.

"I see that it belongs to you. Why do you visit an empty house with a
coil of rope, hein? I should like to understand that ... Upon my life,
you were here on the same business as myself! Now if this does not pass
all forbearance! You come to commit suicide, and yet you have the
effrontery to put a stop to mine!"

"Well," exclaimed Tournicquot, "I obeyed an impulse of pity! It is true
that I came to destroy myself, for I am the most miserable of men; but
I was so much affected by the sight of your sufferings that temporarily
I forgot my own."

"That is a lie, for I was not suffering--I was not conscious when you
came in. However, you have some pretty moments in front of you, so we
will say no more! When you feel yourself drop, it will be diabolical, I
promise you; the hair stands erect on the head, and each spot of blood
in the veins congeals to a separate icicle! It is true that the drop
itself is swift, but the clutch of the rope, as you kick in the air, is
hardly less atrocious. Do not be encouraged by the delusion that the
matter is instantaneous. Time mocks you, and a second holds the
sensations of a quarter of an hour. What has forced you to it? We need
not stand on ceremony with each other, hein?"

"I have resolved to die because life is torture," said Tournicquot, on
whom these details had made an unfavourable impression.

"The same with me! A woman, of course?"

"Yes," sighed Tournicquot, "a woman!"

"Is there no other remedy? Cannot you desert her?"

"Desert her? I pine for her embrace!"

"Hein?"

"She will not have anything to do with me."

"_Comment?_ Then it is love with you?"

"What else? An eternal passion!"

"Oh, mon Dieu, I took it for granted you were married! But this is
droll. _You_ would die because you cannot get hold of a woman, and
_I_ because I cannot get rid of one. We should talk, we two. Can
you give me a cigarette?"

"With pleasure, monsieur," responded Tournicquot, producing a packet.
"I, also, will take one--my last!"

"If I expressed myself hastily just now," said his companion,
refastening his collar, "I shall apologise--no doubt your interference
was well meant, though I do not pretend to approve it. Let us dismiss
the incident; you have behaved tactlessly, and I, on my side, have
perhaps resented your error with too much warmth. Well, it is finished!
While the candle burns, let us exchange more amicable views. Is my
cravat straight? It astonishes me to hear that love can drive a man to
such despair. I, too, have loved, but never to the length of the rope.
There are plenty of women in Paris--if one has no heart, there is
always another. I am far from proposing to frustrate your project,
holding as I do that a man's suicide is an intimate matter in which
'rescue' is a name given by busybodies to a gross impertinence; but as
you have not begun the job, I will confess that I think you are being
rash."

"I have considered," replied Tournicquot, "I have considered
attentively. There is no alternative, I assure you."

"I would make another attempt to persuade the lady--I swear I would
make another attempt! You are not a bad-looking fellow. What is her
objection to you?"

"It is not that she objects to me--on the contrary. But she is a woman
of high principle, and she has a husband who is devoted to her--she
will not break his heart. It is like that."

"Young?"

"No more than thirty."

"And beautiful?"

"With a beauty like an angel's! She has a dimple in her right cheek
when she smiles that drives one to distraction."

"Myself, I have no weakness for dimples; but every man to his taste--
there is no arguing about these things. What a combination--young,
lovely, virtuous! And I make you a bet the oaf of a husband does not
appreciate her! Is it not always so? Now _I_--but of course I
married foolishly, I married an artiste. If I had my time again I would
choose in preference any sempstress. The artistes are for applause,
for bouquets, for little dinners, but not for marriage."

"I cannot agree with you," said Tournicquot, with some hauteur, "Your
experience may have been unfortunate, but the theatre contains women
quite as noble as any other sphere. In proof of it, the lady I adore is
an artiste herself!"

"Really--is it so? Would it be indiscreet to ask her name?"

"There are things that one does not tell."

"But as a matter of interest? There is nothing derogatory to her in
what you say--quite the reverse."

"True! Well, the reason for reticence is removed. She is known as 'La
Belle Lucrèce.'"

"_Hein?"_ ejaculated the other, jumping.

"What ails you?"

"She is my wife!"

"Your wife? Impossible!"

"I tell you I am married to her--she is 'madame Béguinet.'"

"Mon Dieu!" faltered Tournicquot, aghast; "what have I done!"

"So?... You are her lover?"

"Never has she encouraged me--recall what I said! There are no grounds
for jealousy--am I not about to die because she spurns me? I swear to
you--"

"You mistake my emotion--why should I be jealous? Not at all--I am only
amazed. She thinks I am devoted to her? Ho, ho! Not at all! You see my
'devotion' by the fact that I am about to hang myself rather than live
with her. And _you_, you cannot bear to live because you adore
her! Actually, you adore her! Is it not inexplicable? Oh, there is
certainly the finger of Providence in this meeting!... Wait, we must
discuss--we should come to each other's aid!... Give me another
cigarette."

Some seconds passed while they smoked in silent meditation.

"Listen," resumed monsieur Béguinet; "in order to clear up this
complication, a perfect candour is required on both sides. Alors, as to
your views, is it that you aspire to marry madame? I do not wish to
appear exigent, but in the position that I occupy you will realise that
it is my duty to make the most favourable arrangements for her that I
can. Now open your heart to me; speak frankly!"

