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diff --git a/26154.txt b/26154.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e965b2b --- /dev/null +++ b/26154.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9039 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol, by +William J. Locke + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol + +Author: William J. Locke + +Release Date: July 31, 2008 [EBook #26154] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADVENTURES OF ARISTIDE PUJOL *** + + + + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Anne Storer and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +Transcriber's Note: Table of Contents added. + + + * * * * * + + + + + _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ + IDOLS + SEPTIMUS + DERELICTS + THE USURPER + WHERE LOVE IS + THE WHITE DOVE + SIMON THE JESTER + A STUDY IN SHADOWS + A CHRISTMAS MYSTERY + THE BELOVED VAGABOND + AT THE GATE OF SAMARIA + THE MORALS OF MARCUS ORDEYNE + THE DEMAGOGUE AND LADY PHAYRE + THE GLORY OF CLEMENTINA + + + + + [Illustration: AT THE BEGINNING OF THE FOURTH KISS OUT CAME HER FATHER + _See page 34_] + + + + + THE + JOYOUS ADVENTURES + OF ARISTIDE PUJOL + + BY + WILLIAM J. LOCKE + + + ILLUSTRATIONS BY + ALEC BALL + + + NEW YORK + JOHN LANE COMPANY + MCMXII + + + * * * * * + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I THE ADVENTURE OF THE FAIR PATRONNE + II THE ADVENTURE OF THE ARLESIENNE + III THE ADVENTURE OF THE KIND MR. SMITH + IV THE ADVENTURE OF THE FOUNDLING + V THE ADVENTURE OF THE PIG'S HEAD + VI THE ADVENTURE OF FLEURETTE + VII THE ADVENTURE OF THE MIRACLE + VIII THE ADVENTURE OF THE FICKLE GODDESS + IX THE ADVENTURE OF A SAINT MARTIN'S SUMMER + + + * * * * * + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + FACING + PAGE + + At the Beginning of the Fourth Kiss Out Came Her + Father _Frontispiece_ + + I Had Knocked Him Down on Purpose. He Was + Crippled for Life 14 + + Anything Less Congruous as the Bride-Elect of the + Debonair Aristide Pujol it Was Impossible to + Imagine 22 + + Had Straightway Poured His Grievances into a + Feminine Ear 32 + + I Found Both Tyres Had Been Punctured in a Hundred + Places 40 + + "Madame," said Aristide, "You Are Adorable, and + I Love You to Distraction" 50 + + "The Villain Was a Traveller in Buttons--Buttons!" 60 + + He Burst into Shrieks of Laughter 64 + + "And You!" shouted Bocardon, Falling on Aristide; + "I Must Embrace You Also" 68 + + Standing on the Arrival Platform of Euston Station 78 + + "Ah! the Pictures," cried Aristide, with a Wide + Sweep of His Arms 88 + + "I'll Take Five Hundred Pounds," said He, "to + Stay in" 96 + + Between the Folds of a Blanket Peeped the Face of + a Sleeping Child 110 + + He Demonstrated the Proper Application of the Cure 120 + + It is a Fearsome Thing for a Man to be Left Alone in + the Dead of Night with a Young Baby 124 + + One of the Little Girls in Pigtails Was Holding + Him, While Miss Anne Administered the Feeding-Bottle 134 + + He Must Have Dealt Out Paralyzing Information 180 + + Fleurette Danced with Aristide, as Light as an + Autumn Leaf Tossed by the Wind 188 + + Aristide Practised His Many Queer Accomplishments 200 + + He Read It, and Blinked in Amazement 208 + + He Might as Well Have Pointed Out the Marvels + of Kubla Khan's Pleasure-Dome to a Couple of + Guinea-Pigs 216 + + "I've Caught You! At Last, After Twenty Years, + I've Caught You" 234 + + There He Saw a Sight Which for a Moment Paralyzed Him 238 + + Mr. Ducksmith Seized Him by the Lapels of His Coat 242 + + + * * * * * + + + + + THE + JOYOUS ADVENTURES + OF + ARISTIDE PUJOL + + + * * * * * + + + + +#The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol# + +I + +THE ADVENTURE OF THE FAIR PATRONNE + + +In narrating these few episodes in the undulatory, not to say +switchback, career of my friend Aristide Pujol, I can pretend to no +chronological sequence. Some occurred before he (almost literally) +crossed my path for the first time, some afterwards. They have been +related to me haphazard at odd times, together with a hundred other +incidents, just as a chance tag of association recalled them to his +swift and picturesque memory. He would, indeed, make a show of fixing +dates by reference to his temporary profession; but so Protean seem to +have been his changes of fortune in their number and rapidity that I +could never keep count of them or their order. Nor does it matter. The +man's life was as disconnected as a pack of cards. + +My first meeting with him happened in this wise. + +I had been motoring in a listless, solitary fashion about Languedoc. A +friend who had stolen a few days from anxious business in order to +accompany me from Boulogne through Touraine and Guienne had left me at +Toulouse; another friend whom I had arranged to pick up at Avignon on +his way from Monte Carlo was unexpectedly delayed. I was therefore +condemned to a period of solitude somewhat irksome to a man of a +gregarious temperament. At first, for company's sake, I sat in front +by my chauffeur, McKeogh. But McKeogh, an atheistical Scotch mechanic +with his soul in his cylinders, being as communicative as his own +differential, I soon relapsed into the equal loneliness and greater +comfort of the back. + +In this fashion I left Montpellier one morning on my leisurely eastward +journey, deciding to break off from the main road, striking due south, +and visit Aigues-Mortes on the way. + +Aigues-Mortes was once a flourishing Mediterranean town. St. Louis and +his Crusaders sailed thence twice for Palestine; Charles V. and Francis +I. met there and filled the place with glittering state. But now its +glory has departed. The sea has receded three or four miles, and left +it high and dry in the middle of bleak salt marshes, useless, dead and +desolate, swept by the howling mistral and scorched by the blazing sun. +The straight white ribbon of road which stretched for miles through the +plain, between dreary vineyards--some under water, the black shoots of +the vines appearing like symmetrical wreckage above the surface--was at +last swallowed up by the grim central gateway of the town, surmounted +by its frowning tower. On each side spread the brown machicolated +battlements that vainly defended the death-stricken place. A soft +northern atmosphere would have invested it in a certain mystery of +romance, but in the clear southern air, the towers and walls standing +sharply defined against the blue, wind-swept sky, it looked naked and +pitiful, like a poor ghost caught in the daylight. + +At some distance from the gate appeared the usual notice as to +speed-limit. McKeogh, most scrupulous of drivers, obeyed. As there was a +knot of idlers underneath and beyond the gate he slowed down to a crawl, +sounding a patient and monotonous horn. We advanced; the peasant folk +cleared the way sullenly and suspiciously. Then, deliberately, an +elderly man started to cross the road, and on the sound of the horn +stood stock still, with resentful defiance on his weather-beaten face. +McKeogh jammed on the brakes. The car halted. But the infinitesimal +fraction of a second before it came to a dead stop the wing over the +near front wheel touched the elderly person and down he went on the +ground. I leaped from the car, to be instantly surrounded by an +infuriated crowd, which seemed to gather from all the quarters of +the broad, decaying square. The elderly man, helped to his feet by +sympathetic hands, shook his knotted fists in my face. He was a dour and +ugly peasant, of splendid physique, as hard and discoloured as the walls +of Aigues-Mortes; his cunning eyes were as clear as a boy's, his lined, +clean-shaven face as rigid as a gargoyle; and the back of his neck, +above the low collar of his jersey, showed itself seamed into glazed +irregular lozenges, like the hide of a crocodile. He cursed me and my +kind healthily in very bad French and apostrophized his friends in +Provencal, who in Provencal and bad French made responsive clamour. I +had knocked him down on purpose. He was crippled for life. Who was I to +go tearing through peaceful towns with my execrated locomotive and +massacring innocent people? I tried to explain that the fault was his, +and that, after all, to judge by the strength of his lungs, no great +damage had been inflicted. But no. They would not let it go like that. +There were the gendarmes--I looked across the square and saw two +gendarmes striding portentously towards the scene--they would see +justice done. The law was there to protect poor folk. For a certainty I +would not get off easily. + + [Illustration: I HAD KNOCKED HIM DOWN ON PURPOSE. HE WAS CRIPPLED + FOR LIFE] + +I knew what would happen. The gendarmes would submit McKeogh and myself +to a _proces-verbal_. They would impound the car. I should have to go +to the Mairie and make endless depositions. I should have to wait, +Heaven knows how long, before I could appear before the _juge de paix_. +I should have to find a solicitor to represent me. In the end I should +be fined for furious driving--at the rate, when the accident happened, +of a mile an hour--and probably have to pay a heavy compensation to the +wilful and uninjured victim of McKeogh's impeccable driving. And all the +time, while waiting for injustice to take its course, I should be the +guest of a hostile population. I grew angry. The crowd grew angrier. The +gendarmes approached with an air of majesty and fate. But just before +they could be acquainted with the brutal facts of the disaster a +singularly bright-eyed man, wearing a hard felt hat and a blue serge +suit, flashed like a meteor into the midst of the throng, glanced with +an amazing swiftness at me, the car, the crowd, the gendarmes and the +victim, ran his hands up and down the person of the last mentioned, and +then, with a frenzied action of a figure in a bad cinematograph rather +than that of a human being, subjected the inhabitants to an infuriated +philippic in Provencal, of which I could not understand one word. The +crowd, with here and there a murmur of remonstrance, listened to him in +silence. When he had finished they hung their heads, the gendarmes +shrugged their majestic and fateful shoulders and lit cigarettes, and +the gargoyle-visaged ancient with the neck of crocodile hide turned +grumbling away. I have never witnessed anything so magical as the effect +produced by this electric personage. Even McKeogh, who during the +previous clamour had sat stiff behind his wheel, keeping expressionless +eyes fixed on the cap of the radiator, turned his head two degrees of a +circle and glanced at his surroundings. + +The instant peace was established our rescuer darted up to me with the +directness of a dragon-fly and shook me warmly by the hand. As he had +done me a service, I responded with a grateful smile; besides, his +aspect was peculiarly prepossessing. I guessed him to be about +five-and-thirty. He had a clear olive complexion, black moustache and +short silky vandyke beard, and the most fascinating, the most humorous, +the most mocking, the most astonishingly bright eyes I have ever seen in +my life. I murmured a few expressions of thanks, while he prolonged the +handshake with the fervour of a long-lost friend. + +"It's all right, my dear sir. Don't worry any more," he said in +excellent English, but with a French accent curiously tinged with +Cockney. "The old gentleman's as sound as a bell--not a bruise on his +body." He pushed me gently to the step of the car. "Get in and let me +guide you to the only place where you can eat in this accursed town." + +Before I could recover from my surprise, he was by my side in the car +shouting directions to McKeogh. + +"Ah! These people!" he cried, shaking his hands with outspread fingers +in front of him. "They have no manners, no decency, no self-respect. +It's a regular trade. They go and get knocked down by automobiles on +purpose, so that they can claim indemnity. They breed dogs especially +and train them to commit suicide under the wheels so that they can get +compensation. There's one now--_ah, sacree bete!_" He leaned over the +side of the car and exchanged violent objurgation with the dog. "But +never mind. So long as I am here you can run over anything you like with +impunity." + +"I'm very much obliged to you," said I. "You've saved me from a deal of +foolish unpleasantness. From the way you handled the old gentleman I +should guess you to be a doctor." + +"That's one of the few things I've never been," he replied. "No; I'm not +a doctor. One of these days I'll tell you all about myself." He spoke +as if our sudden acquaintance would ripen into life-long friendship. +"There's the hotel--the Hotel Saint-Louis," he pointed to the sign a +little way up the narrow, old-world, cobble-paved street we were +entering. "Leave it to me; I'll see that they treat you properly." + +The car drew up at the doorway. My electric friend leaped out and met +the emerging landlady. + +"_Bonjour, madame._ I've brought you one of my very good friends, +an English gentleman of the most high importance. He will have +_dejeuner--tout ce qu'il y a de mieux_. None of your cabbage-soup and +eels and _andouilles_, but a good omelette, some fresh fish, and a bit +of very tender meat. Will that suit you?" he asked, turning to me. + +"Excellently," said I, smiling. "And since you've ordered me so charming +a _dejeuner_, perhaps you'll do me the honour of helping me to eat it?" + +"With the very greatest pleasure," said he, without a second's +hesitation. + +We entered the small, stuffy dining-room, where a dingy waiter, with a +dingier smile, showed us to a small table by the window. At the long +table in the middle of the room sat the half-dozen frequenters of the +house, their napkins tucked under their chins, eating in gloomy silence +a dreary meal of the kind my new friend had deprecated. + +"What shall we drink?" I asked, regarding with some disfavour the thin +red and white wines in the decanters. + +"Anything," said he, "but this _piquette du pays_. It tastes like a +mixture of sea-water and vinegar. It produces the look of patient +suffering that you see on those gentlemen's faces. You, who are not +used to it, had better not venture. It would excoriate your throat. It +would dislocate your pancreas. It would play the very devil with you. +Adolphe"--he beckoned the waiter--"there's a little white wine of the +Cotes du Rhone----" He glanced at me. + +"I'm in your hands," said I. + +As far as eating and drinking went I could not have been in better. Nor +could anyone desire a more entertaining chance companion of travel. That +he had thrust himself upon me in the most brazen manner and taken +complete possession of me there could be no doubt. But it had all been +done in the most irresistibly charming manner in the world. One entirely +forgot the impudence of the fellow. I have since discovered that he did +not lay himself out to be agreeable. The flow of talk and anecdote, the +bright laughter that lit up a little joke, making it appear a very +brilliant joke indeed, were all spontaneous. He was a man, too, of some +cultivation. He knew France thoroughly, England pretty well; he had a +discriminating taste in architecture, and waxed poetical over the +beauties of Nature. + +"It strikes me as odd," said I at last, somewhat ironically, "that so +vital a person as yourself should find scope for your energies in this +dead-and-alive place." + +He threw up his hands. "I live here? I crumble and decay in +Aigues-Mortes? For whom do you take me?" + +I replied that, not having the pleasure of knowing his name and quality, +I could only take him for an enigma. + +He selected a card from his letter-case and handed it to me across the +table. It bore the legend:-- + + ARISTIDE PUJOL, + Agent. + 213 bis, Rue Saint-Honore, Paris. + +"That address will always find me," he said. + +Civility bade me give him my card, which he put carefully in his +letter-case. + +"I owe my success in life," said he, "to the fact that I have never lost +an opportunity or a visiting-card." + +"Where did you learn your perfect English?" I asked. + +"First," said he, "among English tourists at Marseilles. Then in +England. I was Professor of French at an academy for young ladies." + +"I hope you were a success?" said I. + +He regarded me drolly. + +"Yes--and no," said he. + +The meal over, we left the hotel. + +"Now," said he, "you would like to visit the towers on the ramparts. I +would dearly love to accompany you, but I have business in the town. I +will take you, however, to the _gardien_ and put you in his charge." + +He raced me to the gate by which I had entered. The _gardien des +remparts_ issued from his lodge at Aristide Pujol's summons and listened +respectfully to his exhortation in Provencal. Then he went for his keys. + +"I'll not say good-bye," Aristide Pujol declared, amiably. "I'll get +through my business long before you've done your sight-seeing, and +you'll find me waiting for you near the hotel. _Au revoir, cher ami._" + +He smiled, lifted his hat, waved his hand in a friendly way, and darted +off across the square. The old _gardien_ came out with the keys and took +me off to the Tour de Constance, where Protestants were imprisoned +pell-mell after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes; thence to the +Tour des Bourguignons, where I forget how many hundred Burgundians were +massacred and pickled in salt; and, after these cheery exhibitions, +invited me to walk round the ramparts and inspect the remaining eighteen +towers of the enceinte. As the mistral, however, had sprung up and was +shuddering across the high walls, I declined, and, having paid him his +fee, descended to the comparative shelter of the earth. + +There I found Aristide Pujol awaiting me at the corner of the narrow +street in which the hotel was situated. He was wearing--like most of +the young bloods of Provence in winter-time--a short, shaggy, yet natty +goat-skin coat, ornamented with enormous bone buttons, and a little cane +valise stood near by on the kerb of the square. + +He was not alone. Walking arm in arm with him was a stout, elderly woman +of swarthy complexion and forbidding aspect. She was attired in a +peasant's or small shopkeeper's rusty Sunday black and an old-fashioned +black bonnet prodigiously adorned with black plumes and black roses. +Beneath this bonnet her hair was tightly drawn up from her forehead; +heavy eyebrows overhung a pair of small, crafty eyes, and a tuft of hair +grew on the corner of a prognathous jaw. She might have been about +seven-and-forty. + +Aristide Pujol, unlinking himself from this unattractive female, +advanced and saluted me with considerable deference. + +"Monseigneur----" said he. + +As I am neither a duke nor an archbishop, but a humble member of the +lower automobiling classes, the high-flown title startled me. + +"Monseigneur, will you permit me," said he, in French, "to present to +you Mme. Gougasse? Madame is the _patronne_ of the Cafe de l'Univers, at +Carcassonne, which doubtless you have frequented, and she is going to do +me the honour of marrying me to-morrow." + + [Illustration: ANYTHING LESS CONGRUOUS AS THE BRIDE-ELECT OF THE + DEBONAIR ARISTIDE PUJOL IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE TO IMAGINE] + +The unexpectedness of the announcement took my breath away. + +"Good heavens!" said I, in a whisper. + +Anyone less congruous as the bride-elect of the debonair Aristide Pujol +it was impossible to imagine. However, it was none of my business. I +raised my hat politely to the lady. + +"Madame, I offer you my sincere felicitations. As an entertaining +husband I am sure you will find M. Aristide Pujol without a rival." + +"_Je vous remercie, monseigneur_," she replied, in what was obviously +her best company manner. "And if ever you will deign to come again to +the Cafe de l'Univers at Carcassonne we will esteem it a great honour." + +"And so you're going to get married to-morrow?" I remarked, by way of +saying something. To congratulate Aristide Pujol on his choice lay +beyond my power of hypocrisy. + +"To-morrow," said he, "my dear Amelie will make me the happiest of men." + +"We start for Carcassonne by the three-thirty train," said Mme. +Gougasse, pulling a great silver watch from some fold of her person. + +"Then there is time," said I, pointing to a little weather-beaten cafe +in the square, "to drink a glass to your happiness." + +"_Bien volontiers_," said the lady. + +"_Pardon, chere amie_," Aristide interposed, quickly. "Unless +monseigneur and I start at once for Montpellier, I shall not have time +to transact my little affairs before your train arrives there." + +Parenthetically, I must remark that all trains going from Aigues-Mortes +to Carcassonne must stop at Montpellier. + +"That's true," she agreed, in a hesitating manner. "But----" + +"But, idol of my heart, though I am overcome with grief at the idea of +leaving you for two little hours, it is a question of four thousand +francs. Four thousand francs are not picked up every day in the street. +It's a lot of money." + +Mme. Gougasse's little eyes glittered. + +"_Bien sur._ And it's quite settled?" + +"Absolutely." + +"And it will be all for me?" + +"Half," said Aristide. + +"You promised all to me for the redecoration of the ceiling of the +cafe." + +"Three thousand will be sufficient, dear angel. What? I know these +contractors and decorators. The more you pay them, the more abominable +will they make the ceiling. Leave it to me. I, Aristide, will guarantee +you a ceiling like that of the Sistine Chapel for two thousand francs." + +She smiled and bridled, so as to appear perfectly well-bred in my +presence. The act of smiling caused the tuft of hair on her jaw to +twitch horribly. A cold shiver ran down my back. + +"Don't you think, monseigneur," she asked, archly, "that M. Pujol should +give me the four thousand francs as a wedding-present?" + +"Most certainly," said I, in my heartiest voice, entirely mystified by +the conversation. + +"Well, I yield," said Aristide. "Ah, women, women! They hold up their +little rosy finger, and the bravest of men has to lie down with his chin +on his paws like a good old watch-dog. You agree, then, monseigneur, to +my giving the whole of the four thousand francs to Amelie?" + +"More than that," said I, convinced that the swarthy lady of the +prognathous jaw was bound to have her own way in the end where money was +concerned, and yet for the life of me not seeing how I had anything to +do with the disposal of Aristide Pujol's property--"More than that," +said I; "I command you to do it." + +"_C'est bien gentil de votre part_," said madame. + +"And now the cafe," I suggested, with chattering teeth. We had been +standing all the time at the corner of the square, while the mistral +whistled down the narrow street. The dust was driven stingingly into our +faces, and the women of the place who passed us by held their black +scarves over their mouths. + +"Alas, monseigneur," said Mme. Gougasse, "Aristide is right. You must +start now for Montpellier in the automobile. I will go by the train for +Carcassonne at three-thirty. It is the only train from Aigues-Mortes. +Aristide transacts his business and joins me in the train at +Montpellier. You have not much time to spare." + +I was bewildered. I turned to Aristide Pujol, who stood, hands on hips, +regarding his prospective bride and myself with humorous benevolence. + +"My good friend," said I in English, "I've not the remotest idea of what +the two of you are talking about; but I gather you have arranged that I +should motor you to Montpellier. Now, I'm not going to Montpellier. I've +just come from there, as I told you at _dejeuner_. I'm going in the +opposite direction." + +He took me familiarly by the arm, and, with a "_Pardon, chere amie_," to +the lady, led me a few paces aside. + +"I beseech you," he whispered; "it's a matter of four thousand francs, a +hundred and sixty pounds, eight hundred dollars, a new ceiling for the +Cafe de l'Univers, the dream of a woman's life, and the happiest omen +for my wedded felicity. The fair goddess Hymen invites you with uplifted +torch. You can't refuse." + +He hypnotized me with his bright eyes, overpowered my will by his +winning personality. He seemed to force me to desire his companionship. +I weakened. After all, I reflected, I was at a loose end, and where I +went did not matter to anybody. Aristide Pujol had also done me a +considerable service, for which I felt grateful. I yielded with good +grace. + +He darted back to Mme. Gougasse, alive with gaiety. + +"_Chere amie_, if you were to press monseigneur, I'm sure he would come +to Carcassonne and dance at our wedding." + +"Alas! That," said I, hastily, "is out of the question. But," I added, +amused by a humorous idea, "why should two lovers separate even for a +few hours? Why should not madame accompany us to Montpellier? There is +room in my auto for three, and it would give me the opportunity of +making madame's better acquaintance." + +"There, Amelie!" cried Aristide. "What do you say?" + +"Truly, it is too much honour," murmured Mme. Gougasse, evidently +tempted. + +"There's your luggage, however," said Aristide. "You would bring that +great trunk, for which there is no place in the automobile of +monseigneur." + +"That's true--my luggage." + +"Send it on by train, _chere amie_." + +"When will it arrive at Carcassonne?" + +"Not to-morrow," said Pujol, "but perhaps next week or the week after. +Perhaps it may never come at all. One is never certain with these +railway companies. But what does that matter?" + +"What do you say?" cried the lady, sharply. + +"It may arrive or it may not arrive; but you are rich enough, _chere +amie_, not to think of a few camisoles and bits of jewellery." + +"And my lace and my silk dress that I have brought to show your parents. +_Merci!_" she retorted, with a dangerous spark in her little eyes. "You +think one is made of money, eh? You will soon find yourself mistaken, my +friend. I would give you to understand----". She checked herself +suddenly. "Monseigneur"--she turned to me with a resumption of the +gracious manner of her bottle-decked counter at the Cafe de +l'Univers--"you are too amiable. I appreciate your offer infinitely; but +I am not going to entrust my luggage to the kind care of the railway +company. _Merci, non._ They are robbers and thieves. Even if it did +arrive, half the things would be stolen. Oh, I know them." + +She shook the head of an experienced and self-reliant woman. No doubt, +distrustful of banks as of railway companies, she kept her money hidden +in her bedroom. I pitied my poor young friend; he would need all his +gaiety to enliven the domestic side of the Cafe de l'Univers. + +The lady having declined my invitation, I expressed my regrets; and +Aristide, more emotional, voiced his sense of heart-rent desolation, +and in a resigned tone informed me that it was time to start. I left the +lovers and went to the hotel, where I paid the bill, summoned McKeogh, +and lit a companionable pipe. + +The car backed down the narrow street into the square and took up its +position. We entered. McKeogh took charge of Aristide's valise, tucked +us up in the rug, and settled himself in his seat. The car started and +we drove off, Aristide gallantly brandishing his hat and Mme. Gougasse +waving her lily hand, which happened to be hidden in an ill-fitting +black glove. + +"To Montpellier, as fast as you can!" he shouted at the top of his lungs +to McKeogh. Then he sighed as he threw himself luxuriously back. "Ah, +this is better than a train. Amelie doesn't know what a mistake she has +made!" + +The elderly victim of my furious entry was lounging, in spite of the +mistral, by the grim machicolated gateway. Instead of scowling at me he +raised his hat respectfully as we passed. I touched my cap, but Aristide +returned the salute with the grave politeness of royalty. + +"This is a place," said he, "which I would like never to behold again." + +In a few moments we were whirling along the straight, white road between +the interminable black vineyards, and past the dilapidated homesteads +of the vine-folk and wayside cafes that are scattered about this +unjoyous corner of France. + +"Well," said he, suddenly, "what do you think of my _fiancee_?" + +Politeness and good taste forbade expression of my real opinion. I +murmured platitudes to the effect that she seemed to be a most sensible +woman, with a head for business. + +"She's not what we in French call _jolie, jolie_; but what of that? +What's the good of marrying a pretty face for other men to make love to? +And, as you English say, there's none of your confounded sentiment about +her. But she has the most flourishing cafe in Carcassonne; and, when the +ceiling is newly decorated, provided she doesn't insist on too much gold +leaf and too many naked babies on clouds--it's astonishing how women +love naked babies on clouds--it will be the snuggest place in the world. +May I ask for one of your excellent cigarettes?" + +I handed him the case from the pocket of the car. + +"It was there that I made her acquaintance," he resumed, after having +lit the cigarette from my pipe. "We met, we talked, we fixed it up. She +is not the woman to go by four roads to a thing. She did me the honour +of going straight for me. Ah, but what a wonderful woman! She rules that +cafe like a kingdom; a Semiramis, a Queen Elizabeth, a Catherine de' +Medici. She sits enthroned behind the counter all day long and takes the +money and counts the saucers and smiles on rich clients, and if a waiter +in a far corner gives a bit of sugar to a dog she spots it, and the +waiter has a deuce of a time. That woman is worth her weight in +thousand-franc notes. She goes to bed every night at one, and gets up in +the morning at five. And virtuous! Didn't Solomon say that a virtuous +woman was more precious than rubies? That's the kind of wife the wise +man chooses when he gives up the giddy ways of youth. Ah, my dear sir, +over and over again these last two or three days my dear old parents--I +have been on a visit to them in Aigues-Mortes--have commended my wisdom. +Amelie, who is devoted to me, left her cafe in Carcassonne to make their +acquaintance and receive their blessing before our marriage, also to +show them the lace on her _dessous_ and her new silk dress. They are too +old to take the long journey to Carcassonne. 'My son,' they said, 'you +are making a marriage after our own hearts. We are proud of you. Now we +can die perfectly content.' I was wrong, perhaps, in saying that Amelie +has no sentiment," he continued, after a short pause. "She adores me. It +is evident. She will not allow me out of her sight. Ah, my dear friend, +you don't know what a happy man I am." + +For a brilliant young man of five-and-thirty, who was about to marry a +horrible Megaera ten or twelve years his senior, he looked unhealthily +happy. There was no doubt that his handsome roguery had caught the +woman's fancy. She was at the dangerous age, when even the most +ferro-concrete-natured of women are apt to run riot. She was +comprehensible, and pardonable. But the man baffled me. He was obviously +marrying her for her money; but how in the name of Diogenes and all the +cynics could he manage to look so confoundedly joyful about it? + +The mistral blew bitterly. I snuggled beneath the rug and hunched up my +shoulders so as to get my ears protected by my coat-collar. Aristide, +sufficiently protected by his goat's hide, talked like a shepherd on a +May morning. Why he took for granted my interest in his unromantic, not +to say sordid, courtship I knew not; but he gave me the whole history of +it from its modest beginnings to its now penultimate stage. From what I +could make out--for the mistral whirled many of his words away over +unheeding Provence--he had entered the Cafe de l'Univers one evening, a +human derelict battered by buffeting waves of Fortune, and, finding a +seat immediately beneath Mme. Gougasse's _comptoir_, had straightway +poured his grievances into a feminine ear and, figuratively speaking, +rested his weary heart upon a feminine bosom. And his buffetings and +grievances and wearinesses? Whence came they? I asked the question +point-blank. + + [Illustration: HAD STRAIGHTWAY POURED HIS GRIEVANCES INTO A + FEMININE EAR] + +"Ah, my dear friend," he answered, kissing his gloved finger-tips, "she +was adorable!" + +"Who?" I asked, taken aback. "Mme. Gougasse?" + +"_Mon Dieu_, no!" he replied. "Not Mme. Gougasse. Amelie is solid, she +is virtuous, she is jealous, she is capacious; but I should not call her +adorable. No; the adorable one was twenty--delicious and English; a +peach-blossom, a zephyr, a summer night's dream, and the most provoking +little witch you ever saw in your life. Her father and herself and six +of her compatriots were touring through France. They had circular +tickets. So had I. In fact, I was a miniature Thomas Cook and Son to the +party. I provided them with the discomforts of travel and supplied +erroneous information. _Que voulez-vous?_ If people ask you for the +history of a pair of Louis XV. corsets, in a museum glass case, it's +much better to stimulate their imagination by saying that they were worn +by Joan of Arc at the Battle of Agincourt than to dull their minds by +your ignorance. _Eh bien_, we go through the chateaux of the Loire, +through Poitiers and Angouleme, and we come to Carcassonne. You know +Carcassonne? The great grim _cite_, with its battlements and bastions +and barbicans and fifty towers on the hill looking over the rubbishy +modern town? We were there. The rest of the party were buying picture +postcards of the _gardien_ at the foot of the Tour de l'Inquisition. The +man who invented picture postcards ought to have his statue on the top +of the Eiffel Tower. The millions of headaches he has saved! People go +to places now not to exhaust themselves by seeing them, but to buy +picture postcards of them. The rest of the party, as I said, were deep +in picture postcards. Mademoiselle and I promenaded outside. We often +promenaded outside when the others were buying picture postcards," he +remarked, with an extra twinkle in his bright eyes. "And the result? Was +it my fault? We leaned over the parapet. The wind blew a confounded +_meche_--what do you call it----?" + +"Strand?" + +"Yes--strand of her hair across her face. She let it blow and laughed +and did not move. Didn't I say she was a little witch? If there's a +Provencal ever born who would not have kissed a girl under such +provocation I should like to have his mummy. I kissed her. She kept on +laughing. I kissed her again. I kissed her four times. At the beginning +of the fourth kiss out came her father from the postcard shop. He waited +till the end of it and then announced himself. He announced himself in +such ungentlemanly terms that I was forced to let the whole party, +including the adorable little witch, go on to Pau by themselves, while +I betook my broken heart to the Cafe de l'Univers." + +"And there you found consolation?" + +"I told my sad tale. Amelie listened and called the manager to take +charge of the _comptoir_, and poured herself out a glass of Frontignan. +Amelie always drinks Frontignan when her heart is touched. I came the +next day and the next. It was pouring with rain day and night--and +Carcassonne in rain is like Hades with its furnaces put out by human +tears--and the Cafe de l'Univers like a little warm corner of Paradise +stuck in the midst of it." + +"And so that's how it happened?" + +"That's how it happened. _Ma foi!_ When a lady asks a _galant homme_ to +marry her, what is he to do? Besides, did I not say that the Cafe de +l'Univers was the most prosperous one in Carcassonne? I'm afraid you +English, my dear friend, have such sentimental ideas about marriage. +Now, we in France----_Attendez, attendez!_" He suddenly broke off his +story, lurched forward, and gripped the back of the front seat. + +"To the right, man, to the right!" he cried excitedly to McKeogh. + +We had reached the point where the straight road from Aigues-Mortes +branches into a fork, one road going to Montpellier, the other to Nimes. +Montpellier being to the west, McKeogh had naturally taken the left +fork. + +"To the right!" shouted Aristide. + +McKeogh pulled up and turned his head with a look of protesting inquiry. +I intervened with a laugh. + +"You're wrong in your geography, M. Pujol. Besides, there is the +signpost staring you in the face. This is the way to Montpellier." + +"But, my dear, heaven-sent friend, I no more want to go to Montpellier +than you do!" he cried. "Montpellier is the last place on earth I desire +to visit. You want to go to Nimes, and so do I. To the right, +chauffeur." + +"What shall I do, sir?" asked McKeogh. + +I was utterly bewildered. I turned to the goat-skin-clad, +pointed-bearded, bright-eyed Aristide, who, sitting bolt upright in the +car, with his hands stretched out, looked like a parody of the god Pan +in a hard felt hat. + +"You don't want to go to Montpellier?" I asked, stupidly. + +"No--ten thousand times no; not for a king's ransom." + +"But your four thousand francs--your meeting Mme. Gougasse's train--your +getting on to Carcassonne?" + +"If I could put twenty million continents between myself and Carcassonne +I'd do it," he explained, with frantic gestures. "Don't you understand? +The good Lord who is always on my side sent you especially to deliver +me out of the hands of that unspeakable Xantippe. There are no four +thousand francs. I'm not going to meet her train at Montpellier, and if +she marries anyone to-morrow at Carcassonne it will not be Aristide +Pujol." + +I shrugged my shoulders. + +"We'll go to Nimes." + +"Very good, sir," said McKeogh. + +"And now," said I, as soon as we had started on the right-hand road, +"will you have the kindness to explain?" + +"There's nothing to explain," he cried, gleefully. "Here am I delivered. +I am free. I can breathe God's good air again. I'm not going to marry +Yum-Yum, Yum-Yum. I feel ten years younger. Oh, I've had a narrow +escape. But that's the way with me. I always fall on my feet. Didn't I +tell you I've never lost an opportunity? The moment I saw an Englishman +in difficulties, I realized my opportunity of being delivered out of the +House of Bondage. I took it, and here I am! For two days I had been +racking my brains for a means of getting out of Aigues-Mortes, when +suddenly you--a _Deus ex machina_--a veritable god out of the +machine--come to my aid. Don't say there isn't a Providence watching +over me." + +I suggested that his mode of escape seemed somewhat elaborate and +fantastic. Why couldn't he have slipped quietly round to the railway +station and taken a ticket to any haven of refuge he might have +fancied? + +"For the simple reason," said he, with a gay laugh, "that I haven't a +single penny piece in the world." + +He looked so prosperous and untroubled that I stared incredulously. + +"Not one tiny bronze sou," said he. + +"You seem to take it pretty philosophically," said I. + +"_Les gueux, les gueux, sont des gens heureux_," he quoted. + +"You're the first person who has made me believe in the happiness of +beggars." + +"In time I shall make you believe in lots of things," he retorted. "No. +I hadn't one sou to buy a ticket, and Amelie never left me. I spent my +last franc on the journey from Carcassonne to Aigues-Mortes. Amelie +insisted on accompanying me. She was taking no chances. Her eyes never +left me from the time we started. When I ran to your assistance she was +watching me from a house on the other side of the _place_. She came to +the hotel while we were lunching. I thought I would slip away unnoticed +and join you after you had made the _tour des remparts_. But no. I must +present her to my English friend. And then--_voyons_--didn't I tell you +I never lost a visiting-card? Look at this?" + +He dived into his pocket, produced the letter-case, and extracted a +card. + +"_Voila._" + +I read: "The Duke of Wiltshire." + +"But, good heavens, man," I cried, "that's not the card I gave you." + +"I know it isn't," said he; "but it's the one I showed to Amelie." + +"How on earth," I asked, "did you come by the Duke of Wiltshire's +visiting-card?" + +He looked at me roguishly. + +"I am--what do you call it?--a--a 'snapper up of unconsidered trifles.' +You see I know my Shakespeare. I read 'The Winter's Tale' with some +French pupils to whom I was teaching English. I love Autolycus. _C'est +un peu moi, hein?_ Anyhow, I showed the Duke's card to Amelie." + +I began to understand. "That was why you called me 'monseigneur'?" + +"Naturally. And I told her that you were my English patron, and would +give me four thousand francs as a wedding present if I accompanied you +to your agent's at Montpellier, where you could draw the money. Ah! But +she was suspicious! Yesterday I borrowed a bicycle. A friend left it in +the courtyard. I thought, 'I will creep out at dead of night, when +everyone's asleep, and once on my _petite bicyclette, bonsoir la +compagnie_.' But, would you believe it? When I had dressed and crept +down, and tried to mount the bicycle, I found both tyres had been +punctured in a hundred places with the point of a pair of scissors. What +do you think of that, eh? Ah, _la, la!