"If I remember anything else in the wide world but you, it would be a
poor compliment. I forget everything. You turn my head, you ravish my
heart, and you put joy into my soul."
He meant it--intensely--for the moment.
"I ought not to listen to you," said the lady, "especially when I am so
unhappy."
"All the more reason to seek consolation," replied Aristide.
"Monsieur," she said, after a short pause, "you look good and loyal. I
will tell you what is the matter. My husband accuses me wrongfully,
although I know that appearances are against me. He only allows me in
the house on sufferance, and is taking measures to procure a divorce."
[Illustration: "MADAME," SAID ARISTIDE, "YOU ARE ADORABLE, AND I
LOVE YOU TO DISTRACTION"]
"_A la bonne heure!_" cried Aristide, excitedly casting away his
straw hat, which an unintentional twist of the wrist caused to skim
horizontally and nearly decapitate a small and perspiring soldier who
happened to pass by. "_A la bonne heure!_ Let him divorce you. You are
then free. You can be mine without any further question."
"But I love my husband," she smiled, sadly.
"Bah!" said he, with the scepticism of the lover and the Provencal.
"And, by the way, who is your husband?"
"He is M. Emile Bocardon, proprietor of the Hotel de la Curatterie."
"And you?"
"I am Mme. Bocardon," she replied, with the faintest touch of roguery.
"But your Christian name? How is it possible for me to think of you as
Mme. Bocardon?"
They argued the question. Eventually she confessed to the name of Zette.
Her confidence not stopping there, she told him how she came by the
name; how she was brought up by her Aunt Leonie at Raphele, some five
miles from Arles, and many other unexciting particulars of her early
years. Her baptismal name was Louise. Her mother, who died when she was
young, called her Louisette. Aunt Leonie, a very busy woman, with no
time for superfluous syllables, called her Zette.
"Zette!" He cast up his eyes as if she had been canonized and he was
invoking her in rapt worship. "Zette, I adore you!"
Zette was extremely sorry. She, on her side, adored the cruel M.
Bocardon. Incidentally she learned Aristide's name and quality. He was
an _agent d'affaires_, extremely rich--had he not two thousand francs
and an American millionaire in his pocket?
"M. Pujol," she said, "the earth holds but one thing that I desire, the
love and trust of my husband."
"The good Bocardon is becoming tiresome," said Aristide.
Zette's lips parted, as she pointed to a black speck at the iron
entrance gates.
"_Mon Dieu!_ there he is!"
"He has become tiresome," said Aristide.
She rose, displaying to its full advantage her supple and stately
figure. She had a queenly poise of the head. Aristide contemplated her
with the frankest admiration.
"One would say Juno was walking the earth again."
Although Zette had never heard of Juno, and was as miserable and heavy
hearted a woman as dwelt in Nimes, a flush of pleasure rose to her
cheeks. She too was a child of the South, and female children of the
South love to be admired, no matter how frankly. I have heard of
Daughters of the Snows not quite averse to it. She sighed.
"I must go now, monsieur. He must not find me here with you. I am
suffering enough already from his reproaches. Ah! it is unjust--unjust!"
she cried, clenching her hands, while the tears again started into her
eyes, and the corners of her pretty lips twitched with pain. "Indeed,"
she added, "I know it has been wrong of me to talk to you like this. But
_que voulez-vous?_ It was not my fault. Adieu, monsieur."
At the sight of her standing before him in her woeful beauty, Aristide's
pulses throbbed.
"It is not adieu--it is _au revoir_, Mme. Zette," he cried.
She protested tearfully. It was farewell. Aristide darted to his
rejected hat and clapped it on the back of his head. He joined her and
swore that he would see her again. It was not Aristide Pujol who would
allow her to be rent in pieces by the jaws of that crocodile, M.
Bocardon. Faith, he would defend her to the last drop of his blood. He
would do all manner of gasconading things.
"But what can you do, my poor M. Pujol?" she asked.
"You will see," he replied.
They parted. He watched her until she became a speck and, having joined
the other speck, her husband, passed out of sight. Then he set out
through the burning gardens towards the Hotel du Luxembourg, at the
other end of the town.