"It is difficult for me to express myself without restraint to you,
monsieur," said Tournicquot, "because circumstances cause me to regard
you as a grievance. To answer you with all the delicacy possible, I
will say that if I had cut you down five minutes later, life would be a
fairer thing to me."

"Good," said monsieur Béguinet, "we make progress! Your income? Does it
suffice to support her in the style to which she is accustomed? What
may your occupation be?"

"I am in madame's own profession--I, too, am an artiste."

"So much the more congenial! I foresee a joyous union. Come, we go
famously! Your line of business--snakes, ventriloquism, performing-
rabbits, what is it?"

"My name is 'Tournicquot,'" responded the comedian, with dignity. "All
is said!"

"A-ah! Is it so? Now I understand why your voice has been puzzling me!
Monsieur Tournicquot, I am enchanted to make your acquaintance. I
declare the matter arranges itself! I shall tell you what we will do.
Hitherto I have had no choice between residing with madame and
committing suicide, because my affairs have not prospered, and--though
my pride has revolted--her salary has been essential for my
maintenance. Now the happy medium jumps to the eyes; for you, for me,
for her the bright sunshine streams! I shall efface myself; I shall go
to a distant spot--say, Monte Carlo--and you shall make me a snug
allowance. Have no misgiving; crown her with blossoms, lead her to the
altar, and rest tranquil--I shall never reappear. Do not figure
yourself that I shall enter like the villain at the Amibigu and menace
the blissful home. Not at all! I myself may even re-marry, who knows?
Indeed, should you offer me an allowance adequate for a family man, I
will undertake to re-marry--I have always inclined towards speculation.
That will shut my mouth, hein? I could threaten nothing, even if I had
a base nature, for I, also, shall have committed bigamy. Suicide,
bigamy, I would commit _anything_ rather than live with Lucrèce!"

"But madame's consent must be gained," demurred Tournicquot; "you
overlook the fact that madame must consent. It is a fact that I do not
understand why she should have any consideration for you, but if she
continues to harp upon her 'duty,' what then?"

"Do you not tell me that her only objection to your suit has been her
fear that she would break my heart? What an hallucination! I shall
approach the subject with tact, with the utmost delicacy. I shall
intimate to her that to ensure her happiness I am willing to sacrifice
myself. Should she hesitate, I shall demand to sacrifice myself! Rest
assured that if she regards you with the favour that you believe, your
troubles are at an end--the barrier removes itself, and you join
hands.... The candle is going out! Shall we depart?"

"I perceive no reason why we should remain; In truth, we might have got
out of it sooner."

"You are right! a café will be more cheerful. Suppose we take a bottle
of wine together; how does it strike you? If you insist, I will be your
guest; if not--"

"Ah, monsieur, you will allow me the pleasure," murmured Tournicquot.

"Well, well," said Beguinet, "you must have your way!... Your rope you
have no use for, hein--we shall leave it?"

"But certainly! Why should I burden myself?"

"The occasion has passed, true. Good! Come, my comrade, let us
descend!"

Who shall read the future? Awhile ago they had been strangers, neither
intending to quit the house alive; now the pair issued from it
jauntily, arm in arm. Both were in high spirits, and by the time the
lamps of a café gave them welcome, and the wine gurgled gaily into the
glasses, they pledged each other with a sentiment no less than
fraternal.

"How I rejoice that I have met you!" exclaimed Béguinet. "To your
marriage, mon vieux; to your joy! Fill up, again a glass!--there are
plenty of bottles in the cellar. Mon Dieu, you are my preserver--I must
embrace you. Never till now have I felt such affection for a man. This
evening all was black to me; I despaired, my heart was as heavy as a
cannon-ball--and suddenly the world is bright. Roses bloom before my
feet, and the little larks are singing in the sky. I dance, I skip. How
beautiful, how sublime is friendship!--better than riches, than youth,
than the love of woman: riches melt, youth flies, woman snores. But
friendship is--Again a glass! It goes well, this wine.

"Let us have a lobster! I swear I have an appetite; they make one
peckish, these suicides, n'est-ce pas? I shall not be formal--if you
consider it your treat, you shall pay. A lobster and another bottle! At
your expense, or mine?"

"Ah, the bill all in one!" declared Tourniequot.

"Well, well," said Béguinet, "you must have your way! What a happy man
I am! Already I feel twenty years younger. You would not believe what I
have suffered. My agonies would fill a book. Really. By nature I am
domesticated; but my home is impossible--I shudder when I enter it. It
is only in a restaurant that I see a clean table-cloth. Absolutely. I
pig. All Lucrèce thinks about is frivolity."

"No, no," protested Tournicquot; "to that I cannot agree."

"What do you know? You 'cannot agree'! You have seen her when she is
laced in her stage costume, when she prinks and prattles, with the
paint, and the powder, and her best corset on. It is I who am 'behind
the scenes,' mon ami, not you. I see her dirty peignoir and her curl
rags. At four o'clock in the afternoon. Every day. You 'cannot agree'!"

"Curl rags?" faltered Tournicquot.

"But certainly! I tell you I am of a gentle disposition, I am most
tolerant of women's failings; it says much that I would have hanged
myself rather than remain with a woman. Her untidiness is not all; her
toilette at home revolts my sensibilities, but--well, one cannot have
everything, and her salary is substantial; I have closed my eyes to the
curl rags. However, snakes are more serious."

