THE BLUE SATIN BED
Two weeks after the visit to Fontainebleau came the crisis--for
Fifi was as surely tending toward a crisis as water flows downward
and sparks fly upward. Madame Bourcet, armed with the Holy Father’s
approval, represented to Fifi the necessity for her marrying Louis
Bourcet. Fifi listened silently. Then, Madame Bourcet, eagerly taking
silence for consent, said that Louis would that very evening accept
formally of Fifi’s hand. To this also Fifi made no reply, and Madame
Bourcet left the room fully persuaded that Fifi was reveling in rapture
at the thought of acquiring an epitome of all the virtues in Louis
Bourcet.
It was during the morning, and in the snuff-colored drawing-room, that
the communication was made. Fifi felt a great wave of doubt and anxiety
swelling up in her heart. For the first time she was brought face to
face with the marriage problem, and it frightened her by its immensity.
If only Cartouche were there--some one to whom she could pour out her
trembling, agitated heart! But Cartouche was not there, nor would he
come. And suddenly, for the first time, something of the fierceness
of maidenhood overwhelmed Fifi--a feeling that Cartouche should,
after all, seek her--that, if he loved her, as she knew he did above
everything on earth, he should speak and not shame her by his silence.
Then, the conviction that Cartouche preferred her good to his, that he
thought she would be happier married to another and a different man,
and held himself honestly unworthy to marry her, brought a flood of
tenderness to her heart. She had seen Cartouche turn red and pale when
she kissed him, and avoid her innocent familiarities, and she knew
well enough what it meant. But if he would not come, nor speak, nor
write,--and everybody, even the Holy Father, was urging her to marry
Louis Bourcet; and a great, strong chain of circumstances was dragging
her toward the same end--oh, what a day of emotions it was to Fifi!
She knew not how it passed, nor what she said or did, nor what she ate
and drank; she only waited, as if for the footfall of fate, for the
hour when Louis Bourcet would arrive. He came at eight, punctual to the
minute. Punctuality, like every other virtue, was his. Madame Bourcet
whispered something to him, and Louis, for the first time, touched
Fifi’s hand and brushed it with his lips, Fifi standing like a statue.
The crisis was rapidly becoming acute.
At nine o’clock, the cribbage board was brought out; Madame Bourcet
dutifully fell asleep, and Louis, with the air of doing the most
important thing in the world, took from his pocket a small picture of
himself, which he presented to Fifi with a formal speech, of which
she afterward could not recall one word. Nor could she remember what
he talked about during the succeeding half-hour before Madame Bourcet
waked up. Then Louis rose to go, and something was said about happiness
and economy in the management of affairs; and Louis announced that
owing to the necessity of procuring certain papers from Strasburg,
where his little property lay, the marriage contract could not be
signed for a month yet, and inquired if Fifi would be ready to marry
him at the end of the month. Fifi instantly replied yes, and then the
crisis was over. From that moment nothing on earth would have induced
Fifi to marry Louis Bourcet.
She did not, of course, put this in words, but sent poor Louis off with
her promise to marry him in a month. Nevertheless, by one of those
processes of logic which Fifi could not formulate to save her life, but
which she could act up to in the teeth of fire and sword, the promise
to marry Louis Bourcet settled for all time that she would not marry
him.
Up to that moment all had been vague, agitating, mysterious and
compelling. She felt herself driven, if not to marry Louis Bourcet, to
act as if she meant to marry him. But once she had promised, once she
had something tangible to go upon, her spirit burst its chains, and she
was once more free. She had no more notion of marrying Louis Bourcet
then than she had of trying to walk on her head. And she felt such
a wild, tempestuous joy--the first flush of happiness she had known
since the wretched lottery ticket had drawn the prize. She was so happy
that she was glad to escape to her own room. She carried in her hand
the picture of Louis Bourcet, and did not know she held it until she
put it down on her mantelpiece and saw in the mirror above it her own
smiling, glowing face.
“No, Louis,” she said to the picture, shaking her head solemnly, “it is
not to be. I have been a fool heretofore in not saying outright that
I wouldn’t marry you to save your life. But now my mind is made up.
Nobody can make me marry you, and I would not do it if Cartouche, the
Holy Father and the Emperor all commanded me to marry you!”