_ it has been a narrow escape. +When you invited her to accompany us to Montpellier my heart was in my +mouth." + +"It would have served you right," I said, "if she had accepted." + +He laughed as though, instead of not having a penny, he had not a care +in the world. Accustomed to the geometrical conduct of my well-fed +fellow-Britons, who map out their lives by rule and line, I had no +measure whereby to gauge this amazing and inconsequential person. In one +way he had acted abominably. To leave an affianced bride in the lurch in +this heartless manner was a most ungentlemanly proceeding. On the other +hand, an unscrupulous adventurer would have married the woman for her +money and chanced the consequences. In the tussle between Perseus and +the Gorgon the odds are all in favour of Perseus. Mercury and Minerva, +the most sharp-witted of the gods, are helping him all the time--to say +nothing of the fact that Perseus starts out by being a notoriously +handsome fellow. So a handsome rogue can generally wheedle an elderly, +ugly wife into opening her money-bags, and, if successful, leads the +enviable life of a fighting-cock. It was very much to his credit that +this kind of life was not to the liking of Aristide Pujol. + + [Illustration: "I FOUND BOTH TYRES HAD BEEN PUNCTURED IN A + HUNDRED PLACES"] + +Indeed, speaking from affectionate knowledge of the man, I can declare +that the position in which he, like many a better man, had placed +himself was intolerable. Other men of equal sensitiveness would have +extricated themselves in a more commonplace fashion; but the dramatic +appealed to my rascal, and he has often plumed himself on his calculated +_coup de theatre_ at the fork of the roads. He was delighted with it. +Even now I sometimes think that Aristide Pujol will never grow up. + +"There's one thing I don't understand," said I, "and that is your +astonishing influence over the populace at Aigues-Mortes. You came upon +them like a firework--a devil-among-the-tailors--and everybody, +gendarmes and victim included, became as tame as sheep. How was it?" + +He laughed. "I said you were my very old and dear friend and patron, a +great English duke." + +"I don't quite see how that explanation satisfied the pig-headed old +gentleman whom I knocked down." + +"Oh, that," said Aristide Pujol, with a look of indescribable +drollery--"that was my old father." + + + + +II + +THE ADVENTURE OF THE ARLESIENNE + + +Aristide Pujol bade me a sunny farewell at the door of the Hotel du +Luxembourg at Nimes, and, valise in hand, darted off, in his impetuous +fashion, across the Place de l'Esplanade. I felt something like a pang +at the sight of his retreating figure, as, on his own confession, he had +not a penny in the world. I wondered what he would do for food and +lodging, to say nothing of tobacco, _aperitifs_, and other such +necessaries of life. The idea of so gay a creature starving was +abhorrent. Yet an invitation to stay as my guest at the hotel until +he saw an opportunity of improving his financial situation he had +courteously declined. + +Early next morning I found him awaiting me in the lounge and smoking an +excellent cigar. He explained that so dear a friend as myself ought to +be the first to hear the glad tidings. Last evening, by the grace of +Heaven, he had run across a bare acquaintance, a manufacturer of nougat +at Montelimar; had spent several hours in his company, with the result +that he had convinced him of two things: first, that the dry, +crumbling, shortbread-like nougat of Montelimar was unknown in England, +where the population subsisted on a sickly, glutinous mess whereto the +medical faculty had ascribed the prevalent dyspepsia of the population; +and, secondly, that the one Heaven-certified apostle who could spread +the glorious gospel of Montelimar nougat over the length and breadth of +Great Britain and Ireland was himself, Aristide Pujol. A handsome +salary had been arranged, of which he had already drawn something on +account--_hinc ille Colorado_--and he was to accompany his principal the +next day to Montelimar, _en route_ for the conquest of Britain. In the +meantime he was as free as the winds, and would devote the day to +showing me the wonders of the town. + +I congratulated him on his almost fantastic good fortune and gladly +accepted his offer. + +"There is one thing I should like to ask you," said I, "and it is this. +Yesterday afternoon you refused my cordially-offered hospitality, and +went away without a sou to bless yourself with. What did you do? I ask +out of curiosity. How does a man set about trying to subsist on nothing +at all?" + +"It's very simple," he replied. "Haven't I told you, and haven't you +seen for yourself, that I never lose an opportunity? More than that. It +has been my rule in life either to make friends with the Mammon of +Unrighteousness--he's a muddle-headed ass is Mammon, and you can steer +clear of his unrighteousness if you're sharp enough--or else to cast my +bread upon the waters in the certainty of finding it again after many +days. In the case in question I took the latter course. I cast my bread +a year or two ago upon the waters of the Roman baths, which I will have +the pleasure of showing you this morning, and I found it again last +night at the Hotel de la Curatterie." + +In the course of the day he related to me the following artless history. + + * * * * * + +Aristide Pujol arrived at Nimes one blazing day in July. He had money in +his pocket and laughter in his soul. He had also deposited his valise at +the Hotel du Luxembourg, which, as all the world knows, is the most +luxurious hotel in the town. Joyousness of heart impelled him to a +course of action which the good Nimois regard as maniacal in the +sweltering July heat--he walked about the baking streets for his own +good pleasure. + +Aristide Pujol was floating a company, a process which afforded him as +much delirious joy as the floating, for the first time, of a toy yacht +affords a child. It was a company to build an hotel in Perpignan, where +the recent demolition of the fortifications erected by the Emperor +Charles V. had set free a vast expanse of valuable building ground on +the other side of the little river on which the old town is situated. +The best hotel in Perpignan being one to get away from as soon as +possible, owing to restriction of site, Aristide conceived the idea of +building a spacious and palatial hostelry in the new part of the town, +which should allure all the motorists and tourists of the globe to that +Pyrenean Paradise. By sheer audacity he had contrived to interest an +eminent Paris architect in his project. Now the man who listened to +Aristide Pujol was lost. With the glittering eye of the Ancient Mariner +he combined the winning charm of a woman. For salvation, you either had +to refuse to see him, as all the architects to the end of the R's in the +alphabetical list had done, or put wax, Ulysses-like, in your ears, a +precaution neglected by the eminent M. Say. M. Say went to Perpignan and +returned in a state of subdued enthusiasm. + +A limited company was formed, of which Aristide Pujol, man of vast +experience in affairs, was managing director. But money came in slowly. +A financier was needed. Aristide looked through his collection of +visiting-cards, and therein discovered that of a deaf ironmaster at St. +Etienne whose life he had once saved at a railway station by dragging +him, as he was crossing the line, out of the way of an express train +that came thundering through. Aristide, man of impulse, went straight +to St. Etienne, to work upon the ironmaster's sense of gratitude. +Meanwhile, M. Say, man of more sober outlook, bethought him of a client, +an American millionaire, passing through Paris, who had speculated +considerably in hotels. The millionaire, having confidence in the +eminent M. Say, thought well of the scheme. He was just off to Japan, +but would drop down to the Pyrenees the next day and look at the +Perpignan site before boarding his steamer at Marseilles. If his +inquiries satisfied him, and he could arrange matters with the managing +director, he would not mind putting a million dollars or so into the +concern. You must kindly remember that I do not vouch for the literal +accuracy of everything told me by Aristide Pujol. + +The question of the all-important meeting between the millionaire and +the managing director then arose. As Aristide was at St. Etienne it +was arranged that they should meet at a halfway stage on the latter's +journey from Perpignan to Marseilles. The Hotel du Luxembourg at Nimes +was the place, and two o'clock on Thursday the time appointed. + +Meantime Aristide had found that the deaf ironmaster had died months +ago. This was a disappointment, but fortune compensated him. This part +of his adventure is somewhat vague, but I gathered that he was lured +by a newly made acquaintance into a gambling den, where he won the +prodigious sum of two thousand francs. With this wealth jingling and +crinkling in his pockets he fled the town and arrived at Nimes on +Wednesday morning, a day before his appointment. + +That was why he walked joyously about the blazing streets. The tide had +turned at last. Of the success of his interview with the millionaire he +had not the slightest doubt. He walked about building gorgeous castles +in Perpignan--which, by the way, is not very far from Spain. Besides, as +you shall hear later, he had an account to settle with the town of +Perpignan. At last he reached the Jardin de la Fontaine, the great, +stately garden laid out in complexity of terrace and bridge and +balustraded parapet over the waters of the old Roman baths by the master +hand to which Louis XIV. had entrusted the Garden of Versailles. + +Aristide threw himself on a bench and fanned himself with his straw hat. + +"_Mon Dieu!_ it's hot!" he remarked to another occupant of the seat. + +This was a woman, and, as he saw when she turned her face towards him, +an exceedingly handsome woman. Her white lawn and black silk headdress, +coming to a tiny crown just covering the parting of her full, wavy hair, +proclaimed her of the neighboring town of Arles. She had all the +Arlesienne's Roman beauty--the finely chiselled features, the calm, +straight brows, the ripe lips, the soft oval contour, the clear olive +complexion. She had also lustrous brown eyes; but these were full of +tears. She only turned them on him for a moment; then she resumed her +apparently interrupted occupation of sobbing. Aristide was a +soft-hearted man. He drew nearer. + +"Why, you're crying, madame!" said he. + +"Evidently," murmured the lady. + +"To cry scalding tears in this weather! It's too hot! Now, if you could +only cry iced water there would be something refreshing in it." + +"You jest, monsieur," said the lady, drying her eyes. + +"By no means," said he. "The sight of so beautiful a woman in distress +is painful." + +"Ah!" she sighed. "I am very unhappy." + +Aristide drew nearer still. + +"Who," said he, "is the wretch that has dared to make you so?" + +"My husband," replied the lady, swallowing a sob. + +"The scoundrel!" said Aristide. + +The lady shrugged her shoulders and looked down at her wedding-ring, +which gleamed on a slim, brown, perfectly kept hand. Aristide prided +himself on being a connoisseur in hands. + +"There never was a husband yet," he added, "who appreciated a beautiful +wife. Husbands only deserve harridans." + +"That's true," said the Arlesienne, "for when the wife is good-looking +they are jealous." + +"Ah, that is the trouble, is it?" said Aristide. "Tell me all about it." + +The beautiful Arlesienne again contemplated her slender fingers. + +"I don't know you, monsieur." + +"But you soon will," said Aristide, in his pleasant voice and with a +laughing, challenging glance in his bright eyes. She met it swiftly and +sidelong. + +"Monsieur," she said, "I have been married to my husband for four years, +and have always been faithful to him." + +"That's praiseworthy," said Aristide. + +"And I love him very much." + +"That's unfortunate!" said Aristide. + +"Unfortunate?" + +"Evidently!" said Aristide. + +Their eyes met. They burst out laughing. The lady quickly recovered and +the tears sprang again. + +"One can't jest with a heavy heart; and mine is very heavy." She broke +down through self-pity. "Oh, I am ashamed!" she cried. + +She turned away from him, burying her face in her hands. Her dress, +cut low, showed the nape of her neck as it rose gracefully from her +shoulders. Two little curls had rebelled against being drawn up with the +rest of her hair. The back of a dainty ear, set close to the head, was +provoking in its pink loveliness. Her attitude, that of a youthful +Niobe, all tears, but at the same time all curves and delicious +contours, would have played the deuce with an anchorite. + +Aristide, I would have you remember, was a child of the South. A child +of the North, regarding a bewitching woman, thinks how nice it would be +to make love to her, and wastes his time in wondering how he can do it. +A child of the South neither thinks nor wonders; he makes love straight +away. + +"Madame," said Aristide, "you are adorable, and I love you to +distraction." + +She started up. "Monsieur, you forget yourself!" + +"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." + +With a sinking heart he opened it and read:-- + + DEAR SIR,--I was in this hotel at two o'clock, according to + arrangement. As my last train to Japan leaves at three-thirty, I + regret I cannot await your convenience. The site of the hotel is + satisfactory. Your business methods are not. I am sorry, therefore, + not to be able to entertain the matter further.--Faithfully, + + WILLIAM B. CONGLETON. + +He stared at the words for a few paralyzed moments. Then he stuffed the +letter into his pocket and broke into a laugh. + +"_Zut!_" said he, using the inelegant expletive whereby a Frenchman most +adequately expresses his scorn of circumstance. "_Zut!_ If I have lost a +fortune, I have gained two devoted friends, so I am the winner on the +day's work." + +Whereupon he returned gaily to the bosom of the Bocardon family and +remained there, its Cousin Quicksilver and its entirely happy and +idolized hero, until the indignation of the eminent M. Say summoned him +to Paris. + +And that is how Aristide Pujol could live thenceforward on nothing at +all at Nimes, whenever it suited him to visit that historic town. + + + + +III + +THE ADVENTURE OF THE KIND MR. SMITH + + +Aristide Pujol started life on his own account as a _chasseur_ in a Nice +cafe--one of those luckless children tightly encased in bottle-green +cloth by means of brass buttons, who earn a sketchy livelihood by +enduring with cherubic smiles the continuous maledictions of the +establishment. There he soothed his hours of servitude by dreams of +vast ambitions. He would become the manager of a great hotel--not a +contemptible hostelry where commercial travellers and seedy Germans were +indifferently bedded, but one of those white palaces where milords +(English) and millionaires (American) paid a thousand francs a night +for a bedroom and five louis for a glass of beer. Now, in order to +derive such profit from the Anglo-Saxon a knowledge of English was +indispensable. He resolved to learn the language. How he did so, except +by sheer effrontery, taking linguistic toll of frequenters of the cafe, +would be a mystery to anyone unacquainted with Aristide. But to his +friends his mastery of the English tongue in such circumstances is +comprehensible. To Aristide the impossible was ever the one thing easy +of attainment; the possible the one thing he never could achieve. +That was the paradoxical nature of the man. Before his days of +hunted-little-devildom were over he had acquired sufficient knowledge of +English to carry him, a few years later, through various vicissitudes in +England, until, fired by new social ambitions and self-educated in a +haphazard way, he found himself appointed Professor of French in an +academy for young ladies. + +One of these days, when I can pin my dragon-fly friend down to a plain, +unvarnished autobiography, I may be able to trace some chronological +sequence in the kaleidoscopic changes in his career. But hitherto, in +his talks with me, he flits about from any one date to any other during +a couple of decades, in a manner so confusing that for the present I +abandon such an attempt. All I know of the date of the episode I am +about to chronicle is that it occurred immediately after the termination +of his engagement at the academy just mentioned. Somehow, Aristide's +history is a category of terminations. + +If the head mistress of the academy had herself played dragon at his +classes, all would have gone well. He would have made his pupils +conjugate irregular verbs, rendered them adepts in the mysteries of the +past participle and the subjunctive mood, and turned them out quite +innocent of the idiomatic quaintnesses of the French tongue. But _dis +aliter visum_. The gods always saw wrong-headedly otherwise in the case +of Aristide. A weak-minded governess--and in a governess a sense of +humour and of novelty is always a sign of a weak mind--played dragon +during Aristide's lessons. She appreciated his method, which was +colloquial. The colloquial Aristide was jocular. His lessons therefore +were a giggling joy from beginning to end. He imparted to his pupils +delicious knowledge. _En avez-vous des-z-homards? Oh, les sales betes, +elles ont du poil aux pattes_, which, being translated, is: "Have you +any lobsters? Oh, the dirty animals, they have hair on their feet"--a +catch phrase which, some years ago, added greatly to the gaiety of +Paris, but in which I must confess to seeing no gleam of wit--became the +historic property of the school. He recited to them, till they were +word-perfect, a music-hall ditty of the early 'eighties--_Sur le bi, +sur le banc, sur le bi du bout du banc_, and delighted them with +dissertations on Mme. Yvette Guilbert's earlier repertoire. But for him +they would have gone to their lives' end without knowing that _pognon_ +meant money; _rouspetance_, assaulting the police; _thune_, a five-franc +piece; and _bouffer_, to take nourishment. He made (according to his own +statement) French a living language. There was never a school in Great +Britain, the Colonies, or America on which the Parisian accent was so +electrically impressed. The retort, _Eh! ta soeur_, was the purest +Montmartre; also _Fich'-moi la paix, mon petit_, and _Tu as un toupet, +toi_; and the delectable locution, _Allons etrangler un perroquet_ (let +us strangle a parrot), employed by Apaches when inviting each other to +drink a glass of absinthe, soon became current French in the school for +invitations to surreptitious cocoa-parties. + +The progress that academy made in a real grip of the French language was +miraculous; but the knowledge it gained in French grammar and syntax was +deplorable. A certain mid-term examination--the paper being set by a +neighbouring vicar--produced awful results. The phrase, "How do you do, +dear?" which ought, by all the rules of Stratford-atte-Bowe, to be +translated by _Comment vous portez-vous, ma chere?_ was rendered by most +of the senior scholars _Eh, ma vieille, ca boulotte?_ One innocent and +anachronistic damsel, writing on the execution of Charles I., declared +that he _cracha dans le panier_ in 1649, thereby mystifying the good +vicar, who was unaware that "to spit into the basket" is to be +guillotined. This wealth of vocabulary was discounted by abject poverty +in other branches of the language. No one could give a list of the words +in "_al_" that took "_s_" in the plural, no one knew anything at all +about the defective verb _echoir_, and the orthography of the school +would have disgraced a kindergarten. The head mistress suspected a lack +of method in the teaching of M. Pujol, and one day paid his class a +surprise visit. + +The sight that met her eyes petrified her. The class, including the +governess, bubbled and gurgled and shrieked with laughter. M. Pujol, his +bright eyes agleam with merriment and his arms moving in frantic +gestures, danced about the platform. He was telling them a story--and +when Aristide told a story, he told it with the eloquence of his entire +frame. He bent himself double and threw out his hands. + +"_Il etait saoul comme un porc_," he shouted. + +And then came the hush of death. The rest of the artless tale about the +man as drunk as a pig was never told. The head mistress, indignant +majesty, strode up the room. + +"M. Pujol, you have a strange way of giving French lessons." + +"I believe, madame," said he, with a polite bow, "in interesting my +pupils in their studies." + +"Pupils have to be taught, not interested," said the head mistress. +"Will you kindly put the class through some irregular verbs." + +So for the remainder of the lesson Aristide, under the freezing eyes of +the head mistress, put his sorrowful class through irregular verbs, of +which his own knowledge was singularly inexact, and at the end received +his dismissal. In vain he argued. Outraged Minerva was implacable. Go he +must. + + * * * * * + +We find him, then, one miserable December evening, standing on the +arrival platform of Euston Station (the academy was near Manchester), an +unwonted statue of dubiety. At his feet lay his meagre valise; in his +hand was an enormous bouquet, a useful tribute of esteem from his +disconsolate pupils; around him luggage-laden porters and passengers +hurried; in front were drawn up the long line of cabs, their drivers' +waterproofs glistening with wet; and in his pocket rattled the few +paltry coins that, for Heaven knew how long, were to keep him from +starvation. Should he commit the extravagance of taking a cab or should +he go forth, valise in hand, into the pouring rain? He hesitated. + +"_Sacre mille cochons! Quel chien de climat!_" he muttered. + +A smart footman standing by turned quickly and touched his hat. + +"Beg pardon, sir; I'm from Mr. Smith." + +"I'm glad to hear it, my friend," said Aristide. + +"You're the French gentleman from Manchester?" + +"Decidedly," said Aristide. + + [Illustration: STANDING ON THE ARRIVAL PLATFORM OF EUSTON STATION] + +"Then, sir, Mr. Smith has sent the carriage for you." + +"That's very kind of him," said Aristide. + +The footman picked up the valise and darted down the platform. Aristide +followed. The footman held invitingly open the door of a cosy brougham. +Aristide paused for the fraction of a second. Who was this hospitable +Mr. Smith? + +"Bah!" said he to himself, "the best way of finding out is to go and +see." + +He entered the carriage, sank back luxuriously on the soft cushions, and +inhaled the warm smell of leather. They started, and soon the pelting +rain beat harmlessly against the windows. Aristide looked out at the +streaming streets, and, hugging himself comfortably, thanked Providence +and Mr. Smith. But who was Mr. Smith? _Tiens_, thought he, there were +two little Miss Smiths at the academy; he had pitied them because they +had chilblains, freckles, and perpetual colds in their heads; possibly +this was their kind papa. But, after all, what did it matter whose papa +he was? He was expecting him. He had sent the carriage for him. +Evidently a well-bred and attentive person. And _tiens!_ there was even +a hot-water can on the floor of the brougham. "He thinks of everything, +that man," said Aristide. "I feel I am going to like him." + +The carriage stopped at a house in Hampstead, standing, as far as he +could see in the darkness, in its own grounds. The footman opened the +door for him to alight and escorted him up the front steps. A neat +parlour-maid received him in a comfortably-furnished hall and took his +hat and greatcoat and magnificent bouquet. + +"Mr. Smith hasn't come back yet from the City, sir; but Miss Christabel +is in the drawing-room." + +"Ah!" said Aristide. "Please give me back my bouquet." + +The maid showed him into the drawing-room. A pretty girl of +three-and-twenty rose from a fender-stool and advanced smilingly to meet +him. + +"Good afternoon, M. le Baron. I was wondering whether Thomas would spot +you. I'm so glad he did. You see, neither father nor I could give him +any description, for we had never seen you." + +This fitted in with his theory. But why Baron? After all, why not? The +English loved titles. + +"He seems to be an intelligent fellow, mademoiselle." + +There was a span of silence. The girl looked at the bouquet, then at +Aristide, who looked at the girl, then at the bouquet, then at the girl +again. + +"Mademoiselle," said he, "will you deign to accept these flowers as a +token of my respectful homage?" + +Miss Christabel took the flowers and blushed prettily. She had dark hair +and eyes and a fascinating, upturned little nose, and the kindest +little mouth in the world. + +"An Englishman would not have thought of that," she said. + +Aristide smiled in his roguish way and raised a deprecating hand. + +"Oh, yes, he would. But he would not have had--what you call the cheek +to do it." + +Miss Christabel laughed merrily, invited him to a seat by the fire, +and comforted him with tea and hot muffins. The frank charm of his +girl-hostess captivated Aristide and drove from his mind the riddle of +his adventure. Besides, think of the Arabian Nights' enchantment of the +change from his lonely and shabby bed-sitting-room in the Rusholme Road +to this fragrant palace with princess and all to keep him company! He +watched the firelight dancing through her hair, the dainty play of +laughter over her face, and decided that the brougham had transported +him to Bagdad instead of Hampstead. + +"You have the air of a veritable princess," said he. + +"I once met a princess--at a charity bazaar--and she was a most +matter-of-fact, businesslike person." + +"Bah!" said Aristide. "A princess of a charity bazaar! I was talking of +the princess in a fairytale. They are the only real ones." + +"Do you know," said Miss Christabel, "that when men pay such compliments +to English girls they are apt to get laughed at?" + +"Englishmen, yes," replied Aristide, "because they think over a +compliment for a week, so that by the time they pay it, it is addled, +like a bad egg. But we of Provence pay tribute to beauty straight out of +our hearts. It is true. It is sincere. And what comes out of the heart +is not ridiculous." + +Again the girl coloured and laughed. "I've always heard that a Frenchman +makes love to every woman he meets." + +"Naturally," said Aristide. "If they are pretty. What else are pretty +women for? Otherwise they might as well be hideous." + +"Oh!" said the girl, to whom this Provencal point of view had not +occurred. + +"So, if I make love to you, it is but your due." + +"I wonder what my fiance would say if he heard you?" + +"Your----?" + +"My fiance! There's his photograph on the table beside you. He is six +foot one, and so jealous!" she laughed again. + +"The Turk!" cried Aristide, his swiftly-conceived romance crumbling into +dust. Then he brightened up. "But when this six feet of muscle and +egotism is absent, surely other poor mortals can glean a smile?" + +"You will observe that I'm not frowning," said Miss Christabel. "But you +must not call my fiance a Turk, for he's a very charming fellow whom I +hope you'll like very much." + +Aristide sighed. "And the name of this thrice-blessed mortal?" + +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. + +Miss Christabel shivered. "I should not like to eat frogs." + +"They also eat snails," said her father. + +"I have a snail farm," said Aristide. "You never saw such interesting +little animals. They are so intelligent. If you're kind to them they +come and eat out of your hand." + + [Illustration: "AH! THE PICTURES," CRIED ARISTIDE, WITH A WIDE SWEEP + OF HIS ARMS] + +"You've forgotten the pictures," said Mr. Smith. + +"Ah! the pictures," cried Aristide, with a wide sweep of his arms. +"Galleries full of them. Raphael, Michael Angelo, Wiertz, Reynolds----" + +He paused, not in order to produce the effect of a dramatic aposiopesis, +but because he could not for the moment remember other names of +painters. + +"It is a truly historical chateau," said he. + +"I should love to see it," said the girl. + +Aristide threw out his arms across the table. "It is yours, +mademoiselle, for your honeymoon," said he. + +Dinner came to an end. Miss Christabel left the gentlemen to their wine, +an excellent port whose English qualities were vaunted by the host. +Aristide, full of food and drink and the mellow glories of the castle in +Languedoc, and smoking an enormous cigar, felt at ease with all the +world. He knew he should like the kind Mr. Smith, hospitable though +somewhat insular man. He could stay with him for a week--or a month--why +not a year? + +After coffee and liqueurs had been served Mr. Smith rose and switched on +a powerful electric light at the end of the large room, showing a +picture on an easel covered by a curtain. He beckoned to Aristide to +join him and, drawing the curtain, disclosed the picture. + +"There!" said he. "Isn't it a stunner?" + +It was a picture all grey skies and grey water and grey feathery trees, +and a little man in the foreground wore a red cap. + +"It is beautiful, but indeed it is magnificent!" cried Aristide, always +impressionable to things of beauty. + +"Genuine Corot, isn't it?" + +"Without doubt," said Aristide. + +His host poked him in the ribs. "I thought I'd astonish you. You +wouldn't believe Gottschalk could have done it. There it is--as large as +life and twice as natural. If you or anyone else can tell it from a +genuine Corot I'll eat my hat. And all for eight pounds." + +Aristide looked at the beefy face and caught a look of cunning in the +little pig's eyes. + +"Now are you satisfied?" asked Mr. Smith. + +"More than satisfied," said Aristide, though what he was to be satisfied +about passed, for the moment, his comprehension. + +"If it was a copy of an existing picture, you know--one might have +understood it--that, of course, would be dangerous--but for a man to go +and get bits out of various Corots and stick them together like this is +miraculous. If it hadn't been for a matter of business principle I'd +have given the fellow eight guineas instead of pounds--hanged if I +wouldn't! He deserves it." + +"He does indeed," said Aristide Pujol. + +"And now that you've seen it with your own eyes, what do you think you +might ask me for it? I suggested something between two and three +thousand--shall we say three? You're the owner, you know." Again the +process of rib-digging. "Came out of that historic chateau of yours. My +eye! you're a holy terror when you begin to talk. You almost persuaded +me it was real." + +"_Tiens!_" said Aristide to himself. "I don't seem to have a chateau +after all." + +"Certainly three thousand," said he, with a grave face. + +"That young man thinks he knows a lot, but he doesn't," said Mr. Smith. + +"Ah!" said Aristide, with singular laconicism. + +"Not a blooming thing," continued his host. "But he'll pay three +thousand, which is the principal, isn't it? He's partner in the show, +you know, Ralston, Wiggins, and Wix's Brewery"--Aristide pricked up his +ears--"and when his doddering old father dies he'll be Lord Ranelagh and +come into a million of money." + +"Has he seen the picture?" asked Aristide. + +"Oh, yes. Regards it as a masterpiece. Didn't Brauneberger tell you of +the Lancret we planted on the American?" Mr. Smith rubbed hearty hands +at the memory of the iniquity. "Same old game. Always easy. I have +nothing to do with the bargaining or the sale. Just an old friend of +the ruined French nobleman with the historic chateau and family +treasures. He comes along and fixes the price. I told our friend +Harry----" + +"Good," thought Aristide. "This is the same Honourable Harry, M.P., who +is engaged to the ravishing Miss Christabel." + +"I told him," said Mr. Smith, "that it might come to three or four +thousand. He jibbed a bit--so when I wrote to you I said two or three. +But you might try him with three to begin with." + +Aristide went back to the table and poured himself out a fresh glass of +his kind host's 1865 brandy and drank it off. + +"Exquisite, my dear fellow," said he. "I've none finer in my historic +chateau." + +"Don't suppose you have," grinned the host, joining him. He slapped him +on the back. "Well," said he, with a shifty look in his little pig's +eyes, "let us talk business. What do you think would be your fair +commission? You see, all the trouble and invention have been mine. What +do you say to four hundred pounds?" + +"Five," said Aristide, promptly. + +A sudden gleam came into the little pig's eyes. + +"Done!" said Mr. Smith, who had imagined that the other would demand a +thousand and was prepared to pay eight hundred. "Done!" said he again. + +They shook hands to seal the bargain and drank another glass of old +brandy. At that moment, a servant, entering, took the host aside. + +"Please excuse me a moment," said he, and went with the servant out of +the room. + +Aristide, left alone, lighted another of his kind host's fat cigars +and threw himself into a great leathern arm-chair by the fire, and +surrendered himself deliciously to the soothing charm of the moment. Now +and then he laughed, finding a certain comicality in his position. And +what a charming father-in-law, this kind Mr. Smith! + +His cheerful reflections were soon disturbed by the sudden irruption of +his host and a grizzled, elderly, foxy-faced gentleman with a white +moustache, wearing the ribbon of the Legion of Honour in the buttonhole +of his overcoat. + +"Here, you!" cried the kind Mr. Smith, striding up to Aristide, with a +very red face. "Will you have the kindness to tell me who the devil you +are?" + +Aristide rose, and, putting his hands behind the tails of his +frock-coat, stood smiling radiantly on the hearthrug. A wit much less +alert than my irresponsible friend's would have instantly appreciated +the fact that the real Simon Pure had arrived on the scene. + +"I, my dear friend," said he, "am the Baron de Je ne Sais Plus." + +"You're a confounded impostor," spluttered Mr. Smith. + +"And this gentleman here to whom I have not had the pleasure of being +introduced?" asked Aristide, blandly. + +"I am M. Poiron, monsieur, the agent of Messrs. Brauneberger and +Compagnie, art dealers, of the Rue Notre Dame des Petits Champs of +Paris," said the new-comer, with an air of defiance. + +"Ah, I thought you were the Baron," said Aristide. + +"There's no blooming Baron at all about it!" screamed Mr. Smith. "Are +you Poiron, or is he?" + +"I would not have a name like Poiron for anything in the world," said +Aristide. "My name is Aristide Pujol, soldier of fortune, at your +service." + +"How the blazes did you get here?" + +"Your servant asked me if I was a French gentleman from Manchester. I +was. He said that Mr. Smith had sent his carriage for me. I thought it +hospitable of the kind Mr. Smith. I entered the carriage--_et voila!_" + +"Then clear out of here this very minute," said Mr. Smith, reaching +forward his hand to the bell-push. + +Aristide checked his impulsive action. + +"Pardon me, dear host," said he. "It is raining dogs and cats outside. I +am very comfortable in your luxurious home. I am here, and here I +stay." + +"I'm shot if you do," said the kind Mr. Smith, his face growing redder +and uglier. "Now, will you go out, or will you be thrown out?" + +Aristide, who had no desire whatever to be ejected from this snug nest +into the welter of the wet and friendless world, puffed at his cigar, +and looked at his host with the irresistible drollery of his eyes. + +"You forget, _mon cher ami_," said he, "that neither the beautiful Miss +Christabel nor her affianced, the Honourable Harry, M.P., would care to +know that the talented Gottschalk got only eight pounds, not even +guineas, for painting that three-thousand-pound picture." + +"So it's blackmail, eh?" + +"Precisely," said Aristide, "and I don't blush at it." + +"You infernal little blackguard!" + +"I seem to be in congenial company," said Aristide. "I don't think our +friend M. Poiron has more scruples than he has right to the ribbon of +the Legion of Honour which he is wearing." + +"How much will you take to go out? I have a cheque-book handy." + +Mr. Smith moved a few steps from the hearthrug. Aristide sat down in the +arm-chair. An engaging, fantastic impudence was one of the charms of +Aristide Pujol. + +"I'll take five hundred pounds," said he, "to stay in." + +"Stay in?" Mr. Smith grew apoplectic. + +"Yes," said Aristide. "You can't do without me. Your daughter and your +servants know me as M. le Baron--by the way, what is my name? And where +is my historic chateau in Languedoc?" + +"Mireilles," said M. Poiron, who was sitting grim and taciturn on one of +the dining-room chairs. "And the place is the same, near Montpellier." + +"I like to meet an intelligent man," said Aristide. + +"I should like to wring your infernal neck," said the kind Mr. Smith. +"But, by George, if we do let you in you'll have to sign me a receipt +implicating yourself up to the hilt. I'm not going to be put into the +cart by you, you can bet your life." + +"Anything you like," said Aristide, "so long as we all swing together." + + * * * * * + +Now, when Aristide Pujol arrived at this point in his narrative I, his +chronicler, who am nothing if not an eminently respectable, law-abiding +Briton, took him warmly to task for his sheer absence of moral sense. +His eyes, as they sometimes did, assumed a luminous pathos. + + [Illustration: "I'LL TAKE FIVE HUNDRED POUNDS," SAID HE, "TO STAY IN"] + +"My dear friend," said he, "have you ever faced the world in a foreign +country in December with no character and fifteen pounds five and +three-pence in your pocket? Five hundred pounds was a fortune. It is +one now. And to be gained just by lending oneself to a good farce, which +didn't hurt anybody. You and your British morals! Bah!" said he, with a +fine flourish. + + * * * * * + +Aristide, after much parleying, was finally admitted into the nefarious +brotherhood. He was to retain his rank as the Baron de Mireilles, and +play the part of the pecuniarily inconvenienced nobleman forced to sell +some of his rare collection. Mr. Smith had heard of the Corot through +their dear old common friend, Jules Dancourt of Rheims, had mentioned it +alluringly to the Honourable Harry, had arranged for the Baron, who was +visiting England, to bring it over and dispatch it to Mr. Smith's house, +and on his return from Manchester to pay a visit to Mr. Smith, so that +he could meet the Honourable Harry in person. In whatever transaction +ensued Mr. Smith, so far as his prospective son-in-law was concerned, +was to be the purely disinterested friend. It was Aristide's wit which +invented a part for the supplanted M. Poiron. He should be the eminent +Parisian expert who, chancing to be in London, had been telephoned for +by the kind Mr. Smith. + +"It would not be wise for M. Poiron," said Aristide, chuckling inwardly +with puckish glee, "to stay here for the night--or for two or three +days--or a week--like myself. He must go back to his hotel when the +business is concluded." + +"_Mais, pardon!_" cried M. Poiron, who had been formally invited, and +had arrived late solely because he had missed his train at Manchester, +and come on by the next one. "I cannot go out into the wet, and I have +no hotel to go to." + +Aristide appealed to his host. "But he is unreasonable, _cher ami_. He +must play his _role_. M. Poiron has been telephoned for. He can't +possibly stay here. Surely five hundred pounds is worth one little night +of discomfort? And there are a legion of hotels in London." + +"Five hundred pounds!" exclaimed M. Poiron. "_Qu'est-ce que vous chantez +la?_ I want more than five hundred pounds." + +"Then you're jolly well not going to get it," cried Mr. Smith, in a +rage. "And as for you"--he turned on Aristide--"I'll wring your infernal +neck yet." + +"Calm yourself, calm yourself!" smiled Aristide, who was enjoying +himself hugely. + +At this moment the door opened and Miss Christabel appeared. On seeing +the decorated stranger she started with a little "Oh!" of surprise. + +"I beg your pardon." + +Mr. Smith's angry face wreathed itself in smiles. + +"This, my darling, is M. Poiron, the eminent Paris expert, who has been +good enough to come and give us his opinion on the picture." + +M. Poiron bowed. Aristide advanced. + +"Mademoiselle, your appearance is like a mirage in a desert." + +She smiled indulgently and turned to her father. "I've been wondering +what had become of you. Harry has been here for the last half-hour." + +"Bring him in, dear child, bring him in!" said Mr. Smith, with all the +heartiness of the fine old English gentleman. "Our good friends are +dying to meet him." + +The girl flickered out of the room like a sunbeam (the phrase is +Aristide's), and the three precious rascals put their heads together in +a hurried and earnest colloquy. Presently Miss Christabel returned, and +with her came the Honourable Harry Ralston, a tall, soldierly fellow, +with close-cropped fair curly hair and a fair moustache, and frank blue +eyes that, even in Parliament, had seen no harm in his fellow-creatures. +Aristide's magical vision caught him wincing ever so little at Mr. +Smith's effusive greeting and overdone introductions. He shook Aristide +warmly by the hand. + +"You have a beauty there, Baron, a perfect beauty," said he, with the +insane ingenuousness of youth. "I wonder how you can manage to part with +it." + +"_Ma foi_," said Aristide, with his back against the end of the +dining-table and gazing at the masterpiece. "I have so many at the +Chateau de Mireilles. When one begins to collect, you know--and when +one's grandfather and father have had also the divine mania----" + +"You were saying, M. le Baron," said M. Poiron of Paris, "that your +respected grandfather bought this direct from Corot himself." + +"A commission," said Aristide. "My grandfather was a patron of Corot." + +"Do you like it, dear?" asked the Honourable Harry. + +"Oh, yes!" replied the girl, fervently. "It is beautiful. I feel like +Harry about it." She turned to Aristide. "How can you part with it? Were +you really in earnest when you said you would like me to come and see +your collection?" + +"For me," said Aristide, "it would be a visit of enchantment." + +"You must take me, then," she whispered to Harry. "The Baron has been +telling us about his lovely old chateau." + +"Will you come, monsieur?" asked Aristide. + +"Since I'm going to rob you of your picture," said the young man, with +smiling courtesy, "the least I can do is to pay you a visit of apology. +Lovely!" said he, going up to the Corot. + +Aristide took Miss Christabel, now more bewitching than ever with the +glow of young love in her eyes and a flush on her cheek, a step or two +aside and whispered:-- + +"But he is charming, your fiance! He almost deserves his good fortune." + +"Why almost?" she laughed, shyly. + +"It is not a man, but a demi-god, that would deserve you, mademoiselle." + +M. Poiron's harsh voice broke out. + +"You see, it is painted in the beginning of Corot's later manner--it is +1864. There is the mystery which, when he was quite an old man, became a +trick. If you were to put it up to auction at Christie's it would fetch, +I am sure, five thousand pounds." + +"That's more than I can afford to give," said the young man, with a +laugh. "Mr. Smith mentioned something between three and four thousand +pounds. I don't think I can go above three." + +"I have nothing to do with it, my dear boy, nothing whatever," said Mr. +Smith, rubbing his hands. "You wanted a Corot. I said I thought I could +put you on to one. It's for the Baron here to mention his price. I +retire now and for ever." + +"Well, Baron?" said the young man, cheerfully. "What's your idea?" + +Aristide came forward and resumed his place at the end of the table. The +picture was in front of him beneath the strong electric light; on his +left stood Mr. Smith and Poiron, on his right Miss Christabel and the +Honourable Harry. + +"I'll not take three thousand pounds for it," said Aristide. "A picture +like that! Never!" + +"I assure you it would be a fair price," said Poiron. + +"You mentioned that figure yourself only just now," said Mr. Smith, with +an ugly glitter in his little pig's eyes. + +"I presume, gentlemen," said Aristide, "that this picture is my own +property." He turned engagingly to his host. "Is it not, _cher ami_?" + +"Of course it is. Who said it wasn't?" + +"And you, M. Poiron, acknowledge formally that it is mine," he asked, in +French. + +"_Sans aucun doute._" + +"_Eh bien_," said Aristide, throwing open his arms and gazing round +sweetly. "I have changed my mind. I do not sell the picture at all." + +"Not sell it? What the--what do you mean?" asked Mr. Smith, striving to +mellow the gathering thunder on his brow. + +"I do not sell," said Aristide. "Listen, my dear friends!" He was in the +seventh heaven of happiness--the principal man, the star, taking the +centre of the stage. "I have an announcement to make to you. I have +fallen desperately in love with mademoiselle." + +There was a general gasp. Mr. Smith looked at him, red-faced and +open-mouthed. Miss Christabel blushed furiously and emitted a sound half +between a laugh and a scream. Harry Ralston's eyes flashed. + +"My dear sir----" he began. + +"Pardon," said Aristide, disarming him with the merry splendour of his +glance. "I do not wish to take mademoiselle from you. My love is +hopeless! I know it. But it will feed me to my dying day. In return for +the joy of this hopeless passion I will not sell you the picture--I give +it to you as a wedding present." + +He stood, with the air of a hero, both arms extended towards the amazed +pair of lovers. + +"I give it to you," said he. "It is mine. I have no wish but for your +happiness. In my Chateau de Mireilles there are a hundred others." + +"This is madness!" said Mr. Smith, bursting with suppressed indignation, +so that his bald head grew scarlet. + +"My dear fellow!" said Mr. Harry Ralston. "It is unheard-of generosity +on your part. But we can't accept it." + +"Then," said Aristide, advancing dramatically to the picture, "I take it +under my arm, I put it in a hansom cab, and I go with it back to +Languedoc." + +Mr. Smith caught him by the wrist and dragged him out of the room. + +"You little brute! Do you want your neck broken?" + +"Do you want the marriage of your daughter with the rich and Honourable +Harry broken?" asked Aristide. + +"Oh, damn! Oh, damn! Oh, damn!" cried Mr. Smith, stamping about +helplessly and half weeping. + +Aristide entered the dining-room and beamed on the company. + +"The kind Mr. Smith has consented. Mr. Honourable Harry and Miss +Christabel, there is your Corot. And now, may I be permitted?" He rang +the bell. A servant appeared. + +"Some champagne to drink to the health of the fiances," he cried. "Lots +of champagne." + +Mr. Smith looked at him almost admiringly. + +"By Jove!" he muttered. "You _have_ got a nerve." + + * * * * * + +"_Voila!