"Snakes?" ejaculated Tournicquot.

"Naturally! The beasts must live, do they not support us? But
'Everything in its place' is my own motto; the motto of my wife--'All
over the place.' Her serpents have shortened my life, word of honour!--
they wander where they will. I never lay my head beside those curl rags
of hers without anticipating a cobra-decapello under the bolster. It is
not everybody's money. Lucrèce has no objection to them; well, it is
very courageous--very fortunate, since snakes are her profession--but
_I_, I was not brought up to snakes; I am not at my ease in a
Zoölogical Gardens."

"It is natural."

"Is it not? I desire to explain myself to you, you understand; are we
not as brothers? Oh, I realise well that when one loves a woman one
always thinks that the faults are the husband's: believe me I have had
much to justify my attitude. Snakes, dirt, furies, what a ménage!"

"Furies?" gasped Tournicquot.

"I am an honest man," affirmed Béguinet draining another bumper; "I
shall not say to you 'I have no blemish, I am perfect,' Not at all.
Without doubt, I have occasionally expressed myself to Lucrèce with
more candour than courtesy. Such things happen. But"--he refilled his
glass, and sighed pathetically--"but to every citizen, whatever his
position--whether his affairs may have prospered or not--his wife owes
respect. Hein? She should not throw the ragoút at him. She should not
menace him with snakes." He wept. "My friend, you will admit that it is
not _gentil_ to coerce a husband with deadly reptiles?"

Tournicquot had turned very pale. He signed to the waiter for the bill,
and when it was discharged, sat regarding his companion with round
eyes, At last, clearing his throat, he said nervously:

"After all, do you know--now one comes to think it over--I am not sure,
upon my honour, that our arrangement is feasible?"

"What?" exclaimed Béguinet, with a violent start. "Not feasible? How is
that, pray? Because I have opened my heart to you, do you back out? Oh,
what treachery! Never will I believe you could be capable of it!"

"However, it is a fact. On consideration, I shall not rob you of her."

"Base fellow! You take advantage of my confidence. A contract is a
contract!"

"No," stammered Tournicquot, "I shall be a man and live my love down.
Monsieur, I have the honour to wish you 'Good-night.'"

"Hé, stop!" cried Béguinet, infuriated. "What then is to become of
_me_? Insolent poltroon--you have even destroyed my rope!"



THE CONSPIRACY FOR CLAUDINE

"Once," remarked Tricotrin, pitching his pen in the air, "there were
four suitors for the Most Beautiful of her Sex. The first young man was
a musician, and he shut himself in his garret to compose a divine
melody, to be dedicated to her. The second lover was a chemist, who
experimented day and night to discover a unique perfume that she alone
might use. The third, who was a floriculturist, aspired constantly
among his bulbs to create a silver rose, that should immortalise the
lady's name."

"And the fourth," inquired Pitou, "what did the fourth suitor do?"

"The fourth suitor waited for her every afternoon in the sunshine,
while the others were at work, and married her with great éclat. The
moral of which is that, instead of cracking my head to make a sonnet to
Claudine, I shall be wise to put on my hat and go to meet her."

"I rejoice that the dénoûment is arrived at," Pitou returned, "but it
would be even more absorbing if I had previously heard of Claudine."

"Miserable dullard!" cried the poet; "do you tell me that you have not
previously heard of Claudine? She is the only woman I have ever loved."

"A--ah," rejoined Pitou; "certainly, I have heard of her a thousand
times--only she has never been called 'Claudine' before."

"Let us keep to the point," said Tricotrin. "Claudine represents the
devotion of a lifetime. I think seriously of writing a tragedy for her
to appear in."

"I shall undertake to weep copiously at it if you present me with a
pass," affirmed Pitou. "She is an actress, then, this Claudine? At what
theatre is she blazing--the Montmartre?"

"How often I find occasion to lament that your imagination is no larger
than the quartier! Claudine is not of Montmartre at all, at all. My
poor friend, have you never heard that there are theatres on the Grand
Boulevard?"

"Ah, so you betake yourself to haunts of fashion? Now I begin to
understand why you have become so prodigal with the blacking; for some
time I have had the intention of reproaching you with your shoes--our
finances are not equal to such lustre."

"Ah, when one truly loves, money is no object!" said Tricotrin.
"However, if it is time misspent to write a sonnet to her, it is even
more unprofitable to pass the evening justifying one's shoes." And,
picking up his hat, the poet ran down the stairs, and made his way as
fast as his legs would carry him to the Comédie Moderne.

He arrived at the stage-door with no more than three minutes to spare,
and disposing himself in a graceful attitude, waited for mademoiselle
Claudine Hilairet to come out. It might have been observed that his
confidence deserted him while he waited, for although it was perfectly
true that he adored her, he had omitted to add that the passion was not
mutual. He was conscious that the lady might resent his presence on the
door-step; and, in fact, when she appeared, she said nothing more
tender than--

"Mon Dieu, again you! What do you want?"

"How can you ask?" sighed the poet. "I came to walk home with you lest
an electric train should knock you down at one of the crossings. What a
magnificent performance you have given this evening! Superb!"

"Were you in the theatre?"