Aristide had fallen in love. He had fallen in love with Provencal fury.
He had done the same thing a hundred times before; but this, he told
himself, was the _coup de foudre_--the thunderbolt. The beautiful
Arlesienne filled his brain and his senses. Nothing else in the wide
world mattered. Nothing else in the wide world occupied his mind. He
sped through the hot streets like a meteor in human form. A stout man,
sipping syrup and water in the cool beneath the awning of the Cafe de la
Bourse, rose, looked wonderingly after him, and resumed his seat, wiping
a perspiring brow.
A short while afterwards Aristide, valise in hand, presented himself at
the bureau of the Hotel de la Curatterie. It was a shabby little hotel,
with a shabby little oval sign outside, and was situated in the narrow
street of the same name. Within, it was clean and well kept. On the
right of the little dark entrance-hall was the _salle a manger_, on
the left the bureau and an unenticing hole labelled _salon de
correspondance_. A very narrow passage led to the kitchen, and the rest
of the hall was blocked by the staircase. An enormous man with a simple,
woe-begone fat face and a head of hair like a circular machine-brush was
sitting by the bureau window in his shirt-sleeves. Aristide addressed
him.
"M. Bocardon?"
"At your service, monsieur."
"Can I have a bedroom?"
"Certainly." He waved a hand towards a set of black sample boxes studded
with brass nails and bound with straps that lay in the hall. "The
omnibus has brought your boxes. You are M. Lambert?"
"M. Bocardon," said Aristide, in a lordly way, "I am M. Aristide Pujol,
and not a commercial traveller. I have come to see the beauties of
Nimes, and have chosen this hotel because I have the honour to be a
distant relation of your wife, Mme. Zette Bocardon, whom I have not seen
for many years. How is she?"
"Her health is very good," replied M. Bocardon, shortly. He rang a bell.
A dilapidated man in a green baize apron emerged from the dining-room
and took Aristide's valise.
"No. 24," said M. Bocardon. Then, swinging his massive form halfway
through the narrow bureau door, he called down the passage, "Euphemie!"
A woman's voice responded, and in a moment the woman herself appeared, a
pallid, haggard, though more youthful, replica of Zette, with the dark
rings of sleeplessness or illness beneath her eyes which looked
furtively at the world.
"Tell your sister," said M. Bocardon, "that a relation of yours has
come to stay in the hotel."
He swung himself back into the bureau and took no further notice of the
guest.
"A relation?" echoed Euphemie, staring at the smiling, lustrous-eyed
Aristide, whose busy brain was wondering how he could mystify this
unwelcome and unexpected sister.
"Why, yes. Aristide, cousin to your good Aunt Leonie at Raphele. Ah--but
you are too young to remember me."
"I will tell Zette," she said, disappearing down the narrow passage.
Aristide went to the doorway, and stood there looking out into the not
too savoury street. On the opposite side, which was in the shade, the
tenants of the modest little shops sat by their doors or on chairs on
the pavement. There was considerable whispering among them and various
glances were cast at him. Presently footsteps behind caused him to turn.
There was Zette. She had evidently been weeping since they had parted,
for her eyelids were red. She started on beholding him.
"You?"
He laughed and shook her hesitating hands.
"It is I, Aristide. But you have grown! _Pecaire!_ How you have grown!"
He swung her hands apart and laughed merrily in her bewildered eyes.
"To think that the little Zette in pigtails and short check skirt
should have grown into this beautiful woman! I compliment you on your
wife, M. Bocardon."
M. Bocardon did not reply, but Aristide's swift glance noticed a spasm
of pain shoot across his broad face.
"And the good Aunt Leonie? Is she well? And does she still make her
_matelotes_ of eels? Ah, they were good, those _matelotes_."
"Aunt Leonie died two years ago," said Zette.
"The poor woman! And I who never knew. Tell me about her."
The _salle a manger_ door stood open. He drew her thither by his curious
fascination. They entered, and he shut the door behind them.
"_Voila!_" said he. "Didn't I tell you I should see you again?"
"_Vous avez un fameux toupet, vous!_" said Zette, half angrily.