_" said Aristide, when he had finished the story. + +"And did they accept the Corot?" I asked. + +"Of course. It is hanging now in the big house in Hampshire. I stayed +with the kind Mr. Smith for six weeks," he added, doubling himself up in +his chair and hugging himself with mirth, "and we became very good +friends. And I was at the wedding." + +"And what about their honeymoon visit to Languedoc?" + +"Alas!" said Aristide. "The morning before the wedding I had a +telegram--it was from my old father at Aigues-Mortes--to tell me that +the historic Chateau de Mireilles, with my priceless collection of +pictures, had been burned to the ground." + + + + +IV + +THE ADVENTURE OF THE FOUNDLING + + +There was a time when Aristide Pujol, in sole charge of an automobile, +went gaily scuttering over the roads of France. I use the word +advisedly. If you had heard the awful thing as it passed by you would +agree that it is the only word adequate to express its hideous mode of +progression. It was a two-seated, scratched, battered, ramshackle tin +concern of hoary antiquity, belonging to the childhood of the race. Not +only horses, but other automobiles shied at it. It was a vehicle of +derision. Yet Aristide regarded it with glowing pride and drove it with +such daredevilry that the parts must have held together only through +sheer breathless wonder. Had it not been for the car, he told me, he +would not have undertaken the undignified employment in which he was +then engaged--the mountebank selling of a corn-cure in the public places +of small towns and villages. It was not a fitting pursuit for a late +managing director of a public company and an ex-Professor of French in +an English Academy for Young Ladies. He wanted to rise, _ma foi_, not +descend in the social scale. But when hunger drives--_que voulez-vous_? +Besides, there was the automobile. It is true he had bound himself by +his contract to exhibit a board at the back bearing a flaming picture of +the success of the cure and a legend: "_Guerissez vos cors_," and to +display a banner with the same device, when weather permitted. But, +still, there was the automobile. + +It had been lying for many motor-ages in the shed of the proprietors of +the cure, the Maison Hieropath of Marseilles, neglected, forlorn, eaten +by rust and worm, when suddenly an idea occurred to their business +imagination. Why should they not use the automobile to advertise and +sell the cure about the country? The apostle in charge would pay for his +own petrol, take a large percentage on sales, and the usual traveller's +commission on orders that he might place. But where to find an apostle? +Brave and desperate men came in high hopes, looked at the car, and, +shaking their heads sorrowfully, went away. At last, at the loosest of +ends, came Aristide. The splendour of the idea--a poet, in his way, was +Aristide, and the Idea was the thing that always held him captive--the +splendour of the idea of dashing up to hotels in his own automobile +dazed him. He beheld himself doing his hundred kilometres an hour and +trailing clouds of glory whithersoever he went. To a child a moth-eaten +rocking-horse is a fiery Arab of the plains; to Aristide Pujol this +cheat of the scrap-heap was a sixty-horse-power thunderer and devourer +of space. + +How they managed to botch up her interior so that she moved unpushed +is a mystery which Aristide, not divining, could not reveal; and when +and where he himself learned to drive a motor-car is also vague. I +believe the knowledge came by nature. He was a fellow of many weird +accomplishments. He could conjure; he could model birds and beasts out +of breadcrumb; he could play the drum--so well that he had a kettle-drum +hanging round his neck during most of his military service; he could +make omelettes and rabbit-hutches; he could imitate any animal that ever +emitted sound--a gift that endeared him to children; he could do almost +anything you please--save stay in one place and acquire material +possessions. The fact that he had never done a thing before was to him +no proof of his inability to do it. In his superb self-confidence he +would have undertaken to conduct the orchestra at Covent Garden or +navigate a liner across the Atlantic. Knowing this, I cease to bother my +head about so small a matter as the way in which he learned to drive a +motor-car. + +Behold him, then, one raw March morning, scuttering along the road that +leads from Arles to Salon, in Provence. He wore a goat-skin coat and a +goat-skin cap drawn down well over his ears. His handsome bearded face, +with its lustrous, laughing eyes, peeped out curiously human amid the +circumambient shagginess. There was not a turn visible in the long, +straight road that lost itself in the far distant mist; not a speck on +it signifying cart or creature. Aristide Pujol gave himself up to the +delirium of speed and urged the half-bursting engine to twenty miles an +hour. In spite of the racing-track surface, the crazy car bumped and +jolted; the sides of the rickety bonnet clashed like cymbals; every +valve wheezed and squealed; every nut seemed to have got loose and +terrifically clattered; rattling noises, grunting noises, screeching +noises escaped from every part; it creaked and clanked like an +over-insured tramp-steamer in a typhoon; it lurched as though afflicted +with loco-motor ataxy; and noisome vapours belched forth from the open +exhaust-pipe as though the car were a Tophet on wheels. But all was +music in the ears of Aristide. The car was going (it did not always go), +the road scudded under him, and the morning air dashed stingingly into +his face. For the moment he desired nothing more of life. + +This road between Arles and Salon runs through one of the most desolate +parts of France: a long, endless plain, about five miles broad, lying +between two long low ranges of hills. It is strewn like a monstrous +Golgotha, not with skulls, but with huge smooth pebbles, as massed +together as the shingle on a beach. Rank grass shoots up in what +interstices it finds; but beyond this nothing grows. Nothing can grow. +On a sunless day under a lowering sky it is a land accursed. Mile after +mile for nearly twenty miles stretches this stony and barren waste. No +human habitation cheers the sight, for from such a soil no human hand +could wrest a sustenance. Only the rare traffic going from Arles to +Salon and from Salon to Arles passes along the road. The cheery passing +show of the live highway is wanting; there are no children, no dogs, +no ducks and hens, no men and women lounging to their work; no +red-trousered soldiers on bicycles, no blue-bloused, weather-beaten +farmers jogging along in their little carts. As far as the eye can reach +nothing suggestive of man meets the view. Nothing but the infinite +barrenness of the plain, the ridges on either side, the long, straight, +endless road cleaving through this abomination of desolation. + +To walk through it would be a task as depressing as mortal could +execute. But to the speed-drunken motorist it is a realization of dim +and tremulous visions of Paradise. What need to look to right or left +when you are swallowing up free mile after mile of dizzying road? +Aristide looked neither to right nor left, and knew this was heaven at +last. + + [Illustration: BETWEEN THE FOLDS OF THE BLANKET PEEPED THE FACE OF A + SLEEPING CHILD] + +Suddenly, however, he became aware of a small black spot far ahead in +the very middle of the unencumbered track. As he drew near it looked +like a great stone. He swerved as he passed it, and, looking, saw that +it was a bundle wrapped in a striped blanket. It seemed so odd that it +should be lying there that, his curiosity being aroused, he pulled up +and walked back a few yards to examine it. The nearer he approached the +less did it resemble an ordinary bundle. He bent down, and lo! between +the folds of the blanket peeped the face of a sleeping child. + +"_Nom de Dieu!_" cried Aristide. "_Nom de Dieu de nom de Dieu!_" + +He ought not to have said it, but his astonishment was great. He stared +at the baby, then up and down the road, then swept the horizon. Not a +soul was visible. How did the baby get there? The heavens, according to +history, have rained many things in their time: bread, quails, blood, +frogs, and what not; but there is no mention of them ever having rained +babies. It could not, therefore, have come from the clouds. It could not +even have fallen from the tail of a cart, for then it would have been +killed, or at least have broken its bones and generally been rendered a +different baby from the sound, chubby mite sleeping as peacefully as +though the Golgotha of Provence had been its cradle from birth. It could +not have come there accidentally. Deliberate hands had laid it down; in +the centre of the road, too. Why not by the side, where it would have +been out of the track of thundering automobiles? When the murderous +intent became obvious Aristide shivered and felt sick. He breathed +fierce and honest anathema on the heads of the bowelless fiends who had +abandoned the babe to its doom. Then he stooped and picked up the bundle +tenderly in his arms. + +The wee face puckered for a moment and the wee limbs shot out +vigorously; then the dark eyes opened and stared Aristide solemnly and +wonderingly in the face. So must the infant Remus have first regarded +his she-wolf mother. Having ascertained, however, that it was not going +to be devoured, it began to cry lustily, showing two little white specks +of teeth in the lower gum. + +"_Mon pauvre petit_, you are hungry," said Aristide, carrying it to the +car racked by the clattering engine. "I wonder when you last tasted +food? If I only had a little biscuit and wine to give you; but, alas! +there's nothing but petrol and corn-cure, neither of which, I believe, +is good for babies. Wait, wait, _mon cheri_, until we get to Salon. +There I promise you proper nourishment." + +He danced the baby up and down in his arms and made half-remembered and +insane noises, which eventually had the effect of reducing it to its +original calm stare of wonderment. + +"_Voila_," said Aristide, delighted. "Now we can advance." + +He deposited it on the vacant seat, clambered up behind the wheel, and +started. But not at the break-neck speed of twenty miles an hour. He +went slowly and carefully, his heart in his mouth at every lurch of the +afflicted automobile, fearful lest the child should be precipitated from +its slippery resting-place. But, alas! he did not proceed far. At the +end of a kilometre the engine stopped dead. He leaped out to see what +had happened, and, after a few perplexed and exhausting moments, +remembered. He had not even petrol to offer to the baby, having +omitted--most feather-headed of mortals--to fill up his tank before +starting, and forgotten to bring a spare tin. There was nothing to be +done save wait patiently until another motorist should pass by from whom +he might purchase the necessary amount of essence to carry him on to +Salon. Meanwhile the baby would go breakfastless. Aristide clambered +back to his seat, took the child on his knees, and commiserated it +profoundly. Sitting there on his apparently home-made vehicle, in the +midst of the unearthly silence of the sullen and barren wilderness, +attired in his shaggy goat-skin cap and coat, he resembled an up-to-date +Robinson Crusoe dandling an infant Friday. + +The disposal of the child at Salon would be simple. After having it fed +and tended at an hotel, he would make his deposition to the police, who +would take it to the Enfants Trouves, the department of State which +provides fathers and mothers and happy homes for foundlings at a cost to +the country of twenty-five francs a month per foundling. It is true that +the parents so provided think more of the twenty-five francs than they +do of the foundling. But that was the affair of the State, not of +Aristide Pujol. In the meanwhile he examined the brat curiously. It was +dressed in a coarse calico jumper, very unclean. The striped blanket was +full of holes and smelled abominably. Some sort of toilet appeared +essential. He got down and from his valise took what seemed necessary to +the purpose. The jumper and blanket he threw far on the pebbly waste. +The baby, stark naked for a few moments, crowed and laughed and +stretched like a young animal, revealing itself to be a sturdy boy about +nine months old. When he seemed fit to be clad Aristide tied him up in +the lower part of a suit of pyjamas, cutting little holes in the sides +for his tiny arms; and, further, with a view to cheating his hunger, +provided him with a shoe-horn. The defenceless little head he managed to +squeeze into the split mouth of a woollen sock. Aristide regarded him in +triumph. The boy chuckled gleefully. Then Aristide folded him warm in +his travelling-rug and entered into an animated conversation. + +Now it happened that, at the most interesting point of the talk, the +baby clutched Aristide's finger in his little brown hand. The tiny +fingers clung strong. + +A queer thrill ran through the impressionable man. The tiny fingers +seemed to close round his heart.... It was a bonny, good-natured, +gurgling scrap--and the pure eyes looked truthfully into his soul. + +"Poor little wretch!" said Aristide, who, peasant's son that he was, +knew what he was talking about. "Poor little wretch! If you go into the +Enfants Trouves you'll have a devil of a time of it." + +The tiny clasp tightened. As if the babe understood, the chuckle died +from his face. + +"You'll be cuffed and kicked and half starved, while your adopted mother +pockets her twenty-five francs a month, and you'll belong to nobody, and +wonder why the deuce you're alive, and wish you were dead; and, if you +remember to-day, you'll curse me for not having had the decency to run +over you." + +The clasp relaxed, puckers appeared at the corners of the dribbling +mouth, and a myriad tiny horizontal lines of care marked the sock-capped +brow. + +"Poor little devil!" said Aristide. "My heart bleeds for you, especially +now that you're dressed in my sock and pyjama, and are sucking the only +shoe-horn I ever possessed." + +A welcome sound caused Aristide to leap into the middle of the road. He +looked ahead, and there, in a cloud of dust, a thing like a torpedo came +swooping down. He held up both his arms, the signal of a motorist in +distress. The torpedo approached with slackened speed, and stopped. It +was an evil-looking, drab, high-powered racer, and two bears with +goggles sat in the midst thereof. The bear at the wheel raised his cap +and asked courteously:-- + +"What can we do for you, monsieur?" + +At that moment the baby broke into heart-rending cries. Aristide took +off his goat-skin cap and, remaining uncovered, looked at the bear, then +at the baby, then at the bear again. + +"Monsieur," said he, "I suppose it's useless to ask you whether you have +any milk and a feeding-bottle?" + +"_Mais dites donc!_" shouted the bear, furiously, his hand on the brake. +"Stop an automobile like this on such a pretext----?" + +Aristide held up a protesting hand, and fixed the bear with the +irresistible roguery of his eyes. + +"Pardon, monsieur, I am also out of petrol. Forgive a father's feelings. +The baby wants milk and I want petrol, and I don't know whose need is +the more imperative. But if you could sell me enough petrol to carry me +to Salon I should be most grateful." + +The request for petrol is not to be refused. To supply it, if possible, +is the written law of motordom. The second bear slid from his seat and +extracted a tin from the recesses of the torpedo, and stood by while +Aristide filled his tank, a process that necessitated laying the baby on +the ground. He smiled. + +"You seem amused," said Aristide. + +"_Parbleu!_" said the motorist. "You have at the back of your auto a +placard telling people to cure their corns, and in front you carry a +baby." + +"That," replied Aristide, "is easily understood. I am the agent of the +Maison Hieropath of Marseilles, and the baby, whom I, its father, am +carrying from a dead mother to an invalid aunt, I am using as an +advertisement. As he luckily has no corns, I can exhibit his feet as a +proof of the efficacy of the corn-cure." + +The bear laughed and joined his companion, and the torpedo thundered +away. Aristide replaced the baby, and with a complicated arrangement of +string fastened it securely to the seat. The baby, having ceased crying, +clutched his beard as he bent over, and "goo'd" pleasantly. The tug was +at his heart-strings. How could he give so fascinating, so valiant a +mite over to the Enfants Trouves? Besides, it belonged to him. Had he +not in jest claimed paternity? It had given him a new importance. He +could say "_mon fils_," just as he could say (with equal veracity) "_mon +automobile_." A generous thrill ran through him. He burst into a loud +laugh, clapped his hands, and danced before the delighted babe. + +"_Mon petit Jean_," said he, with humorous tenderness, "for I suppose +your name is Jean; I will rend myself in pieces before I let the +Administration board you out among the wolves. You shall not go to the +Enfants Trouves. I myself will adopt you, _mon petit Jean_." + +As Aristide had no fixed abode whatever, the address on his +visiting-card, "213 bis, Rue Saint-Honore, Paris," being that of an old +greengrocer woman of his acquaintance, with whom he lodged when he +visited the metropolis, there was a certain amount of rashness in the +undertaking. But when was Aristide otherwise than rash? Had prudence +been his guiding principle through life he would not have been selling +corn-cure for the Maison Hieropath, and consequently would not have +discovered the child at all. + +In great delight at this satisfactory settlement of little Jean's +destiny, he started the ramshackle engine and drove triumphantly on his +way. Jean, fatigued by the emotions of the last half-hour, slumbered +peacefully. + +"The little angel!" said Aristide. + +The sun was shining when they arrived at Salon, the gayest, the most +coquettish, the most laughing little town in Provence. It is a place all +trees and open spaces, and fountains and cafes, and sauntering people. +The only thing grim about it is the solitary machicolated tower in the +main street, the last vestige of ancient ramparts; and even that, close +cuddled on each side by prosperous houses with shops beneath, looks +like an old, old, wrinkled grandmother smiling amid her daintier +grandchildren. Everyone seemed to be in the open air. Those who kept +shops stood at the doorways. The prospect augured well for the Maison +Hieropath. + +Aristide stopped before an hotel, disentangled Jean, to the mild +interest of the passers-by, and, carrying him in, delivered him into the +arms of the landlady. + +"Madame," he said, "this is my son. I am taking him from his mother, who +is dead, to an aunt who is an invalid. So he is alone on my hands. He is +very hungry, and I beseech you to feed him at once." + +The motherly woman received the babe instinctively and cast aside the +travelling-rug in which he was enveloped. Then she nearly dropped him. + +"_Mon Dieu! Qu'est-ce que c'est que ca?_" + +She stared in stupefaction at the stocking-cap and at the long flannel +pyjama legs that depended from the body of the infant, around whose +neck the waist was tightly drawn. Never since the world began had babe +masqueraded in such attire. Aristide smiled his most engaging smile. + +"My son's luggage has unfortunately been lost. His portmanteau, _pauvre +petit_, was so small. A poor widower, I did what I could. I am but a +mere man, madame." + +"Evidently," said the woman, with some asperity. + +Aristide took a louis from his purse. "If you will purchase him some +necessary articles of costume while I fulfil my duties towards the +Maison Hieropath of Marseilles, which I represent, you will be doing me +a kindness." + +The landlady took the louis in a bewildered fashion. Allowing for the +baby's portmanteau to have gone astray, what, she asked, had become +of the clothes he must have been wearing? Aristide entered upon a +picturesque and realistic explanation. The landlady was stout, she was +stupid, she could not grasp the fantastic. + +"_Mon Dieu!_" she said. "To think that there are Christians who dress +their children like this!" She sighed exhaustively, and, holding the +grotesque infant close to her breast, disappeared indignantly to +administer the very greatly needed motherment. + + [Illustration: HE DEMONSTRATED THE PROPER APPLICATION OF THE CURE] + +Aristide breathed a sigh of relief, and after a well-earned _dejeuner_ +went forth with the car into the Place des Arbres and prepared to ply +his trade. First he unfurled the Hieropath banner, which floated +proudly in the breeze. Then on a folding table he displayed his +collection of ointment-boxes (together with pills and a toothache-killer +which he sold on his own account) and a wax model of a human foot on +which were grafted putty corns in every stage of callosity. As soon as +half-a-dozen idlers collected he commenced his harangue. When their +numbers increased he performed prodigies of chiropody on the putty +corns, and demonstrated the proper application of the cure. He talked +incessantly all the while. He has told me, in the grand manner, that +this phase of his career was distasteful to him. But I scarcely believe +it. If ever a man loved to talk, it was Aristide Pujol; and what +profession, save that of an advocate, offers more occasion for wheedling +loquacity than that of a public vendor of quack medicaments? As a matter +of fact, he revelled in it. When he offered a free box of the cure to +the first lady who confessed the need thereof, and a blushing wench came +forward, the rascal revelled in the opportunity for badinage which set +the good-humoured crowd in a roar. He loved to exert his half-mesmeric +power. He had not the soul of a mountebank, for Aristide's soul had its +high and generous dwelling-place; but he had the puckish swiftness and +mischief of which the successful mountebank is made. And he was a +success because he treated it as an art, thinking nothing during its +practice of the material gain, laughing whole-heartedly, like his great +predecessor Tabarin of imperishable memory, and satisfying to the full +his instinct for the dramatic. On the other hand, ever since he started +life in the brass-buttoned shell-jacket of a _chasseur_ in a Marseilles +cafe, and dreamed dreams of the fairytale lives of the clients who +came in accompanied by beautifully dressed ladies, he had social +ambitions--and the social status of the mountebank is, to say the least +of it, ambiguous. Ah me! What would man be without the unattainable? + +Aristide pocketed his takings, struck his flag, dismantled his table, +and visited the shops of Salon in the interests of the Maison Hieropath. +The day's work over, he returned to inquire for his supposititious +offspring. The landlady, all smiles, presented him with a transmogrified +Jean, cleansed and powdered, arrayed in the smug panoply of bourgeois +babyhood. Shoes with a pompon adorned his feet, and a rakish cap +decorated with white satin ribbons crowned his head. He also wore an +embroidered frock and a pelisse trimmed with rabbit-fur. Jean grinned +and dribbled self-consciously, and showed his two little teeth to the +proudest father in the world. The landlady invited the happy parent into +her little dark parlour beyond the office, and there exhibited a parcel +containing garments and implements whose use was a mystery to Aristide. +She also demanded the greater part of another louis. Aristide began to +learn that fatherhood is expensive. But what did it matter? + +After all, here was a babe equipped to face the exigencies of a +censorious world; in looks and apparel a credit to any father. As the +afternoon was fine, and as it seemed a pity to waste satin and +rabbit-fur on the murky interior of the hotel, Aristide borrowed a +perambulator from the landlady, and, joyous as a schoolboy, wheeled the +splendid infant through the sunny avenues of Salon. + +That evening a bed was made up for the child in Aristide's room, which, +until its master retired for the night, was haunted by the landlady, the +chambermaids and all the kitchen wenches in the hotel. Aristide had to +turn them out and lock his door. + +"This is excellent," said he, apostrophizing the thoroughly fed, washed, +and now sleeping child. "This is superb. As in every hotel there are +women, and as every woman thinks she can be a much better mother than I, +so in every hotel we visit we shall find a staff of trained and +enthusiastic nurses. Jean, you will live like a little _coq en pate_." + +The night passed amid various excursions on the part of Aristide and +alarms on the part of Jean. Sometimes the child lay so still that +Aristide arose to see whether he was alive. Sometimes he gave such +proofs of vitality that Aristide, in terror lest he should awaken the +whole hotel, walked him about the room chanting lullabies. This was in +accordance with Jean's views on luxury. He "goo'd" with joy. When +Aristide put him back to bed he howled. Aristide snatched him up and +he "goo'd" again. At last Aristide fed him desperately, dandled him +eventually to sleep, and returned to an excited pillow. It is a fearsome +thing for a man to be left alone in the dead of night with a young baby. + +"I'll get used to it," said Aristide. + +The next morning he purchased a basket, which he lashed ingeniously on +the left-hand seat of the car, and a cushion, which he fitted into the +basket. The berth prepared, he deposited the sumptuously-apparelled Jean +therein and drove away, amid the perplexed benisons of the landlady and +her satellites. + +Thus began the oddest Odyssey on which ever mortals embarked. The man +with the automobile, the corn-cure, and the baby grew to be legendary in +the villages of Provence. When the days were fine, Jean in his basket +assisted at the dramatic performance in the market-place. Becoming a +magnet for the women, and being of a good-humoured and rollicking +nature, he helped on the sale of the cure prodigiously. He earned his +keep, as Aristide declared in exultation. Soon Aristide formed a +collection of his tricks and doings wherewith he would entertain the +chance acquaintances of his vagabondage. To a permanent companion he +would have grown insufferable. He invented him a career from the day of +his birth, chronicled the coming of the first tooth, wept over the +demise of the fictitious mother, and, in his imaginative way, convinced +himself of his fatherhood. And every day the child crept deeper into the +man's sunny heart. + + [Illustration: IT IS A FEARSOME THING FOR A MAN TO BE LEFT ALONE IN THE + DEAD OF NIGHT WITH A YOUNG BABY] + +Together they had many wanderings and many adventures. The wheezy, crazy +mechanism of the car went to bits in unexpected places. They tobogganed +down hills without a brake at the imminent peril of their lives. They +suffered the indignity of being towed by wine-wagons. They spent hours +by the wayside while Aristide took her to pieces and, sometimes with the +help of a passing motorist, put her together again. Sometimes, too, an +inn boasted no landlady, only a dishevelled and over-driven chambermaid, +who refused to wash Jean. Aristide washed and powdered Jean himself, the +landlord lounging by, pipe in mouth, administering suggestions. Once +Jean grew ill, and Aristide in terror summoned the doctor, who told him +that he had filled the child up with milk to bursting-point. Yet, in +spite of heterogeneous nursing and exposure to sun and rain and piercing +mistral, Jean throve exceedingly, and, to Aristide's delight, began to +cut another tooth. The vain man began to regard himself as an expert in +denticulture. + +At the end of a fairly-wide circuit, Aristide, with empty store-boxes +and pleasantly-full pockets, arrived at the little town of +Aix-en-Provence. He had arrived there not without difficulty. On the +outskirts the car, which had been coaxed reluctantly along for many +weary kilometres, had groaned, rattled, whirred, given a couple of +convulsive leaps, and stood stock-still. This was one of her pretty +ways. He was used to them, and hitherto he had been able to wheedle +her into resumed motion. But this time, with all his cunning and +perspiration, he could not induce another throb in the tired engines. +A friendly motorist towed them to the Hotel de Paris in the Cours +Mirabeau. Having arranged for his room and given Jean in charge of the +landlady, he procured some helping hands, and pushed the car to the +nearest garage. There he gave orders for the car to be put into running +condition for the following morning, and returned to the hotel. + +He found Jean in the vestibule, sprawling sultanesquely on the +landlady's lap, the centre of an admiring circle which consisted of two +little girls in pigtails, an ancient peasant-woman, and two English +ladies of obvious but graceful spinsterhood. + +"Here is the father," said the landlady. + +He had already explained Jean to the startled woman--landladies were +always startled at Jean's unconventional advent. "Madame," he had said, +according to rigid formula, "this is my son. I am taking him from his +mother, who is dead, to an aunt who is an invalid, so he is alone on my +hands. I beseech you to let some kind woman attend to his necessities." + +There was no need for further explanation. Aristide, thus introduced, +bowed politely, removed his Crusoe cap, and smiled luminously at the +assembled women. They resumed their antiphonal chorus of worship. The +brown, merry, friendly brat had something of Aristide's personal charm. +He had a bubble and a "goo" for everyone. Aristide looked on in great +delight. Jean was a son to be proud of. + +"_Ah! qu'il est fort--fort comme un Turc._" + +"_Regardez ses dents._" + +"The darling thing!" + +"_Il est_--oh, dear!--_il est ravissante!_"--with a disastrous plunge +into gender. + +"_Tiens! il rit. C'est moi qui le fais rire._" + +"To think," said the younger Englishwoman to her sister, "of this wee +mite travelling about in an open motor!" + +"He's having the time of his life. He enjoys it as much as I do," said +Aristide, in his excellent English. + +The lady started. She was a well-bred, good-humoured woman in the early +thirties, stout, with reddish hair, and irregular though comely +features. Her sister was thin, faded, sandy, and kind-looking. + +"I thought you were French," she said, apologetically. + +"So I am," replied Aristide. "Provencal of Provence, Meridional of the +Midi, Marseillais of Marseilles." + +"But you talk English perfectly." + +"I've lived in your beautiful country," said Aristide. + +"You have the bonniest boy," said the elder lady. "How old is he?" + +"Nine months, three weeks and a day," said Aristide, promptly. + +The younger lady bent over the miraculous infant. + +"Can I take him? _Est-ce que je puis_--oh, dear!" She turned a whimsical +face to Aristide. + +He translated. The landlady surrendered the babe. The lady danced him +with the spinster's charming awkwardness, yet with instinctive feminine +security, about the hall, while the little girls in pigtails, daughters +of the house, followed like adoratory angels in an altar-piece, and the +old peasant-woman looked benignly on, a myriad-wrinkled St. Elizabeth. +Aristide had seen Jean dandled by dozens of women during their brief +comradeship; he had thought little of it, as it was the natural thing +for women to do; but when this sweet English lady mothered Jean it +seemed to matter a great deal. She lifted Jean and himself to a higher +plane. Her touch was a consecration. + +It was the hour of the day when infants of nine months should be washed +and put to bed. The landlady, announcing the fact, held out her arms. +Jean clung to his English nurse, who played the fascinating game of +pretending to eat his hand. The landlady had not that accomplishment. +She was dull and practical. + +"Come and be washed," she said. + +"Oh, do let me come, too," cried the English lady. + +"_Bien volontiers, mademoiselle_," said the other. "_C'est par ici._" + +The English lady held Jean out for the paternal good-night. Aristide +kissed the child in her arms. The action brought about, for the moment, +a curious and sweet intimacy. + +"My sister is passionately fond of children," said the elder lady, in +smiling apology. + +"And you?" + +"I, too. But Anne--my sister--will not let me have a chance when she is +by." + +After dinner Aristide went up, as usual, to his room to see that Jean +was alive, painless, and asleep. Finding him awake, he sat by his side +and, with the earnestness of a nursery-maid, patted him off to slumber. +Then he crept out on tiptoe and went downstairs. Outside the hotel he +came upon the two sisters sitting on a bench and drinking coffee. The +night was fine, the terraces of the neighbouring cafes were filled with +people, and all the life of Aix not at the cafes promenaded up and down +the wide and pleasant avenue. The ladies smiled. How was the boy? He +gave the latest news. Permission to join them at their coffee was +graciously given. A waiter brought a chair and he sat down. Conversation +drifted from the baby to general topics. The ladies told the simple +story of their tour. They had been to Nice and Marseilles, and they were +going on the next day to Avignon. They also told their name--Honeywood. +He gathered that the elder was Janet, the younger Anne. They lived at +Chislehurst when they were in England, and often came up to London to +attend the Queen's Hall concerts and the dramatic performances at His +Majesty's Theatre. As guileless, though as self-reliant, gentlewomen +as sequestered England could produce. Aristide, impressionable and +responsive, fell at once into the key of their talk. He has told me that +their society produced on him the effect of the cool hands of saints +against his cheek. + +At last the conversation inevitably returned to Jean. The landlady had +related the tragic history of the dead mother and the invalid aunt. They +deplored the orphaned state of the precious babe. For he was precious, +they declared. Miss Anne had taken him to her heart. + +"If only you had seen him in his bath, Janet!" + +She turned to Aristide. "I'm afraid," she said, very softly, hesitating +a little--"I'm afraid this must be a sad journey for you." + +He made a wry mouth. The sympathy was so sincere, so womanly. That which +was generous in him revolted against acceptance. + +"Mademoiselle," said he, "I can play a farce with landladies--it happens +to be convenient--in fact, necessary. But with you--no. You are +different. Jean is not my child, and who his parents are I've not the +remotest idea." + +"Not your child?" They looked at him incredulously. + +"I will tell you--in confidence," said he. + +Jean's history was related in all its picturesque details; the horrors +of the life of an _enfant trouve_ luridly depicted. The sisters listened +with tears in their foolish eyes. Behind the tears Anne's grew bright. +When he had finished she stretched out her hand impulsively. + +"Oh, I call it splendid of you!" + +He took the hand and, in his graceful French fashion, touched it with +his lips. She flushed, having expected, in her English way, that he +would grasp it. + +"Your commendation, mademoiselle, is sweet to hear," said he. + +"I hope he will grow up to be a true comfort to you, M. Pujol," said +Miss Janet. + +"I can understand a woman doing what you've done, but scarcely a man," +said Miss Anne. + +"But, dear mademoiselle," cried Aristide, with a large gesture, "cannot +a man have his heart touched, his--his--_ses entrailles, enfin_--stirred +by baby fingers? Why should love of the helpless and the innocent be +denied him?" + +"Why, indeed?" said Miss Janet. + +Miss Anne said, humbly: "I only meant that your devotion to Jean was all +the more beautiful, M. Pujol." + +Soon after this they parted, the night air having grown chill. Both +ladies shook hands with him warmly. + +Anne's hand lingered the fraction of a second longer in his than +Janet's. She had seen Jean in his bath. + +Aristide wandered down the gay avenue into the open road and looked at +the stars, reading in their splendour a brilliant destiny for Jean. He +felt, in his sensitive way, that the two sweet-souled Englishwomen had +deepened and sanctified his love for Jean. When he returned to the hotel +he kissed his incongruous room-mate with the gentleness of a woman. + +In the morning he went round to the garage. The foreman mechanician +advanced to meet him. + +"Well?" + +"There is nothing to be done, monsieur." + +"What do you mean by 'nothing to be done'?" asked Aristide. + +The other shrugged his sturdy shoulders. + +"She is worn out. She needs new carburation, new cylinders, new +water-circulation, new lubrication, new valves, new brakes, new +ignition, new gears, new bolts, new nuts, new everything. In short, she +is not repairable." + +Aristide listened in incredulous amazement. His automobile, his +wonderful, beautiful, clashing, dashing automobile unrepairable! It was +impossible. But a quarter of an hour's demonstration by the foreman +convinced him. The car was dead. The engine would never whir again. All +the petrol in the world would not stimulate her into life. Never again +would he sit behind that wheel rejoicing in the insolence of speed. The +car, which, in spite of her manifold infirmities, he had fondly imagined +to be immortal, had run her last course. Aristide felt faint. + +"And there is nothing to be done?" + +"Nothing, monsieur. Fifty francs is all that she is worth." + +"At any rate," said Aristide, "send the basket to the Hotel de Paris." + +He went out of the garage like a man in a dream. At the door he turned +to take a last look at the Pride of his Life. Her stern was towards him, +and all he saw of her was the ironical legend, "Cure your Corns." + +At the hotel he found the bench outside occupied chiefly by Jean. One +of the little girls in pigtails was holding him, while Miss Anne +administered the feeding-bottle. Provincial France is the happiest +country in the world--in that you can live your intimate, domestic life +in public, and nobody heeds. + +"I hope you've not come to tell Jean to boot and saddle," said Miss +Anne, a smile on her roughly-hewn, comely face. + +"Alas!" said Aristide, cheered by the charming spectacle before him. "I +don't know when we can get away. My auto has broken down hopelessly. I +ought to go at once to my firm in Marseilles"--he spoke as if he were a +partner in the Maison Hieropath--"but I don't quite know what to do with +Jean." + +"Oh, I'll look after Jean." + +"But you said you were leaving for Avignon to-day." + + [Illustration: ONE OF THE LITTLE GIRLS IN PIGTAILS WAS HOLDING HIM, + WHILE MISS ANNE ADMINISTERED THE FEEDING-BOTTLE] + +She laughed, holding the feeding-bottle. "The Palace of the Popes has +been standing for six centuries, and it will be still standing +to-morrow; whereas Jean----" Here Jean, for some reason known to +himself, grinned wet and wide. "Isn't he the most fascinating thing of +the twentieth century?" she cried, logically inconsequential, like most +of her sex. "You go to Marseilles, M. Pujol." + +So Aristide took the train to Marseilles--a half-hour's journey--and in +a quarter of the city resembling a fusion of Jarrow, an unfashionable +part of St. Louis, and a brimstone-manufacturing suburb of Gehenna, he +interviewed the high authorities of the Maison Hieropath. His cajolery +could lead men into diverse lunacies, but it could not induce the +hard-bitten manufacturer of quack remedies to provide a brand-new +automobile for his personal convenience. The old auto had broken down. +The manufacturer shrugged his shoulders. The mystery was that it had +lasted as long as it did. He had expected it to explode the first +day. The idea had originally been that of the junior partner, a +scatter-brained youth whom at times they humoured. Meanwhile, there +being no beplacarded and beflagged automobile, there could be no +advertisement; therefore they had no further use for M. Pujol's +services. + +"Good," said Aristide, when he reached the evil thoroughfare. "It