One day, when Aristide was discoursing on the inexhaustible subject of
woman, I pulled him up.
"My good friend," said I, "you seem to have fallen in love with every
woman you have ever met. But for how many of them have you really
cared?"
"_Mon Dieu!_ For all of them!" he cried, springing from his chair and
making a wind-mill of himself.
"Come, come," said I; "all that amorousness is just Gallic exuberance.
Have you ever been really in love in your life?"
"How should I know?" said he. But he lit a cigarette, turned away, and
looked out of window.
There was a short silence. He shrugged his shoulders, apparently in
response to his own thoughts. Then he turned again suddenly, threw his
cigarette into the fire, and thrust his hands into his pockets. He
sighed.
"Perhaps there was Fleurette," said he, not looking at me. "_Est-ce
qu'on sait jamais?_ That wasn't her real name--it was Marie-Josephine;
but people called her Fleurette. She looked like a flower, you know."
I nodded in order to signify my elementary acquaintance with the French
tongue.
"The most delicate little flower you can conceive," he continued.
"_Tiens_, she was a slender lily--so white, and her hair the flash of
gold on it--and she had eyes--_des yeux de pervenche_, as we say in
French. What is _pervenche_ in English--that little pale-blue flower?"
"Periwinkle," said I.
"Periwinkle eyes! My God, what a language! Ah, no! She had _des yeux de
pervenche_.... She was _diaphane_, diaphanous ... impalpable as
cigarette-smoke ... a little nose like nothing at all, with nostrils
like infinitesimal sea-shells. Anyone could have made a mouthful of
her.... Ah! _Cre nom d'un chien!_ Life is droll. It has no common sense.
It is the game of a mountebank.... I've never told you about Fleurette.
It was this way."
And the story he narrated I will do my best to set down.
* * * * *
The good M. Bocardon, of the Hotel de la Curatterie at Nimes, whose
grateful devotion to Aristide has already been recorded, had a brother
in Paris who managed the Hotel du Soleil et de l'Ecosse (strange
conjuncture), a flourishing third-rate hostelry in the neighbourhood of
the Halles Centrales. Thither flocked sturdy Britons in knickerbockers,
stockings, and cloth caps, Teutons with tin botanizing boxes (for lunch
transportation), and American school-marms realizing at last the dream
of their modest and laborious lives. Accommodation was cheap, manners
were easy, and knowledge of the gay city less than rudimentary.
To M. Bocardon of Paris Aristide, one August morning, brought glowing
letters of introduction from M. and Mme. Bocardon of Nimes. M. Bocardon
of Paris welcomed Aristide as a Provencal and a brother. He brought out
from a cupboard in his private bureau an hospitable bottle of old
Armagnac, and discoursed with Aristide on the seductions of the South.
It was there that he longed to retire--to a dainty little hotel of his
own with a smart clientele. The clientele of the Hotel du Soleil et de
l'Ecosse was not to his taste. He spoke slightingly of his guests.
"There are people who know how to travel," said he, "and people who
don't. These lost muttons here don't, and they make hotel-keeping a
nightmare instead of a joy. A hundred times a day have I to tell them
the way to Notre Dame. _Pouah!_" said he, gulping down his disgust and
the rest of his Armagnac, "it is back-breaking."
"_Tu sais, mon vieux_," cried Aristide--he had the most lightning way of
establishing an intimacy--"I have an idea. These lost sheep need a
shepherd."
"_Eh bien?_" said M. Bocardon.
"_Eh bien_," said Aristide. "Why should not I be the shepherd, the
official shepherd attached to the Hotel du Soleil et de l'Ecosse?"
"Explain yourself," said M. Bocardon.
Aristide, letting loose his swift imagination, explained copiously, and
hypnotized M. Bocardon with his glittering eye, until he had assured to
himself a means of livelihood. From that moment he became the familiar
genius of the hotel. Scorning the title of "guide," lest he should be
associated in the minds of the guests with the squalid scoundrels who
infest the Boulevard, he constituted himself "Directeur de l'Agence
Pujol." An obfuscated Bocardon formed the rest of the agency and
pocketed a percentage of Aristide's earnings, and Aristide, addressed as
"Director" by the Anglo-Saxons, "M. le Directeur" by the Latins, and
"Herr Direktor" by the Teutons, walked about like a peacock in a
barn-yard.
