Miss Christabel told his name--one Harry Ralston--and not only his name,
but, such was the peculiar, childlike charm of Aristide Pujol, also many
other things about him. He was the Honourable Harry Ralston, the heir
to a great brewery peerage, and very wealthy. He was a member of
Parliament, and but for Parliamentary duties would have dined there that
evening; but he was to come in later, as soon as he could leave the
House. He also had a house in Hampshire, full of the most beautiful
works of art. It was through their common hobby that her father and
Harry had first made acquaintance.
"We're supposed to have a very fine collection here," she said, with a
motion of her hand.
Aristide looked round the walls and saw them hung with pictures in gold
frames. In those days he had not acquired an extensive culture. Besides,
who having before him the firelight gleaming through Miss Christabel's
hair could waste his time over painted canvas? She noted his cursory
glance.
"I thought you were a connoisseur?"
"I am," said Aristide, his bright eyes fixed on her in frank admiration.
She blushed again; but this time she rose.
"I must go and dress for dinner. Perhaps you would like to be shown your
room?"
He hung his head on one side.
"Have I been too bold, mademoiselle?"
"I don't know," she said. "You see, I've never met a Frenchman before."
"Then a world of undreamed-of homage is at your feet," said he.
A servant ushered him up broad, carpeted staircases into a bedroom such
as he had never seen in his life before. It was all curtains and
hangings and rugs and soft couches and satin quilts and dainty
writing-tables and subdued lights, and a great fire glowed red and
cheerful, and before it hung a clean shirt. His poor little toilet
apparatus was laid on the dressing-table, and (with a tact which he did
not appreciate, for he had, sad to tell, no dress-suit) the servant had
spread his precious frock-coat and spare pair of trousers on the bed. On
the pillow lay his night-shirt, neatly folded.
"Evidently," said Aristide, impressed by these preparations, "it is
expected that I wash myself now and change my clothes, and that I sleep
here for the night. And for all that the ravishing Miss Christabel is
engaged to her honourable Harry, this is none the less a corner of
Paradise."
So Aristide attired himself in his best, which included a white tie and
a pair of nearly new brown boots--a long task, as he found that his
valise had been spirited away and its contents, including the white
tie of ceremony (he had but one), hidden in unexpected drawers and
wardrobes--and eventually went downstairs into the drawing-room. There
he found Miss Christabel and, warming himself on the hearthrug, a
bald-headed, beefy-faced Briton, with little pig's eyes and a hearty
manner, attired in a dinner-suit.
"My dear fellow," said this personage, with outstretched hand, "I'm
delighted to have you here. I've heard so much about you; and my little
girl has been singing your praises."
"Mademoiselle is too kind," said Aristide.
"You must take us as you find us," said Mr. Smith. "We're just ordinary
folk, but I can give you a good bottle of wine and a good cigar--it's
only in England, you know, that you can get champagne fit to drink and
cigars fit to smoke--and I can give you a glimpse of a modest English
home. I believe you haven't a word for it in French."
"_Ma foi_, no," said Aristide, who had once or twice before heard this
lunatic charge brought against his country. "In France the men all live
in cafes, the children are all put out to nurse, and the women, saving
the respect of mademoiselle--well, the less said about them the better."
"England is the only place, isn't it?" Mr. Smith declared, heartily. "I
don't say that Paris hasn't its points. But after all--the Moulin Rouge
and the Folies Bergeres and that sort of thing soon pall, you know--soon
pall."
"Yet Paris has its serious side," argued Aristide. "There is always the
tomb of Napoleon."
"Papa will never take me to Paris," sighed the girl.
"You shall go there on your honeymoon," said Mr. Smith.
Dinner was announced. Aristide gave his arm to Miss Christabel, and
proud not only of his partner, but also of his frock-coat, white tie,
and shiny brown boots, strutted into the dining-room. The host sat at
the end of the beautifully set table, his daughter on his right,
Aristide on his left. The meal began gaily. The kind Mr. Smith was in
the best of humours.
"And how is our dear old friend, Jules Dancourt?" he asked.
"_Tiens!_" said Aristide, to himself, "we have a dear friend Jules
Dancourt. Wonderfully well," he replied at a venture, "but he suffers
terribly at times from the gout."
"So do I, confound it!" said Mr. Smith, drinking sherry.
"You and the good Jules were always sympathetic," said Aristide. "Ah! he
has spoken to me so often about you, the tears in his eyes."
"Men cry, my dear, in France," Mr. Smith explained. "They also kiss each
other."
"_Ah, mais c'est un beau pays, mademoiselle!_" cried Aristide, and he
began to talk of France and to draw pictures of his country which set
the girl's eyes dancing. After that he told some of the funny little
stories which had brought him disaster at the academy. Mr. Smith, with
jovial magnanimity, declared that he was the first Frenchman he had ever
met with a sense of humour.
"But I thought, Baron," said he, "that you lived all your life shut up
in that old chateau of yours?"
"_Tiens!_" thought Aristide. "I am still a Baron, and I have an old
chateau."
"Tell us about the chateau. Has it a fosse and a drawbridge and a Gothic
chapel?" asked Miss Christabel.
"Which one do you mean?" inquired Aristide, airily. "For I have two."
When relating to me this Arabian Nights' adventure, he drew my special
attention to his astuteness.
His host's eye quivered in a wink. "The one in Languedoc," said he.
Languedoc! Almost Pujol's own country! With entire lack of morality, but
with picturesque imagination, Aristide plunged into a description of
that non-existent baronial hall. Fosse, drawbridge, Gothic chapel were
but insignificant features. It had tourelles, emblazoned gateways,
bastions, donjons, barbicans; it had innumerable rooms; in the _salle
des chevaliers_ two hundred men-at-arms had his ancestors fed at a
sitting. There was the room in which Francois Premier had slept, and one
in which Joan of Arc had almost been assassinated. What the name of
himself or of his ancestors was supposed to be Aristide had no ghost of
an idea. But as he proceeded with the erection of his airy palace he
gradually began to believe in it. He invested the place with a living
atmosphere; conjured up a staff of family retainers, notably one
Marie-Joseph Loufoque, the wizened old major-domo, with his long white
whiskers and blue and silver livery. There were also Madeline Mioulles,
the cook, and Bernadet the groom, and La Petite Fripette the goose girl.
Ah! they should see La Petite Fripette! And he kept dogs and horses and
cows and ducks and hens--and there was a great pond whence frogs were
drawn to be fed for the consumption of the household.