"In spirit. My spirit, which no official can exclude, is present every
night, though sordid considerations force me to remain corporally in my
attic. Transported by admiration, I even burst into frantic applause
there. How perfect is the sympathy between our souls!"

"Listen, my little one," she said. "I am sorry for your relatives, if
you have any--your condition must be a great grief to them. But, all
the same, I cannot have you dangling after me and talking this bosh.
What do you suppose can come of it?"

"Fame shall come of it," averred the poet, "fame for us both! Do not
figure yourself that I am a dreamer. Not at all! I am practical, a man
of affairs. Are you content with your position in the Comédie Moderne?
No, you are not. You occupy a subordinate position; you play the rôle
of a waiting-maid, which is quite unworthy of your genius, and
understudy the ingénue, who is a portly matron in robust health. The
opportunity to distinguish yourself appears to you as remote as Mars.
Do I romance, or is it true?"

"It is true," she said. "Well?"

"Well, I propose to alter all this--I! I have the intention of writing
a great tragedy, and when it is accepted, I shall stipulate that you,
and you alone, shall thrill Paris as my heroine. When the work of my
brain has raised you to the pinnacle for which you were born, when the
theatre echoes with our names, I shall fall at your feet, and you will
murmur, 'Gustave--I love thee!'"

"Why does not your mother do something?" she asked. "Is there nobody to
place you where you might be cured? A tragedy? Imbecile, I am
comédienne to the finger-tips! What should I do with your tragedy, even
if it were at the Français itself?"

"You are right," said Tricotrin; "I shall turn out a brilliant comedy
instead. And when the work of my brain has raised you to the pinnacle
for which you were born, when the theatre echoes with our names--"

She interrupted him by a peal of laughter which disconcerted him hardly
less than her annoyance.

"It is impossible to be angry with you long," she declared, "you are
too comic. Also, as a friend, I do not object to you violently. Come, I
advise you to be content with what you can have, instead of crying for
the moon!"

"Well, I am not unwilling to make shift with it in the meantime,"
returned Tricotrin; "but friendship is a poor substitute for the
heavens--and we shall see what we shall see. Tell me now, they mean to
revive _La Curieuse_ at the Comédie, I hear--what part in it have
you been assigned?" "Ah," exclaimed mademoiselle Hilairet, "is it not
always the same thing? I dust the same decayed furniture with the same
feather brush, and I say 'Yes,' and 'No,' and 'Here is a letter,
madame.' That is all."

"I swear it is infamous!" cried the poet. "It amazes me that they fail
to perceive that your gifts are buried. One would suppose that managers
would know better than to condemn a great artiste to perform such
ignominious roles. The critics also! Why do not the critics call
attention to an outrage which continues year by year? It appears to me
that I shall have to use my influence with the Press." And so serious
was the tone in which he made this boast, that the fair Claudine began
to wonder if she had after all underrated the position of her out-at-
elbows gallant.

"Your influence?" she questioned, with an eager smile. "Have you
influence with the critics, then?"

"We shall see what we shall see," repeated Tricotrin, significantly. "I
am not unknown in Paris, and I have your cause at heart--I may make a
star of you yet. But while we are on the subject of astronomy, one
question! When my services have transformed you to a star, shall I
still be compelled to cry for the moon?"

Mademoiselle Hilairet's tones quivered with emotion--as she murmured
how grateful to him she would be, and it was understood, when he took
leave of her, that if he indeed accomplished his design, his suit would
be no longer hopeless.

The poet pressed her hand ardently, and turned homeward in high
feather; and it was not until he had trudged a mile or so that the
rapture in his soul began to subside under the remembrance that he had
been talking through his hat.

"In fact," he admitted to Pitou when the garret was reached, "my
imagination took wings unto itself; I am committed to a task beside
which the labours of Hercules were child's play. The question now
arises how this thing, of which I spoke so confidently, is to be
effected. What do you suggest?"

"I suggest that you allow me to sleep," replied Pitou, "for I shall
feel less hungry then."

"Your suggestion will not advance us," demurred Tricotrin. "We shall,
on the contrary, examine the situation in all its bearings. Listen!
Claudine is to enact the waiting-maid in _La Curieuse,_ which will
be revived at the Comédie Moderne in a fortnight's time; she will dust
the Empire furniture, and say 'Yes' and 'No' with all the intellect and
animation for which those monosyllables provide an opening. Have you
grasped the synopsis so far? Good! On the strength of this performance,
it has to be stated by the foremost dramatic critic in Paris that she
is an actress of genius. Now, how is it to be done? How shall we induce
Labaregue to write of her with an outburst of enthusiasm in _La
Voix_?"

"Labaregue?" faltered Pitou. "I declare the audacity of your notion
wakes me up!"

"Capital," said Tricotrin, "we are making progress already! Yes, we
must have Labaregue--it has never been my custom to do things by
halves. Dramatically, of course, I should hold a compromising paper of
Labaregue's. I should say, 'Monsieur, the price of this document is an
act of justice to mademoiselle Claudine Hilairet. It is agreed? Good!
Sit down--you will write from my dictation!'"

"However--" said Pitou.

"However--I anticipate your objection--I do not hold such a paper.
Therefore, that scene is cut. Well, let us find another! Where is your
fertility of resource? Mon Dieu! why should I speak to him at all?"