was a +degraded occupation, and I am glad I am out of it. Meanwhile, here is +Marseilles before me, and it will be astonishing if I do not find some +fresh road to fortune before the day is out." + +Aristide tramped and tramped all day through the streets of Marseilles, +but the road he sought he did not find. He returned to Aix in dire +perplexity. He was used to finding himself suddenly cut off from the +means of livelihood. It was his chronic state of being. His gay +resourcefulness had always carried him through. But then there had been +only himself to think of. Now there was Jean. For the first time for +many years the dragon-fly's wings grew limp. Jean--what could he do with +Jean? + +Jean had already gone to sleep when he arrived. All day he had been as +good as gold, so Miss Anne declared. For herself, she had spent the +happiest day of her life. + +"I don't wonder at your being devoted to him, M. Pujol," she said. "He +has the most loving ways of any baby I ever met." + +"Yes, mademoiselle," replied Aristide, with an unaccustomed huskiness in +his voice, "I am devoted to him. It may seem odd for a man to be wrapped +up in a baby of nine months old--but--it's like that. It's true. _Je +l'adore de tout mon coeur, de tout mon etre_," he cried, in a sudden +gust of passion. + +Miss Anne smiled kindly, not dreaming of his perplexity, amused by his +Southern warmth. Miss Janet joined them in the hall. They went in to +dinner, Aristide sitting at the central _table d'hote_, the ladies at a +little table by themselves. After dinner they met again outside the +hotel, and drank coffee and talked the evening away. He was not as +bright a companion as on the night before. His gaiety was forced. He +talked about everything else in the world but Jean. The temptation to +pour his financial troubles into the sympathetic ears of these two dear +women he resisted. They regarded him as on a social equality, as a man +of means engaged in some sort of business at Marseilles; they had +invited him to bring Jean to see them at Chislehurst when he should +happen to be in England again. Pride forbade him to confess himself a +homeless, penniless vagabond. The exquisite charm of their frank +intimacy would be broken. Besides, what could they do? + +They retired early. Aristide again sought the message of the stars; but +the sky was clouded over, and soon a fine rain began to fall. A bock at +a cafe brought him neither comfort nor inspiration. He returned to the +hotel, and, eluding a gossip-seeking landlady, went up to his room. + +What could be done? Neither the sleeping babe nor himself could offer +any suggestion. One thing was grimly inevitable. He and Jean must part. +To carry him about like an infant prince in an automobile had, after +all, been a simple matter; to drag him through Heaven knew what +hardships in his makeshift existence was impossible. In his childlike, +impulsive fashion he had not thought of the future when he adopted Jean. +Aristide always regarded the fortune of the moment as if it would last +forever. Past deceptions never affected his incurable optimism. Now Jean +and he must part. Aristide felt that the end of the world had come. His +pacing to and fro awoke the child, who demanded, in his own way, the +soothing rocking of his father's arms. There he bubbled and "goo'd" till +Aristide's heart nearly broke. + +"What can I do with you, _mon petit Jean_?" + +The Enfants Trouves, after all? He thought of it with a shudder. + +The child asleep again, he laid it on its bed, and then sat far into the +night thinking barrenly. At last one of his sudden gleams of inspiration +illuminated his mind. It was the only way. He took out his watch. It was +four o'clock. What had to be done must be done swiftly. + +In the travelling-basket, which had been sent from the garage, he placed +a pillow, and on to the pillow he transferred with breathless care the +sleeping Jean, and wrapped him up snug and warm in bedclothes. Then he +folded the tiny day-garments that lay on a chair, collected the little +odds and ends belonging to the child, took from his valise the rest of +Jean's little wardrobe, and laid them at the foot of the basket. The +most miserable man in France then counted up his money, divided it into +two parts, and wrote a hasty letter, which, with the bundle of notes, he +enclosed in an envelope. + +"My little Jean," said he, laying the envelope on the child's breast. +"Here is a little more than half my fortune. Half is for yourself and +the little more to pay your wretched father's hotel bill. Good-bye, my +little Jean. _Je t'aime bien, tu sais_--and don't reproach me." + + * * * * * + +About an hour afterwards Miss Anne awoke and listened, and in a moment +or two Miss Janet awoke also. + +"Janet, do you hear that?" + +"It's a child crying. It's just outside the door." + +"It sounds like Jean." + +"Nonsense, my dear!" + +But Anne switched on the light and went to see for herself; and there, +in the tiny anteroom that separated the bedroom from the corridor, she +found the basket--a new Pharoah's daughter before a new little Moses in +the bulrushes. In bewilderment she brought the ark into the room, and +read the letter addressed to Janet and herself. She burst into tears. +All she said was:-- + +"Oh, Janet, why couldn't he have told us?" + +And then she fell to hugging the child to her bosom. + +Meanwhile Aristide Pujol, clad in his goat-skin cap and coat, valise in +hand, was plodding through the rain in search of the elusive phantom, +Fortune; gloriously certain that he had assured Jean's future, yet with +such a heartache as he had never had in his life before. + + + + +V + +THE ADVENTURE OF THE PIG'S HEAD + + +Once upon a time Aristide Pujol found himself standing outside his Paris +residence, No. 213 _bis_, Rue Saint Honore, without a penny in the +world. His last sou had gone to Madame Bidoux, who kept a small green +grocer's shop at No. 213 _bis_ and rented a ridiculously small back room +for a ridiculously small weekly sum to Aristide whenever he honoured the +French capital with his presence. During his absence she forwarded him +such letters as might arrive for him; and as this was his only permanent +address, and as he let Madame Bidoux know his whereabouts only at vague +intervals of time, the transaction of business with Aristide Pujol, +"Agent, No. 213 _bis_, Rue Saint Honore, Paris," by correspondence was +peculiarly difficult. + +He had made Madame Bidoux's acquaintance in the dim past; and he had +made it in his usual direct and electric manner. Happening to walk down +the Rue Saint Honore, he had come upon tragedy. Madame Bidoux, fat, red +of face, tearful of eye and strident of voice, held in her arms a +little mongrel dog--her own precious possession--which had just been run +over in the street, and the two of them filled the air with wailings and +vociferation. Aristide uncovered his head, as though he were about to +address a duchess, and smiled at her engagingly. + +"Madame," said he, "I perceive that your little dog has a broken leg. As +I know all about dogs, I will, with your permission, set the limb, put +it into splints and guarantee a perfect cure. Needless to say, I make no +charge for my services." + +Snatching the dog from the arms of the fascinated woman, he darted in +his dragon-fly fashion into the shop, gave a hundred orders to a +stupefied assistant, and--to cut short a story which Aristide told me +with great wealth of detail--mended the precious dog and gained Madame +Bidoux's eternal gratitude. For Madame Bidoux the world held no more +remarkable man than Aristide Pujol; and for Aristide the world held no +more devoted friend than Madame Bidoux. Many a succulent meal, at the +widow's expense--never more enjoyable than in summer time when she set a +little iron table and a couple of iron chairs on the pavement outside +the shop--had saved him from starvation; and many a gewgaw sent from +London or Marseilles or other such remote latitudes filled her heart +with pride. Since my acquaintance with Aristide I myself have called on +this excellent woman, and I hope I have won her esteem, though I have +never had the honour of eating pig's trotters and chou-croute with her +on the pavement of the Rue Saint Honore. It is an honour from which, +being an unassuming man, I shrink. + +Unfortunately Madame Bidoux has nothing further to do with the story I +am about to relate, save in one respect:-- + +There came a day--it was a bleak day in November, when Madame Bidoux's +temporary financial difficulties happened to coincide with Aristide's. +To him, unsuspicious of coincidence, she confided her troubles. He +emptied the meagre contents of his purse into her hand. + +"Madame Bidoux," said he with a flourish, and the air of a prince, "why +didn't you tell me before?" and without waiting for her blessing he went +out penniless into the street. + +Aristide was never happier than when he had not a penny piece in the +world. He believed, I fancy, in a dim sort of way, in God and the Virgin +and Holy Water and the Pope; but the faith that thrilled him to +exaltation was his faith in the inevitable happening of the unexpected. +He marched to meet it with the throbbing pulses of a soldier rushing to +victory or a saint to martyrdom. He walked up the Rue Saint Honore, the +Rue de la Paix, along the Grands Boulevards, smiling on a world which +teemed with unexpectednesses, until he reached a cafe on the Boulevard +des Bonnes Filles de Calvaire. Here he was arrested by Fate, in the form +of a battered man in black, who, springing from the solitary frostiness +of the terrace, threw his arms about him and kissed him on both cheeks. + +"_Mais, c'est toi, Pujol!_" + +"_C'est toi, Roulard!_" + +Roulard dragged Aristide to his frosty table and ordered drinks. Roulard +had played the trumpet in the regimental band in which Aristide had +played the kettle drum. During their military service they had been +inseparables. Since those happy and ear-splitting days they had not met. +They looked at each other and laughed and thumped each other's +shoulders. + +"_Ce vieux Roulard!_" + +"_Ce sacre Pujol._" + +"And what are you doing?" asked Aristide, after the first explosions of +astonishment and reminiscence. + +A cloud overspread the battered man's features. He had a wife and five +children and played in theatre orchestras. At the present time he was +trombone in the "Tournee Gulland," a touring opera company. It was not +gay for a sensitive artist like him, and the trombone gave one a thirst +which it took half a week's salary to satisfy. _Mais enfin, que +veux-tu?_ It was life, a dog's life, but life was like that. Aristide, +he supposed, was making a fortune. Aristide threw back his head, and +laughed at the exquisite humour of the hypothesis, and gaily disclosed +his Micawberish situation. Roulard sat for a while thoughtful and +silent. Presently a ray of inspiration dispelled the cloud from the +features of the battered man. + +"_Tiens, mon vieux_," said he, "I have an idea." + +It was an idea worthy of Aristide's consideration. The drum of the +Tournee Gulland had been dismissed for drunkenness. The vacancy had not +been filled. Various executants who had drummed on approval--this being +an out-week of the tour--had driven the chef d'orchestre to the verge of +homicidal mania. Why should not Aristide, past master in drumming, find +an honourable position in the orchestra of the Tournee Gulland? + +Aristide's eyes sparkled, his fingers itched for the drumsticks, he +started to his feet. + +"_Mon vieux Roulard!_" he cried, "you have saved my life. More than +that, you have resuscitated an artist. Yes, an artist. _Sacre nom de +Dieu!_ Take me to this chef d'orchestre." + +So Roulard, when the hour of rehearsal drew nigh, conducted Aristide to +the murky recesses of a dirty little theatre in the Batignolles, where +Aristide performed such prodigies of repercussion that he was forthwith +engaged to play the drum, the kettle-drum, the triangle, the cymbals, +the castagnettes and the tambourine, in the orchestra of the Tournee +Gulland at the dazzling salary of thirty francs a week. + +To tell how Aristide drummed and cymballed the progress of Les +Huguenots, Carmen, La Juive, La Fille de Madame Angot and L'Arlesienne +through France would mean the rewriting of a "Capitaine Fracasse." To +hear the creature talk about it makes my mouth as a brick kiln and my +flesh as that of a goose. He was the Adonis, the Apollo, the Don Juan, +the Irresistible of the Tournee. Fled truculent bass and haughty tenor +before him; from diva to moustachioed contralto in the chorus, all the +ladies breathlessly watched for the fall of his handkerchief; he was +recognized, in fact, as a devil of a fellow. But in spite of these +triumphs, the manipulation of the drum, kettle-drum, triangle, cymbals, +castagnettes and tambourine, which at first had given him intense and +childish delight, at last became invested with a mechanical monotony +that almost drove him mad. All day long the thought of the ill-lit +corner, on the extreme right of the orchestra, garnished with the +accursed instruments of noise to which duty would compel him at eight +o'clock in the evening hung over him like a hideous doom. Sweet singers +of the female sex were powerless to console. He passed them by, and +haughty tenor and swaggering basso again took heart of grace. + +"_Mais, mon Dieu, c'est le metier!_" expostulated Roulard. + +"_Sale metier!_" cried Aristide, who was as much fitted for the +merciless routine of a theatre orchestra as a quagga for the shafts of +an omnibus. "A beast of a trade! One is no longer a man. One is just an +automatic system of fog-signals!" + +In this depraved state of mind he arrived at Perpignan, where that +befell him which I am about to relate. + +Now, Perpignan is the last town of France on the Gulf of Lions, a few +miles from the Spanish border. From it you can see the great white +monster of Le Canigou, the pride of the Eastern Pyrenees, far, far away, +blocking up the valley of the Tet, which flows sluggishly past the +little town. The Quai Sadi-Carnot (is there a provincial town in France +which has not a _something_ Sadi-Carnot in it?) is on the left bank +of the Tet; at one end is the modern Place Arago, at the other Le +Castillet, a round, castellated red-brick fortress with curiously long +and deep machicolations of the 14th century with some modern additions +of Louis XI, who also built the adjoining Porte Notre Dame which gives +access to the city. Between the Castillet and the Place Arago, the Quai +Sadi-Carnot is the site of the Prefecture, the Grand Hotel, various +villas and other resorts of the aristocracy. Any little street off it +will lead you into the seething centre of Perpignan life--the Place de +la Loge, which is a great block of old buildings surrounded on its four +sides by narrow streets of shops, cafes, private houses, all with +balconies and jalousies, all cramped, crumbling, Spanish, picturesque. +The oldest of this conglomerate block is a corner building, the Loge de +Mer, a thirteenth century palace, the cloth exchange in the glorious +days when Perpignan was a seaport and its merchant princes traded with +Sultans and Doges and such-like magnificoes of the Mediterranean. But +nowadays its glory has departed. Below the great gothic windows spreads +the awning of a cafe, which takes up all the ground floor. Hugging it +tight is the Mairie, and hugging that, the Hotel de Ville. Hither does +every soul in the place, at some hour or other of the day, inevitably +gravitate. Lawyers and clients, doctors and patients, merchants, lovers, +soldiers, market-women, loafers, horses, dogs, wagons, all crowd in a +noisy medley the narrow cobble-paved streets around the Loge. Of course +there are other streets, tortuous, odorous and cool, intersecting the +old town, and there are various open spaces, one of which is the broad +market square on one side flanked by the Theatre Municipal. + +From the theatre Aristide Pujol issued one morning after rehearsal, +and, leaving his colleagues, including the ever-thirsty Roulard, to +refresh themselves at a humble cafe hard by, went forth in search of +distraction. He idled about the Place de la Loge, passed the time of day +with a cafe waiter until the latter, with a disconcerting "_Voila! +Voila!_" darted off to attend to a customer, and then strolled through +the Porte Notre Dame onto the Quai Sadi-Carnot. There a familiar sound +met his ears--the roll of a drum followed by an incantation in a +quavering, high-pitched voice. It was the Town Crier, with whom, as with +a brother artist, he had picked acquaintance the day before. + +They met by the parapet of the Quai, just as Pere Bracasse had come to +the end of his incantation. The old man, grizzled, tanned and seamed, +leant weakly against the parapet. + +"How goes it, Pere Bracasse?" + +"Alas, mon bon Monsieur, it goes from bad to worse," sighed the old man. +"I am at the end of my strength. My voice has gone and the accursed +rheumatism in my shoulder gives me atrocious pain whenever I beat the +drum." + +"How much more of your round have you to go?" asked Aristide. + +"I have only just begun," said Pere Bracasse. + +The Southern sun shone from a cloudless sky; a light, keen wind blowing +from the distant snow-clad Canigou set the blood tingling. A lunatic +idea flashed through Aristide's mind. He whipped the drum strap over the +old man's head. + +"Pere Bracasse," said he, "you are suffering from rheumatism, +bronchitis, fever and corns, and you must go home to bed. I will finish +your round for you. Listen," and he beat such a tattoo as Pere Bracasse +had never accomplished in his life. "Where are your words?" + +The old man, too weary to resist and fascinated by Aristide's laughing +eyes, handed him a dirty piece of paper. Aristide read, played a +magnificent roll and proclaimed in a clarion voice that a gold bracelet +having been lost on Sunday afternoon in the Avenue des Platanes, whoever +would deposit it at the Mairie would receive a reward. + +"That's all?" he enquired. + +"That's all," said Pere Bracasse. "I live in the Rue Petite-de-la-Real, +No. 4, and you will bring me back the drum when you have finished." + +Aristide darted off like a dragon-fly in the sunshine, as happy as a +child with a new toy. Here he could play the drum to his heart's content +with no score or conductor's baton to worry him. He was also the one and +only personage in the drama, concentrating on himself the attention of +the audience. He pitied poor Roulard, who could never have such an +opportunity with his trombone.... + +The effect of his drumming before the Cafe de la Loge was electric. +Shopkeepers ran out of their shops, housewives craned over their +balconies to listen to him. By the time he had threaded the busy strip +of the town and emerged on to the Place Arago he had collected an +admiring train of urchins. On the Place Arago he halted on the fringe of +a crowd surrounding a cheap-jack whose vociferations he drowned in a +roll of thunder. He drummed and drummed till he became the centre of the +throng. Then he proclaimed the bracelet. He had not enjoyed himself so +much since he left Paris. + +He was striding away, merry-eyed and happy, followed by his satellites +when a prosperous-looking gentleman with a very red face, a prosperous +roll of fat above the back of his collar, and the ribbon of the Legion +of Honour in his buttonhole, descending the steps of the great +glass-covered cafe commanding the Place, hurried up and laid his finger +on his arm. + +"Pardon, my friend," said he, "what are you doing there?" + +"You shall hear, monsieur," replied Aristide, clutching the drumsticks. + +"For the love of Heaven!" cried the other hastily interrupting. "Tell me +what are you doing?" + +"I am crying the loss of a bracelet, monsieur!" + +"But who are you?" + +"I am Aristide Pujol, and I play the drum, kettle-drum, triangle, +cymbals, castagnettes and tambourine in the orchestra of the Tournee +Gulland. And now, in my turn, may I ask to whom I have the honour of +speaking?" + +"I am the Mayor of Perpignan." + +Aristide raised his hat politely. "I hope to have the pleasure," said +he, "of Monsieur le Maire's better acquaintance." + +The Mayor, attracted by the rascal's guileless mockery, laughed. + +"You will, my friend, if you go on playing that drum. You are not the +Town Crier." + +Aristide explained. Pere Bracasse was ill, suffering from rheumatism, +bronchitis, fever and corns. He was replacing him. The Mayor retorted +that Pere Bracasse being a municipal functionary could not transmit his +functions except through the Administration. Monsieur Pujol must desist +from drumming and crying. Aristide bowed to authority and unstrung his +drum. + +"But I was enjoying myself so much, Monsieur le Maire. You have spoiled +my day," said he. + +The Mayor laughed again. There was an irresistible charm and roguishness +about the fellow, with his intelligent oval face, black Vandyke beard +and magically luminous eyes. + +"I should have thought you had enough of drums in your orchestra." + +"Ah! there I am cramped!" cried Aristide. "I have it in horror, in +detestation. Here I am free. I can give vent to all the aspirations of +my soul!" + +The Mayor mechanically moved from the spot where they had been standing. +Aristide, embroidering his theme, mechanically accompanied him; and, +such is democratic France, and also such was the magnetic, Ancient +Mariner-like power of Aristide--did not I, myself, on my first meeting +with him at Aigues-Mortes fall helplessly under the spell--that, in a +few moments, the amateur Town Crier and the Mayor were walking together, +side by side, along the Quai Sadi-Carnot, engaged in amiable converse. +Aristide told the Mayor the story of his life--or such incidents of it +as were meet for Mayoral ears--and when they parted--the Mayor to lunch, +Aristide to yield up the interdicted drum to Pere Bracasse--they shook +hands warmly and mutually expressed the wish that they would soon meet +again. + +They met again; Aristide saw to that. They met again that very afternoon +in the cafe on the Place Arago. When Aristide entered he saw the Mayor +seated at a table in the company of another prosperous, red-ribboned +gentleman. Aristide saluted politely and addressed the Mayor. The Mayor +saluted and presented him to Monsieur Querin, the President of the +Syndicat d'Initiative of the town of Perpignan. Monsieur Querin saluted +and declared himself enchanted at the encounter. Aristide stood +gossiping until the Mayor invited him to take a place at the table and +consume liquid refreshment. Aristide glowingly accepted the invitation +and cast a look of triumph around the cafe. Not to all mortals is it +given to be the boon companion of a Mayor and a President of the +Syndicat d'Initiative! + +Then ensued a conversation momentous in its consequences. + +The Syndicat d'Initiative is a semi-official body existing in most +provincial towns in France for the purpose of organising public +festivals for the citizens and developing the resources and +possibilities of the town for the general amenity of visitors. Now +Perpignan is as picturesque, as sun-smitten and, in spite of the icy +tramontana, even as joyous a place as tourist could desire; and the +Carnival of Perpignan, as a spontaneous outburst of gaiety and +pageantry, is unique in France. But Perpignan being at the end of +everywhere and leading nowhere attracts very few visitors. Biarritz is +on the Atlantic coast at the other end of the Pyrenees; Hyeres, Cannes +and Monte Carlo on the other side of the Gulf of Lions. No English or +Americans--the only visitors of any account in the philosophy of +provincial France--flock to Perpignan. This was a melancholy fact +bewailed by Monsieur Querin. The town was perishing from lack of +Anglo-Saxon support. Monsieur Coquereau, the Mayor, agreed. If the +English and Americans came in their hordes to this paradise of mimosa, +fourteenth century architecture, sunshine and unique Carnival, the +fortunes of all the citizens would be assured. Perpignan would out-rival +Nice. But what could be done? + +"Advertise it," said Aristide. "Flood the English-speaking world with +poetical descriptions of the place. Build a row of palatial hotels in +the new part of the town. It is not known to the Anglo-Saxons." + +"How can you be certain of that?" asked Monsieur Querin. + +"_Parbleu!_" he cried, with a wide gesture. "I have known the English +all my life. I speak their language as I speak French or my native +Provencal. I have taught in schools in England. I know the country and +the people like my pocket. They have never heard of Perpignan." + +His companions acquiesced sadly. Aristide, aglow with a sudden impudent +inspiration, leant across the marble table. + +"Monsieur le Maire and Monsieur le President du Syndicat d'Initiative, I +am sick to death of playing the drum, the kettle-drum, the triangle, the +cymbals, the castagnettes and the tambourine in the Tournee Gulland. I +was born to higher things. Entrust to me"--he converged the finger-tips +of both hands to his bosom--"to me, Aristide Pujol, the organisation of +Perpignan-Ville de Plaisir, and you will not regret it." + +The Mayor and the President laughed. + + * * * * * + +But my astonishing friend prevailed--not indeed to the extent of being +appointed a Petronius, _arbiter elegantiarum_, of the town of Perpignan; +but to the extent of being employed, I fear in a subordinate capacity, +by the Mayor and the Syndicat in the work of propagandism. The Tournee +Gulland found another drum and went its tuneful but weary way; and +Aristide remained gloriously behind and rubbed his hands with glee. At +last he had found permanence in a life where heretofore had been naught +but transience. At last he had found a sphere worthy of his genius. He +began to nourish insensate ambitions. He would be the Great Benefactor +of Perpignan. All Roussillon should bless his name. Already he saw his +statue on the Quai Sadi-Carnot. + +His rise in the social scale of the town was meteoric, chiefly owing to +the goodwill of Madame Coquereau, the widowed mother of the Mayor. She +was a hard-featured old lady, with a face that might have been made of +corrugated iron painted yellow and with the eyes of an old hawk. She +dressed always in black, was very devout and rich and narrow and +iron-willed. Aristide was presented to her one Sunday afternoon at the +Cafe on the Place Arago--where on Sunday afternoons all the fashion of +Perpignan assembles--and--need I say it?--she fell at once a helpless +victim to his fascination. Accompanying her grandmother was Mademoiselle +Stephanie Coquereau, the Mayor's niece (a wealthy orphan, as Aristide +soon learned), nineteen, pretty, demure, perfectly brought up, who said +"_Oui, Monsieur_" and "_Non, Monsieur_" with that quintessence of modest +grace which only a provincial French Convent can cultivate. + +Aristide's heart left his body and rolled at the feet of Mademoiselle +Stephanie. It was a way with Aristide's heart. It was always doing that. +He was of Provence and not of Peckham Rye or Hoboken, and he could not +help it. + +Aristide called on Madame Coquereau, who entertained him with sweet +Frontignan wine, dry sponge cakes and conversation. After a while he was +invited to dinner. In a short space of time he became the intimate +friend of the house, and played piquet with Madame Coquereau, and grew +familiar with the family secrets. First he learned that Mademoiselle +Stephanie would go to a husband with two hundred and fifty thousand +francs. Aristide's heart panted at the feet of Mademoiselle Stephanie. +Further he gathered that, though Monsieur Coquereau was a personage of +great dignity and importance in civic affairs, he was as but a little +child in his own house. Madame Coquereau held the money-bags. Her son +had but little personal fortune. He had reached the age of forty-five +without being able to marry. Marriage unauthorized by Madame Coquereau +meant immediate poverty and the testamentary assignment of Madame +Coquereau's fortune to various religious establishments. None of the +objects of Monsieur Coquereau's matrimonial desire had pleased Madame +Coquereau, and none of Madame Coquereau's blushing candidates had caused +a pulse in Monsieur Coquereau's being to beat the faster. The Mayor held +his mother in professed adoration and holy terror. She held him in +abject subjection. Aristide became the confidant, in turn, of Madame's +sour philosophy of life and of Monsieur's impotence and despair. As for +Mademoiselle Stephanie, she kept on saying "_Oui, Monsieur_" and "_Non, +Monsieur_," in a crescendo of maddening demureness. + +So passed the halcyon hours. During the day time Aristide in a corner of +the Mayor's office, drew up flamboyant circulars in English which would +have put a pushing Land and Estate Agent in the New Jerusalem to the +blush, and in the evening played piquet with Madame Coquereau, while +Mademoiselle Stephanie, model of modest piety, worked pure but nameless +birds and flowers on her embroidery frame. Monsieur le Maire, of course, +played his game of manilla at the cafe, after dinner, and generally +came home just before Aristide took his leave. If it had not been for +the presence of Mademoiselle Stephanie, it would not have been gay for +Aristide. But love gilded the moments. + +On the first evening of the Carnival, which lasts nearly a fortnight in +Perpignan, Aristide, in spite of a sweeter "_Oui, Monsieur_" than ever +from Mademoiselle Stephanie, made an excuse to slip away rather earlier +than usual, and, front door having closed behind him, crossed the strip +of gravel with a quick step and flung out of the iron gates. Now the +house had an isolated position in the new quarter of the town. It was +perky and modern and defaced by all sorts of oriel windows and tourelles +and pinnacles which gave it a top-heavy appearance, and it was +surrounded by a low brick wall. Aristide, on emerging through the iron +gates, heard the sound of scurrying footsteps on the side of the wall +nearest to the town, and reached the corner, just in time to see a +masquer, attired in a Pierrot costume and wearing what seemed to be a +pig's head, disappear round the further angle. Paying no heed to this +phenomenon, Aristide lit a cigarette and walked, in anticipation of +enjoyment, to the great Avenue des Plantanes where the revelry of the +Carnival was being held. Aristide was young, he loved flirtation, and +flirtation flourished in the Avenue des Plantanes. + +The next morning the Mayor entered his office with a very grave face. + +"Do you know what has happened? My house was broken into last night. The +safe in my study was forced open, and three thousand francs and some +valuable jewelry were stolen. _Quel malheur!_" he cried, throwing +himself into a chair, and wiping his forehead. "It is not I who can +afford to lose three thousand francs at once. If they had robbed _maman_ +it would have been a different matter." + +Aristide expressed his sympathy. + +"Whom do you suspect?" he asked. + +"A robber, _parbleu!_" said the Mayor. "The police are even now making +their investigations." + +The door opened and a plain clothes detective entered the office. + +"Monsieur le Maire," said he, with an air of triumph, "I know a +burglar." + +Both men leapt to their feet. + +"Ah!" said Aristide. + +"_A la bonne heure!_" cried the Mayor. + +"Arrest him at once," said Aristide. + +"Alas, Monsieur," said the detective, "that I cannot do. I have called +on him this morning and his wife tells me that he left for the North +yesterday afternoon. But it is Jose Puegas that did it. I know his +ways." + +"_Tiens!_" said the Mayor, reflectively. "I know him also, an evil +fellow." + +"But why are you not looking for him?" exclaimed Aristide. + +"Arrangements have been made," replied the detective coldly. + +Aristide suddenly bethought him of the furtive masquer of the night +before. + +"I can put you on his track," said he, and related what he knew. + +The Mayor looked dubious. "It wasn't he," he remarked. + +"Jose Puegas, Monsieur, would not commit a burglary in a pig's head," +said the policeman, with the cutting contempt of the expert. + +"It was a vow, I suppose," said Aristide, stung to irony. "I've always +heard he was a religious man." + +The detective did not condescend to reply. + +"Monsieur le Maire," said he, "I should like to examine the premises, +and beg that you will have the kindness to accompany me." + +"With the permission of Monsieur le Maire," said Aristide. "I too will +come." + +"Certainly," said the Mayor. "The more intelligences concentrated on the +affair the better." + +"I am not of that opinion," said the detective. + +"It is the opinion of Monsieur le Maire," said Aristide rebukingly, "and +that is enough." + +When they reached the house--distances are short in Perpignan--they +found policemen busily engaged with tape measures around the premises. +Old Madame Coquereau in a clean white linen dressing jacket, +bare-headed, defying the keen air, stood grim and eager in the midst of +them. + +"Good morning, Monsieur Pujol, what do you think of this?" + +"A veritable catastrophe," said Aristide. + +She shrugged her iron shoulders. "I tell him it serves him right," she +said, cuttingly. "A sensible person keeps his money under his mattress +and not in a tin machine by a window which anyone can get at. I wonder +we've not been murdered in our beds before." + +"_Ah, Maman!_" expostulated the Mayor of Perpignan. + +But she turned her back on him and worried the policemen. They, having +probed, and measured, and consulted with the detective, came to an exact +conclusion. The thief had climbed over the back wall--there were his +footsteps. He had entered by the kitchen door--there were the marks of +infraction. He had broken open the safe--there was the helpless +condition of the lock. No one in Perpignan, but Jose Puegas, with his +bad, socialistic, Barcelona blood, could have done it. These brilliant +results were arrived at after much clamour and argument and imposing +_proces verbal_. Aristide felt strangely depressed. He had narrated his +story of the pig-headed masquer to unresponsive ears. Here was a +melodramatic scene in which he not only was not playing a leading part, +but did not even carry a banner. To be less than a super in life's +pageant was abhorrent to the nature of Aristide Pujol. + +Moodily he wandered away from the little crowd. He hated the police and +their airs of gods for whom exists no mystery. He did not believe in the +kitchen-door theory. Why should not the thief have simply entered by the +window of the study, which like the kitchen, was on the ground floor? He +went round the house and examined the window by himself. No; there were +no traces of burglary. The fastenings of the outside shutters and the +high window were intact. The police were right. + +Suddenly his quick eye lit on something in the gravel path and his heart +gave a great leap. It was a little round pink disc of confetti. + +Aristide picked it up and began to dance and shake his fist at the +invisible police. + +"Aha!" he cried, "now we shall see who is right and who is wrong!" + +He began to search and soon found another bit of confetti. A little +further along he discovered a third and a fourth. By using his walking +stick he discovered that they formed a trail to a point in the wall. He +examined the wall. There, if his eyes did not deceive him, were +evidences of mortar dislodged by nefarious toes. And there, _mirabile +visu!_ at the very bottom of the wall lay a little woollen pompon or +tassel, just the kind of pompon that gives a finish to a pierrot's +shoes. Evidently the scoundrel had scraped it off against the bricks +while clambering over. + +The pig-headed masquer stood confessed. + +A less imaginative man than Aristide would have immediately acquainted +the police with his discovery. But Aristide had been insulted. A dull, +mechanical bureaucrat who tried to discover crime with a tape-measure +had dared to talk contemptuously of his intelligence! On his wooden head +should be poured the vials of his contempt. + +"_Tron de l'air!_" cried Aristide--a Provencal oath which he only used +on sublime occasions--"It is I who will discover the thief and make the +whole lot of you the laughing-stock of Perpignan." + +So did my versatile friend, joyously confident in his powers, start on +his glorious career as a private detective. + +"Madame Coquereau," said he, that evening, while she was dealing a hand +at piquet, "what would you say if I solved this mystery and brought the +scoundrel to justice?" + +"To say that you would have more sense than the police, would be a poor +compliment," said the old lady. + +Stephanie raised cloistral eyes from her embroidery frame. She sat in a +distant corner of the formal room discreetly lit by a shaded lamp. + +"You have a clue, Monsieur?" she asked with adorable timidity. + +Aristide tapped his forehead with his forefinger. "All is there, +Mademoiselle." + +They exchanged a glance--the first they had exchanged--while Madame +Coquereau was frowning at her cards; and Aristide interpreted the glance +as the promise of supreme reward for great deeds accomplished. + +The mayor returned early from the cafe, a dejected man. The loss of his +hundred and twenty pounds weighed heavily on his mind. He kissed his +mother sorrowfully on the cheek, his niece on the brow, held out a +drooping hand to Aristide, and, subsiding into a stiff imitation Louis +XVI chair, rested his elbows on its unconsoling arms and hid his face in +his hands. + +"My poor uncle! You suffer so much?" breathed Stephanie, in divine +compassion. + +"Little Saint!" murmured Aristide devoutly, as he declared four aces and +three queens. + +The Mayor moved his head sympathetically. He was suffering from the +sharpest pain in his pocket he had felt for many a day. Madame +Coquereau's attention wandered from the cards. + +"_Dis donc_, Fernand," she said sharply. "Why are you not wearing your +ring?" + +The Mayor looked up. + +"_Maman_," said he, "it is stolen." + +"Your beautiful ring?" cried Aristide. + +The Mayor's ring, which he usually wore, was a remarkable personal +adornment. It consisted in a couple of snakes in old gold clenching an +enormous topaz between their heads. Only a Mayor could have worn it with +decency. + +"You did not tell me, Fernand," rasped the old lady. "You did not +mention it to me as being one of the stolen objects." + +The Mayor rose wearily. "It was to avoid giving you pain, _maman_. I +know what a value you set upon the ring of my good Aunt Philomene." + +"And now it is lost," said Madame Coquereau, throwing down her cards. "A +ring that belonged to a saint. Yes, Monsieur Pujol, a saint, though she +was my sister. A ring that had been blessed by His Holiness the +Pope----" + +"But, _maman_," expostulated the Mayor, "that was an imagination of Aunt +Philomene. Just because she went to Rome and had an audience like anyone +else----" + +"Silence, impious atheist that you are!" cried the old lady. "I tell you +it was blessed by His Holiness--and when I tell you a thing it is true. +That is the son of to-day. He will call his mother a liar as soon as +look at her. It was a ring beyond price. A ring such as there are few in +the world. And instead of taking care of this precious heirloom, he goes +and locks it away in a safe. Ah! you fill me with shame. Monsieur Pujol, +I am sorry I can play no more, I must retire. Stephanie, will you +accompany me?" + +And gathering up Stephanie like a bunch of snowdrops, the yellow, +galvanized iron old lady swept out of the room. + +The Mayor looked at Aristide and moved his arms dejectedly. + +"Such are women," said he. + +"My own mother nearly broke her heart because I would not become a +priest," said Aristide. + +"I wish I were a Turk," said the Mayor. + +"I, too," said Aristide. + +He took pouch and papers and rolled a cigarette. + +"If there is a man living who can say he has not felt like that at least +once in his life he ought to be exhibited at a fair." + +"How well you understand me, my good Pujol," said Monsieur Coquereau. + +The next few days passed busily for Aristide. He devoted every spare +hour to his new task. He scrutinized every inch of ground between the +study window and the wall; he drew radiating lines from the point of +the wall whence the miscreant had started homeward and succeeded in +finding more confetti. He cross-examined every purveyor of pierrot shoes +and pig's heads in Perpignan. His researches soon came to the ears of +the police, still tracing the mysterious Jose Puegas. A certain +good-humoured brigadier whose Catalan French Aristide found difficult to +understand, but with whom he had formed a derisory kind of friendship, +urged him to desist from the hopeless task. + +"_Jamais de la vie!_" he cried--"The honour of Aristide Pujol is at +stake." + +The thing became an obsession. Not only his honour but his future was at +stake. If he discovered the thief, he would be the most talked of person +in Perpignan. He would know how to improve his position. He would rise +to dizzy heights. Perpignan-Ville de Plaisir would acclaim him as its +saviour. The Government would decorate him. And finally, both the Mayor +and Madame Coquereau would place the blushing and adorable Mademoiselle +Stephanie in his arms and her two hundred and fifty thousand francs +dowry in his pocket. Never before had so dazzling a prize shimmered +before him in the near distance. + +On the last Saturday night of the Carnival, there was a special _corso_ +for the populace in the Avenue des Plantanes, the long splendid Avenue +of plane trees just outside the Porte Notre Dame, which is the special +glory of Perpignan. The masquers danced to three or four bands. They +threw confetti and _serpentins_. They rode hobby-horses and beat each +other with bladders. They joined in bands of youths and maidens and +whirled down the Avenue in Bacchic madness. It was a _corso blanc_, and +everyone wore white--chiefly modifications of Pierrot costume--and +everyone was masked. Chinese lanterns hung from the trees and in +festoons around the bandstands and darted about in the hands of the +revellers. Above, great standard electric lamps shed their white glare +upon the eddying throng casting a myriad of grotesque shadows. Shouts +and laughter and music filled the air. + +Aristide in a hideous red mask and with a bag of confetti under his arm, +plunged with enthusiasm into the revelry. To enjoy yourself you only had +to throw your arm round a girl's waist and swing her off wildly to the +beat of the music. If you wanted to let her go you did so; if not, you +talked in the squeaky voice that is the recognized etiquette of the +carnival. On the other hand any girl could catch you in her grip and +sweep you along with her. Your mad career generally ended in a crowd and +a free fight of confetti. There was one fair masquer, however, to whom +Aristide became peculiarly attracted. Her movements were free, her +figure dainty and her repartee, below her mask, more than usually +piquant. + +"This hurly-burly," said he, drawing her into a quiet eddy of the +stream, "is no place for the communion of two twin souls." + +"_Beau masque_," said she, "I perceive that you are a man of much +sensibility." + +"Shall we find a spot where we can mingle the overflow of our exquisite +natures?" + +"As you like." + +"_Allons! Hop!