Then an impish thought came into Fifi’s head, for Fifi was in some
respects a cruel young person. She would make Louis himself refuse to
marry her and contrive so that all the blame would be visited upon the
innocent Louis, while she, the wicked Fifi, would go free. In a flash
it was revealed to her; it was to get rid of her hundred thousand
francs. Then Louis would not marry her--and oh, rapture! Cartouche
would.
“He can’t refuse,” thought Fifi in an ecstasy. “When I have been jilted
and cruelly used, and have no money, then I can go back to the stage,
and everybody will know me as Mademoiselle Chiaramonti, granddaughter
of the Pope’s cousin, who won the great prize in the lottery; everybody
will flock to see me, as they did the last two weeks I played; and I
shall have forty francs the week, and Cartouche, and love and work and
peace and Toto, and no Louis Bourcet! And how angry Julie Campionet
will be!”
It was so deliciously easy to get at her money--a rip and a stitch
afterward--ten thousand francs squandered before Louis Bourcet’s
eyes. Fifi thought the loss of the first ten thousand would rid her
of her fiancé, but she knew she could never get Cartouche as long as
she had even ten thousand francs left, and she realized fully that
it was Cartouche that she wanted most of anything in the world. The
Holy Father would probably scold her a little, but Fifi felt sure, if
she could only tell the Holy Father just how she felt and how good
Cartouche was, and also how odiously good Louis Bourcet was, he would
forgive her.
The more Fifi thought of this scheme of getting rid of Louis Bourcet
and entrapping Cartouche the more rapturous she grew. She had two ways
of expressing joy and thankfulness--praying and dancing. She plumped
down on her knees, and for about twenty seconds thanked God earnestly
for having shown her the way to get rid of Louis Bourcet--for Fifi’s
prayers, like herself, were very primitive and childlike. Then, jumping
up, she danced for twenty minutes, kicking as high as she could, until
she finally kicked the picture of Louis Bourcet off the mantelpiece to
the floor, on which it fell with a sharp crash.
Madame Bourcet, in the next room, stirred at once. Fifi again plumped
down on her knees, and when Madame Bourcet opened the door Fifi was
deeply engaged in saying her prayers. Madame Bourcet shut the door
softly--the noise could not have been in Fifi’s room.
As soon as Madame Bourcet was again snoozing, Fifi, moving softly
about, lighted her candle and wrote a letter to Cartouche.
“Cartouche, my mind is made up. This evening I promised Louis Bourcet,
in Madame Bourcet’s presence, to marry him. When I had done it I felt
as if a load were lifted off my mind, for as soon as the words were
out of my mouth I determined that nothing on earth should induce me
to keep my promise. I feel that I am right, Cartouche, and I have not
felt so pious for a long time. I don’t know how it will be managed.
I am only certain of one thing, and that is that Louis Bourcet will
never become Monsieur Fifi Chiaramonti--for that is just what it would
amount to, he is so good and so colorless. I am not in the least sorry
for Louis. I am only sorry for myself that I have been bothered with
him so long, and besides, I wish to marry some one else. Fifi.”
Fifi crept into bed after writing this letter. For the first time she
found the hard lump in the middle of her mattress uncomfortable.
“Never mind,” thought Fifi to herself, “I shall soon be rid of it, and
sleep in peace, as I haven’t done since I had it.”
Fifi’s dreams were happy that night, and when she waked in the morning
she felt a kind of dewy freshness in her heart, like the awakening of
spring. It was springtime already, and as Fifi lay cosily in her little
white bed she contrived joyous schemes for her own benefit, which some
people might have called plotting mischief. She reasoned with herself
thus:
“Fifi, you have been miserable ever since you got the odious, hateful
hundred thousand francs, and it was nasty of Cartouche to give you
the lottery ticket. Fifi, you are not very old, but you are of the
sort which does not change, and you will be Fifi as long as you
live. You can not be happy away from Cartouche and the theater and
Toto--unfeeling wretch that you are, to let Toto be torn from you!
So the only thing to do is to return to love and work. If you spend
all your money Louis Bourcet would not marry you to save your life,
and then you can go back to the theater and make Cartouche marry you.
Oh, how simple it is! Stupid, stupid Fifi, that you did not think of
this before!” And, throbbing with happiness at the emancipation before
her, Fifi rose and dressed herself. She was distracted by the riotous
singing of the robins in the one solitary tree in the courtyard.
Heretofore the little birds had been mute and half frozen, but this
morning, in the warm spring sun, they sang in ecstasy.
