“How is that? You are all right.”
As I felt that my trick had produced its effect on him, I did not press
the matter.
But every day I pretended that I had met the little laundress and that I
had spoken to her about him, so that in the end he believed me, and sent
her ardent and earnest kisses.
Now it happened that one morning, on my way to the boarding school, I
really came across her. I accosted her without hesitation, as if I had
known her for the last ten years.
“Good-day, mademoiselle. Are you quite well?”
“Very well, monsieur, thank you.”
“Will you have a cigarette?”
“Oh! not in the street.”
“You can smoke it at home.”
“In that case, I will.”
“Let me tell you, mademoiselle, there's something you don't know.”
“What is that, monsieur?”
“The old gentleman--my old professor, I mean--”
“Pere Piquedent?”
“Yes, Pere Piquedent. So you know his name?”
“Faith, I do! What of that?”
“Well, he is in love with you!”
She burst out laughing wildly, and exclaimed:
“You are only fooling.”
“Oh! no, I am not fooling! He keeps talking of you all through the
lesson. I bet that he'll marry you!”
She ceased laughing. The idea of marriage makes every girl serious. Then
she repeated, with an incredulous air:
“This is humbug!”
“I swear to you, it's true.”
She picked up her basket which she had laid down at her feet.
“Well, we'll see,” she said. And she went away.
Presently when I had reached the boarding school, I took Pere Piquedent
aside, and said:
“You must write to her; she is infatuated with you.”
And he wrote a long letter, tenderly affectionate, full of phrases
and circumlocutions, metaphors and similes, philosophy and academic
gallantry; and I took on myself the responsibility of delivering it to
the young woman.
She read it with gravity, with emotion; then she murmured:
“How well he writes! It is easy to see he has got education! Does he
really mean to marry me?”