_" cried he, and seizing her round the waist danced +through the masquers to the very far end of the Avenue. + +"There is a sequestered spot round here," he said. + +They turned. The sequestered spot, a seat beneath a plane tree, with a +lonesome arc-lamp shining full upon it, was occupied. + +"It's a pity!" said the fair unknown. + +But Aristide said nothing. He stared. On the seat reposed an amorous +couple. The lady wore a white domino and a black mask. The cavalier, +whose arm was around the lady's waist, wore a pig's head, and a clown or +Pierrot's dress. + +Aristide's eyes fell upon the shoes. On one of them the pompon was +missing. + +The lady's left hand tenderly patted the cardboard snout of her lover. +The fierce light of the arc lamp caught the hand and revealed, on the +fourth finger, a topaz ring, the topaz held in its place by two snakes' +heads. + +Aristide stared for two seconds; it seemed to him two centuries. Then he +turned simply, caught his partner again, and with a "_Allons, Hop!_" +raced back to the middle of the throng. There, in the crush, he +unceremoniously lost her, and sped like a maniac to the entrance gates. +His friend the brigadier happened to be on duty. He unmasked himself, +dragged the police agent aside, and breathless, half-hysterical, +acquainted him with the astounding discovery. + +"I was right, _mon vieux!_ There at the end of the Avenue you will find +them. The pig-headed prowler I saw, with _my_ pompon missing from his +shoe, and his _bonne amie_ wearing the stolen ring. Ah! you police +people with your tape-measures and your Jose Puegas! It is I, Aristide +Pujol, who have to come to Perpignan to teach you your business!" + +"What do you want me to do?" asked the brigadier stolidly. + +"Do?" cried Aristide. "Do you think I want you to kiss them and cover +them with roses? What do you generally do with thieves in Perpignan?" + +"Arrest them," said the brigadier. + +"_Eh bien!_" said Aristide. Then he paused--possibly the drama of the +situation striking him. "No, wait. Go and find them. Don't take your +eyes off them. I will run and fetch Monsieur le Maire and he will +identify his property--_et puis nous aurons la scene a faire_." + +The stout brigadier grunted an assent and rolled monumentally down the +Avenue. Aristide, his pulses throbbing, his heart exulting, ran to the +Mayor's house. He was rather a panting triumph than a man. He had beaten +the police of Perpignan. He had discovered the thief. He was the hero of +the town. Soon would the wedding bells be playing.... He envied the +marble of the future statue. He would like to be on the pedestal +himself. + +He dashed past the maid-servant who opened the door and burst into the +prim salon. Madame Coquereau was alone, just preparing to retire for the +night. Mademoiselle Stephanie had already gone to bed. + +"_Mon Dieu_, what is all this?" she cried. + +"Madame," shouted he, "glorious news. I have found the thief!" + +He told his tale. Where was Monsieur le Maire? + +"He has not yet come back from the cafe." + +"I'll go and find him," said Aristide. + +"And waste time? Bah!" said the iron-faced old lady, catching up a black +silk shawl. "I will come with you and identify the ring of my sainted +sister Philomene. Who should know it better than I?" + +"As you like, Madame," said Aristide. + +Two minutes found them on their journey. Madame Coquereau, in spite of +her sixty-five years trudged along with springing step. + +"They don't make metal like me, nowadays," she said scornfully. + +When they arrived at the gate of the Avenue, the police on guard +saluted. The mother of Monsieur le Maire was a power in Perpignan. + +"Monsieur," said Aristide, in lordly fashion, to a policeman, "will you +have the goodness to make a passage through the crowd for Madame +Coquereau, and then help the Brigadier Pesac to arrest the burglar who +broke into the house of Monsieur le Maire?" + +The man obeyed, went ahead clearing the path with the unceremoniousness +of the law, and Aristide giving his arm to Madame Coquereau followed +gloriously. As the impressive progress continued the revellers ceased +their revels and followed in the wake of Aristide. At the end of the +Avenue Brigadier Pesac was on guard. He approached. + +"They are still there," he said. + +"Good," said Aristide. + +The two police-officers, Aristide and Madame Coquereau turned the +corner. At the sight of the police the guilty couple started to their +feet. Madame Coquereau pounced like a hawk on the masked lady's hand. + +"I identify it," she cried. "Brigadier, give these people in charge for +theft." + +The white masked crowd surged around the group, in the midst of which +stood Aristide transfigured. It was his supreme moment. He flourished in +one hand his red mask and in the other a pompon which he had extracted +from his pocket. + +"This I found," said he, "beneath the wall of Monsieur le Maire's +garden. Behold the shoe of the accused." + +The crowd murmured their applause and admiration. Neither of the +prisoners stirred. The pig's head grinned at the world with its inane, +painted leer. A rumbling voice beneath it said: + +"We will go quietly." + +"_Attention s'il vous plait_," said the policemen, and each holding a +prisoner by the arm they made a way through the crowd. Madame Coquereau +and Aristide followed close behind. + +"What did I tell you?" cried Aristide to the brigadier. + +"It's Puegas, all the same," said the brigadier, over his shoulder. + +"I bet you it's not," said Aristide, and striding swiftly to the back of +the male prisoner whipped off the pig's head, and revealed to the +petrified throng the familiar features of the Mayor of Perpignan. + +Aristide regarded him for two or three seconds open-mouthed, and then +fell back into the arms of the Brigadier Pesac screaming with convulsive +laughter. The crowd caught the infection of merriment. Shrieks filled +the air. The vast mass of masqueraders held their sides, swayed +helplessly, rolled in heaps, men and women, tearing each other's +garments as they fell. + +Aristide, deposited on the ground by the Brigadier Pesac laughed and +laughed. When he recovered some consciousness of surroundings, he found +the Mayor bending over him and using language that would have made +Tophet put its fingers in its ears. He rose. Madame Coquereau shook her +thin fists in his face. + +"Imbecile! Triple fool!" she cried. + +Aristide turned tail and fled. There was nothing else to do. + +And that was the end of his career at Perpignan. Vanished were the +dreams of civic eminence; melted into thin air the statue on the Quai +Sadi-Carnot; faded, too, the vision of the modest Stephanie crowned with +orange-blossom; gone forever the two hundred and fifty thousand francs. +Never since Alnaschar kicked over his basket of crockery was there such +a hideous welter of shattered hopes. + +If the Mayor had been allowed to go disguised to the Police Station, he +could have disclosed his identity and that of the lady in private to +awe-stricken functionaries. He might have forgiven Aristide. But +Aristide had exposed him to the derision of the whole of Roussillon and +the never ending wrath of Madame Coquereau. Ruefully Aristide asked +himself the question: why had the Mayor not taken him into the +confidence of his masquerading escapade? Why had he not told him of the +pretty widow, whom, unknown to his mother, he was courting? Why had he +permitted her to wear the ring which he had given her so as to spite his +sainted Aunt Philomene? And why had he gone on wearing the pig's head +after Aristide had told him of his suspicions? Ruefully Aristide found +no answers save in the general chuckle-headedness of mankind. + +"If it hadn't been such a good farce I should have wept like a cow," +said Aristide, after relating this story. "But every time I wanted to +cry, I laughed. _Nom de Dieu!_ You should have seen his face! And the +face of Madame Coquereau! She opened her mouth wide showing ten yellow +teeth and squealed like a rabbit! Oh, it was a good farce! He was very +cross with me," he added after a smiling pause, "and when I got back to +Paris I tried to pacify him." + +"What did you do?" I asked. + +"I sent him my photograph," said Aristide. + + + + +VI + +THE ADVENTURE OF FLEURETTE + + +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." + +She sighed. "Tell me what I can do for you, my good Aristide." + +"Keep well and happy and be a valiant little woman," said he. + +Fleurette tried hard to be valiant; but the effort exhausted her +strength. As the days went on, even Aristide's inexhaustible +conversation failed to distract her from brooding. She lost the trick of +laughter. In the evenings, when he was most with her, she would sit, +either in the shop or in the little room at the back, her blue childish +eyes fixed on him wistfully. At first he tried to lure her into the gay +street; but walking tired her. He encouraged her to sit outside on the +pavement of the Rue Saint-Honore and join with Mme. Bidoux in the gossip +of neighbours; but she listened to them with uncomprehending ears. In +despair Aristide, to coax a smile from her lips, practised his many +queer accomplishments. He conjured with cards; he juggled with oranges; +he had a mountebank's trick of putting one leg round his neck; he +imitated the voices of cats and pigs and ducks, till Mme. Bidoux held +her sides with mirth. He spent time and thought in elaborating what he +called _bonnes farces_, such as dressing himself up in Mme. Bidoux's +raiment and personifying a crabbed customer. + +Fleurette smiled but listlessly at all these comicalities. + +One day she was taken ill. A doctor, summoned, said many learned words +which Aristide and Mme. Bidoux tried hard to understand. + +"But, after all, what is the matter with her?" + + [Illustration: ARISTIDE PRACTISED HIS MANY QUEER ACCOMPLISHMENTS] + +"She has no strength to struggle. She wants happiness." + +"Can you tell me the druggist's where that can be procured?" asked +Aristide. + +The doctor shrugged his shoulders. "I tell you the truth. It is one of +those pulmonary cases. Happy, she will live; unhappy, she will die." + +"My poor Mme. Bidoux, what is to be done?" asked Aristide, after the +doctor had gone off with his modest fee. "How are we to make her happy?" + +"If only she could have news of her husband!" replied Mme. Bidoux. + +Aristide's anxieties grew heavier. It was November, when knickerbockered +and culture-seeking tourists no longer fill the cheap hotels of Paris. +The profits of the Agence Pujol dwindled. Aristide lived on bread and +cheese, and foresaw the time when cheese would be a sinful luxury. +Meanwhile Fleurette had her nourishing food, and grew more like the +ghost of a lily every day. But her eyes followed Aristide, wherever he +went in her presence, as if he were the god of her salvation. + +One day Aristide, with an unexpected franc or two in his pocket, +stopped in front of a _bureau de tabac_. A brown packet of caporal and +a book of cigarette-papers--a cigarette rolled--how good it would be! +He hesitated, and his glance fell on a collection of foreign stamps +exposed in the window. Among them were twelve Honduras stamps all +postmarked. He stared at them, fascinated. + +"_Mon brave Aristide!_" he cried. "If the _bon Dieu_ does not send you +these vibrating inspirations, it is because you yourself have already +conceived them!" + +He entered the shop and emerged, not with caporal and cigarette-papers, +but with the twelve Honduras stamps. + +That night he sat up in his little bedroom at No. 213 bis, Rue +Saint-Honore, until his candle failed, inditing a letter in English to +Fleurette. At the head of his paper he wrote "Hotel Rosario, Honduras." +And at the end of the letter he signed the name of Reginald Batterby. +Where Honduras was, he had but a vague idea. For Fleurette, at any rate, +it would be somewhere at the other end of the world, and she would not +question any want of accuracy in local detail. Just before the light +went out he read the letter through with great pride. Batterby alluded +to the many letters he had posted from remote parts of the globe, gave +glowing forecasts of the fortune that Honduras had in store for him, +reminded her that he had placed sufficient funds for her maintenance in +the hands of Aristide Pujol, and assured her that the time was not far +off when she would be summoned to join her devoted husband. + +"Mme. Bidoux was right," said he, before going to sleep. "This is the +only way to make her happy." + +The next day Fleurette received the letter. The envelope bore the +postmarked Honduras stamp. It had been rubbed on the dusty pavement to +take off the newness. It was in her husband's handwriting. There was no +mistake about it--it was a letter from Honduras. + +"Are you happier now, little doubting female St. Thomas that you are?" +cried Aristide when she had told him the news. + +She smiled at him out of grateful eyes, and touched his hand. + +"Much happier, _mon bon ami_," she said, gently. + +Later in the day she handed him a letter addressed to Batterby. It had +no stamp. + +"Will you post this for me, Aristide?" + +Aristide put the letter in his pocket and turned sharply away, lest she +should see a sudden rush of tears. He had not counted on this innocent +trustfulness. He went to his room. The poor little letter! He had not +the heart to destroy it. No; he would keep it till Batterby came; it was +not his to destroy. So he threw it into a drawer. + +Having once begun the deception, however, he thought it necessary to +continue. Every week, therefore, he invented a letter from Batterby. To +interest her he drew upon his Provencal imagination. He described +combats with crocodiles, lion-hunts, feasts with terrific savages from +the interior, who brought their lady wives chastely clad in petticoats +made out of human teeth; he drew pictures of the town, a kind of +palm-shaded Paris by the sea, where one ate ortolans and oysters as big +as soup-plates, and where Chinamen with pigtails rode about the streets +on camels. It was not a correct description of Honduras, but, all the +same, an exotic atmosphere stimulating and captivating rose from the +pages. With this it was necessary to combine expressions of affection. +At first it was difficult. Essential delicacy restrained him. He had +also to keep in mind Batterby's vernacular. To address Fleurette, +impalpable creation of fairyland, as "old girl" was particularly +distasteful. By degrees, however, the artist prevailed. And then at last +the man himself took to forgetting the imaginary writer and poured out +words of love, warm, true, and passionate. + +And every week Fleurette would smile and tell him the wondrous news, and +would put into his hands an unstamped letter to post, which he, with a +wrench of the heart, would add to the collection in the drawer. + +Once she said, diffidently, with an unwonted blush and her pale blue +eyes swimming: "I write English so badly. Won't you read the letter and +correct my mistakes?" + +But Aristide laughed and licked the flap of the envelope and closed it. +"What has love to do with spelling and grammar? The good Reginald would +prefer your bad English to all the turned phrases of the Academie +Francaise." + +"It is as you like, Aristide," said Fleurette, with wistful eyes. + +Yet, in spite of the weekly letters, Fleurette continued to droop. The +winter came, and Fleurette was no longer able to stay among the cabbages +of Mme. Bidoux. She lay on her bed in the little room, ten feet by +seven, away, away at the top of the house in the Rue Saint Honore. The +doctor, informed of her comparative happiness, again shrugged his +shoulders. There was nothing more to be done. + +"She is dying, monsieur, for want of strength to live." + +Then Aristide went about with a great heartache. Fleurette would die; +she would never see the man she loved again. What would he say when he +returned and learned the tragic story? He would not even know that +Aristide, loving her, had been loyal to him. When the Director of the +Agence Pujol personally conducted the clients of the Hotel du Soleil et +de l'Ecosse to the Grand Trianon and pointed out the bed of the Empress +Josephine he nearly broke down. + +"What is the Empress doing now?" + +What was Fleurette doing now? Going to join the Empress in the world of +shadows. + +The tourists talked after the manner of their kind. + +"She must have found the bed very hard, poor dear." + +"Give me an iron bedstead and a good old spring mattress." + +"Ah, but, my dear sir, you forget. The Empress's bed was slung on the +back of tame panthers which Napoleon brought from Egypt." + +It was hard to jest convincingly to the knickerbockered with death in +one's soul. + +"Most beloved little Flower," ran the last letter that Fleurette +received, "I have just had a cable from Aristide saying that you are +very ill. I will come to you as soon as I can. _Ces petits yeux de +pervenche_--I am learning your language here, you see--haunt me day and +night ..." etcetera, etcetera. + +Aristide went up to her room with a great bunch of chrysanthemums. The +letter peeped from under the pillow. Fleurette was very weak. Mme. +Bidoux, who, during Fleurette's illness, had allowed her green grocery +business to be personally conducted to the deuce by a youth of sixteen +very much in love with the lady who sold sausages and other +_charcuterie_ next door, had spread out the fortune-telling cards on +the bed and was prophesying mendaciously. Fleurette took the flowers +and clasped them to her bosom. + +"No letter for _ce cher Reginald_?" + +She shook her head. "I can write no more," she whispered. + +She closed her eyes. Presently she said, in a low voice:-- + +"Aristide--if you kiss me, I think I can go to sleep." + +He bent down to kiss her forehead. A fragile arm twined itself about his +neck and he kissed her on the lips. + +"She is sleeping," said Mme. Bidoux, after a while. + +Aristide tiptoed out of the room. + +And so died Fleurette. Aristide borrowed money from the kind-hearted +Bocardon for a beautiful funeral, and Mme. Bidoux and Bocardon and a few +neighbours and himself saw her laid to rest. When they got back to the +Rue Saint Honore he told Mme. Bidoux about the letters. She wept and +clasped him, weeping too, in her kind, fat old arms. + +The next evening Aristide, coming back from his day's work at the Hotel +du Soleil et de l'Ecosse, was confronted in the shop by Mme. Bidoux, +hands on broad hips. + +"_Tiens, mon petit_," she said, without preliminary greeting. "You are +an angel. I knew it. But that a man's an angel is no reason for his +being an imbecile. Read this." + +She plucked a paper from her apron pocket and thrust it into his hand. +He read it, and blinked in amazement. + +"Where did you get this, Mere Bidoux?" + +"Where I got many more. In your drawer. The letters you were saving for +this infamous scoundrel. I wanted to know what she had written to him." + +"Mere Bidoux!" cried Aristide. "Those letters were sacred!" + +"Bah!" said Mme. Bidoux, unabashed. "There is nothing sacred to a sapper +or an old grandmother who loves an imbecile. I have read the letters, +_et voila, et voila, et voila!_" And she emptied her pockets of all the +letters, minus the envelopes, that Fleurette had written. + +And, after one swift glance at the first letter, Aristide had no +compunction in reading. They were all addressed to himself. + +They were very short, ill-written in a poor little uncultivated hand. +But they all contained one message, that of her love for Aristide. +Whatever illusions she may have had concerning Batterby had soon +vanished. She knew, with the unerring instinct of woman, that he had +betrayed and deserted her. Aristide's pious fraud had never deceived her +for a second. Too gentle, too timid to let him know what was in her +heart, she had written the secret patiently week after week, hoping +every time that curiosity, or pity, or something--she knew not +what--would induce him to open the idle letter, and wondering in her +simple peasant's soul at the delicacy that caused him to refrain. Once +she had boldly given him the envelope unclosed. + + [Illustration: HE READ IT, AND BLINKED IN AMAZEMENT] + +"She died for want of love, _parbleu_," said Aristide, "and there was +mine quivering in my heart and trembling on my lips all the time.... She +had _des yeux de pervenche_. Ah! _nom d'un chien!_ It is only with me +that Providence plays such tricks." + +He walked to the window and looked out into the grey street. Presently I +heard him murmuring the words of the old French song:-- + + Elle est morte en fevrier; + Pauvre Colinette! + + + + +VII + +THE ADVENTURE OF THE MIRACLE + + +You have seen how Aristide, by attaching himself to the Hotel du Soleil +et de l'Ecosse as a kind of glorified courier, had founded the Agence +Pujol. As he, personally, was the Agence, and the Agence was he, it +happened that when he was not in attendance at the hotel, the Agence +faded into space, and when he made his appearance in the vestibule and +hung up his placard by the bureau, the Agence at once burst again into +the splendour of existence. Apparently the fitful career of the Agence +Pujol lasted some years. Whenever a chance of more remunerative +employment turned up, Aristide took it and dissolved the Agence. +Whenever outrageous fortune chivied him with slings and arrows penniless +to Paris, there was always the Agence waiting to be resuscitated. + +It was during one of these periodic flourishings of the Agence Pujol +that Aristide met the Ducksmiths. + +Business was slack, few guests were at the hotel, and of those few none +desired to be personally conducted to the Louvre or Notre Dame or the +monument in the Place de la Bastille. They mostly wore the placid +expression of folks engaged in business affairs instead of the worried +look of pleasure-seekers. + +"My good Bocardon," said Aristide, lounging by the bureau and addressing +his friend the manager, "this is becoming desperate. In another minute I +shall take you out by main force and show you the Pont Neuf." + +At that moment the door of the stuffy salon opened, and a travelling +Briton, whom Aristide had not seen before, advanced to the bureau and +inquired his way to the Madeleine. Aristide turned on him like a flash. + +"Sir," said he, extracting documents from his pockets with lightning +rapidity, "nothing would give me greater pleasure than to conduct you +thither. My card. My tariff. My advertisement." He pointed to the +placard. "I am the managing director of the Agence Pujol, under the +special patronage of this hotel. I undertake all travelling +arrangements, from the Moulin Rouge to the Pyramids, and, as you see, my +charges are moderate." + +The Briton, holding the documents in a pudgy hand, looked at the +swift-gestured director with portentous solemnity. Then, with equal +solemnity, he looked at Bocardon. + +"Monsieur Ducksmith," said the latter, "you can repose every confidence +in Monsieur Aristide Pujol." + +"Umph!" said Mr. Ducksmith. + +After another solemn inspection of Aristide, he stuck a pair of +gold-rimmed glasses on his fleshy nose and perused the documents. He was +a fat, heavy man of about fifty years of age, and his scanty hair was +turning grey. His puffy cheeks hung jowl-like, giving him the appearance +of some odd dog--a similarity greatly intensified by the eye-sockets, +the lower lids of which were dragged down in the middle, showing the red +like a bloodhound's; but here the similarity ended, for the man's eyes, +dull and blue, had the unspeculative fixity of a rabbit's. His mouth, +small and weak, dribbled away at the corners into the jowls which, in +their turn, melted into two or three chins. He was decently dressed in +grey tweeds, and wore a diamond ring on his little finger. + +"Umph!" said he, at last; and went back to the salon. + +As soon as the door closed behind him Aristide sprang into an attitude +of indignation. + +"Did you ever see such a bear! If I ever saw a bigger one I would eat +him without salt or pepper. _Mais nom d'un chien_, such people ought to +be made into sausages!" + +"_Flegme britannique!_" laughed Bocardon. + +Half an hour passed, and Mr. Ducksmith made no reappearance from the +salon. In the forlorn hope of a client Aristide went in after him. He +found Mr. Ducksmith, glasses on nose, reading a newspaper, and a plump, +black-haired lady, with an expressionless face, knitting a grey woollen +sock. Why they should be spending their first morning--and a crisp, +sunny morning, too--in Paris in the murky staleness of this awful little +salon, Aristide could not imagine. As he entered, Mr. Ducksmith regarded +him vacantly over the top of his gold-rimmed glasses. + +"I have looked in," said Aristide, with his ingratiating smile, "to see +whether you are ready to go to the Madeleine." + +"Madeleine?" the lady inquired, softly, pausing in her knitting. + +"Madame," Aristide came forward, and, hand on heart, made her the lowest +of bows. "Madame, have I the honour of speaking to Madame Ducksmith? +Enchanted, madame, to make your acquaintance," he continued, after a +grunt from Mr. Ducksmith had assured him of the correctness of his +conjecture. "I am Monsieur Aristide Pujol, director of the Agence Pujol, +and my poor services are absolutely at your disposal." + +He drew himself up, twisted his moustache, and met her eyes--they were +rather sad and tired--with the roguish mockery of his own. She turned to +her husband. + +"Are you thinking of going to the Madeleine, Bartholomew?" + +"I am, Henrietta," said he. "I have decided to do it. And I have also +decided to put ourselves in the charge of this gentleman. Mrs. Ducksmith +and I are accustomed to all the conveniences of travel--I may say that +we are great travellers--and I leave it to you to make the necessary +arrangements. I prefer to travel at so much per head per day." + +He spoke in a wheezy, solemn monotone, from which all elements of life +and joy seemed to have been eliminated. His wife's voice, though softer +in timbre, was likewise devoid of colour. + +"My husband finds that it saves us from responsibilities," she remarked. + +"And over-charges, and the necessity of learning foreign languages, +which at our time of life would be difficult. During all our travels we +have not been to Paris before, owing to the impossibility of finding a +personally-conducted tour of an adequate class." + +"Then, my dear sir," cried Aristide, "it is Providence itself that has +put you in the way of the Agence Pujol. I will now conduct you to the +Madeleine without the least discomfort or danger." + +"Put on your hat, Henrietta," said Mr. Ducksmith, "while this gentleman +and I discuss terms." + +Mrs. Ducksmith gathered up her knitting and retired, Aristide dashing +to the door to open it for her. This gallantry surprised her ever so +little, for a faint flush came into her cheek and the shadow of a smile +into her eyes. + +"I wish you to understand, Mr. Pujol," said Mr. Ducksmith, "that being, +I may say, a comparatively rich man, I can afford to pay for certain +luxuries; but I made a resolution many years ago, which has stood me in +good stead during my business life, that I would never be cheated. You +will find me liberal but just." + +He was as good as his word. Aristide, who had never in his life +exploited another's wealth to his own advantage, suggested certain +terms, on the basis of so much per head per day, which Mr. Ducksmith +declared, with a sigh of relief, to be perfectly satisfactory. + +"Perhaps," said he, after further conversation, "you will be good enough +to schedule out a month's railway tour through France, and give me an +inclusive estimate for the three of us. As I say, Mrs. Ducksmith and I +are great travellers--we have been to Norway, to Egypt, to Morocco and +the Canaries, to the Holy Land, to Rome, and lovely Lucerne--but we find +that attention to the trivial detail of travel militates against our +enjoyment." + +"My dear sir," said Aristide, "trust in me, and your path and that of +the charming Mrs. Ducksmith will be strewn with roses." + +Whereupon Mrs. Ducksmith appeared, arrayed for walking out, and +Aristide, having ordered a cab, drove with them to the Madeleine. They +alighted in front of the majestic flight of steps. Mr. Ducksmith stared +at the classical portico supported on its Corinthian columns with his +rabbit-like, unspeculative gaze--he had those filmy blue eyes that never +seem to wink--and after a moment or two turned away. + +"Umph!" said he. + +Mrs. Ducksmith, dutiful and silent, turned away also. + +"This sacred edifice," Aristide began, in his best cicerone manner, "was +built, after a classic model, by the great Napoleon, as a Temple of +Fame. It was afterwards used as a church. You will observe--and, if you +care to, you can count, as a conscientious American lady did last +week--the fifty-six Corinthian columns. You will see they are Corinthian +by the acanthus leaves on the capitals. For the vulgar, who have no +architectural knowledge, I have _memoria technica_ for the instant +recognition of the three orders--Cabbages, Corinthian; horns, Ionic; +anything else, Doric. We will now mount the steps and inspect the +interior." + +He was dashing off in his eager fashion, when Mr. Ducksmith laid a +detaining hand on his arm. + +"No," said he, solemnly. "I disapprove of Popish interiors. Take us to +the next place." + + [Illustration: HE MIGHT AS WELL HAVE POINTED OUT THE MARVELS OF KUBLA + KHAN'S PLEASURE-DOME TO A COUPLE OF GUINEA-PIGS] + +He entered the waiting victoria. His wife meekly followed. + +"I suppose the Louvre is the next place?" said Aristide. + +"I leave it to you," said Mr. Ducksmith. + +Aristide gave the order to the cabman and took the little seat in the +cab facing his employers. On the way down the Rue Royale and the Rue de +Rivoli he pointed out the various buildings of interest--Maxim's, the +Cercle Royal, the Ministere de la Marine, the Hotel Continental. Two +expressionless faces, two pairs of unresponsive eyes, met his merry +glance. He might as well have pointed out the marvels of Kubla Khan's +pleasure-dome to a couple of guinea-pigs. + +The cab stopped at the entrance to the galleries of the Louvre. They +entered and walked up the great staircase on the turn of which the +Winged Victory stands, with the wind of God in her vesture, proclaiming +to each beholder the deathless, ever-soaring, ever-conquering spirit of +man, and heralding the immortal glories of the souls, wind-swept +likewise by the wind of God, that are enshrined in the treasure-houses +beyond. + +"There!" said Aristide. + +"Umph! No head," said Mr. Ducksmith, passing it by with scarcely a +glance. + +"Would it cost very much to get a new one?" asked Mrs. Ducksmith, +timidly. She was three or four paces behind her spouse. + +"It would cost the blood and tears and laughter of the human race," said +Aristide. + +("That was devilish good, wasn't it?" remarked Aristide, when telling me +this story. He always took care not to hide his light under the least +possibility of a bushel.) + +The Ducksmiths looked at him in their lacklustre way, and allowed +themselves to be guided into the picture-galleries, vaguely hearing +Aristide's comments, scarcely glancing at the pictures, and +manifesting no sign of interest in anything whatever. From the Louvre +they drove to Notre Dame, where the same thing happened. The venerable +pile, standing imperishable amid the vicissitudes of centuries (the +phrase was that of the director of the Agence Pujol), stirred in their +bosoms no perceptible emotion. Mr. Ducksmith grunted and declined to +enter; Mrs. Ducksmith said nothing. + +As with pictures and cathedrals, so it was with their food at lunch. +Beyond a solemn statement to the effect that in their quality of +practised travellers they made a point of eating the food and drinking +the wine of the country, Mr. Ducksmith did not allude to the meal. At +any rate, thought Aristide, they don't clamour for underdone chops and +tea. So far they were human. Nor did they maintain an awful silence +during the repast. On the contrary, Mr. Ducksmith loved to talk--in a +dismal, pompous way--chiefly of British politics. His method of +discourse was to place himself in the position of those in authority and +to declare what he would do in any given circumstances. Now, unless the +interlocutor adopts the same method and declares what _he_ would do, +conversation is apt to become one-sided. Aristide, having no notion of a +policy should he find himself exercising the functions of the British +Chancellor of the Exchequer, cheerfully tried to change the ground of +debate. + +"What would you do, Mr. Ducksmith, if you were King of England?" + +"I should try to rule the realm like a Christian statesman," replied Mr. +Ducksmith. + +"I should have a devil of a time!" said Aristide. + +"I beg your pardon?" said Mr. Ducksmith. + +"I should have a--ah, I see--_pardon_. I should----" He looked from +one paralyzing face to the other, and threw out his arms. "_Parbleu!_" +said he, "I should decapitate your Mrs. Grundy, and make it compulsory +for bishops to dance once a week in Trafalgar Square. _Tiens!_ I would +have it a capital offence for any English cook to prepare hashed +mutton without a license, and I would banish all the bakers of the +kingdom to Siberia--ah! your English bread, which you have to eat +stale so as to avoid a horrible death!--and I would open two hundred +thousand _cafes_--_mon Dieu!_ how thirsty I have been there!--and I +would make every English work-girl do her hair properly, and I would +ordain that everybody should laugh three times a day, under pain of +imprisonment for life." + +"I am afraid, Mr. Pujol," remarked Mr. Ducksmith, seriously, "you would +not be acting as a constitutional monarch. There is such a thing as the +British Constitution, which foreigners are bound to admire, even though +they may not understand." + +"To be a king must be a great responsibility," said Mrs. Ducksmith. + +"Madame," said Aristide, "you have uttered a profound truth." And to +himself he murmured, though he should not have done so, "_Nom de Dieu! +Nom de Dieu de nom de Dieu!_" + +After lunch they drove to Versailles, which they inspected in the same +apathetic fashion; then they returned to the hotel, where they +established themselves for the rest of the day in the airless salon, Mr. +Ducksmith reading English newspapers and his wife knitting a grey +woollen sock. + +"_Mon vieux!_" said Aristide to Bocardon, "they are people of a +nightmare. They are automata endowed with the faculty of digestion. _Ce +sont des gens invraisemblables._" + +Paris providing them, apparently, with no entertainment, they started, +after a couple of days, _Aristide duce et auspice Pujol_, on their +railway tour through France, to Aristide a pilgrimage of unimaginable +depression. They began with Chartres, continued with the Chateaux of the +Loire, and began to work their way south. Nothing that Aristide could do +roused them from their apathy. They were exasperatingly docile, made few +complaints, got up, entrained, detrained, fed, excursioned, slept, just +as they were bidden. But they looked at nothing, enjoyed nothing (save +perhaps English newspapers and knitting), and uttered nothing by way of +criticism or appreciation when Aristide attempted to review the wonders +through which they had passed. They did not care to know the history, +authentic or Pujolic, of any place they visited; they were impressed by +no scene of grandeur, no corner of exquisite beauty. To go on and on, in +a dull, non-sentient way, so long as they were spared all forethought, +all trouble, all afterthought, seemed to be their ideal of travel. +Sometimes Aristide, after a fruitless effort to capture their interest, +would hold his head, wondering whether he or the Ducksmith couple were +insane. It was a dragon-fly personally conducting two moles through a +rose-garden. + +Once only, during the early part of their journey, did a gleam of +joyousness pierce the dull glaze of Mr. Ducksmith's eyes. He had +procured from the bookstall of a station a pile of English newspapers, +and was reading them in the train, while his wife knitted the +interminable sock. Suddenly he folded a _Daily Telegraph_, and handed +it over to Aristide so that he should see nothing but a half-page +advertisement. The great capitals leaped to Aristide's eyes:-- + + "DUCKSMITH'S DELICATE JAMS." + +"I am _the_ Ducksmith," said he. "I started and built up the business. +When I found that I could retire, I turned it into a limited liability +company, and now I am free and rich and able to enjoy the advantages of +foreign travel." + +Mrs. Ducksmith started, sighed, and dropped a stitch. + +"Did you also make pickles?" asked Aristide. + +"I did manufacture pickles, but I made my name in jam. In the trade you +will find it an honoured one." + +"It is that in every nursery in Europe," Aristide declared, with polite +hyperbole. + +"I have done my best to deserve my reputation," said Mr. Ducksmith, as +impervious to flattery as to impressions of beauty. + +"_Pecaire!_" said Aristide to himself, "how can I galvanize these +corpses?" + +As the soulless days went by this problem grew to be Aristide's main +solicitude. He felt strangled, choked, borne down by an intolerable +weight. What could he do to stir their vitality? Should he fire off +pistols behind them, just to see them jump? But would they jump? Would +not Mr. Ducksmith merely turn his rabbit-eyes, set in their bloodhound +sockets, vacantly on him, and assume that the detonations were part of +the tour's programme? Could he not fill him up with conflicting +alcohols, and see what inebriety would do for him? But Mr. Ducksmith +declined insidious potations. He drank only at meal-times, and +sparingly. Aristide prayed that some Thais might come along, cast her +spell upon him, and induce him to wink. He himself was powerless. His +raciest stories fell on dull ears; none of his jokes called forth a +smile. At last, having taken them to nearly all the historic chateaux of +Touraine, without eliciting one cry of admiration, he gave Mr. Ducksmith +up in despair and devoted his attention to the lady. + +Mrs. Ducksmith parted her smooth black hair in the middle and fastened +it in a knob at the back of her head. Her clothes were good and new, but +some desolate dressmaker had contrived to invest them with an air of +hopeless dowdiness. At her bosom she wore a great brooch, containing +intertwined locks of a grandfather and grandmother long since defunct. +Her mind was as drearily equipped as her person. She had a vague idea +that they were travelling in France; but if Aristide had told her that +it was Japan she would have meekly accepted the information. She had no +opinions. Still she was a woman, and Aristide, firm in his conviction +that when it comes to love-making all women are the same, proceeded +forthwith to make love to her. + +"Madame," said he, one morning--she was knitting in the vestibule of the +Hotel du Faisan at Tours, Mr. Ducksmith being engaged, as usual, in the +salon with his newspapers--"how much more charming that beautiful grey +dress would be if it had a spot of colour." + +His audacious hand placed a deep crimson rose against her corsage, and +he stood away at arm's length, his head on one side, judging the effect. + +"Magnificent! If madame would only do me the honour to wear it." + +Mrs. Ducksmith took the flower hesitatingly. + +"I'm afraid my husband does not like colour," she said. + +"He must be taught," cried Aristide. "You must teach him. I must teach +him. Let us begin at once. Here is a pin." + +He held the pin delicately between finger and thumb, and controlled her +with his roguish eyes. She took the pin and fixed the rose to her dress. + +"I don't know what Mr. Ducksmith will say." + +"What he ought to say, madame, is 'Bountiful Providence, I thank Thee +for giving me such a beautiful wife.'" + +Mrs. Ducksmith blushed and, to conceal her face, bent it over her +resumed knitting. She made woman's time-honoured response. + +"I don't think you ought to say such things, Mr. Pujol." + +"Ah, madame," said he, lowering his voice; "I have tried not to; but, +_que voulez-vous_, it was stronger than I. When I see you going about +like a little grey mouse"--the lady weighed at least twelve stone--"you, +who ought to be ravishing the eyes of mankind, I feel indignation +here"--he thumped his chest; "my Provencal heart is stirred. It is +enough to make one weep." + +"I don't quite understand you, Mr. Pujol," she said, dropping stitches +recklessly. + +"Ah, madame," he whispered--and the rascal's whisper on such occasions +could be very seductive--"that I will never believe." + +"I am too old to dress myself up in fine clothes," she murmured. + +"That's an illusion," said he, with a wide-flung gesture, "that will +vanish at the first experiment." + +Mr. Ducksmith emerged from the salon, _Daily Telegraph_ in hand. Mrs. +Ducksmith shot a timid glance at him and the knitting needles clicked +together nervously. But the vacant eyes of the heavy man seemed no more +to note the rose on her bosom than they noted any point of beauty in +landscape or building. + +Aristide went away chuckling, highly diverted by the success of his +first effort. He had touched some hidden springs of feeling. Whatever +might happen, at any rate, for the remainder of the tour he would not +have to spend his emotional force in vain attempts to knock sparks out +of a jelly-fish. He noticed with delight that at dinner that evening +Mrs. Ducksmith, still wearing the rose, had modified the rigid sweep +of her hair from the mid-parting. It gave just a wavy hint of +coquetry. He made her a little bow and whispered, "Charming!" +Whereupon she coloured and dropped her eyes. And during the meal, +while Mr. Ducksmith discoursed on bounty-fed sugar, his wife and +Aristide exchanged, across the table, the glances of conspirators. +After dinner he approached her. + +"Madame, may I have the privilege of showing you the moon of Touraine?" + +She laid down her knitting. "Bartholomew, will you come out?" + +He looked at her over his glasses and shook his head. + +"What is the good of looking at moonshine? The moon itself I have +already seen." + +So Aristide and Mrs. Ducksmith sat by themselves outside the hotel, and +he expounded to her the beauty of moonlight and its intoxicating effect +on folks in love. + +"Wouldn't you like," said he, "to be lying on that white burnished cloud +with your beloved kissing your feet?" + +"What odd things you think of." + +"But wouldn't you?" he insinuated. + +Her bosom heaved and swelled on a sigh. She watched the strip of silver +for a while and then murmured a wistful "Yes." + +"I can tell you of many odd things," said Aristide. "I can tell you how +flowers sing and what colour there is in the notes of birds. And how a +cornfield laughs, and how the face of a woman who loves can outdazzle +the sun. _Chere madame_," he went on, after a pause, touching her little +plump hand, "you have been hungering for beauty and thirsting for +sympathy all your life. Isn't that so?" + +She nodded. + +"You have always been misunderstood." + +A tear fell. Our rascal saw the glistening drop with peculiar +satisfaction. Poor Mrs. Ducksmith! It was a child's game. _Enfin_, +what woman could resist him? He had, however, one transitory qualm of +conscience, for, with all his vagaries, Aristide was a kindly and +honest man. Was it right to disturb those placid depths? Was it right +to fill this woman with romantic aspirations that could never be +gratified? He himself had not the slightest intention of playing +Lothario and of wrecking the peace of the Ducksmith household. The +realization of the saint-like purity of his aims reassured him. When +he wanted to make love to a woman, _pour tout de bon_, it would not be +to Mrs. Ducksmith. + +"Bah!" said he to himself. "I am doing a noble and disinterested act. I +am restoring sight to the blind. I am giving life to one in a state of +suspended animation. _Tron de l'Air!