Fifi not only felt different, but she actually looked so; and the
blitheness which shone in her eyes when she went to ask Madame Bourcet
if she might have Angéline, the sour maid-of-all-work, to go with her
to the shops that morning might have awakened suspicion in most minds.
But not in Madame Bourcet’s. Fifi slyly let drop something about her
trousseau, and Madame Bourcet hastened to say that she might take
Angéline.
In a little while the two were ready to start. In her hand Fifi
carried a little purse, containing twenty-one francs, and in her
reticule she carried her handkerchief, her smelling-salts and ten crisp
thousand-franc notes.
“How shall I ever spend it all!” she thought, with a little dismay; and
then, having some curious odds and ends of sense in her pretty head,
she concluded: “Oh, it is easy enough. I have often heard Cartouche say
that nobody ever yet tried to squander money who did not find a dozen
helpers on every hand.”
Paris is beautiful on a spring morning, with the sun shining on the
splashing fountains and the steel blue river, and the streets full of
cheerful-looking people. It was the first, mild, soft day of March,
and everybody was trying to make believe it was May. The restaurants
had placed their chairs and tables out of doors, and made a brave
showing of greenery with watercress and a few little radishes.
Itinerant musicians were grinding away industriously, and some humorous
cab-drivers had paid five centimes for a sprig of green to stick behind
the ears of their patient horses. All Paris was out of doors, helping
the birds and leaves to make the spring.
Fifi strolled along and found the streets almost as pleasant as the
street of the Black Cat, except that she knew everybody in the street
of the Black Cat and knew no one at all of all this merry throng. Her
first incursion was into a chocolate shop, where she treated both
herself and Angéline in a princely manner, as became a lady who had ten
notes of a thousand francs to dispose of in a morning’s shopping.
While they were sipping their chocolate Fifi was wondering how
she could manage to leave Angéline in the lurch and slip off by
herself--for Angéline might possibly make trouble for her when she came
to dispensing her wealth as she privately planned. But in this, as in
all things else that day, fortune favored Fifi. Afar off was heard the
rataplan of a marching regiment, with the merry laughter and shuffle of
feet of an accompanying crowd.
“What so easy as to get carried along with that crowd?” thought Fifi,
as she ran to the door, where the proprietor and all the clerks as
well as the customers were flying. It was the day of a grand review
at Longchamps, and the sight of the marching regiment, with the band
ringing out in rhythmic beauty, seemed the finest thing in the world.
Fifi found herself, with very little effort on her part, pushed out on
the sidewalk, and the next thing she was being swept along with the
eager crowd following the soldiers. At the corner of a large street the
regiment turned off toward the Champs Elysées, the crowd parted, and
Fifi saw her way back clear to the chocolate shop. But staring her in
the face was a magnificent furniture and bric-à-brac shop, while next
it was a superb _magasin des modes_ with a great window full of gowns,
wraps and hats.
Here was the place for Fifi to get rid of her ten thousand francs. It
seemed to Fifi as if a benignant Providence had rewarded her virtuous
design by placing her just where she was; so she walked boldly into the
_magasin des modes_.
The manager of the place, a handsome, showily-dressed and bejeweled
woman, looked suspiciously at a young and pretty girl, arriving
without maid or companion of any sort--but Fifi, bringing into play
some of the arts she had learned at the Imperial Theater, sank,
apparently breathless, into a seat; told of her being swept away from
her companion, and offered to pay for a messenger to hunt up Angéline.
Meanwhile she artlessly let out that she was Mademoiselle Chiaramonti,
in search of articles for her trousseau.
Her story was well known; everybody in Paris had heard of Mademoiselle
Chiaramonti, of the Imperial Theater, who had drawn the first prize in
the lottery, and instantly all was curiosity to see her and alertness
to attend her--except as to sending for Angéline. There was an
unaccountable slowness about that, except on the theory that it would
be well to show Fifi some of the creations of the establishment before
the arrival of the elder person, who might throw cold water on the
prospective purchases. And then began the comedy, so often enacted in
the world, of the cunning hypocrite being unconsciously the dupe of the
supposed victim.
Fifi was careful to hint that her marriage was being arranged; and if
anything could have added to Fifi’s joy and satisfaction it was the
determination on the part of the shop people to embody in her trousseau
all the outlandish things they possessed. This suited Fifi exactly.