He laughed, having been accused of confounded impudence many times
before in the course of his adventurous life.
"If I told my husband he would kill you."
"Precisely. So you're not going to tell him. I adore you. I have come to
protect you. _Foi de Provencal._"
"The only way to protect me is to prove my innocence."
"And then?"
She drew herself up and looked him straight between the eyes.
"I'll recognize that you have a loyal heart, and will be your very good
friend."
"Mme. Zette," cried Aristide, "I will devote my life to your service.
Tell me the particulars of the affair."
"Ask M. Bocardon." She left him, and sailed out of the room and past the
bureau with her proud head in the air.
If Aristide Pujol had the rapturous idea of proving the innocence of
Mme. Zette, triumphing over the fat pig of a husband, and eventually, in
a fantastic fashion, carrying off the insulted and spotless lady to some
bower of delight (the castle in Perpignan--why not?), you must blame,
not him, but Provence, whose sons, if not devout, are frankly pagan.
Sometimes they are both.
M. Bocardon sat in his bureau, pretending to do accounts and tracing
columns of figures with a huge, trembling forefinger. He looked the
picture of woe. Aristide decided to bide his opportunity. He went out
into the streets again, now with the object of killing time. The
afternoon had advanced, and trees and buildings cast cool shadows in
which one could walk with comfort; and Nimes, clear, bright city of wide
avenues and broad open spaces, instinct too with the grandeur that was
Rome's, is an idler's Paradise. Aristide knew it well; but he never
tired of it. He wandered round the Maison Carree, his responsive nature
delighting in the splendour of the Temple, with its fluted Corinthian
columns, its noble entablature, its massive pediment, its perfect
proportions; reluctantly turned down the Boulevard Victor Hugo, past the
Lycee and the Bourse, made the circuit of the mighty, double-arched oval
of the Arena, and then retraced his steps. As he expected, M. Bocardon
had left the bureau. It was the hour of absinthe. The porter named M.
Bocardon's habitual cafe. There, in a morose corner of the terrace,
Aristide found the huge man gloomily contemplating an absurdly small
glass of the bitters known as Dubonnet. Aristide raised his hat, asked
permission to join him, and sat down.
"M. Bocardon," said he, carefully mixing the absinthe which he had
ordered, "I learn from my fair cousin that there is between you a
regrettable misunderstanding, for which I am sincerely sorry."
"She calls it a misunderstanding?" He laughed mirthlessly. "Women have
their own vocabulary. Listen, my good sir. There is infamy between us.
When a wife betrays a man like me--kind, indulgent, trustful, who
has worshipped the ground she treads on--it is not a question of
misunderstanding. It is infamy. If she had anywhere to lay her head, I
would turn her out of doors to-night. But she has not. You, who are her
relative, know I married her without a dowry. You alone of her family
survive."
It was on the tip of Aristide's impulsive tongue to say that he would be
only too willing to shelter her, but prudently he refrained.
"She has broken my heart," continued Bocardon.
Aristide asked for details of the unhappy affair. The large man
hesitated for a moment and glanced suspiciously at his companion; but,
fascinated by the clear, luminous eyes, he launched with Southern
violence into a whirling story. The villain was a traveller in
buttons--_buttons!_ To be wronged by a traveller in diamonds might have
its compensations--but buttons! Linen buttons, bone buttons, brass
buttons, _trouser buttons!_ To be a traveller in the inanity of
buttonholes was the only lower degradation. His name was Bondon--he
uttered it scathingly, as if to decline from a Bocardon to a Bondon was
unthinkable. This Bondon was a regular client of the hotel, and such a
client!--who never ordered a bottle of _vin cachete_ or coffee or
cognac. A contemptible creature. For a long time he had his suspicions.
Now he was certain. He tossed off his glass of Dubonnet, ordered
another, and spoke incoherently of the opening and shutting of doors,
whisperings, of a dreadful incident, the central fact of which was a
glimpse of Zette gliding wraith-like down a corridor. Lastly, there was
the culminating proof, a letter found that morning in Zette's room.