"I do not figure myself that you will speak to him, you will never get
the chance."

"Precisely my own suspicion. What follows? Instead of wasting my time
seeking an interview which would not be granted--"

"And which would lead to nothing even if it were granted!"

"And which would lead to nothing even if it were granted, as you point
out; instead of doing this, it is evident that I must write Labaregue's
criticism myself!"

"Hein?" ejaculated Pitou, sitting up in bed.

"I confess that I do not perceive yet how it is to be managed, but
obviously it is the only course. _I_ must write what is to be
said, and _La Voix_ must believe that it has been written by
Labaregue. Come, we are getting on famously--we have now decided what
we are to avoid!"

"By D'Artagnan, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis," cried Pitou, "this will be
the doughtiest adventure in which we have engaged!"

"You are right, it is an adventure worthy of our steel ... pens! We
shall enlighten the public, crown an artiste, and win her heart by way
of reward--that is to say, _I_ shall win her heart by way of
reward. What your own share of the booty will be I do not recognize,
but I promise you, at least, a generous half of the dangers."

"My comrade," murmured Pitou; "ever loyal! But do you not think that
_La Voix_ will smell a rat? What about the handwriting?"

"It is a weak point which had already presented itself to me. Could I
have constructed the situation to my liking, Labaregue would have the
custom to type-write his notices; however, as he is so inconsiderate as
to knock them off in the Café de l'Europe, he has not that custom, and
we must adapt ourselves to the circumstances that exist. The
probability is that a criticism delivered by the accredited messenger,
and signed with the familiar 'J.L.' will be passed without question;
the difference in the handwriting may be attributed to an amanuensis.
When the great man writes his next notice, I shall make it my business
to be taking a bock in the Café de l'Europe, in order that I may
observe closely what happens. There is to be a répétition générale at
the Vaudeville on Monday night--on Monday night, therefore, I hope to
advise you of our plan of campaign. Now do not speak to me any more--I
am about to compose a eulogy on Claudine, for which Labaregue will, in
due course, receive the credit."

The poet fell asleep at last, murmuring dithyrambic phrases; and if you
suppose that in the soberness of daylight he renounced his harebrained
project, it is certain that you have never lived with Tricotrin in
Montmartre.

No, indeed, he did not renounce it. On Monday night--or rather in the
small hours of Tuesday morning--he awoke Pitou with enthusiasm.

"Mon vieux," he exclaimed, "the evening has been well spent! I have
observed, and I have reflected. When he quitted the Vaudeville,
Labaregue entered the Café de l'Europe, seated himself at his favourite
table, and wrote without cessation for half an hour. When his critique
was finished, he placed it in an envelope, and commanded his supper.
All this time I, sipping a bock leisurely, accorded to his actions a
scrutiny worthy of the secret police. Presently a lad from the office
of _La Voix_ appeared; he approached Labaregue, received the
envelope, and departed. At this point, my bock was finished; I paid for
it and sauntered out, keeping the boy well in view. His route to the
office lay through a dozen streets which were all deserted at so late
an hour; but I remarked one that was even more forbidding than the
rest--a mere alley that seemed positively to have been designed for our
purpose. Our course is clear--we shall attack him in the rue des
Cendres."

"Really?" inquired Pitou, somewhat startled.

"But really! We will not shed his blood; we will make him turn out his
pockets, and then, disgusted by the smallness of the swag, toss it back
to him with a flip on the ear. Needless to say that when he escapes, he
will be the bearer of _my_ criticism, not of Labaregue's. He will
have been too frightened to remark the exchange."

"It is not bad, your plan."

"It is an inspiration. But to render it absolutely safe, we must have
an accomplice."

"Why, is he so powerful, your boy?"

"No, mon ami, the boy is not so powerful, but the alley has two ends--I
do not desire to be arrested while I am giving a lifelike
representation of an apache. I think we will admit Lajeunie to our
scheme--as a novelist he should appreciate the situation. If Lajeunie
keeps guard at one end of the alley, while you stand at the other, I
can do the business without risk of being interrupted and removed to
gaol."

"It is true. As a danger signal, I shall whistle the first bars of my
Fugue."

"Good! And we will arrange a signal with Lajeunie also. Mon Dieu! will
not Claudine be amazed next day? I shall not breathe a word to her in
the meantime; I shall let her open _La Voix_ without expectation;
and then--ah, what joy will be hers! 'The success of the evening was
made by the actress who took the role of the maidservant, and who had
perhaps six words to utter. But with what vivacity, with what esprit
were they delivered! Every gesture, every sparkle of the eyes,
betokened the comedienne. For myself, I ceased to regard the fatuous
ingénue, I forgot the presence of the famous leading lady; I watched
absorbed the facial play of this maidservant, whose brains and beauty,
I predict, will speedily bring Paris to her feet'!"

"Is that what you mean to write?"

"I shall improve upon it. I am constantly improving--that is why the
notice is still unfinished. It hampers me that I must compose in the
strain of Labaregue himself, instead of allowing my eloquence to soar.
By the way, we had better speak to Lajeunie on the subject soon, lest
he should pretend that he has another engagement for that night; he is
a good boy, Lajeunie, but he always pretends that he has engagements in
fashionable circles."