_ I am playing the part of a +soul-reviver! And, _parbleu!_ it isn't Jean or Jacques that can do that. +It takes an Aristide Pujol!" + +So, having persuaded himself, in his Southern way, that he was executing +an almost divine mission, he continued, with a zest now sharpened by an +approving conscience, to revive Mrs. Ducksmith's soul. + +The poor lady, who had suffered the blighting influence of Mr. Ducksmith +for twenty years with never a ray of counteracting warmth from the +outside, expanded like a flower to the sun under the soul-reviving +process. Day by day she exhibited some fresh timid coquetry in dress and +manner. Gradually she began to respond to Aristide's suggestions of +beauty in natural scenery and exquisite building. On the ramparts of +Angouleme, daintiest of towns in France, she gazed at the smiling +valleys of the Charente and the Son stretching away below, and of her +own accord touched his arm lightly and said: "How beautiful!" She +appealed to her husband. + +"Umph!" said he. + +Once more (it had become a habit) she exchanged glances with Aristide. +He drew her a little farther along, under pretext of pointing out the +dreamy sweep of the Charente. + +"If he appreciates nothing at all, why on earth does he travel?" + +Her eyelids fluttered upwards for a fraction of a second. + +"It's his mania," she said. "He can never rest at home. He must always +be going on--on." + +"How can you endure it?" he asked. + +She sighed. "It is better now that you can teach me how to look at +things." + +"Good!" thought Aristide. "When I leave them she can teach him to look +at things and revive his soul. Truly I deserve a halo." + +As Mr. Ducksmith appeared to be entirely unperceptive of his wife's +spiritual expansion, Aristide grew bolder in his apostolate. He +complimented Mrs. Ducksmith to his face. He presented her daily with +flowers. He scarcely waited for the heavy man's back to be turned to +make love to her. If she did not believe that she was the most +beautiful, the most ravishing, the most delicate-souled woman in the +world, it was through no fault of Aristide. Mr. Ducksmith went his +pompous, unseeing way. At every stopping-place stacks of English +daily papers awaited him. Sometimes, while Aristide was showing them +the sights of a town--to which, by the way, he insisted on being +conducted--he would extract a newspaper from his pocket and read with +dull and dogged stupidity. Once Aristide caught him reading the +advertisements for cooks and housemaids. In these circumstances Mrs. +Ducksmith spiritually expanded at an alarming rate; and, +correspondingly, dwindled the progress of Mr. Ducksmith's sock. + +They arrived at Perigueux, in Perigord, land of truffles, one morning, +in time for lunch. Towards the end of the meal the _maitre d'hotel_ +helped them to great slabs of _pate de foie gras_, made in the +house--most of the hotel-keepers in Perigord make _pate de foie gras_, +both for home consumption and for exportation--and waited expectant of +their appreciation. He was not disappointed. Mr. Ducksmith, after a +hesitating glance at the first mouthful, swallowed it, greedily devoured +his slab, and, after pointing to his empty plate, said, solemnly:-- + +"_Plou._" + +Like Oliver, he asked for more. + +"_Tiens!_" thought Aristide, astounded. "Is he, too, developing a soul?" + +But, alas! there were no signs of it when they went their dreary round +of the town in the usual ramshackle open cab. The cathedral of +Saint-Front, extolled by Aristide and restored by Abadie--a terrible +fellow who has capped with tops of pepper-castors every pre-Gothic +building in France--gave him no thrill; nor did the picturesque, +tumble-down ancient buildings on the banks of the Dordogne, nor the +delicate Renaissance facades in the cool, narrow Rue du Lys. + +"We will now go back to the hotel," said Mr. Ducksmith. + +"But have we seen it all?" asked his wife. + +"By no means," said Aristide. + +"We will go back to the hotel," repeated her husband, in his +expressionless tones. "I have seen enough of Perigueux." + +This was final. They drove back to the hotel. Mr. Ducksmith, without a +word, went straight into the salon, leaving Aristide and his wife +standing in the vestibule. + +"And you, madame," said Aristide; "are you going to sacrifice the glory +of God's sunshine to the manufacture of woollen socks?" + +She smiled--she had caught the trick at last--and said, in happy +submission: "What would you have me do?" + +With one hand he clasped her arm; with the other, in a superb gesture, +he indicated the sunlit world outside. + +"Let us drain together," cried he, "the loveliness of Perigueux to its +dregs!" + +Greatly daring, she followed him. It was a rapturous escapade--the +first adventure of her life. She turned her comely face to him and he +saw smiles round her lips and laughter in her eyes. Aristide, worker +of miracles, strutted by her side choke-full of vanity. They wandered +through the picturesque streets of the old town with the gaiety of +truant children, peeping through iron gateways into old courtyards, +venturing their heads into the murk of black stairways, talking (on +the part of Aristide) with mothers who nursed chuckling babes on their +doorsteps, crossing the thresholds, hitherto taboo, of churches, and +meeting the mystery of coloured glass and shadows and the heavy smell +of incense. + +Her hand was on his arm when they entered the flagged courtyard of an +ancient palace, a stately medley of the centuries, with wrought +ironwork in the balconies, tourelles, oriels, exquisite Renaissance +ornaments on architraves, and a great central Gothic doorway, with +great window-openings above, through which was visible the stone +staircase of honour leading to the upper floors. In a corner stood a +mediaeval well, the sides curiously carved. One side of the courtyard +blazed in sunshine, the other lay cool and grey in shadow. Not a human +form or voice troubled the serenity of the spot. On a stone bench +against the shady wall Aristide and Mrs. Ducksmith sat down to rest. + +"_Voila!_" said Aristide. "Here one can suck in all the past like an +omelette. They had the feeling for beauty, those old fellows." + +"I have wasted twenty years of my life," said Mrs. Ducksmith, with a +sigh. "Why didn't I meet someone like you when I was young? Ah, you +don't know what my life has been, Mr. Pujol." + +"Why not Aristide when we are alone? Why not, Henriette?" + +He too had the sense of adventure, and his eyes were more than usually +compelling and his voice more seductive. For some reason or other, +undivined by Aristide--over-excitement of nerves, perhaps--she burst +into tears. + +"_Henriette! Henriette, ne pleurez pas._" + +His arm crept round her--he knew not how; her head sank on his shoulder, +she knew not why--faithlessness to her lord was as far from her thoughts +as murder or arson; but for one poor little moment in a lifetime it is +good to weep on someone's shoulder and to have someone's sympathetic arm +around one's waist. + +"_Pauvre petite femme!_ And is it love she is pining for?" + +She sobbed; he lifted her chin with his free hand--and what less could +mortal apostle do?--he kissed her on her wet cheek. + +A bellow like that of an angry bull caused them to start asunder. They +looked up, and there was Mr. Ducksmith within a few yards of them, his +face aflame, his rabbit's eyes on fire with rage. He advanced, shook his +fists in their faces. + +"I've caught you! At last, after twenty years, I've caught you!" + +"Monsieur," cried Aristide, starting up, "allow me to explain." + +He swept Aristide aside like an intercepting willow-branch, and poured +forth a torrent of furious speech upon his wife. + +"I have hated you for twenty years. Day by day I have hated you more. +I've watched you, watched you, watched you! But, you sly jade, you've +been too clever for me till now. Yes; I followed you from the hotel. I +dogged you. I foresaw what would happen. Now the end has come. I've +hated you for twenty years--ever since you first betrayed me----" + +Mrs. Ducksmith, who had sat with overwhelmed head in her hands, started +bolt upright, and looked at him like one thunderstruck. + +"I betrayed you?" she gasped, in bewilderment. "My God! When? How? What +do you mean?" + +He laughed--for the first time since Aristide had known him--but it was +a ghastly laugh, that made the jowls of his cheeks spread horribly to +his ears; and again he flooded the calm, stately courtyard with the +raging violence of words. The veneer of easy life fell from him. He +became the low-born, petty tradesman, using the language of the hands +of his jam factory. No, he had never told her. He had awaited his +chance. Now he had found it. He called her names.... + + [Illustration: "I'VE CAUGHT YOU! AT LAST, AFTER TWENTY YEARS, I'VE + CAUGHT YOU!"] + +Aristide interposed, his Southern being athrob with the insults heaped +upon the woman. + +"Say that again, monsieur," he shouted, "and I will take you up in my +arms like a sheep and throw you down that well." + +The two men glared at one another, Aristide standing bent, with crooked +fingers, ready to spring at the other's throat. The woman threw herself +between them. + +"For Heaven's sake," she cried, "listen to me! I have done no wrong. I +have done no wrong now--I never did you wrong, so help me God!" + +Mr. Ducksmith laughed again, and his laugh re-echoed round the quiet +walls and up the vast staircase of honour. + +"You'd be a fool not to say it. But now I've done with you. Here, you, +sir. Take her away--do what you like with her; I'll divorce her. I'll +give you a thousand pounds never to see her again." + +"_Goujat! Triple goujat!_" cried Aristide, more incensed than ever at +this final insult. + +Mrs. Ducksmith, deadly white, swayed sideways, and Aristide caught her +in his arms and dragged her to the stone bench. The fat, heavy man +looked at them for a second, laughed again, and sped through the +_porte-cochere_. Mrs. Ducksmith quickly recovered from her fainting +attack, and gently pushed the solicitous Aristide away. + +"Merciful Heaven!" she murmured. "What is to become of me?" + +The last person to answer the question was Aristide. For once in his +adventurous life resource failed him. He stared at the woman for whom he +cared not the snap of a finger, and who, he knew, cared not the snap of +a finger for him, aghast at the havoc he had wrought. If he had set out +to arouse emotion in these two sluggish breasts he had done so with a +vengeance. He had thought he was amusing himself with a toy cannon, and +he had fired a charge of dynamite. + +He questioned her almost stupidly--for a man in the comic mask does not +readily attune himself to tragedy. She answered with the desolate +frankness of a lost soul. And then the whole meaning--or the lack of +meaning--of their inanimate lives was revealed to him. Absolute +estrangement had followed the birth of their child nearly twenty years +ago. The child had died after a few weeks. Since then he saw--and the +generous blood of his heart froze as the vision came to him--that the +vulgar, half-sentient, rabbit-eyed bloodhound of a man had nursed an +unexpressed, dull, implacable resentment against the woman. It did not +matter that the man's suspicion was vain. To Aristide the woman's blank +amazement at the preposterous charge was proof enough; to the man the +thing was real. For nearly twenty years the man had suffered the cancer +to eat away his vitals, and he had watched and watched his blameless +wife, until now, at last, he had caught her in this folly. No wonder he +could not rest at home; no wonder he was driven, Io-wise, on and on, +although he hated travel and all its discomforts, knew no word of a +foreign language, knew no scrap of history, had no sense of beauty, was +utterly ignorant, as every single one of our expensively State-educated +English lower classes is, of everything that matters on God's earth; no +wonder that, in the unfamiliarity of foreign lands, feeling as helpless +as a ballet-dancer in a cavalry charge, he looked to Cook, or Lunn, or +the Agence Pujol to carry him through his uninspired pilgrimage. For +twenty years he had shown no sign of joy or sorrow or anger, scarcely +even of pleasure or annoyance. A tortoise could not have been more +unemotional. The unsuspected volcano had slumbered. To-day came +disastrous eruption. And what was a mere laughing, crying child of +a man like Aristide Pujol in front of a Ducksmith volcano? + +"What is to become of me?" wailed Mrs. Ducksmith again. + +"_Ma foi!_" said Aristide, with a shrug of his shoulders. "What's going +to become of anyone? Who can foretell what will happen in a minute's +time? _Tiens!_" he added, kindly laying his hand on the sobbing woman's +shoulder. "Be comforted, my poor Henriette. Just as nothing in this +world is as good as we hope, so nothing is as bad as we fear. _Voyons!_ +All is not lost yet. We must return to the hotel." + +She weepingly acquiesced. They walked through the quiet streets like +children whose truancy had been discovered and who were creeping back to +condign punishment at school. When they reached the hotel, Mrs. +Ducksmith went straight up to the woman's haven, her bedroom. + +Aristide tugged at his Vandyke beard in dire perplexity. The situation +was too pregnant with tragedy for him to run away and leave the pair +to deal with it as best they could. But what was he to do? He sat down +in the vestibule and tried to think. The landlord, an unstoppable +gramophone of garrulity, entering by the street-door and bearing down +upon him, put him to flight. He, too, sought his bedroom, a cool +apartment with a balcony outside the French window. On this balcony, +which stretched along the whole range of first-floor bedrooms, he +stood for a while, pondering deeply. Then, in an absent way, he +overstepped the limit of his own room-frontage. A queer sound startled +him. He paused, glanced through the open window, and there he saw a +sight which for the moment paralyzed him. + + [Illustration: THERE HE SAW A SIGHT WHICH FOR THE MOMENT PARALYZED HIM] + +Recovering command of his muscles, he tiptoed his way back. He +remembered now that the three rooms adjoined. Next to his was Mr. +Ducksmith's, and then came Mrs. Ducksmith's. It was Mr. Ducksmith whom +he had seen. Suddenly his dark face became luminous with laughter, his +eyes glowed, he threw his hat in the air and danced with glee about the +room. Having thus worked off the first intoxication of his idea, he +flung his few articles of attire and toilet necessaries into his bag, +strapped it, and darted, in his dragon-fly way, into the corridor and +tapped softly at Mrs. Ducksmith's door. She opened it. He put his finger +to his lips. + +"Madame," he whispered, bringing to bear on her all the mocking +magnetism of his eyes, "if you value your happiness you will do exactly +what I tell you. You will obey me implicitly. You must not ask +questions. Pack your trunks at once. In ten minutes' time the porter +will come for them." + +She looked at him with a scared face. "But what am I going to do?" + +"You are going to revenge yourself on your husband." + +"But I don't want to," she replied, piteously. + +"I do," said he. "Begin, _chere madame_. Every moment is precious." + +In a state of stupefied terror the poor woman obeyed him. He saw her +start seriously on her task and then went downstairs, where he held a +violent and gesticulatory conversation with the landlord and with a man +in a green baize apron summoned from some dim lair of the hotel. After +that he lit a cigarette and smoked feverishly, walking up and down the +pavement. In ten minutes' time his luggage with that of Mrs. Ducksmith +was placed upon the cab. Mrs. Ducksmith appeared trembling and +tear-stained in the vestibule. + + * * * * * + +The man in the green baize apron knocked at Mr. Ducksmith's door and +entered the room. + +"I have come for the baggage of monsieur," said he. + +"Baggage? What baggage?" asked Mr. Ducksmith, sitting up. + +"I have descended the baggage of Monsieur Pujol," said the porter in his +stumbling English, "and of madame, and put them in a cab, and I +naturally thought monsieur was going away, too." + +"Going away!" He rubbed his eyes, glared at the porter, and dashed into +his wife's room. It was empty. He dashed into Aristide's room. It was +empty, too. Shrieking inarticulate anathema, he rushed downstairs, the +man in the green baize apron following at his heels. + +Not a soul was in the vestibule. No cab was at the door. Mr. Ducksmith +turned upon his stupefied satellite. + +"Where are they?" + +"They must have gone already. I filled the cab. Perhaps Monsieur Pujol +and madame have gone before to make arrangements." + +"Where have they gone to?" + +"In Perigueux there is nowhere to go to with baggage but the railway +station." + +A decrepit vehicle with a gaudy linen canopy hove in sight. Mr. +Ducksmith hailed it as the last victims of the Flood must have hailed +the Ark. He sprang into it and drove to the station. + +There, in the _salle d'attente_, he found Aristide mounting guard over +his wife's luggage. He hurled his immense bulk at his betrayer. + +"You blackguard! Where is my wife?" + +"Monsieur," said Aristide, puffing a cigarette, sublimely impudent and +debonair, "I decline to answer any questions. Your wife is no longer +your wife. You offered me a thousand pounds to take her away. I am +taking her away. I did not deign to disturb you for such a trifle as a +thousand pounds, but, since you are here----" + +He smiled engagingly and held out his curved palm. Mr. Ducksmith foamed +at the corners of the small mouth that disappeared into the bloodhound +jowls. + +"My wife!" he shouted. "If you don't want me to throw you down and +trample on you." + +A band of loungers, railway officials, peasants, and other travellers +awaiting their trains, gathered round. As the altercation was conducted +in English, which they did not understand, they could only hope for the +commencement of physical hostilities. + +"My dear sir," said Aristide, "I do not understand you. For twenty years +you hold an innocent and virtuous woman under an infamous suspicion. She +meets a sympathetic soul, and you come across her pouring into his ear +the love and despair of a lifetime. You have more suspicion. You tell me +you will give me a thousand pounds to go away with her. I take you at +your word. And now you want to stamp on me. _Ma foi!_ it is not +reasonable." + +Mr. Ducksmith seized him by the lapels of his coat. A gasp of +expectation went round the crowd. But Aristide recognized an agonized +appeal in the eyes now bloodshot. + +"My wife!" he said hoarsely. "I want my wife. I can't live without her. +Give her back to me. Where is she?" + +"You had better search the station," said Aristide. + +The heavy man unconsciously shook him in his powerful grasp, as a child +might shake a doll. + +"Give her to me! Give her to me, I say! She won't regret it." + + [Illustration: MR. DUCKSMITH SEIZED HIM BY THE LAPELS OF HIS COAT] + +"You swear that?" asked Aristide, with lightning quickness. + +"I swear it, by God! Where is she?" + +Aristide disengaged himself, waved his hand airily towards Perigueux, +and smiled blandly. + +"In the salon of the hotel, waiting for you to prostrate yourself on +your knees before her." + +Mr. Ducksmith gripped him by the arm. + +"Come back with me. If you're lying I'll kill you." + +"The luggage?" queried Aristide. + +"Confound the luggage!" said Mr. Ducksmith, and dragged him out of the +station. + +A cab brought them quickly to the hotel. Mr. Ducksmith bolted like an +obese rabbit into the salon. A few moments afterwards Aristide, +entering, found them locked in each other's arms. + +They started alone for England that night, and Aristide returned to the +directorship of the Agence Pujol. But he took upon himself enormous +credit for having worked a miracle. + + * * * * * + +"One thing I can't understand," said I, after he had told me the story, +"is what put this sham elopement into your crazy head. What did you see +when you looked into Mr. Ducksmith's bedroom?" + +"Ah, _mon vieux_, I did not tell you. If I had told you, you would not +have been surprised at what I did. I saw a sight that would have melted +the heart of a stone. I saw Ducksmith wallowing on his bed and sobbing +as if his heart would break. It filled my soul with pity. I said: 'If +that mountain of insensibility can weep and sob in such agony, it is +because he loves--and it is I, Aristide, who have reawakened that +love.'" + +"Then," said I, "why on earth didn't you go and fetch Mrs. Ducksmith and +leave them together?" + +He started from his chair and threw up both hands. + +"_Mon Dieu!_" cried he. "You English! You are a charming people, but you +have no romance. You have no dramatic sense. I will help myself to a +whisky and soda." + + + + +VIII + +THE ADVENTURE OF THE FICKLE GODDESS + + +It may be remembered that Aristide Pujol had aged parents, browned and +wrinkled children of the soil, who had passed all their days in the +desolation of Aigues-Mortes, the little fortified, derelict city in the +salt marshes of Provence. Although they regarded him with the same +unimaginative wonder as a pair of alligators might regard an Argus +butterfly, their undoubted but freakish progeny, and although Aristide +soared high above their heads in all phases of thought and emotion, the +mutual ties remained strong and perdurable. Scarcely a year passed +without Aristide struggling somehow south to visit _ses vieux_, as he +affectionately called them, and whenever Fortune shed a few smiles on +him, one or two at least were sure to find their way to Aigues-Mortes in +the shape of, say, a silver-mounted umbrella for his father or a deuce +of a Paris hat for the old lady's Sunday wear. Monsieur and Madame Pujol +had a sacred museum of these unused objects--the pride of their lives. +Aristide was entirely incomprehensible, but he was a good son. A bad son +in France is rare. + +But once Aristide nearly killed his old people outright. An envelope +from him contained two large caressive slips of bluish paper, which when +scrutinized with starting eyes turned out to be two one-thousand-franc +notes. Mon Dieu! What had happened? Had Aristide been robbing the Bank +of France? They stood paralyzed and only recovered motive force when a +neighbour suggested their reading the accompanying letter. It did not +explain things very clearly. He was in Aix-les-Bains, a place which they +had never heard of, making his fortune. He was staying at the Hotel de +l'Europe, where Queen Victoria (they had heard of Queen Victoria) had +been contented to reside, he was a glittering figure in a splendid +beau-monde, and if _ses vieux_ would buy a few cakes and a bottle of vin +cachete with the enclosed trifle, to celebrate his prosperity, he would +deem it the privilege of a devoted son. But Pujol senior, though +wondering where the devil he had fished all that money from, did not +waste it in profligate revelry. He took the eighty pounds to the bank +and exchanged the perishable paper for one hundred solid golden louis +which he carried home in a bag curiously bulging beneath his woollen +jersey and secreted it with the savings of his long life in the mattress +of the conjugal bed. + +"If only he hasn't stolen it," sighed the mother. + +"What does it matter, since it is sewn up there all secure?" said the +old man. "No one can find it." + +The Provencal peasant is as hard-headed and practical as a Scottish +miner, and if left alone by the fairies would produce no imaginative +effect whatever upon his generation; but in his progeniture he is more +preposterously afflicted with changelings than any of his fellows the +world over, which, though ethnologically an entirely new proposition, +accounts for a singular number of things and _inter alia_ for my +dragon-fly friend, Aristide Pujol. + +Now, Aristide, be it said at the outset, had not stolen the money. It +(and a vast amount more) had been honestly come by. He did not lie when +he said that he was staying at the Hotel de l'Europe, Aix-les-Bains, +honoured by the late Queen Victoria (pedantic accuracy requires the +correction that the august lady rented the annexe, the Villa Victoria, +on the other side of the shady way--but no matter--an hotel and its +annexe are the same thing) nor did he lie in boasting of his prodigious +prosperity. Aristide was in clover. For the first, and up to now as I +write, the only, time in his life he realized the gorgeous visions of +pallid years. He was leading the existence of the amazing rich. He could +drink champagne--not your miserable _tisane_ at five francs a quart--but +real champagne, with year of vintage and _gout american_ or _gout +anglais_ marked on label, fabulously priced; he could dine lavishly at +the Casino restaurants or at Nikola's, prince of restaurateurs, among +the opulent and the fair; he could clothe himself in attractive raiment; +he could step into a fiacre and bid the man drive and not care whither +he went or what he paid; he could also distribute five-franc pieces to +lame beggars. He scattered his money abroad with both hands, according +to his expansive temperament; and why not, when he was drawing wealth +out of an inexhaustible fount? The process was so simple, so sure. All +you had to do was to believe in the cards on which you staked your +money. If you knew you were going to win, you won. Nothing could be +easier. + +He had drifted into Aix-les-Bains from Geneva on the lamentable +determination of a commission agency in the matter of some patent fuel, +with a couple of louis in his pocket forlornly jingling the tale of his +entire fortune. As this was before the days when you had to exhibit +certificates of baptism, marriage, sanity and bank-balance before being +allowed to enter the baccarat rooms, Aristide paid his two francs and +made a bee line for the tables. I am afraid Aristide was a gambler. He +was never so happy as when taking chances; his whole life was a gamble, +with Providence holding the bank. Before the night was over he had +converted his two louis into fifty. The next day they became five +hundred. By the end of a week his garments were wadded with bank notes +whose value amounted to a sum so stupendous as to be beyond need of +computation. He was a celebrity in the place and people nudged each +other as he passed by. And Aristide passed by with a swagger, his head +high and the end of his pointed beard sticking joyously up in the air. + +We see him one August morning, in the plentitude of his success, +lounging in a wicker chair on the shady lawn of the Hotel de l'Europe. +He wore white buckskin shoes--I begin with these as they were the first +point of his person to attract the notice of the onlooker--lilac silk +socks, a white flannel suit with a zig-zag black stripe, a violet tie +secured by a sapphire and diamond pin, and a rakish panama hat. On his +knees lay the _Matin_; the fingers of his left hand held a fragrant +corona; his right hand was uplifted in a gesture, for he was talking. He +was talking to a couple of ladies who sat near by, one a mild-looking +Englishwoman of fifty, dressed in black, the other, her daughter, a +beautiful girl of twenty-four. That Aristide should fly to feminine +charms, like moth to candle, was a law of his being; that he should lie, +with shriveled wings, at Miss Errington's feet was the obvious result. +Her charms were of the winsome kind to which he was most susceptible. +She had an oval face, a little mouth like crumpled rose petals (so +Aristide himself described it), a complexion the mingling of ivory and +peach blossom (Aristide again), a straight little nose, appealing eyes +of the deepest blue veiled by sweeping lashes and fascinating fluffiness +of dark hair over a pure brow. She had a graceful figure, and the +slender foot below her white pique skirt was at once the envy and +admiration of Aix-les-Bains. + +Aristide talked. The ladies listened, with obvious amusement. In the +easy hotel way he had fallen into their acquaintance. As the man of +wealth, the careless player who took five-hundred-louis banks at the +table with the five-louis minimum, and cleared out the punt, he felt it +necessary to explain himself. I am afraid he deviated from the narrow +path of truth. + +"What perfect English you speak," Miss Errington remarked, when he had +finished his harangue and had put the corona between his lips. Her voice +was a soft contralto. + +"I have mixed much in English society, since I was a child," replied +Aristide, in his grandest manner. "Fortune has made me know many of your +county families and members of Parliament." + +Miss Errington laughed. "Our M. P.'s are rather a mixed lot, Monsieur +Pujol." + +"To me an English Member of Parliament is a high-bred conservative. I +do not recognize the others," said Aristide. + +"Unfortunately we have to recognize them," said the elder lady with a +smile. + +"Not socially, madame. They exist as mechanical factors of the +legislative machine; but that is all." He swelled as if the blood of the +Montmorencys and the Colignys boiled in his veins. "We do not ask them +into our drawing rooms. We do not allow them to marry our daughters. We +only salute them with cold politeness when we pass them in the street." + +"It's astonishing," said Miss Errington, "how strongly the aristocratic +principle exists in republican France. Now, there's our friend, the +Comte de Lussigny, for instance----" + +A frown momentarily darkened the cloudless brow of Aristide Pujol. He +did not like the Comte de Lussigny---- + +"With Monsieur de Lussigny," he interposed, "it is a matter of +prejudice, not of principle." + +"And with you?" + +"The reasoned philosophy of a lifetime, mademoiselle," answered +Aristide. He turned to Mrs. Errington. + +"How long have you known Monsieur de Lussigny, madame?" + +She looked at her daughter. "It was in Monte Carlo the winter before +last, wasn't it, Betty? Since then we have met him frequently in +England and Paris. We came across him, just lately, at Trouville. I +think he's charming, don't you?" + +"He's a great gambler," said Aristide. + +Betty Errington laughed again. "But so are you. So is mamma. So am I, in +my poor little way." + +"We gamble for amusement," said Aristide loftily. + +"I'm sure I don't," cried Miss Betty, with merry eyes--and she looked +adorable--"When I put my despised five-franc piece down on the table I +want desperately to win, and when the horrid croupier rakes it up I want +to hit him--Oh! I want to hit him hard." + +"And when you win?" + +"I'm afraid I don't think of the croupier at all," said Miss Betty. + +Her mother smiled indulgently and exchanged a glance with Aristide. +This pleased him; there was an agreeable little touch of intimacy in +it. It confirmed friendly relations with the mother. What were his +designs as regards the daughter he did not know. They were not evil, +certainly. For all his southern blood, Latin traditions and +devil-may-care upbringing, Aristide, though perhaps not reaching our +divinely set and therefore unique English standard of morality, was a +decent soul; further, partly through his pedagogic sojourn among them, +and partly through his childish adoration of the frank, fair-cheeked, +northern goddesses talking the quick, clear speech, who passed him by +when he was a hunted little devil of a _chasseur_ in the Marseilles +cafe, he had acquired a peculiarly imaginative reverence for English +girls. The reverence, indeed, extended to English ladies generally. +Owing to the queer circumstances of his life they were the only women +of a class above his own, with whom he had associated on terms of +equality. He had, then, no dishonorable designs as regards Miss Betty +Errington. On the other hand, the thoughts of marriage had as yet not +entered his head. You see, a Frenchman and an Englishman or an +American, view marriage from entirely different angles. The +Anglo-Saxon of honest instincts, attracted towards a pretty girl at +once thinks of the possibilities of marriage; if he finds them +infinitely remote, he makes romantic love to her in the solitude of +his walks abroad or of his sleepless nights, and, in her presence, is +as dumb and dismal as a freshly hooked trout. The equally honest Gaul +does nothing of the kind. The attraction in itself is a stimulus to +adventure. He makes love to her, just because it is the nature of a +lusty son of Adam to make love to a pretty daughter of Eve. He lives +in the present. The rest doesn't matter. He leaves it to chance. I am +speaking, be it understood, not of deep passions--that is a different +matter altogether--but of the more superficial sexual attractions +which we, as a race, take so seriously and puritanically, often to our +most disastrous undoing, and which the Latin light-heartedly regards +as essential, but transient phenomena of human existence. Aristide +made the most respectful love in the world to Betty Errington, because +he could not help himself. "_Tonnerre de Dieu!_" he cried when from my +Britannic point of view, I talked to him on the subject. "You English +whom I try to understand and can never understand are so funny! It +would have been insulting to Miss Betty Errington--_tiens!_--a purple +hyacinth of spring--that was what she was--not to have made love to +her. Love to a pretty woman is like a shower of rain to hyacinths. It +passes, it goes. Another one comes. _Qu'importe?_ But the shower is +necessary--Ah! _sacre gredin_, when will you comprehend?" + +All this to make as clear as an Englishman, in the confidence of a +changeling child of Provence can hope to do, the attitude of Aristide +Pujol towards the sweet and innocent Betty Errington with her mouth like +crumpled rose-petals, her ivory and peach-blossom complexion, her soft +contralto voice, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, as per foregoing bald +description, and as per what can, by imaginative effort, be pictured +from the Pujolic hyperbole, by which I, the unimportant narrator of +these chronicles, was dazzled and overwhelmed. + +"I'm afraid I don't think of the croupier at all," said Betty. + +"Do you think of no one who brings you good fortune?" asked Aristide. He +threw the _Matin_ on the grass, and, doubling himself up in his chair +regarded her earnestly. "Last night you put five louis into my bank----" + +"And I won forty. I could have hugged you." + +"Why didn't you? Ah!" His arms spread wide and high. "What I have lost!" + +"Betty!" cried Mrs. Errington. + +"Alas, Madame," said Aristide, "that is the despair of our artificial +civilization. It prohibits so much spontaneous expression of emotion." + +"You'll forgive me, Monsieur Pujol," said Mrs. Errington dryly, "but I +think our artificial civilization has its advantages." + +"If you will forgive me, in your turn," said Aristide, "I see a doubtful +one advancing." + +A man approached the group and with profuse gestures took off a straw +hat which he thrust under his right arm, exposing an amazingly flat head +on which the closely cropped hair stood brush-fashion upright. He had an +insignificant pale face to which a specious individuality was given by a +moustache with ends waxed up to the eyes and by a monocle with a +tortoise shell rim. He was dressed (his valet had misjudged things--and +valets like the rest of us are fallible) in what was yesterday a fairly +white flannel suit. + +"Madame--Mademoiselle." He shook hands with charming grace. "Monsieur." +He bowed stiffly. Aristide doffed his Panama hat with adequate ceremony. +"May I be permitted to join you?" + +"With pleasure, Monsieur de Lussigny," said Mrs. Errington. + +Monsieur de Lussigny brought up a chair and sat down. + +"What time did you get to bed, last night?" asked Betty Errington. She +spoke excellently pure French, and so did her mother. + +"Soon after we parted, mademoiselle, quite early for me but late for +you. And you look this morning as if you had gone to bed at sundown and +got up at dawn." + +Miss Betty's glance responsive to the compliment filled Aristide with +wrath. What right had the Comte de Lussigny, a fellow who consorted with +Brazilian Rastaquoueres and perfumed Levantine nondescripts, to win such +a glance from Betty Errington? + +"If Mademoiselle can look so fresh," said he, "in the artificial +atmosphere of Aix, what is there of adorable that she must not resemble +in the innocence of her Somersetshire home?" + +"You cannot imagine it, Monsieur," said the Count; "but I have had the +privilege to see it." + +"I hope Monsieur Pujol will visit us also in our country home, when we +get back," said Mrs. Errington with intent to pacificate. "It is modest, +but it is old-world and has been in our family for hundreds of years." + +"Ah, these old English homes!" said Aristide. + +"Would you care to hear about it?" + +"I should," said he. + +He drew his chair courteously a foot or so nearer that of the mild lady; +Monsieur de Lussigny took instant advantage of the move to establish +himself close to Miss Betty. Aristide turned one ear politely to Mrs. +Errington's discourse, the other ragingly and impotently to the +whispered conversation between the detached pair. + +Presently a novel fell from the lady's lap. Aristide sprang to his feet +and restored it. He remained standing. Mrs. Errington consulted a watch. +It was nearing lunch time. She rose, too. Aristide took her a pace or +two aside. + +"My dear Mrs. Errington," said he, in English. "I do not wish to be +indiscreet--but you come from your quiet home in Somerset and your +beautiful daughter is so young and inexperienced, and I am a man of the +world who has mingled in all the society of Europe--may I warn you +against admitting the Comte de Lussigny too far into your intimacy." + +She turned an anxious face. "Monsieur Pujol, is there anything against +the Count?" + +Aristide executed the large and expressive shrug of the Southerner. + +"I play high at the tables for my amusement--I know the principal +players, people of high standing. Among them Monsieur de Lussigny's +reputation is not spotless." + +"You alarm me very much," said Mrs. Errington, troubled. + +"I only put you on your guard," said he. + +The others who had risen and followed, caught them up. At the entrance +to the hotel the ladies left the men elaborately saluting. The latter, +alone, looked at each other. + +"Monsieur." + +"Monsieur." + +Each man raised his hat, turned on his heel and went his way. Aristide +betook himself to the cafe on the Place Carnot on the side of the square +facing the white Etablissement des Bains, with a stern sense of having +done his duty. It was monstrous that this English damask rose should +fall a prey to so detestable a person as the Comte de Lussigny. He +suspected him of disgraceful things. If only he had proof. Fortune, ever +favoring him, stood at his elbow. She guided him straight to a table in +the front row of the terrace where sat a black-haired, hard-featured +though comely youth deep in thought, in front of an untouched glass of +beer. At Aristide's approach he raised his head, smiled, nodded and +said: "Good morning, sir. Will you join me?" + +Aristide graciously accepted the invitation and sat down. The young +man was another hotel acquaintance, one Eugene Miller of Atlanta, +Georgia, a curious compound of shrewdness and simplicity, to whom +Aristide had taken a fancy. He was twenty-eight and ran a colossal +boot-factory in partnership with another youth and had a consuming +passion for stained-glass windows. From books he knew every square +foot of old stained-glass in Europe. But he had crossed the Atlantic +for the first time only six weeks before, and having indulged his +craving immoderately, had rested for a span at Aix-les-Bains to +recover from aesthetic indigestion. He had found these amenities +agreeable to his ingenuous age. He had also, quite recently, come +across the Comte de Lussigny. Hence the depth of thought in which +Aristide discovered him. Now, the fact that North is North and South +is South and that never these twain shall meet is a proposition all +too little considered. One of these days when I can retire from the +dull but exacting avocation of tea-broking in the City, I think I +shall write a newspaper article on the subject. Anyhow, I hold +the theory that the Northerners of all nations have a common +characteristic and the Southerners of all nations have a common +characteristic, and that it is this common characteristic in each +case that makes North seek and understand North and South seek and +understand South. I will not go further into the general proposition; +but as a particular instance I will state that the American of the +South and the Frenchman of the South found themselves in essential +sympathy. Eugene Miller had the unfearing frankness of Aristide Pujol. + +"I used rather to look down upon Europe as a place where people knew +nothing at all," said he. "We're sort of trained to think it's an +extinct volcano, but it isn't. It's alive. My God! It's alive. It's Hell +in the shape of a Limburger cheese. I wish the whole population of +Atlanta, Georgia, would come over and just see. There's a lot to be +learned. I thought I knew how to take care of myself, but this +tortoise-shell-eyed Count taught me last night that I couldn't. He +cleaned me out of twenty-five hundred dollars----" + +"How?" asked Aristide, sharply. + +"Ecarte." + +Aristide brought his hand down with a bang on the table and uttered +anathemas in French and Provencal entirely unintelligible to Eugene +Miller; but the youth knew by instinct that they were useful, +soul-destroying curses and he felt comforted. + +"Ecarte! You played ecarte with Lussigny? But my dear young friend, do +you know anything of ecarte?" + +"Of course," said Miller. "I used to play it as a child with my +sisters." + +"Do you know the _jeux de regle_?" + +"The what?" + +"The formal laws of the game--the rules of discards----" + +"Never heard of them," said Eugene Miller. + +"But they are as absolute as the Code Napoleon," cried Aristide. "You +can't play without knowing them. You might as well play chess without +knowing the moves." + +"Can't help it," said the young man. + +"Well, don't play ecarte any more." + +"I must," said Miller. + +"_Comment?