He drew a crumpled sheet from his pocket and handed it to Aristide.
[Illustration: "THE VILLAIN WAS A TRAVELLER IN BUTTONS--BUTTONS!"]
It was a crude, flaming, reprehensible, and entirely damning epistle.
Aristide turned cold, shivering at the idea of the superb and dainty
Zette coming in contact with such abomination. He hated Bondon with a
murderous hate. He drank a great gulp of absinthe and wished it were
Bondon's blood. Great tears rolled down Bocardon's face, and gathering
at the ends of his scrubby moustache dripped in splashes on the marble
table.
"I loved her so tenderly, monsieur," said he.
The cry, so human, went straight to Aristide's heart. A sympathetic tear
glistened in his bright eyes. He was suddenly filled with an immense
pity for this grief-stricken, helpless giant. An odd feminine streak ran
through his nature and showed itself in queer places. Impulsively he
stretched out his hand.
"You're going?" asked Bocardon.
"No. A sign of good friendship."
They gripped hands across the table. A new emotion thrilled through the
facile Aristide.
"Bocardon, I devote myself to you," he cried, with a flamboyant gesture.
"What can I do?"
"Alas, nothing," replied the other, miserably.
"And Zette? What does she say to it all?"
The mountainous shoulders heaved with a shrug. "She denies everything.
She had never seen the letter until I showed it to her. She did not
know how it came into her room. As if that were possible!"
"It's improbable," said Aristide, gloomily.
They talked. Bocardon, in a choking voice, told the simple tale of their
married happiness. It had been a love-match, different from the ordinary
marriages of reason and arrangement. Not a cloud since their
wedding-day. They were called the turtle-doves of the Rue de la
Curatterie. He had not even manifested the jealousy justifiable in the
possessor of so beautiful a wife. He had trusted her implicitly. He was
certain of her love. That was enough. They had had one child, who died.
Grief had brought them even nearer each other. And now this stroke had
been dealt. It was a knife being turned round in his heart. It was
agony.
They walked back to the hotel together. Zette, who was sitting by the
desk in the bureau, rose and, without a word or look, vanished down
the passage. Bocardon, with a great sigh, took her place. It was
dinner-time. The half-dozen guests and frequenters filled for a moment
the little hall, some waiting to wash their hands at the primitive
_lavabo_ by the foot of the stairs. Aristide accompanied them into the
_salle a manger_, where he dined in solemn silence. The dinner over he
went out again, passing by the bureau where Bocardon, in its dim
recesses, was eating a sad meal brought to him by the melancholy
Euphemie. Zette, he conjectured, was dining in the kitchen. An
atmosphere of desolation impregnated the place, as though a corpse were
somewhere in the house.
Aristide drank his coffee at the nearest cafe in a complicated state of
mind. He had fallen furiously in love with the lady, believing her to be
the victim of a jealous husband. In an outburst of generous emotion he
had taken the husband to his heart, seeing that he was a good man
stricken to death. Now he loved the lady, loved the husband, and hated
the villain Bondon. What Aristide felt, he felt fiercely. He would
reconcile these two people he loved, and then go and, if not assassinate
Bondon, at least do him some bodily injury. With this idea in his head,
he paid for his coffee and went back to the hotel.
He found Zette taking her turn at the bureau, for clients have to be
attended to, even in the most distressing circumstances. She was talking
to a new arrival, trying to smile a welcome. Aristide, loitering near,
watched her beautiful face, to which the perfect classic features gave
an air of noble purity. His soul revolted at the idea of her mixing
herself up with a sordid wretch like Bondon. It was unbelievable.
"_Eh bien_?" she said as soon as they were alone.
"Mme. Zette, to-day I called your husband a scoundrel and a crocodile. I
was wrong. I find him a man with a beautiful nature."
"You needn't tell me that, M. Aristide."
"You are breaking his heart, Mme. Zette."
"And is he not breaking mine? He has told you, I suppose. Am I
responsible for what I know nothing more about than a babe unborn? You
don't believe I am speaking the truth? Bah! And your professions this
afternoon? Wind and gas, like the words of all men."