The pair went to him the following day, and when they had climbed to
his garret, found the young literary man in bed.

"It shocks me," said Pitou, "to perceive that you rise so late,
Lajeunie; why are you not dashing off chapters of a romance?"

"Mon Dieu!" replied Lajeunie, "I was making studies among the beau
monde until a late hour last night at a reception; and, to complete my
fatigue, it was impossible to get a cab when I left."

"Naturally; it happens to everybody when he lacks a cab-fare," said
Tricotrin. "Now tell me, have you any invitation from a duchess for
next Thursday evening?"

"Thursday, Thursday?" repeated Lajeunie thoughtfully. "No, I believe
that I am free for Thursday."

"Now, that is fortunate!" exclaimed Tricotrin. "Well, we want you to
join us on that evening, my friend."

"Indeed, we should be most disappointed if you could not," put in
Pitou.

"Certainly; I shall have much pleasure," said Lajeunie. "Is it a
supper?"

"No," said Tricotrin, "it is a robbery. I shall explain. Doubtless you
know the name of 'mademoiselle Claudine Hilairet'?"

"I have never heard it in my life. Is she in Society?"

"Society? She is in the Comédie Moderne. She is a great actress, but--
like us all--unrecognised."

"My heart bleeds for her. Another comrade!"

"I was sure I could depend upon your sympathy. Well, on Thursday night
they will revive _La Curieuse_ at the Comédie, and I myself
propose to write Labaregue's critique of the performance. Do you
tumble?"

"It is a gallant action. Yes, I grasp the climax, but at present I do
not perceive how the plot is to be constructed."

"Labaregue's notices are dispatched by messenger," began Pitou.

"From the Café de l'Europe," added Tricotrin.

"So much I know," said Lajeunie.

"I shall attack the messenger, and make a slight exchange of
manuscripts," Tricotrin went on.

"A blunder!" proclaimed Lajeunie; "you show a lack of invention. Now be
guided by me, because I am a novelist and I understand these things.
The messenger is an escaped convict, and you say to him, 'I know your
secret. You do my bidding, or you go back to the galleys; I shall give
you three minutes to decide!' You stand before him, stern, dominant,
inexorable--your watch in your hand."

"It is at the pawn-shop."

"Well, well, of course it is; since when have you joined the realists?
Somebody else's watch--or a clock. Are there no clocks in Paris? You
say, 'I shall give you until the clock strikes the hour.' That is even
more literary--you obtain the solemn note of the clock to mark the
crisis."

"But there is no convict," demurred Tricotrin; "there are clocks, but
there is no convict."

"No convict? The messenger is not a convict?"

"Not at all--he is an apple-cheeked boy."

"Oh, it is a rotten plot," said Lajeunie; "I shall not collaborate in
it!"

"Consider!" cried Tricotrin; "do not throw away the chance of a
lifetime, think what I offer you--you shall hang about the end of a
dark alley, and whistle if anybody comes. How literary again is that!
You may develop it into a novel that will make you celebrated. Pitou
will be at the other end. I and the apple-cheeked boy who is to die--
that is to say, to be duped--will occupy the centre of the stage--I
mean the middle of the alley. And on the morrow, when all Paris rings
with the fame of Claudine Hilairet, I, who adore her, shall have won
her heart!"

"Humph," said Lajeunie. "Well, since the synopsis has a happy ending, I
consent. But I make one condition--I must wear a crêpe mask. Without a
crêpe mask I perceive no thrill in my rôle."

"Madness!" objected Pitou. "Now listen to _me_--I am serious-minded,
and do not commit follies, like you fellows. Crêpe masks are not being
worn this season. Believe me, if you loiter at a street corner with a
crêpe mask on, some passer-by will regard you, he may even wonder what
you are doing there. It might ruin the whole job."

"Pitou is right," announced Tricotrin, after profound consideration.

"Well, then," said Lajeunie, "_you_ must wear a crêpe mask! Put it
on when you attack the boy. I have always had a passion for crêpe
masks, and this is the first opportunity that I find to gratify it. I
insist that somebody wears a crêpe mask, or I wash my hands of the
conspiracy."

"Agreed! In the alley it will do no harm; indeed it will prevent the
boy identifying me. Good, on Thursday night then! In the meantime we
shall rehearse the crime assiduously, and you and Pitou can practise
your whistles."

With what diligence did the poet write each day now! How lovingly he
selected his superlatives! Never in the history of the Press had such
ardent care been lavished on a criticism--truly it was not until
Thursday afternoon that he was satisfied that he could do no more. He
put the pages in his pocket, and, too impatient even to be hungry,
roamed about the quartier, reciting to himself the most hyperbolic of
his periods.

And dusk gathered over Paris, and the lights sprang out, and the tense
hours crept away.

It was precisely half-past eleven when the three conspirators arrived
at the doors of the Comédie Moderne, and lingered near by until the
audience poured forth. Labaregue was among the first to appear. He
paused on the steps to take a cigarette, and stepped briskly into the
noise and glitter of the Boulevard. The young men followed, exchanging
feverish glances. Soon the glow of the Café de l'Europe was visible.
The critic entered, made a sign to a waiter, and seated himself gravely
at a table.