[Illustration: HE MUST HAVE DEALT OUT PARALYZING INFORMATION]
At that period, and until he had learned up Baedeker by heart, a process
which nearly gave him brain-fever, and still, he declares, brings terror
into his slumbers, he knew little more of the history, topography, and
art-treasures of Paris than the flock he shepherded. He must have
dealt out paralyzing information. The Britons and the Germans seemed not
to heed; but now and then the American school-marms unmasked the
charlatan. On such occasions his unfaltering impudence reached heights
truly sublime. The sharp-witted ladies looked in his eyes, forgot their
wrongs, and, if he had told them that the Eiffel Tower had been erected
by the Pilgrim Fathers, would have accepted the statement meekly.
"My friend," said Aristide, with Provencal flourish and braggadocio, "I
never met a woman that would not sooner be misled by me than be taught
by the whole Faculty of the Sorbonne."
He had been practising this honourable profession for about a month,
lodging with the good Mme. Bidoux at 213 bis, Rue Saint-Honore, when,
one morning, in the vestibule of the hotel, he ran into his old friend
Batterby, whom he had known during the days of his professorship of
French at the Academy for Young Ladies in Manchester. The pair had been
fellow-lodgers in the same house in the Rusholme Road; but, whereas
Aristide lived in one sunless bed-sitting-room looking on a forest of
chimney-pots, Batterby, man of luxury and ease, had a suite of
apartments on the first floor and kept an inexhaustible supply of
whisky, cigars, and such-like etceteras of the opulent, and the very
ugliest prize bull-pup you can imagine. Batterby, in gaudy raiment,
went to an office in Manchester; in gaudier raiment he often attended
race meetings. He had rings and scarf-pins and rattled gold in his
trousers pockets. He might have been an insufferable young man for a
poverty-stricken teacher of French to have as a fellow-lodger; but he
was not. Like all those born to high estate, he made no vulgar parade of
his wealth, and to Aristide he showed the most affable hospitality. A
friendship had arisen between them, which the years had idealized rather
than impaired. So when they met that morning in the vestibule of the
Hotel du Soleil et de l'Ecosse their greetings were fervent and
prolonged.
In person Batterby tended towards burliness. He had a red, jolly face,
divided unequally by a great black moustache, and his manner was hearty.
He slapped Aristide on the back many times and shook him by the
shoulders.
"We must have a drink on this straight away, old man," said he.
"You're so strange, you English," said Aristide. "The moment you have an
emotion you must celebrate it by a drink. 'My dear fellow, I've just
come into a fortune; let us have a drink.' Or, 'My friend, my poor old
father has just been run over by an omnibus; let us have a drink.' My
good Reginald, look at the clock. It is only nine in the morning."
"Rot!" said Reginald. "Drink is good at any time."
They went into the dark and deserted smoking-room, where Batterby
ordered Scotch and soda and Aristide, an abstemious man, a plain
vermouth.
"What's that muck?" asked Batterby, when the waiter brought the drinks.
Aristide explained. "Whisky's good enough for me," laughed the other.
Aristide laughed too, out of politeness and out of joy at meeting his
old friend.
"With you playing at guide here," said Batterby, when he had learned
Aristide's position in the hotel, "it seems I have come to the right
shop. There are no flies on me, you know, but when a man comes to Paris
for the first time he likes to be put up to the ropes."
"Your first visit to Paris?" cried Aristide. "_Mon vieux_, what wonders
are going to ravish your eyes! What a time you are going to have!"
Batterby bit off the end of a great black cigar.
"If the missus will let me," said he.
"Missus? Your wife? You are married, my dear Reginald?" Aristide leaped,
in his unexpected fashion, from his chair and almost embraced him. "Ah,
but you are happy, you are lucky. It was always like that. You open your
mouth and the larks fall ready roasted into it! My congratulations. And
she is here, in this hotel, your wife? Tell me about her."
Batterby lit his cigar. "She's nothing to write home about," he said,
modestly. "She's French."
"French? No--you don't say so!" exclaimed Aristide, in ecstasy.
"Well, she was brought up in France from her childhood, but her parents
were Finns. Funny place for people to come from--Finland--isn't it? You
could never expect it--might just as well think of 'em coming from
Lapland. She's an orphan. I met her in London."
"But that's romantic! And she is young, pretty?"
"Oh, yes; in a way," said the proprietary Briton.
"And her name?"
"Oh, she has a fool name--Fleurette. I wanted to call her Flossie, but
she didn't like it."
"I should think not," said Aristide. "Fleurette is an adorable name."