"Mme. Zette," cried Aristide, "I said I would devote my life to your
service, and so I will. I'll go and find Bondon and kill him."
He watched her narrowly, but she did not grow pale like a woman whose
lover is threatened with mortal peril. She said dryly:--
"You had better have some conversation with him first."
"Where is he to be found?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "How do I know? He left by the early train
this morning that goes in the direction of Tarascon."
"Then to-morrow," said Aristide, who knew the ways of commercial
travellers, "he will be at Tarascon, or at Avignon, or at Arles."
"I heard him say that he had just done Arles."
"_Tant mieux._ I shall find him either at Tarascon or Avignon. And by
the Tarasque of Sainte-Marthe, I'll bring you his head and you can
put it up outside as a sign and call the place the 'Hotel de la Tete
Bondon.'"
[Illustration: HE BURST INTO SHRIEKS OF LAUGHTER]
Early the next morning Aristide started on his quest, without informing
the good Bocardon of his intentions. He would go straight to Avignon, as
the more likely place. Inquiries at the various hotels would soon enable
him to hunt down his quarry; and then--he did not quite know what would
happen then--but it would be something picturesque, something entirely
unforeseen by Bondon, something to be thrillingly determined by the
inspiration of the moment. In any case he would wipe the stain from the
family escutcheon. By this time he had convinced himself that he
belonged to the Bocardon family.
The only other occupant of the first-class compartment was an elderly
Englishwoman of sour aspect. Aristide, his head full of Zette and
Bondon, scarcely noticed her. The train started and sped through the
sunny land of vine and olive.
They had almost reached Tarascon when a sudden thought hit him between
the eyes, like the blow of a fist. He gasped for a moment, then he burst
into shrieks of laughter, kicking his legs up and down and waving his
arms in maniacal mirth. After that he rose and danced. The sour-faced
Englishwoman, in mortal terror, fled into the corridor. She must have
reported Aristide's behaviour to the guard, for in a minute or two that
official appeared at the doorway.
"_Qu'est-ce qu'il y a?_"
Aristide paused in his demonstrations of merriment. "Monsieur," said he,
"I have just discovered what I am going to do to M. Bondon."
Delight bubbled out of him as he walked from the Avignon Railway Station
up the Cours de la Republique. The wretch Bondon lay at his mercy. He
had not proceeded far, however, when his quick eye caught sight of an
object in the ramshackle display of a curiosity dealer's. He paused in
front of the window, fascinated. He rubbed his eyes.
"No," said he; "it is not a dream. The _bon Dieu_ is on my side."
He went into the shop and bought the object. It was a pair of handcuffs.
At a little after three o'clock the small and dilapidated hotel omnibus
drove up before the Hotel de la Curatterie, and from it descended
Aristide Pujol, radiant-eyed, and a scrubby little man with a goatee
beard, pince-nez, and a dome-like forehead, who, pale and trembling,
seemed stricken with a great fear. It was Bondon. Together they entered
the little hall. As soon as Bocardon saw his enemy his eyes blazed with
fury, and, uttering an inarticulate roar, he rushed out of the bureau
with clenched fists murderously uplifted. The terrified Bondon shrank
into a corner, protected by Aristide, who, smiling like an angel of
peace, intercepted the onslaught of the huge man.
"Be calm, my good Bocardon, be calm."
But Bocardon would not be calm. He found his voice.
"Ah, scoundrel! Miscreant! Wretch! Traitor!" When his vocabulary of
vituperation and his breath failed him, he paused and mopped his
forehead.
Bondon came a step or two forward.
"I know, monsieur, I have all the wrong on my side. Your anger is
justifiable. But I never dreamt of the disastrous effect of my acts. Let
me see her, my good M. Bocardon, I beseech you."
"Let you see her?" said Bocardon, growing purple in the face.
At this moment Zette came running up the passage.
"What is all this noise about?"
"Ah, madame!" cried Bondon, eagerly, "I am heart-broken. You who are so
kind--let me see her."
"_Hein_?" exclaimed Bocardon, in stupefaction.
"See whom?" asked Zette.
"My dear dead one. My dear Euphemie, who has committed suicide."