Louis Bourcet was as finically particular about colors as he was about
behavior, and both he and Madame Bourcet were privately determined that
Fifi should go through life in brown gowns with dark green spots, like
the one which had so excited her disgust in the first instance. Knowing
this, Fifi concluded to administer a series of shocks in every one of
her purchases, and went about to do this with a vim and thoroughness
characteristic of her.
The first gown they showed her nearly made her scream with delight.
It was almost enough to make Louis Bourcet break their engagement
at sight. It was a costume of a staring yellow brocade, with large
purple flowers on it, and was obviously intended for a woman nine feet
high and three feet broad--and Fifi was but a slender twig of a girl.
One huge flower covered her back, and another her chest, while three
or four went around the vast skirt which trailed a yard behind. The
manager put it on Fifi, while her assistants and fellow conspirators
joined with her in declaring that the gown was ravishing on Fifi, which
it was in a way.
Fifi paraded solemnly up and down before the large swinging mirror,
surveying herself. She was a quaint object in the great yellow and
purple gown, and she knew it. Her face broke into a shower of smiles
and dimples.
“It will answer my purpose exactly,” she cried. This was true, as it
was calculated to give Madame Bourcet, and especially Louis Bourcet,
nervous convulsions.
“Show me a hat to go with it--the largest hat you have.”
The hat was produced--a nightmare, equal to the yellow and purple
brocade. Flowers, beads, ribbons and feathers weighed it down, but Fifi
demanded more of everything to be put on it, particularly feathers.
When she put the hat on, with the gown, one of the young women in the
establishment gave a half shriek of something between a laugh and a
scream. A look from the manager sent the culprit like a shot into the
back part of the shop.
Fifi, gravely examining herself in the glass, declared she was charmed
with her costume and would wear it on the day of her civil marriage.
Then she demanded a cloak.
“One that would look well on a dowager empress,” she said with a grand
air, knowing she had ten thousand francs in her pocket.
One was produced which might have looked well on the dowager empress
of China, but scarcely on an occidental. It was a stupendous stripe of
red and green satin, which might have served for the gridiron on which
Saint Lawrence was broiled alive. It had large sleeves, which Fifi
insisted must be trimmed with heavy lace and deep fur. In a twinkling
this was fastened on, and Fifi approved.
“And now a fan,” she said.
Dozens of fans were produced, but none of them preposterous enough to
suit Fifi’s purpose and her costume. At last she compromised on a large
pink one with a couple of birds of paradise on it.
Oh, what a picture was Fifi, parading up and down before the mirror,
and saying to herself:
“I think this will finish him.”
The amount, for the costume, cloak, hat and fan was nearly two thousand
francs. Fifi regretted it was not more.
“And now,” she said, “some negligées, with rich effects; you
understand.”
Fifi’s taste being pretty well understood in the establishment by this
time, some negligées were produced, in which Fifi arrayed herself and
looked like a parroquet. Then came evening gowns. There was one in
particular which Fifi thought might be the death of the Bourcets. It
was a short, scant, diaphanous Greek costume, which was so very Greek
that it could only have been worn with propriety in the days of the
nymphs, the fauns and the dryads.
“This, without a petticoat, I am sure, will rid me of Louis Bourcet,”
thought Fifi, “but I must never let Cartouche see it, or he will kill
me.”
Fifi, being fatigued with her exertions--for her purchases were
calculated to fatigue the eye as well as the mind, ordered the articles
selected to be sent that day to Madame Bourcet’s.
“And the bill, Mademoiselle?” asked the manager in a dulcet voice.
“Make it out,” replied Fifi debonairly, “and I will pay it now.”
There was a pause for the manager and the clerks to recover their
breath, while Fifi sat quite serene. It did not take a minute for
the bill to be made out, however,--four thousand, nine hundred and
forty-four francs, twenty-five centimes. Fifi was cruelly disappointed;
she had reckoned on getting rid of more of her money. But still this
was a beginning, so she handed over five notes of a thousand francs
each, and gravely counted her change: fifty-five francs, seventy-five
centimes.
Then, and then only, was a message sent after Angéline to the chocolate
shop.
But Angéline could not be found. She had seen Fifi swept away, as she
thought, by the crowd, and had rushed out to join her; but Fifi had no
mind to be caught, and Angéline found herself flopping about wildly,
shrieking at the passers-by, without any stops whatever between her
words:
“Have you seen Mademoiselle Fifi Mademoiselle Chiaramonti I lost her
in the chocolate shop oh what will Madame Bourcet say good people I am
sure she is lost for good and a hundred thousand francs in bank and
what is to be become of Monsieur Louis where _can_ Mademoiselle Fifi
be?” and much more of the same sort.