"I suppose it's right enough," said Batterby. "But if I want to call her
good old Flossie, why should she object? You married, old man? No? Well,
wait till you are. You think women are angels all wrapped up in feathers
and wings beneath their toggery, don't you? Well, they're just blooming
porcupines, all bristling with objections."
"_Mais, allons, donc!_" cried Aristide. "You love her, your beautiful
Finnish orphan brought up in France and romantically met in London, with
the adorable name?"
"Oh, that's all right," said the easy Batterby, lifting his half-emptied
glass. "Here's luck!"
"Ah--no!" said Aristide, leaning forward and clinking his wineglass
against the other's tumbler. "Here is to madame."
When they returned to the vestibule they found Mrs. Batterby patiently
awaiting her lord. She rose from her seat at the approach of the two
men, a fragile flower of a girl, about three-and-twenty, pale as a lily,
with exquisite though rather large features, and with eyes of the blue
of the _pervenche_ (in deference to Aristide I use the French name),
which seemed to smile trustfully through perpetual tears. She was
dressed in pale, shadowy blue--graceful, impalpable, like the smoke,
said Aristide, curling upwards from a cigarette.
"Reggie has spoken of you many times, monsieur," said Fleurette, after
the introduction had been effected.
Aristide was touched. "Fancy him remembering me! _Ce bon vieux
Reginald._ Madame," said he, "your husband is the best fellow in the
world."
"Feed him with sugar and he won't bite," said Batterby; whereat they all
laughed, as if it had been a very good joke.
"Well, what about this Paris of yours?" he asked, after a while. "The
missus knows as little of it as I do."
"Really?" asked Aristide.
"I lived all my life in Brest before I went to England," she said,
modestly.
"She wants to see all the sights, the Louvre, the Morgue, the Cathedral
of What's-its-name that you've got here. I've got to go round, too.
Pleases her and don't hurt me. You must tote us about. We'll have a cab,
old girl, as you can't do much walking, and good old Pujol will come
with us."
"But that is ideal!" cried Aristide, flying to the door to order the
cab; but before he could reach it he was stopped by three or four
waiting tourists, who pointed, some to the clock, some to the wagonette
standing outside, and asked the director when the personally-conducted
party was to start. Aristide, who had totally forgotten the
responsibilities attached to the directorship of the Agence Pujol and,
but for this reminder, would have blissfully left his sheep to err and
stray over Paris by themselves, returned crestfallen to his friends and
explained the situation.
"But we'll join the party," said the cheery Batterby. "The more the
merrier--good old bean-feast! Will there be room?"
"Plenty," replied Aristide, brightening. "But would it meet the wishes
of madame?" Her pale face flushed ever so slightly and the soft eyes
fluttered at him a half-astonished, half-grateful glance.
"With my husband and you, monsieur, I should love it," she said.
So Mr. and Mrs. Batterby joined the personally-conducted party, as they
did the next morning, and the next, and several mornings after, and
received esoteric information concerning the monuments of Paris that is
hidden even from the erudite. The evenings, however, Aristide, being off
duty, devoted to their especial entertainment. He took them to riotous
and perspiring restaurants where they dined gorgeously for three francs
fifty, wine included; to open-air _cafes-concerts_ in the Champs
Elysees, which Fleurette found infinitely diverting, but which bored
Batterby, who knew not French, to stertorous slumber; to crowded
brasseries on the Boulevard, where Batterby awakened, under a steady
flow of whisky, to appreciative contemplation of Paris life. As in the
old days of the Rusholme Road, Batterby flung his money about with
unostentatious generosity. He was out for a beano, he declared, and hang
the expense! Aristide, whose purse, scantily filled (truth to say) by
the profits of the Agence Pujol, could contribute but modestly to this
reckless expenditure, found himself forced to accept his friend's lavish
hospitality. Once or twice, delicately, he suggested withdrawal from the
evening's dissipation.
"But, my good M. Pujol," said Fleurette, with childish tragicality in
her _pervenche_ eyes, "without you we shall be lost. We shall not enjoy
ourselves at all, at all."
So Aristide, out of love for his friend, and out of he knew not what for
his friend's wife, continued to show them the sights of Paris. They went
to the cabarets of Montmartre--the _Ciel_, where one is served by
angels; the _Enfer_, where one is served by red devils in a Tartarean
lighting; the _Neant_, where one has coffins for tables--than all of
which vulgarity has imagined no more joy-killing dreariness, but which
caused Fleurette to grip Aristide's hand tight in scared wonderment and
Batterby to chuckle exceedingly. They went to the Bal Bullier and to
various other balls undreamed of by the tourist, where Fleurette danced
with Aristide, as light as an autumn leaf tossed by the wind, and
Batterby absorbed a startling assortment of alcohols. In a word,
Aristide procured for his friends prodigious diversion.