"But he's mad!" shouted Bocardon, in his great voice. "Euphemie!
Euphemie! Come here!"
At the sight of Euphemie, pale and shivering with apprehension, Bondon
sank upon a bench by the wall. He stared at her as if she were a ghost.
"I don't understand," he murmured, faintly, looking like a trapped hare
at Aristide Pujol, who, debonair, hands on hips, stood a little way
apart.
"Nor I, either," cried Bocardon.
A great light dawned on Zette's beautiful face. "I do understand." She
exchanged glances with Aristide. He came forward.
"It's very simple," said he, taking the stage with childlike exultation.
"I go to find Bondon this morning to kill him. In the train I have a
sudden inspiration, a revelation from Heaven. It is not Zette but
Euphemie that is the _bonne amie_ of Bondon. I laugh, and frighten a
long-toothed English old maid out of her wits. Shall I get out at
Tarascon and return to Nimes and tell you, or shall I go on? I decide to
go on. I make my plan. Ah, but when I make a plan, it's all in a second,
a flash, _pfuit!_ At Avignon I see a pair of handcuffs. I buy them. I
spend hours tracking that animal there. At last I find him at the
station about to start for Lyon. I tell him I am a police agent. I let
him see the handcuffs, which convince him. I tell him Euphemie, in
consequence of the discovery of his letter, has committed suicide. There
is a _proces-verbal_ at which he is wanted. I summon him to accompany me
in the name of the law--and there he is."
[Illustration: "AND YOU!" SHOUTED BOCARDON, FALLING ON ARISTIDE; "I MUST
EMBRACE YOU ALSO"]
"Then that letter was not for my wife?" said Bocardon, who was not
quick-witted.
"But, no, imbecile!" cried Aristide.
Bocardon hugged his wife in his vast embrace. The tears ran down his
cheeks.
"Ah, my little Zette, my little Zette, will you ever pardon me?"
"_Oui, je te pardonne, gros jaloux_," said Zette.
"And you!" shouted Bocardon, falling on Aristide; "I must embrace you
also." He kissed him on both cheeks, in his expansive way, and thrust
him towards Zette.
"You can also kiss my wife. It is I, Bocardon, who command it."
The fire of a not ignoble pride raced through Aristide's veins. He was a
hero. He knew it. It was a moment worth living.
The embraces and other expressions of joy and gratitude being
temporarily suspended, attention was turned to the unheroic couple who
up to then had said not one word to each other. The explanation of their
conduct, too, was simple, apparently. They were in love. She had no
dowry. He could not marry her, as his parents would not give their
consent. She, for her part, was frightened to death by the discovery of
the letter, lest Bocardon should turn her out of the house.
"What dowry will satisfy your parents?"
"Nothing less than twelve thousand francs."
"I give it," said Bocardon, reckless in his newly-found happiness.
"Marry her."
The clock in the bureau struck four. Aristide pulled out his watch.
"_Saperlipopette!_" he cried, and disappeared like a flash into the
street.
"But what's the matter with him?" shouted Bocardon, in amazement.
Zette went to the door. "He's running as if he had the devil at his
heels."
"Was he always like that?" asked her husband.
"How always?"
"_Parbleu!_ When you used to see him at your Aunt Leonie's."
Zette flushed red. To repudiate the saviour of her entire family were an
act of treachery too black for her ingenuous heart.
"Ah, yes," she replied, calmly, coming back into the hall. "We used to
call him Cousin Quicksilver."
In the big avenue Aristide hailed a passing cab.
"To the Hotel du Luxembourg--at a gallop!"
In the joyous excitement of the past few hours this child of impulse
and sunshine, this dragon-fly of a man, had entirely forgotten the
appointment at two o'clock with the American millionaire and the fortune
that depended on it. He would be angry at being kept waiting. Aristide
had met Americans before. His swift brain invented an elaborate excuse.
He leaped from the cab and entered the vestibule of the hotel.
"Can I see M. Congleton?" he asked at the bureau.
"An American gentleman? He has gone, monsieur. He left by the
three-thirty train. Are you M. Pujol? There is a letter for you."