Fifi, however, was half a mile away, and having exhausted the resources
of the shop for gowns, tripped gaily into the furniture shop next door.
Here, thought Fifi cheerfully, she would be able to make substantial
progress toward getting rid of Louis Bourcet and marrying Cartouche.
She saw many splendid gilt tables, chairs, divans, cabinets and the
like, which she, with her limited experience in furniture buying in
the street of the Black Cat, thought must be very dear: some of the
most splendid pieces must cost as much as four hundred francs, thought
innocent Fifi.
But it was not enough for a thing to be expensive; it must be
outrageous in taste and design to be available for her purpose, and
with this in view she roved around the establishment, attended by a
clerk of lofty manners and a patronizing air. At last, however, she
pounced upon an object worthy to be classed with the yellow and purple
brocade. This was a huge, blue satin bed, with elaborate gilt posts,
and cornice, vast curtains of lace as well as satin, cords, tassels,
and every other species of ornament which could be fastened to a bed.
Fifi, who had never seen anything like it before, gasped in her
amazement and delight, the clerk meanwhile surveying her with an air of
condescending amusement.
Here was the thing to drive Louis Bourcet to madness, thought Fifi,
surveying the bed rapturously. If she could once get it into the house,
it would be difficult to get it out, it was so large and so complex,
and so very formidable. Fifi’s resolution was taken in an instant. She
meant to have it if it cost a thousand francs. She rather resented the
air of patronage with which the clerk explained the beauties of the bed
to her. He seemed to be saying all the time:
“This is but time wasted. You can never afford anything so expensive as
this.”
Fifi, calling up her talents as an actress, which were not
inconsiderable, accentuated her innocent and open-mouthed wonder at the
size and splendor of the bed. Then, intending to make a grand stroke
which would paralyze the clerk, she said coolly:
“I will give you fifteen hundred francs for this bed.”
The clerk’s nose went into the air.
“I have the honor to inform Mademoiselle that this bed was made with
a view to purchase by the Empress, but the cost was so great that the
Emperor objected and would not allow the Empress to buy it. The price
is five thousand francs; no more and no less.”
Fifi was secretly staggered by this, but she now regarded the clerk as
an enemy to be vanquished at any price--and vengeance seemed to her
cheap at five thousand francs. Fifi had a revengeful nature, which did
not stop at trifles. So, after a moment’s pause to recover herself, she
said, still coolly:
“Well, then, the price is exorbitant, but I will take the bed.”
The clerk, instead of succumbing to this, retained his composure in the
most exasperating manner. He only asked, with a shade of incredulity in
his voice:
“If Mademoiselle will kindly give us the money in gold or notes it can
be arranged at once.”
Fifi, in the most debonair manner in the world, opened her reticule and
produced five notes for a thousand francs each.
The clerk, unlike Fifi, knew nothing of the art of acting, and looked,
as he was, perfectly astounded. His limp hand fell to his side, his jaw
dropped open and he backed away from Fifi as if he thought she might
explode. Fifi, as calm as a May zephyr, continued:
“I desire that this bed be sent between ten and two to-morrow to the
address I shall give. I shall only take it on that condition.”
There was method in this. Fifi had suddenly remembered that the next
morning was Thursday. On that day, every week, Madame Bourcet indulged
in the wild orgy of attending a lecture on mathematics delivered by her
brother, the professor of mathematics, before a lyceum frequented by
several elderly and mathematical ladies, like Madame Bourcet. When she
was out of the house was clearly the time to get the preposterous bed
in; and Fifi made her arrangements accordingly.
Nothing could have been more impressive than Fifi’s studied calmness
and coolness while giving directions about the bed. The clerk went
after the proprietor, who could not conceal his surprise at a young
lady like Fifi going about unattended, and with five thousand francs
in her pocket. Fifi finally condescended to explain that she was
Mademoiselle Chiaramonti. That cleared up everything. The proprietor,
of course, had heard her story, and rashly and mistakenly assumed that
Fifi was a little fool, but at all events, he had made a good bargain
with her, and he bowed her out of the establishment as if she had been
a princess as well as a fool.