"How do you like this, old girl?" Batterby asked one night, at the
Moulin de la Galette, a dizzying, not very decorous, and to the
unsophisticated visitor a dangerous place of entertainment. "Better than
Great Coram Street, isn't it?"
She smiled and laid her hand on his. She was a woman of few words but of
many caressing actions.
"I ought to let you into a secret," said he. "This is our honeymoon."
"Who would have thought it?"
[Illustration: FLEURETTE DANCED WITH ARISTIDE, AS LIGHT AS AN AUTUMN
LEAF TOSSED BY THE WIND]
"A fortnight ago she was being killed in a Bloomsbury boarding-house.
There were two of 'em--she and a girl called Carrie. I used to call 'em
Fetch and Carrie. This one was Fetch. Well, she fetched me, didn't you,
old girl? And now you're Mrs. Reginald Batterby, living at your ease,
eh?"
"Madame would grace any sphere," said Aristide.
"I wish I had more education," said Fleurette, humbly. "M. Pujol and
yourself are so clever that you must laugh at me."
"We do sometimes, but you mustn't mind us. Remember--at the
what-you-call-it--the little shanty at Versailles----?"
"The Grand Trianon," replied Aristide.
"That's it. When you were showing us the rooms. 'What is the Empress
Josephine doing now?'" He mimicked her accent. "Ha! ha! And the poor
soul gone to glory a couple of hundred years ago."
The little mouth puckered at the corners and moisture gathered in the
blue eyes.
"_Mais, mon Dieu_, it was natural, the mistake," cried Aristide,
gallantly. "The Empress Eugenie, the wife of another Napoleon, is still
living."
"_Bien sur_," said Fleurette. "How was I to know?"
"Never mind, old girl," said Batterby. "You're living all right, and out
of that beastly boarding-house, and that's the chief thing. Another
month of it would have killed her. She had a cough that shook her to
bits. She's looking better already, isn't she, Pujol?"
After this Aristide learned much of her simple history, which she, at
first, had been too shy to reveal. The child of Finnish sea-folk who had
drifted to Brest and died there, she had been adopted by an old Breton
sea-dog and his wife. On their death she had entered, as maid, the
service of an English lady residing in the town, who afterwards had
taken her to England. After a while reverses of fortune had compelled
the lady to dismiss her, and she had taken the situation in the
boarding-house, where she had ruined her health and met the opulent and
conquering Batterby. She had not much chance, poor child, of acquiring a
profound knowledge of the history of the First Empire; but her manners
were refined and her ways gentle and her voice was soft; and Aristide,
citizen of the world, for whom caste distinctions existed not, thought
her the most exquisite flower grown in earth's garden. He told her so,
much to her blushing satisfaction.
One night, about three weeks after the Batterbys' arrival in Paris,
Batterby sent his wife to bed and invited Aristide to accompany him for
half an hour to a neighbouring cafe. He looked grave and troubled.
"I've been upset by a telegram," said he, when drinks had been ordered.
"I'm called away to New York on business. I must catch the boat from
Cherbourg to-morrow evening. Now, I can't take Fleurette with me. Women
and business don't mix. She has jolly well got to stay here. I sha'n't
be away more than a month. I'll leave her plenty of money to go on with.
But what's worrying me is--how is she going to stick it? So look here,
old man, you're my pal, aren't you?"
He stretched out his hand. Aristide grasped it impulsively.
"Why, of course, _mon vieux!_"
"If I felt that I could leave her in your charge, all on the square, as
a real straight pal--I should go away happy."
"She shall be my sister," cried Aristide, "and I shall give her all the
devotion of a brother.... I swear it--_tiens_--what can I swear it on?"
He flung out his arms and looked round the cafe as if in search of an
object. "I swear it on the head of my mother. Have no fear. I, Aristide
Pujol, have never betrayed the sacred obligations of friendship. I
accept her as a consecrated trust."
"You only need to have said 'Right-o,' and I would have believed you,"
said Batterby. "I haven't told her yet. There'll be blubbering all
night. Let us have another drink."
When Aristide arrived at the Hotel du Soleil et de l'Ecosse at nine
o'clock the next morning he found that Batterby had left Paris by an
early train. Fleurette he did not meet until he brought back the
sight-seers to the fold in the evening. She had wept much during the
day; but she smiled bravely on Aristide. A woman could not stand in the
way of her husband's business.