Many persons gazed at him with interest. To those who did not know,
habitués whispered, "There is Labaregue--see, he comes to write his
criticism on the revival of _La Curieuse_!" Labaregue affected
unconsciousness of all this, but secretly he lapped it up. Occasionally
he passed his hand across his brow with a gesture profoundly
intellectual.

Few there remarked that at brief intervals three shabby young men
strolled in, who betrayed no knowledge of one another, and merely
called for bocks. None suspected that these humble customers plotted to
consign the celebrity's criticism to the flames.

Without a sign of recognition, taciturn and impassive, the three young
men waited, their eyes bent upon the critic's movements.

By-and-by Labaregue thrust his "copy" into an envelope that was
provided. Some moments afterwards one of the young men asked another
waiter for the materials to write a letter. The paper he crumpled in
his pocket; in the envelope he placed the forged critique.

A quarter of an hour passed. Then a youth of about sixteen hurried in
and made his way to Labaregue's table. At this instant Lajeunie rose
and left. As the youth received the "copy," Tricotrin also sauntered
out. When the youth again reached the door, it was just swinging behind
Pitou.

The conspirators were now in the right order--Lajeunie pressing
forward, Tricotrin keeping pace with the boy, Pitou a few yards in the
rear.

The boy proceeded swiftly. It was late, and even the Boulevard showed
few pedestrians now; in the side streets the quietude was unbroken.
Tricotrin whipped on his mask at the opening of the passage. When the
messenger was half-way through it, the attack was made suddenly, with
determination.

"Fat one," exclaimed the poet, "I starve--give me five francs!"

"_Comment?_" stammered the youth, jumping; "I haven't five francs,
I!"

"Give me all you have--empty your pockets, let me see! If you obey, I
shall not harm you; if you resist, you are a dead boy!"

The youth produced, with trepidation, a sou, half a cigarette, a piece
of string, a murderous clasp knife, a young lady's photograph, and
Labaregue's notice. The next moment the exchange of manuscripts had
been deftly accomplished.

"Devil take your rubbish," cried the apache; "I want none of it--there!
Be off, or I shall shoot you for wasting my time."

The whole affair had occupied less than a minute; and the three
adventurers skipped to Montmartre rejoicing.

And how glorious was their jubilation in the hour when they opened
_La Voix_ and read Tricotrin's pronouncement over the initials
"J.L."! There it was, printed word for word--the leading lady was
dismissed with a line, the ingénue received a sneer, and for the rest,
the column was a panegyric of the waiting-maid! The triumph of the
waiting-maid was unprecedented and supreme. Certainly, when Labaregue
saw the paper, he flung round to the office furious.

But _La Voix_ did not desire people to know that it had been taken
in; so the matter was hushed up, and Labaregue went about pretending
that he actually thought all those fine things of the waiting-maid.

The only misfortune was that when Tricotrin called victoriously upon
Claudine, to clasp her in his arms, he found her in hysterics on the
sofa--and it transpired that she had not represented the waiting-maid
after all. On the contrary, she had at the last moment been promoted to
the part of the ingénue, while the waiting-maid had been played by a
little actress whom she much disliked.

"It is cruel, it is monstrous, it is heartrending!" gasped Tricotrin,
when he grasped the enormity of his failure; "but, light of my life,
why should you blame _me_ for this villainy of Labaregue's?"

"I do not know," she said; "however, you bore me, you and your
'influence with the Press.' Get out!"



THE DOLL IN THE PINK SILK DRESS

How can I write the fourth Act with this ridiculous thing posed among
my papers? What thing? It is a doll in a pink silk dress--an elaborate
doll that walks, and talks, and warbles snatches from the operas. A
terrible lot it cost! Why does an old dramatist keep a doll on his
study table? I do not keep it there. It came in a box from the
Boulevard an hour ago, and I took it from its wrappings to admire its
accomplishments again--and ever since it has been reminding me that
women are strange beings.

Yes, women are strange, and this toy sets me thinking of one woman in
particular: that woman who sued, supplicated for my help, and then,
when she had all my interest--Confound the doll; here is the incident,
just as it happened!

It happened when all Paris flocked to see my plays and "Paul de
Varenne" was a name to conjure with. Fashions change. To-day I am a
little out of the running, perhaps; younger men have shot forward. In
those days I was still supreme, I was master of the Stage.

Listen! It was a spring morning, and I was lolling at my study window,
scenting the lilac in the air. Maximin, my secretary, came in and said:

"Mademoiselle Jeanne Laurent asks if she can see you, monsieur."

"Who is mademoiselle Jeanne Laurent?" I inquired.

"She is an actress begging for an engagement, monsieur."

"I regret that I am exceedingly busy. Tell her to write."

"The lady has already written a thousand times," he mentioned, going.
"'Jeanne Laurent' has been one of the most constant contributors to our
waste-paper basket."

"Then tell her that I regret I can do nothing for her. Mon Dieu! is it
imagined that I have no other occupation than to interview nonentities?
By the way, how is it you have bothered me about her, why this unusual
embassy? I suppose she is pretty, hein?"

"Yes, monsieur."

"And young?"

"Yes, monsieur."

I wavered. Let us say my sympathy was stirred. But perhaps the lilac
was responsible--lilac and a pretty girl seem to me a natural
combination, like coffee and a cigarette. "Send her in!" I said.

I sat at the table and picked up a pen.