Once outside in the clear sunshine, Fifi was triumphant. She felt that
a long step had been taken toward getting rid of Louis Bourcet. And,
after all, it was just as easy to spend five thousand francs as five,
if one has the money. She had spent infinitely more time and trouble
over her thirty-franc cloak than over all her extraordinary purchases
of the last hour.
“The gowns are frightful enough, as well as the bills,” she thought to
herself, walking away from the shop, “and the bed is really a crushing
revelation--but it is not enough--it is not enough.”
Then an inspiration came to her which brought her to a standstill.
“I must go to a monkey shop and buy a monkey--but--but I am afraid of
monkeys. However--”--here Fifi felt an expansion of the soul--“when one
loves, as I love Cartouche, one must be prepared for sacrifices. So I
shall sacrifice myself. I shall buy a monkey.”
But it is easier to say one will buy a monkey than to buy one. Fifi
walked on, pondering how to make this sublime sacrifice to her
affections.
The sense of freedom, the exhilaration of the spring day, made
themselves felt in her blood. And then, for the first time, she also
felt the berserker madness for shopping which is latent in the
feminine nature. The fact that reason and common sense were to be
outraged as far as possible rather added zest to the enjoyment.
“This is the real way to go shopping,” thought Fifi, with delight.
“Spending for the pleasure of spending--buying monkeys and everything
else one fancies. It can only be done once in a blue moon; even the
Empress can not do it whenever she likes.”
She walked on, drinking in with delight the life and sunshine around
her. The more she reflected upon the monkey idea the finer it appeared
to her. True, she was mortally afraid of a monkey, but then she was
convinced that Louis Bourcet was more afraid of monkeys than she was.
“And it is for my Cartouche--and would Cartouche hesitate at making
such a sacrifice for me? No! A thousand times no! And I can not do less
than all for Cartouche, whom I love. It is my duty to use every means,
even a monkey, to get rid of Louis Bourcet.”
But where should she find a place to buy a monkey? That she could not
think of, but her fertile mind suggested an expedient even better
than the mere purchase of a single monkey. She stopped at one of those
movable booths, wherein sat a man who did writing for those unable to
write as well as they wished, or unable to write at all. The booth was
plastered over with advertisements of articles for sale, but naturally
no monkeys were offered.
The man in the booth, a bright-eyed cripple, looked up when Fifi tapped
on the glass of the little open window.
“Monsieur,” said Fifi, sweetly, “if you please, I am very anxious for
a monkey--a dear little monkey, for a pet; but I do not know where
to find one, and my family will not assist me in finding one. If I
should pay you, say five francs, would you write an advertisement for
a monkey, and let it be pasted with the other advertisements on your
booth?”
“Ten francs,” responded the man.
Fifi laid the ten francs down.
“Now, write in very large letters: ‘Wanted--A monkey, for a lady’s
pet; must be well trained, and not malicious. Apply at No. 14 Rue de
l’Echelle. Any person bringing a monkey will receive a franc for his
trouble, if the monkey is not purchased.’”
“Do you wish any snakes or parrots, Mademoiselle?” asked the man,
pocketing his ten francs.
“No, thank you; the monkey, I think, will answer all my purposes,”
responded Fifi with dignity.
It was then past noon, and Fifi, having spent a most enjoyable morning,
called a fiacre and directed the cabman to take her home.
Just as she turned into the Rue de l’Echelle she heard some one calling
after her:
“Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle Fifi!”
It was Angéline, very red in the face, and running after the fiacre.
Fifi had it stopped and Angéline clambered in. Before she had a chance
to begin the fault-finding which is the privilege of an old servant
Fifi cut the ground from under her feet.
“Why did you desert me as you did, Angéline?” cried Fifi indignantly.
“You saw me swept off my feet, and carried along with the crowd, and
instead of following me--”
“I did not see you, Mademoiselle--it was you--”
“You left me to my fate! What might not have happened to me alone in
the streets of Paris!”
“Mademoiselle has perhaps been alone in the streets of Paris before--”
“Silence, Angéline! How dare you say that I have been alone in the
streets of Paris before! Your language, as well as your conduct, is
intolerable!”
“I beg Mademoiselle to remember--”
“I remember nothing but that, being sent out in your charge, you basely
deserted me, and you shall answer for it; I beg of you to remember
that.”
Angéline was reduced by this tirade to surly silence, and, not bearing
in mind that Fifi was really a very clever little actress, actually
thought she was in a boiling rage. Fifi was meanwhile laughing in her
sleeve.