"By the way, what is Reginald's business?" Aristide asked.
She did not know. Reginald never spoke to her of such things; perhaps
she was too ignorant to understand.
"But he will make a lot of money by going to America," she said. Then
she was silent for a few moments. "_Mon Dieu!_" she sighed, at last.
"How long the day has been!"
It was the beginning of many long days for Fleurette. Reginald did not
write from Cherbourg or cable from New York, as he had promised, and the
return American mail brought no letter. The days passed drearily.
Sometimes, for the sake of human society, she accompanied the tourist
parties of the Agence Pujol; but the thrill had passed from the Morgue
and the glory had departed from Versailles. Sometimes she wandered
out by herself into the streets and public gardens; but, pretty,
unprotected, and fragile, she attracted the attention of evil or
careless men, which struck cold terror into her heart. Most often she
sat alone and listless in the hotel, reading the feuilleton of the
_Petit Journal_, and waiting for the post to bring her news.
"_Mon Dieu_, M. Pujol, what can have happened?"
"Nothing at all, _chere petite madame_"--question and answer came many
times a day. "Only some foolish mischance which will soon be explained.
The good Reginald has written and his letter has been lost in the post.
He has been obliged to go on business to San Francisco or Buenos
Ayres--_et, que voulez-vous?_ one cannot have letters from those places
in twenty-four hours."
"If only he had taken me with him!"
"But, dear Mme. Fleurette, he could not expose you to the hardships
of travel. You, who are as fragile as a cobweb, how could you go to
Patagonia or Senegal or Baltimore, those wild places where there are no
comforts for women? You must be reasonable. I am sure you will get a
letter soon--or else in a day or two he will come, with his good, honest
face as if nothing had occurred--these English are like that--and call
for whisky and soda. Be comforted, _chere petite madame_."
Aristide did his best to comfort her, threw her in the companionship of
decent women staying at the hotel, and devoted his evenings to her
entertainment. But the days passed, and Reginald Batterby, with the
good, honest face, neither wrote nor ordered whisky and soda. Fleurette
began to pine and fade.
One day she came to Aristide.
"M. Pujol, I have no more money left."
"_Bigre!_" said Pujol. "The good Bocardon will have to give you credit.
I'll arrange it."
"But I already owe for three weeks," said Fleurette.
Aristide sought Bocardon. One week more was all the latter dared allow.
"But her husband will return and pay you. He is my old and intimate
friend. I make myself hoarse in telling it to you, wooden-head that you
are!"
But Bocardon, who had to account to higher powers, the proprietors of
the hotel, was helpless. At the end of the week Fleurette was called
upon to give up her room. She wept with despair; Aristide wept with
fury; Bocardon wept out of sympathy. Already, said Bocardon, the
proprietors would blame him for not using the legal right to detain
madame's luggage.
"_Mon Dieu! mon Dieu!_ what is to become of me?" wailed Fleurette.
"You forget, madame," said Aristide, with one of his fine flourishes,
"that you are the sacred trust of Aristide Pujol."
"But I can't accept your money," objected Fleurette.
"_Tron de l'air!_" he cried. "Did your husband put you in my charge or
did he not? Am I your legal guardian, or am I not? If I am your legal
guardian, what right have you to question the arrangements made by your
husband? Answer me that."
Fleurette, too gentle and too miserable for intricate argument, sighed.
"But it is your money, all the same."
Aristide turned to Bocardon. "Try," said he, "to convince a woman! Do
you want proofs? Wait there a minute while I get them from the safe of
the Agence Pujol."
He disappeared into the bureau, where, secure from observation, he tore
an oblong strip from a sheet of stiff paper, and, using an indelible
pencil, wrote out something fantastic halfway between a cheque and a
bill of exchange, forged as well as he could from memory the signature
of Reginald Batterby--the imitation of handwriting was one of Aristide's
many odd accomplishments--and made the document look legal by means of a
receipt stamp, which he took from Bocardon's drawer. He returned to the
vestibule with the strip folded and somewhat crumpled in his hand.
"_Voila_," said he, handing it boldly to Fleurette. "Here is your
husband's guarantee to me, your guardian, for four thousand francs."
Fleurette examined the forgery. The stamp impressed her. For the simple
souls of France there is magic in _papier timbre_.
"It was my husband who wrote this?" she asked, curiously.