_" + +"I must. I've fixed it up to get my revenge this afternoon--in my +sitting room at the hotel." + +"But it's imbecile!" + +The sweep of Aristide's arm produced prismatic chaos among a tray-full +of drinks which the waiter was bringing to the family party at the next +table. "It's imbecile," he cried, as soon as order was apologetically +and pecuniarily restored. "You are a little mutton going to have its +wool taken off." + +"I've fixed it up," said Miller. "I've never gone back on an engagement +yet in my own country and I'm not going to begin this side." + +Aristide argued. He argued during the mechanical absorption of four +glasses of _vermouth-cassis_--after which prodigious quantity of black +currant syrup he rose and took the Gadarene youth to Nikola's where he +continued the argument during dejeuner. Eugene Miller's sole concession +was that Aristide should be present at the encounter and, backing his +hand, should have the power (given by the rules of the French game) to +guide his play. Aristide agreed and crammed his young friend with the +_jeux de regle_ and _pate de foie gras_. + +The Count looked rather black when he found Aristide Pujol in Miller's +sitting room. He could not, however, refuse him admittance to the game. +The three sat down, Aristide by Miller's side, so that he could overlook +the hand and, by pointing, indicate the cards that it was advisable to +play. The game began. Fortune favored Mr. Eugene Miller. The Count's +brow grew blacker. + +"You are bringing your own luck to our friend, Monsieur Pujol," said he, +dealing the cards. + +"He needs it," said Aristide. + +"_Le roi_," said the Count, turning up the king. + +The Count won the vole, or all five tricks, and swept the stakes towards +him. Then, fortune quickly and firmly deserted Mr. Miller. The Count +besides being an amazingly fine player, held amazingly fine hands. The +pile of folded notes in front of him rose higher and higher. Aristide +tugged at his beard in agitation. Suddenly, as the Count dealt a king as +trump card, he sprang to his feet knocking over the chair behind him. + +"You cheat, monsieur. You cheat!" + +"Monsieur!" cried the outraged dealer. + +"What has he done?" + +"He has been palming kings and neutralizing the cut. I've been watching. +Now I catch him," cried Aristide in great excitement. "_Ah, sale voleur! +Maintenant je vous tiens!_" + +"Monsieur," said the Comte de Lussigny with dignity, stuffing his +winnings into his jacket pocket. "You insult me. It is an infamy. Two of +my friends will call upon you." + +"And Monsieur Miller and I will kick them over Mont Revard." + +"You cannot treat _gens d'honneur_ in such a way, monsieur." He turned +to Miller, and said haughtily in his imperfect English, "Did you see the +cheat, you?" + +"I can't say that I did," replied the young man. "On the other hand that +torch-light procession of kings doesn't seem exactly natural." + +"But you did not see anything! _Bon!_" + +"But I saw. Isn't that enough, _hein_?" shouted Aristide brandishing his +fingers in the Count's face. "You come here and think there's nothing +easier than to cheat young foreigners who don't know the rules of +ecarte. You come here and think you can carry off rich young English +misses. Ah, _sale escroc!_ You never thought you would have to reckon +with Aristide Pujol. You call yourself the Comte de Lussigny. Bah! I +know you----" he didn't, but that doesn't matter--"your _dossier_ is in +the hands of the prefect of Police. I am going to get that _dossier_. +Monsieur Lepine is my intimate friend. Every autumn we shoot together. +Aha! You send me your two galley-birds and see what I do to them." + +The Comte de Lussigny twirled the tips of his moustache almost to his +forehead and caught up his hat. + +"My friends shall be officers in the uniform of the French Army," he +said, by the door. + +"And mine shall be two gendarmes," retorted Aristide. "_Nom de Dieu!_" +he cried, after the other had left the room. "We let him take the +money!" + +"That's of no consequence. He didn't get away with much anyway," said +young Miller. "But he would have if you hadn't been here. If ever I can +do you a return service, just ask." + +Aristide went out to look for the Erringtons. But they were not to be +found. It was only late in the afternoon that he met Mrs. Errington in +the hall of the hotel. He dragged her into a corner and in his +impulsive fashion told her everything. She listened white faced, in +great distress. + +"My daughter's engaged to him. I've only just learned," she faltered. + +"Engaged? _Sacrebleu!_ Ah, _le goujat!_"--for the second he was +desperately, furiously, jealously in love with Betty Errington. "_Ah, le +sale type! Voyons!_ This engagement must be broken off. At once! You are +her mother." + +"She will hear of nothing against him." + +"You will tell her this. It will be a blow; but----" + +Mrs. Errington twisted a handkerchief between helpless fingers. "Betty +is infatuated. She won't believe it." She regarded him piteously. "Oh, +Monsieur Pujol, what can I do? You see she has an independent fortune +and is over twenty-one. I am powerless." + +"I will meet his two friends," exclaimed Aristide magnificently--"and I +will kill him. _Voila!_" + +"Oh, a duel? No! How awful!" cried the mild lady horror-stricken. + +He thrust his cane dramatically through a sheet of a newspaper, which he +had caught up from a table. "I will run him through the body like +that"--Aristide had never handled a foil in his life--"and when he is +dead, your beautiful daughter will thank me for having saved her from +such an execrable fellow." + +"But you mustn't fight. It would be too dreadful. Is there no other +way?" + +"You must consult first with your daughter," said Aristide. + +He dined in the hotel with Eugene Miller. Neither the Erringtons nor the +Comte de Lussigny were anywhere to be seen. After dinner, however, he +found the elder lady waiting for him in the hall. They walked out into +the quiet of the garden. She had been too upset to dine, she explained, +having had a terrible scene with Betty. Nothing but absolute proofs of +her lover's iniquity would satisfy her. The world was full of slanderous +tongues; the noblest and purest did not escape. For herself, she had +never been comfortable with the Comte de Lussigny. She had noticed too +that he had always avoided the best French people in hotels. She would +give anything to save her daughter. She wept. + +"And the unhappy girl has written him compromising letters," she +lamented. + +"They must be got back." + +"But how? Oh, Monsieur Pujol, do you think he would take money for +them?" + +"A scoundrel like that would take money for his dead mother's shroud," +said Aristide. + +"A thousand pounds?" + +She looked very haggard and helpless beneath the blue arc-lights. +Aristide's heart went out to her. He knew her type--the sweet +gentlewoman of rural England who comes abroad to give her pretty +daughter a sight of life, ingenuously confident that foreign +watering-places are as innocent as her own sequestered village. + +"That is much money, _chere madame_," said Aristide. + +"I am fairly well off," said Mrs. Errington. + +Aristide reflected. At the offer of a smaller sum the Count would +possibly bluff. But to a Knight of Industry, as he knew the Count to be, +a certain thousand pounds would be a great temptation. And after all to +a wealthy Englishwoman what was a thousand pounds? + +"Madame," said he, "if you offer him a thousand pounds for the letters, +and a written confession that he is not the Comte de Lussigny, but a +common adventurer, I stake my reputation that he will accept." + +They walked along for a few moments in silence; the opera had begun at +the adjoining Villa des Fleurs and the strains floated through the still +August air. After a while she halted and laid her hand on his sleeve. + +"Monsieur Pujol, I have never been faced with such a thing, before. Will +you undertake for me this delicate and difficult business?" + +"Madame," said he, "my life is at the service of yourself and your most +exquisite daughter." She pressed his hand. "Thank God, I've got a friend +in this dreadful place," she said brokenly. "Let me go in." And when +they reached the lounge, she said, "Wait for me here." + +She entered the lift. Aristide waited. Presently the lift descended and +she emerged with a slip of paper in her hand. + +"Here is a bearer cheque, Monsieur Pujol, for a thousand pounds. Get the +letters and the confession if you can, and a mother's blessing will go +with you." + +She left him and went upstairs again in the lift. Aristide athirst with +love, living drama and unholy hatred of the Comte de Lussigny, cocked +his black, soft-felt evening hat at an engaging angle on his head and +swaggered into the Villa des Fleurs. As he passed the plebeian crowd +round the petits-chevaux table--these were the days of little horses and +not the modern equivalent of _la boule_--he threw a louis on the square +marked 5, waited for the croupier to push him his winnings, seven louis +and his stake on the little white horse, and walked into the baccarat +room. A bank was being called for thirty louis at the end table. + +"_Quarante_," said Aristide. + +"_Ajuge a quarante louis_," cried the croupier, no one bidding higher. + +Aristide took the banker's seat and put down his forty louis. Looking +round the long table he saw the Comte de Lussigny sitting in the punt. +The two men glared at each other defiantly. Someone went "banco." +Aristide won. The fact of his holding the bank attracted a crowd round +the table. The regular game began. Aristide won, lost, won again. Now it +must be explained, without going into the details of the game, that the +hand against the bank is played by the members of the punt in turn. + +Suddenly, before dealing the cards, Aristide asked, "_A qui la main?_" + +"_C'est a Monsieur_," said the croupier, indicating Lussigny. + +"_Il y a une suite_," said Aristide, signifying, as was his right, that +he would retire from the bank with his winnings. "The face of that +gentleman does not please me." + +There was a hush at the humming table. The Count grew dead white and +looked at his fingernails. Aristide superbly gathered up his notes and +gold, and tossing a couple of louis to the croupiers, left the table, +followed by all eyes. It was one of the thrilling moments of Aristide's +life. He had taken the stage, commanded the situation. He had publicly +offered the Comte de Lussigny the most deadly insult and the Comte de +Lussigny sat down beneath it like a lamb. He swaggered slowly through +the crowded room, twirling his moustache, and went into the cool of the +moonlit deserted garden beyond, where he waited gleefully. He had a +puckish knowledge of human nature. After a decent interval, and during +the absorbing interest of the newly constituted bank, the Comte de +Lussigny slipped unnoticed from the table and went in search of +Aristide. He found him smoking a large corona and lounging in one wicker +chair with his feet on another, beside a very large whisky and soda. + +"Ah, it's you," said he without moving. + +"Yes," said the Count furiously. + +"I haven't yet had the pleasure of kicking your friends over Mont +Revard," said Aristide. + +"Look here, _mon petit_, this has got to finish," cried the Count. + +"_Parfaitement._ I should like nothing better than to finish. But let us +finish like well-bred people," said Aristide suavely. "We don't want the +whole Casino as witnesses. You'll find a chair over there. Bring it up." + +He was enjoying himself immensely. The Count glared at him, turned and +banged a chair over by the side of the table. + +"Why do you insult me like this?" + +"Because," said Aristide, "I've talked by telephone this evening with my +good friend Monsieur Lepine, Prefect of Police of Paris." + +"You lie," said the Count. + +"_Vous verrez._ In the meantime, perhaps we might have a little +conversation. Will you have a whisky and soda? It is one of my English +habits." + +"No," said the Count emphatically. + +"You permit me then?" He drank a great draught. "You are wrong. It helps +to cool one's temper. _Eh bien_, let us talk." + +He talked. He put before the Count the situation of the beautiful Miss +Errington. He conducted the scene like the friend of the family whose +astuteness he had admired as a boy in the melodramas that found their +way to Marseilles. + +"Look," said he, at last, having vainly offered from one hundred to +eight hundred pounds for poor Betty Errington's compromising letters. +"Look----" He drew the cheque from his note-case. "Here are twenty-five +thousand francs. The signature is that of the charming Madame Errington +herself. The letters, and a little signed word, just a little word. +'Mademoiselle, I am a _chevalier d'industrie_. I have a wife and five +children. I am not worthy of you. I give you back your promise.' Just +that. And twenty-five thousand francs, _mon ami_." + +"Never in life!" exclaimed the Count rising. "You continue to insult +me." + +Aristide for the first time abandoned his lazy and insolent attitude and +jumped to his feet. + +"And I'll continue to insult you, _canaille_ that you are, all through +that room," he cried, with a swift-flung gesture towards the brilliant +doorway. "You are dealing with Aristide Pujol. Will you never +understand? The letters and a confession for twenty-five thousand +francs." + +"Never in life," said the Count, and he moved swiftly away. + +Aristide caught him by the collar as he stood on the covered terrace, a +foot or two from the threshold of the gaming-room. + +"I swear to you, I'll make a scandal that you won't survive." + +The Count stopped and pushed Aristide's hand away. + +"I admit nothing," said he. "But you are a gambler and so am I. I will +play you for those documents against twenty-five thousand francs." + +"Eh?" said Aristide, staggered for the moment. + +The Comte de Lussigny repeated his proposition. + +"_Bon_," said Aristide. "_Tres bon. C'est entendu. C'est fait._" + +If Beelzebub had arisen and offered to play beggar-my-neighbour for his +soul, Aristide would have agreed; especially after the large whisky and +soda and the Mumm Cordon Rouge and the Napoleon brandy which Eugene +Miller had insisted on his drinking at dinner. + +"I have a large room at the hotel," said he. + +"I will join you," said the Count. "Monsieur," he took off his hat very +politely. "Go first. I will be there in three minutes." + +Aristide trod on air during the two minutes' walk to the Hotel de +l'Europe. At the bureau he ordered a couple of packs of cards and a +supply of drinks and went to his palatial room on the ground floor. In a +few moments the Comte de Lussigny appeared. Aristide offered him a two +francs corona which was ceremoniously accepted. Then he tore the +wrapping off one of the packs of cards and shuffled. + +"Monsieur," said he, still shuffling. "I should like to deal two hands +at ecarte. It signifies nothing. It is an experiment. Will you cut?" + +"_Volontiers_," said the Count. + +Aristide took up the pack, dealt three cards to the Count, three cards +to himself, two cards to the Count, two to himself and turned up the +King of Hearts as the eleventh card. + +"Monsieur," said he, "expose your hand and I will expose mine." + +Both men threw their hands face uppermost on the table. Aristide's was +full of trumps, the Count's of valueless cards. + +He looked at his adversary with his roguish, triumphant smile. The Count +looked at him darkly. + +"The ordinary card player does not know how to deal like that," he said +with sinister significance. + +"But I am not ordinary in anything, my dear sir," laughed Aristide, in +his large boastfulness. "If I were, do you think I would have agreed to +your absurd proposal? _Voyons_, I only wanted to show you that in +dealing cards I am your equal. Now, the letters----" The Count threw a +small packet on the table. "You will permit me? I do not wish to read +them. I verify only. Good," said he. "And the confession?" + +"What you like," said the Count, coldly. Aristide scribbled a few lines +that would have been devastating to the character of a Hyrcanean tiger +and handed the paper and fountain pen to the Count. + +"Will you sign?" + +The Count glanced at the words and signed. + +"_Voila_," said Aristide, laying Mrs. Errington's cheque beside the +documents. "Now let us play. The best of three games?" + +"Good," said the Count. "But you will excuse me, monsieur, if I claim to +play for ready money. The cheque will take five days to negotiate and if +I lose, I shall evidently have to leave Aix to-morrow morning." + +"That's reasonable," said Aristide. + +He drew out his fat note-case and counted twenty-five one-thousand-franc +notes on to the table. And then began the most exciting game of cards he +had ever played. In the first place he was playing with another person's +money for a fantastic stake, a girl's honour and happiness. Secondly he +was pitted against a master of ecarte. And thirdly he knew that his +adversary would cheat if he could and that his adversary suspected him +of fraudulent designs. So as they played, each man craned his head +forward and looked at the other man's fingers with fierce intensity. + +Aristide lost the first game. He wiped the sweat from his forehead. In +the second game, he won the vole in one hand. The third and final game +began. They played slowly, carefully, with keen quick eyes. Their +breathing came hard. The Count's lips parted beneath his uptwisted +moustache showed his teeth like a cat's. Aristide lost sense of all +outer things in the thrill of the encounter. They snarled the +stereotyped phrases necessary for the conduct of the game. At last the +points stood at four for Aristide and three for his adversary. It was +Aristide's deal. Before turning up the eleventh card he paused for the +fraction of a second. If it was the King, he had won. He flicked it +neatly face upward. It was not the King. + +_"J'en donne."_ + +_"Non. Le roi."_ + +The Count played and marked the King. Aristide had no trumps. The game +was lost. + +He sat back white, while the Count smiling gathered up the bank-notes. + +"And now, Monsieur Pujol," said he impudently, "I am willing to sell +you this rubbish for the cheque." + +Aristide jumped to his feet. "Never!" he cried. Madness seized him. +Regardless of the fact that he had nothing like another thousand pounds +left wherewith to repay Mrs. Errington if he lost, he shouted: "I will +play again for it. Not ecarte. One cut of the cards. Ace lowest." + +"All right," said the Count. + +"Begin, you." + +Aristide watched his hand like cat, as he cut. He cut an eight. Aristide +gave a little gasp of joy and cut quickly. He held up a Knave and +laughed aloud. Then he stopped short as he saw the Count about to pounce +on the documents and the cheque. He made a swift movement and grabbed +them first, the other man's hand on his. + +"_Canaille!_" + +He dashed his free hand into the adventurer's face. The man staggered +back. Aristide pocketed the precious papers. The Count scowled at him +for an undecided second, and then bolted from the room. + +"Whew!" said Aristide, sinking into his chair and wiping his face. "That +was a narrow escape." + +He looked at his watch. It was only ten o'clock. It had seemed as if his +game with Lussigny had lasted for hours. He could not go to bed and +stood confronted with anti-climax. After a while he went in search of +Eugene Miller and having found him in solitary meditation on stained +glass windows in the dim-lit grounds of the Villa, sat down by his side +and for the rest of the evening poured his peculiar knowledge of Europe +into the listening ear of the young man from Atlanta. + +On the following morning, as soon as he was dressed, he learned from the +Concierge that the Comte de Lussigny had left for Paris by the early +train. + +"Good," said Aristide. + +A little later Mrs. Errington met him in the lounge and accompanied him +to the lawn where they had sat the day before. + +"I have no words to thank you, Monsieur Pujol," she said with tears in +her eyes. "I have heard how you shamed him at the tables. It was brave +of you." + +"It was nothing." He shrugged his shoulders as if he were in the habit +of doing deeds like that every day of his life. "And your exquisite +daughter, Madame?" + +"Poor Betty! She is prostrate. She says she will never hold up her head +again. Her heart is broken." + +"It is young and will be mended," said Aristide. + +She smiled sadly. "It will be a question of time. But she is grateful to +you, Monsieur Pujol. She realizes from what a terrible fate you have +saved her." She sighed. There was a brief silence. + +"After this," she continued, "a further stay in Aix would be too +painful. We have decided to take the Savoy express this evening and get +back to our quiet home in Somerset." + +"Ah, madame," said Aristide earnestly. "And shall I not have the +pleasure of seeing the charming Miss Betty again?" + +"You will come and stay with us in September. Let me see? The fifteenth. +Why not fix a date? You have my address? No? Will you write it down?" +she dictated: "Wrotesly Manor, Burnholme, Somerset. There I'll try to +show you how grateful I am." + +She extended her hand. He bowed over it and kissed it in his French way +and departed a very happy man. + +The Erringtons left that evening. Aristide waylaid them as they were +entering the hotel omnibus, with a preposterous bouquet of flowers which +he presented to Betty, whose pretty face was hidden by a motor-veil. He +bowed, laid his hand on his heart and said: "_Adieu, mademoiselle._" + +"No," she said in a low voice, but most graciously, "_Au revoir_, +Monsieur Pujol." + +For the next few days Aix seemed to be tame and colourless. In an +inexplicable fashion, too, it had become unprofitable. Aristide no +longer knew that he was going to win; and he did not win. He lost +considerably. So much so that on the morning when he was to draw the +cash for the cheque, at the Credit Lyonnais, he had only fifty pounds +and some odd silver left. Aristide looking at the remainder rather +ruefully made a great resolution. He would gamble no more. Already he +was richer than he had ever been in his life. He would leave Aix. +_Tiens!_ why should he not go to his good friends the Bocardons at +Nimes, bringing with him a gold chain for Bocardon and a pair of +ear-rings for the adorable Zette? There he would look about him. He +would use the thousand pounds as a stepping-stone to legitimate fortune. +Then he would visit the Erringtons in England, and if the beautiful Miss +Betty smiled on him--why, after all, _sacrebleu_ he was an honest man, +without a feather on his conscience. + +So, jauntily swinging his cane, he marched into the office of the Credit +Lyonnais, went into the inner room and explained his business. + +"Ah, your cheque, monsieur, that we were to collect. I am sorry. It has +come back from the London bankers." + +"How come back?" + +"It has not been honoured. See, monsieur. 'Not known. No account.'" The +cashier pointed to the grim words across the cheque. + +"_Comprends pas_," faltered Aristide. + +"It means that the person who gave you the cheque has no account at this +bank." + +Aristide took the cheque and looked at it in a dazed way. + +"Then I do not get my twenty-five thousand francs?" + +"Evidently not," said the cashier. + +Aristide stood for a while stunned. What did it mean? His thousand +pounds could not be lost. It was impossible. There was some mistake. It +was an evil dream. With a heavy weight on the top of his head, he went +out of the Credit Lyonnais and mechanically crossed the little street +separating the Bank from the cafe on the Place Carnot. There he sat +stupidly and wondered. The waiter hovered in front of him. "_Monsieur +desire?_" Aristide waved him away absently. Yes, it was some mistake. +Mrs. Errington in her agitation must have used the wrong cheque book. +But even rich English people do not carry about with them a circulating +library assortment of cheque books. It was incomprehensible--and +meanwhile, his thousand pounds.... + +The little square blazed before him in the August sunshine. Opposite +flashed the white mass of the Etablissement des Bains. There was the old +Roman Arch of Titus, gray and venerable. There were the trees of the +gardens in riotous greenery. There on the right marking the hour of +eleven on its black face was the clock of the Comptoir National. It was +Aix; familiar Aix; not a land of dreams. And there coming rapidly across +from the Comptoir National was the well knit figure of the young man +from Atlanta. + +"_Nom de Dieu_," murmured Aristide. "_Nom de Dieu de nom de Dieu!_" + +Eugene Miller, in a fine frenzy, threw himself into a chair beside +Aristide. + +"See here. Can you understand this?" + +He thrust into his hand a pink strip of paper. It was a cheque for a +hundred pounds, made payable to Eugene Miller, Esquire, signed by Mary +Errington, and marked "Not known. No account." + +"_Tonnerre de Dieu!_" cried Aristide. "How did you get this?" + +"How did I get it? I cashed it for her--the day she went away. She said +urgent affairs summoned her from Aix--no time to wire for funds--wanted +to pay her hotel bill--and she gave me the address of her old English +home in Somerset and invited me to come there in September. Fifteenth of +September. Said that you were coming. And now I've got a bum cheque. I +guess I can't wander about this country alone. I need blinkers and +harness and a man with a whip." + +He went on indignantly. Aristide composed his face into an expression of +parental interest; but within him there was shivering and sickening +upheaval. He saw it all, the whole mocking drama.... + +He, Aristide Pujol, was the most sweetly, the most completely swindled +man in France. + +The Comte de Lussigny, the mild Mrs. Errington and the beautiful Betty +were in league together and had exquisitely plotted. They had conspired, +as soon as he had accused the Count of cheating. The rascal must have +gone straight to them from Miller's room. No wonder that Lussigny, when +insulted at the tables, had sat like a tame rabbit and had sought him in +the garden. No wonder he had accepted the accusation of adventurer. No +wonder he had refused to play for the cheque which he knew to be +valueless. But why, thought Aristide, did he not at once consent to sell +the papers on the stipulation that he should be paid in notes? Aristide +found an answer. He wanted to get everything for nothing, afraid of the +use that Aristide might make of a damning confession, and also relying +for success on his manipulation of the cards. Finally he had desired to +get hold of a dangerous cheque. In that he had been foiled. But the trio +has got away with his thousand pounds, his wonderful thousand pounds. He +reflected, still keeping an attentive eye on young Eugene Miller and +interjecting a sympathetic word, that after he had paid his hotel bill, +he would be as poor on quitting Aix-les-Bains as he was when he had +entered it. _Sic transit_.... As it was in the beginning with Aristide +Pujol, is now and ever shall be.... + +"But I have my clothes--such clothes as I've never had in my life," +thought Aristide. "And a diamond and sapphire tie-pin and a gold watch, +and all sorts of other things. _Tron de l'air_, I'm still rich." + +"Who would have thought she was like that?" said he. "And a hundred +pounds, too. A lot of money." + +For nothing in the world would he have confessed himself a +fellow-victim. + +"I don't care a cent for the hundred pounds," cried the young man. "Our +factory turns out seven hundred and sixty-seven million pairs of boots +per annum." (Aristide, not I, is responsible for the statistics.) "But I +have a feeling that in this hoary country I'm just a little toddling +child. And I hate it. I do, sir. I want a nurse to take me round." + +Aristide flashed the lightning of his wit upon the young man from +Atlanta, Georgia. + +"You do, my dear young friend. I'll be your nurse, at a weekly +salary--say a hundred francs--it doesn't matter. We will not quarrel." +Eugene Miller was startled. "Yes," said Aristide, with a convincing +flourish. "I'll clear robbers and sirens and harpies from your path. +I'll show you things in Europe--from Tromsoe to Cap Spartivento that you +never dreamed of. I'll lead you to every stained glass window in the +world. I know them all." + +"I particularly want to see those in the church of St. Sebald in +Nuremberg." + +"I know them like my pocket," said Aristide. "I will take you there. We +start to-day." + +"But, Mr. Pujol," said the somewhat bewildered Georgian. "I thought you +were a man of fortune." + +"I am more than a man. I am a soldier. I am a soldier of Fortune. The +fickle goddess has for the moment deserted me. But I am loyal. I have +for all worldly goods, two hundred and fifty dollars, with which I shall +honorably pay my hotel bill. I say I am a soldier of Fortune. But," he +slapped his chest, "I am the only honorable one on the Continent of +Europe." + +The young man fixed upon him the hard blue eyes, not of the enthusiast +for stained glass windows, but of the senior partner in the boot factory +of Atlanta, Georgia. + +"I believe you," said he. "It's a deal. Shake." + +"And now," said Aristide, after having shaken hands, "come and lunch +with me at Nikola's for the last time." + +He rose, stretched out both arms in a wide gesture and smiled with his +irresistible Ancient Mariner's eyes at the young man. + +"We lunch. We eat ambrosia. Then we go out together and see the +wonderful world through the glass-blood of saints and martyrs and +apostles and the good Father Abraham and Louis Quatorze. _Viens, mon +cher ami._ It is the dream of my life." + +Practically penniless and absolutely disillusioned, the amazing man was +radiantly happy. + + + + +IX + +THE ADVENTURE OF A SAINT MARTIN'S SUMMER + + +My good friend Blessington, who is a mighty man in the Bordeaux +wine-trade, happening one day to lament the irreparable loss of a +deceased employe, an Admirable Crichton of a myriad accomplishments and +linguistic attainments whose functions it had been, apparently, to +travel about between London, Bordeaux, Marseilles and Algiers, I +immediately thought of a certain living and presumably unemployed +paragon of my acquaintance. + +"I know the very man you're looking for," said I. + +"Who is he?" + +"He's a kind of human firework," said I, "and his name is Aristide +Pujol." + +I sketched the man--in my desire to do a good turn to Aristide, perhaps +in exaggerated colour. + +"Let me have a look at him," said Blessington. + +"He may be anywhere on the continent of Europe," said I. "How long can +you give me to produce him?" + +"A week. Not longer." + +"I'll do my best," said I. + +By good luck my telegram, sent off about four o'clock, found him at 213 +_bis_ Rue Saint-Honore. He had just returned to Paris after some mad +dash for fortune (he told me afterwards a wild and disastrous story of a +Russian Grand-Duke, a Dancer and a gold mine in the Dolomites) and had +once more resumed the dreary conduct of the Agence Pujol at the Hotel du +Soleil et de l'Ecosse. My summons being imperative, he abandoned the +Agence Pujol as a cat jumps off a wall, and, leaving the guests of the +Hotel guideless, to the indignation of Monsieur Bocardon, whom he had +served this trick several times before, paid his good landlady, Madam +Bidoux, what he owed her, took a third-class ticket to London, bought, +lunatic that he was, a ripe Brie cheese, a foot in diameter, a present +to myself, which he carried in his hand most of the journey, and turned +up at my house at eight o'clock the next morning with absolutely empty +pockets and the happiest and most fascinating smile that ever irradiated +the face of man. As a matter of fact, he burst his way past my +scandalized valet into my bedroom and woke me up. + +"Here I am, my dear friend, and here is something French you love that I +have brought you," and he thrust the Brie cheese under my nose. + +"-- -- --," said I. + +If you were awakened by a Brie cheese, an hour before your time, you +would say the same. Aristide sat at the foot of the bed and laughed till +the tears ran down his beard. + +As soon as it was decent I sent him into the city to interview +Blessington. Three hours afterward he returned more radiant than ever. +He threw himself into my arms; before I could disentagle myself, he +kissed me on both cheeks; then he danced about the room. + +"_Me voici_," he said, "accredited representative of the great Maison +Dulau et Compagnie. I have hundreds of pounds a year. I go about. I +watch. I control. I see that the Great British Public can assuage its +thirst with the pure juice of the grape and not with the dregs of a +laboratory. I test vintages. I count barrels. I enter them in books. I +smile at Algerian wine growers and say, 'Ha! ha! none of your _petite +piquette frelatee_ for me but good sound wine.' It is diplomacy. It is +as simple as kissing hands. And I have a sustained income. Now I can be +_un bon bourgeois_ instead of a stray cat. And all due to you, _mon cher +ami_. I am grateful--_voyons_--if anybody ever says Aristide Pujol is +ungrateful, he is a liar. You believe me! Say you believe me." + +He looked at me earnestly. + +"I do, old chap," said I. + +I had known Aristide for some years, and in all kinds of little ways he +had continuously manifested his gratitude for the trifling service I had +rendered him, at our first meeting, in delivering him out of the hands +of the horrific Madam Gougasse. That gratitude is the expectation of +favors to come was, in the case of Aristide, a cynical and inapplicable +proposition. And here, as this (as far as I can see) is the last of +Aristide's adventures I have to relate, let me make an honest and +considered statement:-- + +During the course of an interesting and fairly prosperous life, I have +made many delightful Bohemian, devil-may-care acquaintances, but among +them all Aristide stands as the one bright star who has never asked me +to lend him money. I have offered it times without number, but he has +refused. I believe there is no man living to whom Aristide is in debt. +In the depths of the man's changeling and feckless soul is a principle +which has carried him untarnished through many a wild adventure. If +he ever accepted money--money to the Provencal peasant is the +transcendental materialised, and Aristide (save by the changeling +theory) was Provencal peasant bone and blood--it was always for what he +honestly thought was value received. If he met a man who wanted to take +a mule ride among the Mountains of the Moon, Aristide would at once have +offered himself as guide. The man would have paid him; but Aristide, by +some quaint spiritual juggling, would have persuaded him that the +ascent of Primrose Hill was equal to any lunar achievement, seeing that, +himself, Aristide Pujol, was keeper of the Sun, Moon and Seven Stars; +and the gift to that man of Aristide's dynamic personality would have +been well worth anything that he would have found in the extinct volcano +we know to be the moon. + +"The only thing I would suggest, if you would allow me to do so," said +I, "is not to try to make the fortune of Messrs. Dulau & Co. by some +dazzling but devastating _coup_ of your own." + +He looked at me in his bright, shrewd way. "You think it time I +restrained my imagination?" + +"Exactly." + +"I will read The Times and buy a family Bible," said Aristide. + +A week after he had taken up his work in the City, under my friend +Blessington, I saw the delighted and prosperous man again. It was a +Saturday and he came to lunch at my house. + +"_Tiens!_" said he, when he had recounted his success in the office, "it +is four years since I was in England?" + +"Yes," said I, with a jerk of memory. "Time passes quickly." + +"It is three years since I lost little Jean." + +"Who is little Jean?" I asked. + +"Did I not tell you when I saw you last in Paris?" + +"No." + +"It is strange. I have been thinking about him and my heart has been +aching for him all the time. You must hear. It is most important." He +lit a cigar and began. + +It was then that he told me the story of which I have already related +in these chronicles:[A] how he was scouring France in a ramshackle +automobile as the peripatetic vendor of a patent corn cure and found a +babe of nine months lying abandoned in the middle of that silent road +through the wilderness between Salon and Arles; how instead of +delivering it over to the authorities, he adopted it and carried it +about with him from town to town, a motor accessory sometimes +embarrassing, but always divinely precious; how an evil day came upon +him at Aix-en-Provence when, the wheezing automobile having uttered +its last gasp, he found his occupation gone; how, no longer being able +to care for _le petit_ Jean, he left him with a letter and half his +fortune outside the door of a couple of English maiden ladies who, +staying in the same hotel, had manifested great interest in the baby +and himself; and how, in the dead of the night, he had tramped away +from Aix-en-Provence in the rain, his pockets light and his heart as +heavy as lead. + + [A] The Adventures of the Foundling. + +"And I have never heard of my little Jean again," said Aristide. + +"Why didn't you write?" I asked. + +"I knew their names, Honeywood; Miss Janet was the elder, Miss Anne the +younger. But the name of the place they lived at I have never been able +to remember. It was near London--they used to come up by train to +matinees and afternoon concerts. But what it is called, _mon Dieu_, I +have racked my brain for it. _Sacre mille tonnerres!_" He leaped to his +feet in his unexpected, startling way, and pounced on a Bradshaw's +Railway Guide lying on my library table. "Imbecile, pig, triple ass that +I am! Why did I not think of this before? It is near London. If I look +through all the stations near London on every line, I shall find it." + +"All right," said I, "go ahead." + +I lit a cigarette and took up a novel. I had not read very far when a +sudden uproar from the table caused me to turn round. Aristide danced +and flourished the Bradshaw over his head. + +"Chislehurst! Chislehurst! Ah, _mon ami_, now I am happy. Now I have +found my little Jean. You will forgive me--but I must go now and embrace +him." + +He held out his hand. + +"Where are you off to?" I demanded. + +"The Chislehurst, where else?" + +"My dear fellow," said I, rising, "do you seriously suppose that these +two English maiden ladies have taken on themselves the responsibility of +that foreign brat's upbringing?" + +"_Mon Dieu!_" said he taken aback for the moment, hypothesis having +entered his head. Then, with a wide gesture, he flung the preposterous +idea to the winds. "Of course. They have hearts, these English women. +They have maternal instincts. They have money." He looked at Bradshaw +again, then at his watch. "I have just time to catch a train. _Au +revoir, mon vieux._" + +"But," I objected, "why don't you write? It's the natural thing to do." + +"Write? _Bah!_ Did you ever hear of a Provencal writing when he could +talk?" He tapped his lips, and in an instant, like a whirlwind, he +passed from my ken. + + * * * * * + +Aristide on his arrival at Chislehurst looked about the pleasant, leafy +place--it was a bright October afternoon and the wooded hillside blazed +in russet and gold--and decided it was the perfect environment for Miss +Janet and Miss Anne, to say nothing of little Jean. A neat red brick +house with a trim garden in front of it looked just the kind of a house +wherein Miss Janet and Miss Anne would live. He rang the bell. A +parlour-maid, in spotless black and white, tutelary nymph of Suburbia, +the very parlour-maid who would minister to Miss Janet and Miss Anne, +opened the door. + +"Miss Honeywood?" he inquired. + +"Not here, sir," said the parlour-maid. + +"Where is she? I mean, where are they?" + +"No one of that name lives here," said the parlour-maid. + +"Who does live here?" + +"Colonel Brabazon." + +"And where do the two Miss Honeywood live?" he asked with his engaging +smile. + +But English suburban parlour-maids are on their guard against smiles, no +matter how engaging. She prepared to shut the door. + +"I don't know." + +"How can I find out?" + +"You might enquire among the tradespeople." + +"Thank you, mademoiselle, you are a most intelligent young----" + +The door shut in his face. Aristide frowned. She was a pretty +parlour-maid, and Aristide didn't like to be so haughtily treated by a +pretty woman. But his quest being little Jean and not the eternal +feminine, he took the maid's advice and made enquiries at the prim and +respectable shops. + +"Oh, yes," said a comely young woman in a fragrant bakers' and +confectioners'. "They were two ladies, weren't they? They lived at Hope +Cottage. We used to supply them. They left Chislehurst two years ago." + +"_Sacre nom d'un chien!