"Monsieur de Varenne--" She paused nervously on the threshold.

Maximin was a fool, she was not "pretty"; she was either plain, or
beautiful. To my mind, she had beauty, and if she hadn't been an
actress come to pester me for a part I should have foreseen a very
pleasant quarter of an hour. "I can spare you only a moment,
mademoiselle," I said, ruffling blank paper.

"It is most kind of you to spare me that."

I liked her voice too. "Be seated," I said more graciously.

"Monsieur, I have come to implore you to do something for me. I am
breaking my heart in the profession for want of a helping hand. Will
you be generous and give me a chance?"

"My dear mademoiselle--er--Laurent," I said, "I sympathise with your
difficulties, and I thoroughly understand them, but I have no
engagement to offer you--I am not a manager."

She smiled bitterly. "You are de Varenne--a word from you would 'make'
me!"

I was wondering what her age was. About eight-and-twenty, I thought,
but alternately she looked much younger and much older.

"You exaggerate my influence--like every other artist that I consent to
see. Hundreds have sat in that chair and cried that I could 'make'
them. It is all bosh. Be reasonable! I cannot 'make' anybody."

"You could cast me for a part in Paris. You are 'not a manager,' but
any manager will engage a woman that you recommend. Oh, I know that
hundreds appeal to you, I know that I am only one of a crowd; but,
monsieur, think what it means to me! Without help, I shall go on
knocking at the stage doors of Paris and never get inside; I shall go
on writing to the Paris managers and never get an answer. Without help
I shall go on eating my heart out in the provinces till I am old and
tired and done for!"

Her earnestness touched me. I had heard the same tale so often that I
was sick of hearing it, but this woman's earnestness touched me. If I
had had a small part vacant, I would have tried her in it.

"Again," I said, "as a dramatist I fully understand the difficulties of
an actress's career; but you, as an actress, do not understand a
dramatist's. There is no piece of mine going into rehearsal now,
therefore I have no opening for you, myself; and it is impossible for
me to write to a manager or a brother author, advising him to
entrust a part, even the humblest, to a lady of whose capabilities I
know nothing."

"I am not applying for a humble part," she answered quietly.

"Hein?"

"My line is lead."

I stared at her pale face, speechless; the audacity of the reply took
my breath away.

"You are mad," I said, rising.

"I sound so to you, monsieur?"

"Stark, staring mad. You bewail that you are at the foot of the ladder,
and at the same instant you stipulate that I shall lift you at a bound
to the top. Either you are a lunatic, or you are an amateur."

She, too, rose--resigned to her dismissal, it seemed. Then, suddenly,
with a gesture that was a veritable abandonment of despair, she
laughed.

"That's it, I am an amateur!" she rejoined passionately. "I will tell
you the kind of 'amateur' I am, monsieur de Varenne! I was learning my
business in a fit-up when I was six years old--yes, I was playing parts
on the road when happier children were playing games in nurseries. I
was thrust on for lead when I was a gawk of fifteen, and had to wrestle
with half a dozen roles in a week, and was beaten if I failed to make
my points. I have supered to stars, not to earn the few francs I got
by it, for by that time the fit-ups paid me better, but that I might
observe, and improve my method. I have waited in the rain, for hours,
at the doors of the milliners and modistes, that I might note how great
ladies stepped from their carriages and spoke to their footmen--and when
I snatched a lesson from their aristocratic tones I was in heaven, though
my feet ached and the rain soaked my wretched clothes. I have played good
women and bad women, beggars and queens, ingénues and hags. I was born
and bred on the stage, have suffered and starved on it. It is my life and
my destiny." She sobbed. "An 'amateur'!"

I could not let her go like that. She interested me strongly; somehow I
believed in her. I strode to and fro, considering.

"Sit down again," I said. "I will do this for you: I will go to the
country to see your performance. When is your next show?"

"I have nothing in view."

"Bigre! Well, the next time you are playing, write to me."

"You will have forgotten all about me," she urged feverishly, "or your
interest will have faded, or Fate will prevent your coming."

"Why do you say so?"

"Something tells me. You will help me now, or you will never help me--
my chance is to-day! Monsieur, I entreat you--"

"To-day I can do nothing at all, because I have not seen you act."

"I could recite to you."

"Zut!"

"I could rehearse on trial."

"And if you made a mess of it? A nice fool I should look, after
fighting to get you in!"

A servant interrupted us to tell me that my old friend de Lavardens was
downstairs. And now I did a foolish thing. When I intimated to
mademoiselle Jeanne Laurent that our interview must conclude, she
begged so hard to be allowed to speak to me again after my visitor
went, that I consented to her waiting. Why? I had already said all that
I had to say, and infinitely more than I had contemplated. Perhaps she
impressed me more powerfully than I realised; perhaps it was sheer
compassion, for she had an invincible instinct that if I sent her away
at this juncture, she would never hear from me any more. I had her
shown into the next room, and received General de Lavardens in the
study.

Since his retirement from the Army, de Lavardens had lived in his
chateau at St. Wandrille, in the neighbourhood of Caudebec-en-Caux, and
we had met infrequently of late. But we had been at college together; I
had entered on my military service in the same regiment as he; and we
had once been comrades. I was glad to see him.

"How are you, my 

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/9928