"_Mais, oui_," said Aristide, with an offended air of challenge.
Fleurette's eyes filled again with tears.
"I only inquired," she said, "because this is the first time I have seen
his handwriting."
"_Ma pauvre petite_," said Aristide.
"I will do whatever you tell me, M. Pujol," said Fleurette, humbly.
"Good! That is talking like _une bonne petite dame raisonnable_. Now, I
know a woman made up of holy bread whom St. Paul and St. Peter are
fighting to have next them when she goes to Paradise. Her name is Mme.
Bidoux, and she sells cabbages and asparagus and charcoal at No. 213
bis, Rue Saint-Honore. She will arrange our little affair. Bocardon,
will you have madame's trunks sent to that address?"
He gave his arm to Fleurette, and walked out of the hotel, with serene
confidence in the powers of the sainted Mme. Bidoux. Fleurette
accompanied him unquestioningly. Of course she might have said: "If you
hold negotiable security from my husband to the amount of four thousand
francs, why should I exchange the comforts of the hotel for the doubtful
accommodation of the sainted Mme. Bidoux who sells cabbages?" But I
repeat that Fleurette was a simple soul who took for granted the wisdom
of so flamboyant and virile a creature as Aristide Pujol.
Away up at the top of No. 213 bis, Rue Saint-Honore, was a little
furnished room to let, and there Aristide installed his sacred charge.
Mme. Bidoux, who, as she herself maintained, would have cut herself into
four pieces for Aristide--did he not save her dog's life? Did he not
marry her daughter to the brigadier of gendarmes (_sale voyou!_), who
would otherwise have left her lamenting? Was he not the most wonderful
of God's creatures?--Mme. Bidoux, although not quite appreciating
Aristide's quixotic delicacy, took the forlorn and fragile wisp of
misery to her capacious bosom. She made her free of the cabbages and
charcoal. She provided her, at a risible charge, with succulent meals.
She told her tales of her father and mother, of her neighbours, of the
domestic differences between the concierge and his wife (soothing idyll
for an Ariadne!), of the dirty thief of a brigadier of gendarmes, of her
bodily ailments--her body was so large that they were many; of the
picturesque death, through apoplexy, of the late M. Bidoux; the brave
woman, in short, gave her of her heart's best. As far as human hearts
could provide a bed for Fleurette, that bed was of roses. As a matter of
brutal fact, it was narrow and nubbly, and the little uncarpeted room
was ten feet by seven; but to provide it Aristide went to his own bed
hungry. And if the bed of a man's hunger is not to be accounted as one
of roses, there ought to be a vote for the reduction of the Recording
Angel's salary.
It must not be imagined that Fleurette thought the bed hard. Her bed of
life from childhood had been nubbly. She never dreamed of complaining of
her little room under the stars, and she sat among the cabbages like a
tired lily, quite contented with her material lot. But she drooped and
drooped, and the cough returned and shook her; and Aristide, realizing
the sacredness of his charge, became a prey to anxious terrors.
"Mere Bidoux," said he, "she must have lots of good, nourishing, tender,
underdone beef, good fillets, and _entrecotes saignantes_."
Mme. Bidoux sighed. She had a heart, but she also had a pocket which,
like Aristide's, was not over-filled. "That costs dear, my poor friend,"
she said.
"What does it matter what it costs? It is I who provide," said Aristide,
grandly.
And Aristide gave up tobacco and coffee and the mild refreshment at
cafes essential to the existence of every Frenchman, and degraded his
soul by taking half-franc tips from tourists--a source of income which,
as Director, M. le Directeur, Herr Direktor of the Agence Pujol, he had
hitherto scorned haughtily--in order to provide Fleurette with underdone
beefsteaks.
All his leisure he devoted to her. She represented something that
hitherto had not come into his life--something delicate, tender,
ethereal, something of woman that was exquisitely adorable, apart from
the flesh. Once, as he was sitting in the little shop, she touched his
temple lightly with her fingers.
"Ah, you are good to me, Aristide."
He felt a thrill such as no woman's touch had ever caused to pass
through him--far, far sweeter, cleaner, purer. If the _bon Dieu_ could
have given her to him then and there to be his wife, what bond could
have been holier? But he had bound himself by a sacred obligation. His
friend on his return should find him loyal.
"Who could help being good to you, little Fleurette?" said he. "Even an
Apache would not tread on a lily of the valley!"
"But you put me in water and tend me so carefully."
"So that you can be fresh whenever the dear Reginald comes back."