_" said Aristide. + +"Beg pardon?" asked the young woman. + +"I am disappointed," said Aristide. "Where did they go to?" + +"I'm sure I can't tell you." + +"Do you remember whether they had a baby?" + +"They were maiden ladies," said the young woman rebukingly. + +"But anybody can keep a baby without being its father or mother. I want +to know what has become of the baby." + +The young woman gazed through the window. + +"You had better ask the policeman." + +"That's an idea," said Aristide, and, leaving her, he caught up the +passing constable. + +The constable knew nothing of maiden ladies with a baby, but he directed +him to Hope Cottage. He found a pretty half-timber house lying back from +the road, with a neat semi-circular gravelled path leading to a porch +covered thick with Virginia creeper. Even more than the red brick +residence of Colonel Brabazon did it look, with its air of dainty +comfort, the fitting abode of Miss Janet and Miss Anne. He rang the bell +and interviewed another trim parlour-maid. More susceptible to smiles +than the former, she summoned her master, a kindly, middle-aged man, who +came out into the porch. Yes, Honeywood was the name of the previous +tenants. Two ladies, he believed. He had never seen them and knew +nothing about a child. Messrs. Tompkin & Briggs, the estate agents in +the High Street, could no doubt give him information. Aristide thanked +him and made his way to Messrs. Tompkin & Briggs. A dreary spectacled +youth in resentful charge of the office--his principals, it being +Saturday afternoon, were golfing the happy hours away--professed blank +ignorance of everything. Aristide fixed him with his glittering eye and +flickered his fingers and spoke richly. The youth in a kind of mesmeric +trance took down a battered, dog's eared book and turned over the pages. + +"Honeywood--Miss--Beverly Stoke--near St. Albans--Herts. That's it," he +said. + +Aristide made a note of the address. "Is that all you can tell me?" + +"Yes," said the youth. + +"I thank you very much, my young friend," said Aristide, raising his +hat, "and here is something to buy a smile with," and, leaving a +sixpence on the table to shimmer before the youth's stupefied eyes, +Aristide strutted out of the office. + + * * * * * + +"You had much better have written," said I, when he came back and told +me of his experiences. "The post-office would have done all that for +you." + +"You have no idea of business, _mon cher ami_"--(I--a successful +tea-broker of twenty-five years' standing!--the impudence of the +fellow!)--"If I had written to-day, the letter would have reached +Chislehurst on Monday morning. It would be redirected and reach +Hertfordshire on Tuesday. I should not get any news till Wednesday. I go +down to Beverly Stoke to-morrow, and then I find at once Miss Janet and +Miss Anne and my little Jean! The secret of business men, and I am a +business man, the accredited representative of Dulau et Compagnie--never +forget that--the secret of business is no delay." + +He darted across the room to Bradshaw. + +"For God's sake," said I, "put that nightmare of perpetual motion in +your pocket and go mad over it in the privacy of your own chamber." + +"Very good," said he, tucking the brain-convulsing volume under his arm. +"I will put it on top of The Times and the family Bible and I will say +'Ha! now I am British. Now I am very respectable!' What else can I do?" + +"Rent a pew in a Baptist chapel," said I. + + * * * * * + +After a three-mile trudge from St. Albans Aristide, following +directions, found himself on a high road running through the middle of a +straggy common decked here and there with great elms splendid in autumn +bravery, and populated chiefly by geese, who when he halted in some +perplexity--for on each side, beyond the green, were indications of a +human settlement--advanced in waddling flocks towards him and signified +their disapproval of his presence. A Sundayfied youth in a rainbow tie +rode past on a bicycle. Aristide took off his hat. The youth nearly fell +off the bicycle, but British doggedness saved him from disaster. + +"Beverly Stoke? Will you have the courtesy----" + +"Here," bawled the youth, with a circular twist of his head, and, eager +to escape from a madman, he rode on furiously. + +Aristide looked to left and right at the little houses beyond the +green--some white and thatched and dilapidated, others horridly new and +perky--but all poor and insignificant. As his eyes became accustomed to +the scene they were aware of human forms dotted sparsely about the +common. He struck across and accosted one, an elderly woman with a +prayer-book. "Miss Honeywood? A lady from London?" + +"That house over there--the third beyond the poplar." + +"And little Jean--a beautiful child about four years old?" + +"That I don't know, sir. I live at Wilmer's End, a good half mile from +here." + +Aristide made for the third house past the poplar. First there was a +plank bridge across a grass-grown ditch; then a tiny patch of garden; +then a humble whitewashed cottage with a small leaded casement window on +each side of the front door. Unlike Hope Cottage, it did not look at all +the residence of Miss Janet and Miss Anne. Its appearance, indeed, was +woe-begone. Aristide, however, went up to the door; as there was neither +knocker nor bell, he rapped with his knuckles. The door opened, and +there, poorly dressed in blouse and skirt, stood Miss Anne. + +She regarded him for a moment in a bewildered way, then, recognizing +him, drew back into the stone flagged passage with a sharp cry. + +"You? You--Mr. Pujol?" + +"_Oui, Mademoiselle, c'est moi._ It is I, Aristide Pujol." + +She put her hands on her bosom. "It is rather a shock seeing you--so +unexpectedly. Will you come in?" + +She led the way into a tiny parlour, very clean, very simple with its +furniture of old oak and brass, and bade him sit. She looked a little +older than when he had seen her at Aix-en-Provence. A few lines had +marred the comely face and there was here and there a touch of grey in +the reddish hair, and, though still buxom, she had grown thinner. Care +had set its stamp upon her. + +"Miss Honeywood," said Aristide. "It is on account of little Jean that I +have come----" + +She turned on him swiftly. "Not to take him away!" + +"Then he is here!" He jumped to his feet and wrung both her hands and +kissed them to her great embarrassment. "Ah, mademoiselle, I knew it. I +felt it. When such an inspiration comes to a man, it is the _bon Dieu_ +who sends it. He is here, actually here, in this house?" + +"Yes," said Miss Anne. + +Aristide threw out his arms. "Let me see him. _Ah, le cher petit!_ I +have been yearning after him for three years. It was my heart that I +ripped out of my body that night and laid at your threshold." + +"Hush!" said Miss Anne, with an interrupting gesture. "You must not talk +so loud. He is asleep in the next room. You mustn't wake him. He is very +ill." + +"Ill? Dangerously ill?" + +"I'm afraid so." + +"_Mon Dieu_," said he, sitting down again in the oak settle. To Aristide +the emotion of the moment was absorbing, overwhelming. His attitude +betokened deepest misery and dejection. + +"And I expected to see him full of joy and health!" + +"It is not my fault, Mr. Pujol," said Miss Anne. + +He started. "But no. How could it be? You loved him when you first set +eyes on him at Aix-en-Provence." + +Miss Anne began to cry. "God knows," said she, "what I should do without +him. The dear mite is all that is left to me." + +"All? But there is your sister, the dear Miss Janet." + +Miss Anne's eyes were hidden in her handkerchief. "My poor sister died +last year, Mr. Pujol." + +"I am very sorry. I did not know," said Aristide gently. + +There was a short silence. "It was a great sorrow to you," he said. + +"It was God's will," said Anne. Then, after another pause, during which +she dried her eyes, she strove to smile. "Tell me about yourself. How do +you come to be here?" + +Aristide replied in a hesitating way. He was in the presence of grief +and sickness and trouble; the Provencal braggadocio dropped from him and +he became the simple and childish creature that he was. He accounted +very truthfully, very convincingly, for his queer life; for his +abandonment of little Jean, for his silence, for his sudden and +unexpected appearance. During the ingenuous _apologia pro vita sua_ Miss +Anne regarded him with her honest candour. + +"Janet and I both understood," she said. "Janet was gifted with a divine +comprehension and pity. The landlady at the hotel, I remember, said some +unkind things about you; but we didn't believe them. We felt that you +were a good man--no one but a good man could have written that +letter--we cried over it--and when she tried to poison our minds we said +to each other: 'What does it matter? Here God in his mercy has given us +a child.' But, Mr. Pujol, why didn't you take us into your confidence?" + +"My dear Miss Anne," said Aristide, "we of the South do things +impulsively, by lightning flashes. An idea comes suddenly. _Vlan!_ we +carry it out in two seconds. We are not less human than the Northerner, +who reflects two months." + +"That is almost what dear, wise Janet told me," said Miss Anne. + +"Then you know in your heart," said Aristide, after a while, "that if I +had not been only a football at the feet of fortune, I should never have +deserted little Jean?" + +"I do, Mr. Pujol. My sister and I have been footballs, too." She added +with a change of tone: "You tell me you saw our dear home at +Chislehurst?" + +"Yes," said Aristide. + +"And you see this. There is a difference." + +"What has happened?" asked Aristide. + +She told him the commonplace pathetic story. Their father had left them +shares in the company of which he had been managing director. For many +years they had enjoyed a comfortable income. Then the company had become +bankrupt and only a miserable ninety pounds a year had been saved from +the wreckage. The cottage at Beverly Stoke belonging to them--it had +been their mother's--they had migrated thither with their fallen +fortunes and little Jean. And then Janet had died. She was delicate and +unaccustomed to privation and discomfort--and the cottage had its +disadvantages. She, Anne herself, was as strong as a horse and had never +been ill in her life, but others were not quite so hardy. "However"--she +smiled--"one has to make the best of things." + +"_Parbleu_," said Aristide. + +Miss Anne went on to talk of Jean, a miraculous infant of infinite +graces and accomplishments. Up to now he had been the sturdiest and +merriest fellow. + +"At nine months old he saw that life was a big joke," said Aristide. +"How he used to laugh." + +"There's not much laugh left in him, poor darling," she sighed. And she +told how he had caught a chill which had gone to his lungs and how the +night before last she thought she had lost him. + +She sat up and listened. "Will you excuse me for a moment?" + +She went out and presently returned, standing at the doorway. "He is +still asleep. Would you like to see him? Only"--she put her fingers on +her lips--"you must be very, very quiet." + +He followed her into the next room and looked about him shyly, +recognizing that it was Miss Anne's own bedroom; and there, lying in a +little cot beside the big bed, he saw the sleeping child, his brown face +flushed with fever. He had a curly shock of black hair and well formed +features. An old woolly lamb nose to nose with him shared his pillow. +Aristide drew from his pocket a Teddy bear, and, having asked Miss +Anne's permission with a glance, laid it down gently on the coverlid. + +His eyes were wet when they returned to the parlour. So were Miss +Anne's. The Teddy bear was proof of the simplicity of his faith in her. + +After a while, conscious of hunger, he rose to take leave. He must be +getting back to St. Albans. But might he be permitted to come back later +in the afternoon? Miss Anne reddened. It outraged her sense of +hospitality to send a guest away from her house on a three-mile walk for +food. And yet---- + +"Mr. Pujol," she said bravely, "I would ask you to stay to luncheon if I +had anything to offer you. But I am single handed, and, with Jean's +illness, I haven't given much thought to housekeeping. The woman who +does some of the rough work won't be back till six. I hate to let you go +all those miles--I am so distressed----" + +"But, mademoiselle," said Aristide. "You have some bread. You have +water. It has been a banquet many a day to me, and this time it would +be the most precious banquet of all." + +"I can do a little better than that," faltered Miss Anne. "I have plenty +of eggs and there is bacon." + +"Eggs--bacon!" cried Aristide, his bright eyes twinkling and his hands +going up in the familiar gesture. "That is superb. _Tiens!_ you shall +not do the cooking. You shall rest. I will make you an _omelette au +lard_--_ah!_"--he kissed the tips of his fingers--"such an omelette as +you have not eaten since you were in France--and even there I doubt +whether you have ever eaten an omelette like mine." His soul simmering +with omelette, he darted towards the door. "The kitchen--it is this +way?" + +"But, Mr. Pujol----!" Miss Anne laughed, protestingly. Who could be +angry with the vivid and impulsive creature? + +"It is the room opposite Jean's--not so?" + +She followed him into the clean little kitchen, half amused, half +flustered. Already he had hooked off the top of the kitchen range. "Ah! +a good fire. And your frying-pan?" He dived into the scullery. + +"Please don't be in such a hurry," she pleaded. "You will have made the +omelette before I've had time to lay the cloth, and it will get cold. +Besides, I want to learn how to do it." + +"_Tres bien_," said Aristide, laying down the frying-pan. "You shall see +how it is made--the omelette of the universe." + +So he helped Miss Anne to lay the cloth on the gate-legged oak table in +the parlour and to set it out with bread and butter and the end of a +tinned tongue and a couple of bottles of stout. After which they went +back to the little kitchen, where in a kind of giggling awe she watched +him shred the bacon and break the eggs with his thin, skilful fingers +and perform his magic with the frying-pan and turn out the great golden +creation into the dish. + +"Now," said he, pulling her in his enthusiasm, "to table while it is +hot." + +Miss Anne laughed. She lost her head ever so little. The days had been +drab and hopeless of late and she was still young; so, if she felt +excited at this unhoped for inrush of life and colour, who shall blame +her? The light sparkled once more in her eyes and the pink of her +naturally florid complexion shone on her cheek as they sat down to +table. + +"It is I who help it," said Aristide. "Taste that." He passed the plate +and waited, with the artist's expectation for her approval. + +"It's delicious." + +It was indeed the perfection of omelette, all its suave juiciness +contained in film as fine as goldbeater's skin. + +"Yes, it's good." He was delighted, childlike, at the success of his +cookery. His gaiety kept the careworn woman in rare laughter during the +meal. She lost all consciousness that he was a strange man plunged down +suddenly in the midst of her old maidish existence--and a strange man, +too, who had once behaved in a most outrageous fashion. But that was +ever the way of Aristide. The moment you yielded to his attraction he +made you feel that you had known him for years. His fascination +possessed you. + +"Miss Anne," said he, smoking a cigarette, at her urgent invitation, "is +there a poor woman in Beverly Stoke with whom I could lodge?" + +She gasped. "You lodge in Beverly Stoke?" + +"Why yes," said Aristide, as if it were the most natural thing in the +world. "I am engaged in the city from ten to five every day. I can't +come here and go back to London every night, and I can't stay a whole +week without my little Jean. And I have my duty to Jean. I stand to him +in the relation of a father. I must help you to nurse him and make him +better. I must give him soup and apples and ice cream and----" + +"You would kill the darling in five minutes," interrupted Miss Anne. + +He waved his forefinger in the air. "No, no, I have nursed the sick in +my time. My dear friend," said he, with a change of tone, "when did you +go to bed last?" + +"I don't know," she answered in some confusion. "The district nurse has +helped me--and the doctor has been very good. Jean has turned the corner +now. Please don't worry. And as for your coming to live down here, it's +absurd." + +"Of course, if you formally forbid me to do so, mademoiselle, and if you +don't want to see me----" + +"How can you say a thing like that? Haven't I shown you to-day that you +are welcome?" + +"Dear Miss Anne," said he, "forgive me. But what is that great vast town +of London to me who know nobody there? Here in this tiny spot is +concentrated all I care for in the world. Why shouldn't I live in it?" + +"You would be so dreadfully uncomfortable," said Miss Anne, weakly. + +"Bah!" cried Aristide. "You talk of discomfort to an old client of +_L'Hotel de la Belle Etoile_?" + +"The Hotel of the Beautiful Star? Where is that?" asked the innocent +lady. + +"Wherever you like," said Aristide. "Your bed is dry leaves and your +bed-curtains, if you demand luxury, are a hedge, and your ceiling, if +you are fortunate, is ornamented with stars." + +She looked at him wide-eyed, in great concern. + +"Do you mean that you have ever been homeless?" + +He laughed. "I think I've been everything imaginable, except married." + +"Hush!" she said. "Listen!" Her keen ear had caught a child's cry. "It's +Jean. I must go." + +She hurried out. Aristide prepared to light another cigarette. But a +second before the application of the flaring match an idea struck him. +He blew out the match, replaced the cigarette in his case, and with a +dexterity that revealed the professional of years ago, began to clear +the table. He took the things noiselessly into the kitchen, shut the +door, and master of the kitchen and scullery washed up. Then, the most +care-free creature in the world, he stole down the stone passage into +the wilderness of Beverly Stoke. + +An hour afterwards he knocked at the front door, Anne Honeywood admitted +him. + +"I have arranged with the good Mrs. Buttershaw. She lives a hundred +yards down the road. I bring my baggage to-morrow evening." + +Anne regarded him in a humorous, helpless way. "I can't prevent you," +she said, "but I can give you a piece of advice." + +"What is it?" + +"Don't wash up for Mrs. Buttershaw." + + * * * * * + +So it came to pass that Aristide Pujol took up his residence at +Beverly Stoke, trudging every morning three miles to catch his +business train at St. Albans, and trudging back every evening three +miles to Beverly Stoke. Every morning he ran into the cottage for a +sight of little Jean and every evening after a digestion-racking meal +prepared by Mrs. Buttershaw he went to the cottage armed with toys +and weird and injudicious food for little Jean and demanded an account +of the precious infant's doings during the day. Gradually Jean +recovered of his congestion, being a sturdy urchin, and, to Aristide's +delight, resumed the normal life of childhood. + +"_Moi, je suis papa_," said Aristide. "He has got to speak French, and +he had better begin at once. It is absurd that anyone born between Salon +and Arles should not speak French and Provencal; we'll leave Provencal +till later. _Moi, je suis papa, Jean._ Say _papa_." + +"I don't quite see how he can call you that, Mr. Pujol," said Anne, with +the suspicion of a flush on her cheek. + +"And why not? Has the poor child any other papa in the whole wide world? +And at four years old not to have a father is heart-breaking. Do you +want us to bring him up an orphan? No. You shan't be an orphan, _mon +brave_," he continued, bending over the child and putting his little +hands against his bearded face, "you couldn't bear such a calamity, +could you? And so you will call me _papa_." + +"_Papa_," said Jean, with a grin. + +"There, he has settled it," said Aristide. "_Moi je suis papa._ And you, +mademoiselle?" + +"I am Auntie Anne," she replied demurely. + +Saturday afternoons and Sundays were Aristide's days of delight. He +could devote himself entirely to Jean. The thrill of the weeks when he +had paraded the child in the market places of France while he sold his +corn cure again ran through his veins. The two rows of cottages +separated by the common, which was the whole of Beverly Stoke, became +too small a theatre for his parental pride. He bewailed the loss of his +automobile that had perished of senile decay at Aix-en-Provence. If he +only had it now he could exhibit Jean to the astonished eyes of St. +Albans, Watford--nay London itself! + +"I wish I could take him to Dulau & Company," said he. + +"Good Heavens!" cried Miss Anne in alarm, for Aristide was capable of +everything. "What in the world would you do with him there?" + +"What would I do with him?" replied Aristide, picking the child up in +his arms--the three were strolling on the common--"_Parbleu!_ I would +use him to strike the staff of Dulau & Company green with envy. Do you +think the united efforts of the whole lot of them, from the good Mr. +Blessington to the office boy, could produce a hero like this? You are a +hero, Jean, aren't you?" + +"Yes, papa," said Jean. + +"He knows it," shouted Aristide with a delighted gesture which nearly +cast Jean to the circumambient geese. "Miss Anne, we have the most +wonderful child in the universe." + +This, as far as Anne was concerned, was a proposition which for the past +three years she had regarded as incontrovertible. She smiled at +Aristide, who smiled at her, and Jean, seeing them happy, smiled largely +at them both. + +In a very short time Aristide, who could magically manufacture boats +and cocks and pigs and giraffes out of bits of paper, who could bark +like a dog and quack like a goose, who could turn himself into a horse +or a bear at a minute's notice, whose pockets were a perennial mine of +infantile ecstasy, established himself in Jean's mind as a kind of +tame, necessary and beloved jinn. Being a loyal little soul, the child +retained his affection for Auntie Anne, but he was swept off his +little feet by his mirific parent. The time came when, if he was not +dressed in his tiny woollen jersey and knee breeches and had not his +nose glued against the parlour window in readiness to scramble to the +front door for Aristide's morning kiss, he would have thought that +chaos had come again. And Anne, humouring the child, hastened to get +him washed and dressed in time; until at last, so greatly was she +affected by his obsession, she got into the foolish habit of watching +the clock and saying to herself: "In another minute he will be here," +or: "He is a minute late. What can have happened to him?" + +So Aristide, in his childlike way, found remarkable happiness in +Beverly Stoke. A very wet summer had been followed by a dry and mellow +autumn. Aristide waxed enthusiastic over the English climate and +rejoiced in the mild country air. He was also happy under my friend +Blessington, who spoke of him to me in glowing terms. At the back of +all Aristide's eccentricities was the Provencal peasant's shrewdness. +He realized that, for the first time in his life, he had taken up a +sound and serious avocation. Also, he was no longer irresponsible. He +had found little Jean. Jean's future was in his hands. Jean was to be +an architect--God knows why--but Aristide settled it, definitely, +off-hand. He would have to be educated. "And, my dear friend," said +he, when we were discussing Jean--and for months I heard nothing but +Jean, Jean, Jean, so that I loathed the brat, until I met the +brown-skinned, black-eyed, merry little wretch and fell, like +everybody else, fatuously in love with him--"my dear friend," said he, +"an architect, to be the architect that I mean him to be, must have +universal knowledge. He must know the first word of the classic, the +last word of the modern. He must be steeped in poetry, his brain must +vibrate with science. He must be what you call in England a gentleman. +He must go to one of your great public schools--Eton, Winchester, +Rugby, Harrow--you see I know them all--he must go to Cambridge or +Oxford. Ah, I tell you, he is to be a big man. I, Aristide Pujol, did +not pick him up on that deserted road, in the Arabia Petrea of +Provence, between Salon and Arles, for nothing. He was wrapped, as I +have told you, in an old blanket--and _ma foi_ it smelt bad--and I +dressed him in my pyjamas and made a Neapolitan cap for him out of one +of my socks. The _bon Dieu_ sent him, and I shall arrange just as the +_bon Dieu_ intended. Poor Miss Anne Honeywood with her ninety pounds a +year, what can she do? Pouf! It is for me to look after the future of +little Jean." + +By means of such discourse he convinced Miss Anne that Jean was +predestined to greatness and that Providence had appointed him, +Aristide, as the child's agent in advance. Very much bewildered by his +riotous flow of language and very reluctant to sacrifice her woman's +pride, she agreed to allow him to contribute towards Jean's upbringing. + +"Dear Miss Anne," said he, "it is my right. It is Jean's right. You +would love to put him on top of the pinnacle of fame, would you not?" + +"Of course," said Miss Anne. + +"_Eh bien!_ we will work together. You will give him what can be given +by a beautiful and exquisite woman, and I will do all that can be done +by the accredited agent of Dulau et Compagnie, Wine Shippers of +Bordeaux." + +So, I repeat, Aristide was entirely happy. His waking dreams were of the +four-year-old child. The glad anticipation of the working day in Great +Tower St., E. C., was the evening welcome from the simple but capable +gentlewoman and the sense of home and intimacy in her little parlour no +bigger than the never-entered and nerve-destroying salon of his parents +at Aigues Mortes, but smiling with the grace of old oak and faded +chintz. At Aigues Mortes the salon was a comfortless, tasteless +convention, set apart for the celebrations of baptisms and marriages and +deaths, a pride and a terror to the inhabitants. But here everything +seemed to be as much a warm bit of Anne Honeywood as the tortoise-shell +comb in her hair and the square of Brussels lace that rose and fell on +the bosom of her old evening frock. For, you see, since she expected a +visitor in the evenings, Anne had taken to dressing for her sketch of a +dinner. For all her struggle with poverty she had retained the charm +that four years before had made her touch upon Jean seem a consecration +to the impressionable man. And now that he entered more deeply into her +life and thoughts, he found himself in fragrant places that were very +strange to him. He discovered, too, with some surprise, that a man who +has been at fierce grips with Fortune all his life from ten to forty is +ever so little tired in spirit and is glad to rest. In the tranquility +of Anne Honeywood's presence his soul was singularly at peace. He also +wondered why Anne Honeywood seemed to grow younger, and, in her gentle +fashion, more laughter-loving, every day. + +The Saint Martin's summer lasted to the beginning of December, and then +it came to an end, and with it the idyll of Aristide and Anne Honeywood. + +One Saturday afternoon, when the rain was falling dismally, she received +him with an embarrassment she could scarcely conceal. The usual +heightened colour no longer gave youth to her cheek; an anxious frown +knitted her candid brows; and there was no laughter in her eyes. He +looked at her questioningly. Was anything the matter with Jean? But Jean +answered the question for himself by running down the passage and +springing like a puppy into Aristide's arms. Anne turned her face away, +as if the sight pained her, and, pleading a headache and the desire to +lie down, she left the two together. Returning after a couple of hours +with the tea-tray, she found them on the floor breathlessly absorbed in +the erection of card pagodas. She bit her lip and swallowed a sob. +Aristide jumped up and took the tray. Was not the headache better? He +was so grieved. Jean must be very quiet and drink up his milk quietly +like a hero because Auntie was suffering. Tea was a very subdued affair. +Then Anne carried off Jean to bed, refusing Aristide's helpful +ministrations. It was his Saturday and Sunday joy to bath Jean amid a +score of crawly tin insects which he had provided for the child's +ablutionary entertainment, and it formed the climax of Jean's blissful +day. But this afternoon Anne tore the twain asunder. Aristide looked +mournfully over the rain-swept common through the leaded panes, and +speculated on the enigma of woman. A man, feeling ill, would have been +only too glad for somebody to do his work; but a woman, just because she +was ill, declined assistance. Surely women were an intellect-baffling +sex. + +She came back, having put Jean to bed. + +"My dear friend," she said, with a blurt of bravery, "I have something +very hard to say, but I must say it. You must go away from Beverly +Stoke." + +"Ah!" cried Aristide, "is it I, then, that give you a headache?" + +"It's not your fault," she said gently. "You have been everything that a +loyal gentleman could be--and it's because you're a loyal gentleman that +you must go." + +"I don't understand," said he, puzzled. "I must go away because I give +you a headache, although it is not my fault." + +"It's nothing to do with headaches," she explained. "Don't you see? +People around here are talking." + +"About you and me?" + +"Yes," said Miss Anne, faintly. + +"_Saprelotte!_" cried Aristide, with a fine flourish, "let them talk!" + +"Against Jean and myself?" + +The reproach brought him to his feet. "No," said he. "No. Sooner than +they should talk, I would go out and strangle every one of them. But it +is infamous. What do they say?" + +"How can I tell you? What would they say in your own country?" + +"France is France and England is England." + +"And a little cackling village is the same all the world over. No, my +dear friend--for you are my dear friend--you must go back to London, for +the sake of my good name and Jean's." + +"But let us leave the cackling village." + +"There are geese on every common," said Anne. + +"_Nom de Dieu!_" muttered Aristide, walking about the tiny parlour. +"_Nom de Dieu de nom de Dieu!_" He stood in front of her and flung out +his arms wide. "But without Jean and you life will have no meaning for +me. I shall die. I shall fade away. I shall perish. Tell me, dear Miss +Anne, what they are saying, the miserable peasants with souls of mud." + +But Anne could tell him no more. It had been hateful and degrading to +tell him so much. She shivered through all her purity. After a barren +discussion she held out her hand, large and generous like herself. + +"Good-bye"--she hesitated for the fraction of a second--"Good-bye, +Aristide. I promise you shall provide for Jean's future. I will bring +him up to London now and then to see you. We will find some way out of +the difficulty. But you see, don't you, that you must leave Beverly +Stoke?" + +Aristide went back to his comfortless lodgings aflame with bewilderment, +indignation and despair. He fell upon Mrs. Buttershaw, a slatternly and +sour-visaged woman, and hurled at her a tornado of questions. She +responded with the glee of a hag, and Aristide learned the amazing fact +that in the matter of sheer uncharitableness, unkindness and foulness of +thought Beverly Stoke, with its population of three hundred hinds, could +have brought down upon it the righteous indignation of Sodom, Gomorrah, +Babylon, Paris, and London. For a fortnight or so Anne Honeywood's life +in the village had been that of a pariah dog. + +"And now you've spoke of it yourself," said Mrs. Buttershaw, her hands +on her hips, "I'm glad. I'm a respectable woman, I am, and go to church +regularly, and I don't want to be mixed up in such goings on. And I +never have held with foreigners, anyway. And the sooner you find other +lodgings, the better." + +For the first and only time in his life words failed Aristide Pujol. He +stood in front of the virtuous harridan, his lips working, his fingers +convulsively clutching the air. + +"You--you--you--you naughty woman!" he gasped, and, sweeping her away +from the doorway of his box of a sitting-room, he rushed up to his +tinier bedroom and in furious haste packed his portmanteau. + +"I would rather die than sleep another night beneath your slanderous +roof," he cried at the foot of the stairs. "Here is more than your +week's money." He flung a couple of gold coins on the floor and dashed +out into the darkness and the rain. + +He hammered at Anne Honeywood's door. She opened it in some alarm. + +"You?--but----" she stammered. + +"I have come," said he, dumping his portmanteau in the passage, "to take +you and Jean away from this abomination of a place. It is a Tophet +reserved for those who are not good enough for hell. In hell there is +dignity, _que diable!_ Here there is none. I know what you have +suffered. I know how they insult you. I know what they say. You cannot +stay one more night here. Pack up all your things. Pack up all Jean's +things. I have my valise here. I walk to St. Albans and I come back for +you in an automobile. You lock up the door. I tell the policeman to +guard the cottage. You come with me. We take a train to London. You and +Jean will stay at a hotel. I will go to my good friend who saved me +from Madam Gougasse. After that we will think." + +"That's just like you," she said, smiling in spite of her trouble, "you +act first and think afterwards. Unfortunately I'm in the habit of doing +the reverse." + +"But it's I who am doing all the thinking for you. I have thought till +my brain is red hot." He laughed in his luminous and excited way, and, +seizing both her hands, kissed them one after the other. "There!" said +he, "be ready by the time I return. Do not hesitate. Do not look back. +Remember Lot's wife!" He flourished his hat and was gone like a flash +into the heavy rain and darkness of the December evening. Anne cried +after him, but he too remembering Lot's wife would not turn. He marched +on buoyantly, heedless of the wet and the squirting mud from unseen +puddles. It was an adventure such as he loved. It was a knightly errand, +_parbleu!_ Was he not delivering a beautiful lady from the dragon of +calumny? And in an automobile, too! His imagination fondled the idea. + +At a garage in St. Albans he readily found a car for hire. He was all +for driving it himself--that is how he had pictured the rescue--but the +proprietor, dull and unimaginative tradesman, declined firmly. It was a +hireling who drove the car to Beverly Stoke. Anne, unhatted and +uncloaked, admitted him. + +"You are not ready?" + +"My dear friend, how can I----?" + +"You are not coming?" His hands dropped to his sides and his face was +the incarnation of disappointment. + +"Let us talk things over reasonably," she urged, opening the parlour +door. + +"But I have brought the automobile." + +"He can wait for five minutes, can't he?" + +"He can wait till Doomsday," said Aristide. + +"Take off your dripping coat. You must be wet through. Oh, how impulsive +you are!" + +He took off his overcoat dejectedly and followed her into the parlour, +where she tried to point out the impossibility of his scheme. How could +she abandon her home at a moment's notice? Failing to convince him, she +said at last in some embarrassment, but with gentle dignity: "Suppose we +did run away together in your romantic fashion, would it not confirm the +scandal in the eyes of this wretched village?" + +"You are right," said Aristide. "I had not thought of it." + +He knew himself to be a madman. It was not thus that ladies were rescued +from calumny. But to leave her alone to face it for time indefinite was +unthinkable. And, meanwhile, what would become of him severed from her +and little Jean? He sighed and looked around the little room where he +had been so happy, and at the sweet-faced woman whose companionship had +been so dear to him. And then the true meaning of all the precious +things that had been his life for the past two months appeared before +him like a smiling valley hitherto hidden and now revealed by dissolving +mist. A great gladness gathered round his heart. He leaned across the +table by which he was sitting and looked at her and for the first time +noticed that her eyes were red. + +"You have been crying, dear Anne," said he, using her name boldly. +"Why?" + +A man ought not to put a question like that at a woman's head and bid +her stand and deliver. How is she to answer? Anne felt Aristide's bright +eyes upon her and the colour mounted and mounted and deepened on her +cheeks and brow. + +"I don't like changes," she said in a low voice. + +Aristide slipped noiselessly to the side of her chair and knelt on one +knee and took her hand. + +"Anne--my beloved Anne!" said he. + +And Anne neither moved nor protested, but looked away from him into the +fire. + + * * * * * + +And that is all that Aristide told me. There are sacred and beautiful +things in life that one man does not tell to another. He did, however, +mention that they forgot all about the unfortunate chauffeur sitting in +the rain till about three hours afterwards, when Aristide sped away to a +St. Albans hotel in joyous solitude. + +The very next day he burst in upon me in a state of bliss bordering on +mania. + +"But there is a tragic side to it," he said when the story was over. +"For half the year I shall be exiled to Bordeaux, Marseilles and Algiers +as the representative of Dulau et Compagnie." + +"The very best thing that could happen for your domestic happiness," +said I. + +"What? With my heart"--he thumped his heart--"with my heart hurting like +the devil all the time?" + +"So long as your heart hurts," said I, "you know it isn't dead." + +A short while afterwards they were married in London. I was best man and +Jean, specklessly attired, was page of honour, and the vicar of her own +church at Chislehurst performed the ceremony. The most myopic of +creatures could have seen that Anne was foolishly in love with her +rascal husband. How could she help it? + +As soon as the newly wedded pair had received the exhortation, Aristide, +darting to the altar-rail, caught Jean up in his arms, and, to the +consternation of the officiating clergy, the verger, and Anne's +conventional friends, cried out exultingly: + +"_Ah, mon petit._ It was a lucky day for both of us when I picked you +up on the road between Salon and Arles. Put your hands together as you +do when you're saying your prayers, _mon brave_, and say, 'God bless +father and mother.'" + +Jean obediently adopted the attitude of the infant Samuel in the +pictures. + +"God bless father and mother," said he, and the childish treble rang out +queerly in the large, almost empty church. + +There was a span of silence and then all the women-folk fell on little +Jean and that was the end of that wedding. + + + THE END. + + + * * * * * + + + + + THE GLORY OF CLEMENTINA + BY + William J. Locke + + Author of "The Beloved Vagabond," "Simon the Jester," etc. + + _Cloth_ _12mo_ _$1.30 net_ _Postage 12 cents_ + + Illustrations by Arthur I. Keller + +"Mr. Locke has succeeded in uniting with the firm carefulness of his +early work the rapid, fluent, vibrating style that makes his later books +so delightful; therefore it is easy to make the deduction that +'Clementina' is the best piece of work he has done."--_New York Evening +Sun_ + +"Among the novels of the past five years no books have more consistently +produced an effect at once certain, satisfactory and delightful than +those of William J. Locke. This latest addition to his shelf is full of +life and laughter and the love not only of man for woman but of man for +man and for humanity. Mr. Locke is a born story-teller and a master of +the art of expression."--_The Outlook_ + +"The book contains a mass of good material, with original +characterization, and is written in a style piquant and clever."--_The +Literary Digest_ + +"A story containing the essence of humanity, with an abundance of +sensible and sensitive, casual and unobtrusive commentary upon life and +man, and especially upon woman."--_Boston Evening Transcript_ + +"It contains even more of the popular qualities than are usually +associated with the writings of this noted author."--_Boston Times_ + +"Mr. Locke's flights into the realms of fancy have been a delight to +many readers. He has a lightness of touch that is entirely captivating, +and his remarkable characterization of inconsequent people gives them a +reality that is very insistent."--_Baltimore Evening Sun_ + +"Never has he drawn so deeply from that well that is the human heart; +never so near those invisible heights which are the soul; and, if we are +not altogether mistaken, 'The Glory of Clementina' will also prove to be +that of its author."--_Baltimore News_ + +"A fascinating story with delicate, whimsical touches."--_Albany +Times-Union_ + +"The book seems destined to live longer than any written by the author +to date, because it is so sane and so fundamentally +true."--_Philadelphia Enquirer_ + + +JOHN LANE CO., NEW YORK + + + + + MANALIVE + BY + Gilbert K. Chesterton + + Author of "The Innocence of Father Brown," "Heretics," "Orthodoxy," etc. + + _Cloth_ _12mo_ _$1.30 net_ _Postage 12 cents_ + + Frontispiece and Jacket Illustration by Will Foster + +"Mr. Chesterton has undertaken in this quaint narrative to make +burlesque the vehicle of a sermon and a philosophy. It is all a part of +the author's war upon artificial attitudes which enclose the living men +like a shell and make for human purposes a dead man of him. He speaks +here in a parable--a parable of his own kind, having about it a broad +waggishness like that of Mr. Punch and a distinct flavor of that sort of +low comedy which one finds in Dickens and Shakespeare. You are likely to +find, before you are done with the parable, that there has been forced +upon your attention a possible view of the life worth living. 'Manalive' +is a 'Peterpantheistic' novel full of Chestertonisms."--_New York Times_ + +"One of the oddest books Mr. Chesterton has yet given us."--_New York +Evening Globe_ + +"The fun of the book (and there is plenty of it) comes quite as much +from the extraordinary and improbable characters as from the situations. +Epigrams, witticisms, odd fancies, queer conceits, singular whimsies, +follow after one another in quick succession."--_Brooklyn Eagle_ + + +"One of the most humorous tales of modern fiction, combined with a very +tender and appealing love story."--_Cleveland Plain Dealer_ + +"The book is certain to have a wide circulation, not only because of the +name of the author attached to it, but because of its own intrinsic +worth."--_Buffalo Commercial_ + +"There can be no doubt as to the iridescent brilliance of the book. Page +after page--full of caustic satire, humorous sally and profound +epigram--fairly bristles with merriment. The book is a compact mass of +scintillating wit."--_Philadelphia Public Ledger_ + + +JOHN LANE CO., NEW YORK + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol, by +William J. Locke + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ADVENTURES OF ARISTIDE PUJOL *** + +***** This file should be named 26154.txt or 26154.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/1/5/26154/ + +Produced by Audrey Longhurst, Anne Storer and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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