A Chair on the Boulevard Part 43

"It can't be done," she persisted.

"To a man in my position," I said, "five thousand francs--"

"It is impossible for another reason! As I told you, I am at the end of my resources. I rose this morning, praying that I should be identified.

My landlady has turned me out, and I have no more than the price of one meal to go on with."

"You goose!" I laughed. "And if I were going to net five thousand francs by your tip three weeks hence, don't you suppose it would be good enough for me to pay your expenses in the meanwhile?"

She was silent again. I understood that her conscience was a more formidable drawback than her penury.

Monsieur, I said that you had asked me for a humiliating story--that I had poignant memories connected with _La Voix_. Here is one of them: I set myself to override her scruples--to render this girl false to her employers.

Many men might have done so without remorse. But not a man like me; I am naturally high-minded, of the most sensitive honour. Even when I conquered at last, I could not triumph. Far from it. I blamed the force of circ.u.mstances furiously for compelling me to sacrifice my principles to my purse. I am no adventurer, hein?

Enfin, the problem now was, where was I to hide her? Her portmanteau she had deposited at a railway station. Should we have it removed to another bedroom, or to a pension de famille? Both plans were open to objections--a bedroom would necessitate her still challenging discovery in restaurants; and at a pension de famille she would run risks on the premises. A pretty kettle of fish if someone spotted her while I was holding for the rise!

We debated the point exhaustively. And, having yielded, she displayed keen intelligence in arranging for the best. Finally she declared:

"Of the two things, a pension de famille is to be preferred. Install me there as your sister! Remember that people picture me a wanderer and alone; therefore, a lady who is introduced by her brother is in small danger of being recognized as mademoiselle Girard."

She was right, I perceived it. We found an excellent house, where I was unknown. I presented her as "mademoiselle Henriette Delafosse, my sister." And, to be on the safe side, I engaged a private sitting-room for her, explaining that she was somewhat neurasthenic.

Good! I waited breathless now for every edition of _La Voix_, thinking that her price might advance even sooner. But she closed at three thousand francs daily. Girard stood firm, but there was no upward tendency. Every afternoon I called on her. She talked about that conscience of hers again sometimes, and it did not prove quite so delightful as I had expected, when I paid a visit. Especially when I paid a bill as well.

Monsieur, my disposition is most liberal. But when I had been mulcted in the second bill, I confess that I became a trifle downcast. I had prepared myself to nourish the girl wholesomely, as befitted the circ.u.mstances, but I had said nothing of vin superieur, and I noted that she had been asking for it as if it were cider in Normandy. The list of extras in those bills gave me the jumps, and the charges made for scented soap were nothing short of an outrage.

Well, there was but one more week to bear now, and during the week I allowed her to revel. This, though I was approaching embarra.s.sments _re_ the rent of my own attic!

How strange is life! Who shall foretell the future? I had wrestled with my self-respect, I had nursed an investment which promised stupendous profits were I capable of carrying my scheme to a callous conclusion.

But could I do it? Did I claim the prize, which had already cost me so much? Monsieur, you are a man of the world, a judge of character: I ask you, did I claim the prize, or did I not?

He threw himself back in the chair, and toyed significantly with his empty gla.s.s.

I regarded him, his irresolute mouth, his receding chin, his unquenchable thirst for absinthe. I regarded him and I paid him no compliments. I said:

"You claimed the prize."

"You have made a bloomer," he answered. "I did not claim it. The prize was claimed by the wife of a piano-tuner, who had discovered mademoiselle Girard employed in the artificial flower department of the Printemps. I read the bloodcurdling news at nine o'clock on a Friday evening; and at 9:15, when I hurled myself, panic-stricken, into the pension de famille, the impostor who had tricked me out of three weeks'

board and lodging had already done a bolt. I have never had the joy of meeting her since."

HOW TRICOTKIN SAW LONDON

One day Tricotrin had eighty francs, and he said to Pitou, who was no less prosperous, "Good-bye to follies, for we have arrived at an epoch in our careers! Do not let us waste our substance on trivial pleasures, or paying the landlord--let us make it a provision for our future!"

"I rejoice to hear you speak for once like a business-man," returned Pitou. "Do you recommend gilt-edged securities, or an investment in land?"

"I would suggest, rather, that we apply our riches to some educational purpose, such as travel," explained the poet, producing a railway company's handbill. "By this means we shall enlarge our minds, and somebody has pretended that 'knowledge is power'--it must have been the princ.i.p.al of a school. It is not for nothing that we have l'Entente Cordiale--you may now spend a Sunday in London at about the cost of one of Madeleine's hats."

"These London Sunday baits may be a plot of the English Government to exterminate us; I have read that none but English people can survive a Sunday in London."

"No, it is not that, for we are offered the choice of a town called 'Eastbourne,' Listen, they tell me that in London the price of cigarettes is so much lower than with us that, to a bold smuggler, the trip is a veritable economy. Matches too! Matches are so cheap in England that the practice of stealing them from cafe tables has not been introduced."

"Well, your synopsis will be considered, and reported on in due course," announced the composer, after a pause; "but at the moment of going to press we would rather buy a hat for Madeleine."

And as Madeleine also thought that this would be better for him, it was decided that Tricotrin should set forth alone.

His departure for a foreign country was a solemn event. A small party of the Montmartrois had marched with him to the station, and more than once, in view of their anxious faces, the young man acknowledged mentally that he was committed to a harebrained scheme. "Heaven protect thee, my comrade!" faltered Pitou. "Is thy vocabulary safely in thy pocket? Remember that 'un bock' is 'gla.s.s of beer.'"

"Here is a small packet of chocolate," murmured Lajeunie, embracing him; "in England, nothing to eat can be obtained on Sunday, and chocolate is very sustaining."

"And listen!" shouted Sanquereau; "on no account take off thy hat to strangers, nor laugh in the streets; the first is 'mad' over there, and the second is 'immoral.' May le bon Dieu have thee in His keeping! We count the hours till thy return!"

Then the train sped out into the night, and the poet realised that home and friends were left behind.

He would have been less than a poet if, in the first few minutes, the pathos of the situation had not gripped him by the throat. Vague, elusive fancies stirred his brain; he remembered the franc that he owed at the Cafe du Bel Avenir, and wondered if madame would speak gently of him were he lost at sea. Tender memories of past loves dimmed his eyes, and he reflected how poignant it would be to perish before the papers would give him any obituary notices. Regarding his fellow pa.s.sengers, he lamented that none of them was a beautiful girl, for it was an occasion on which woman's sympathy would have been sweet; indeed he proceeded to invent some of the things that they might have said to each other. Inwardly he was still resenting the faces of his travelling companions when the train reached Dieppe.

"It is material for my biography," he soliloquised, as he crept down the gangway. "Few who saw the young man step firmly on to the good ship's deck conjectured the emotions that tore his heart; few recognised him to be Tricotrin, whose work was at that date practically unknown.'" But as a matter of fact he did arouse conjectures of a kind, for when the boat moved from the quay, he could not resist the opportunity to murmur, "My France, farewell!" with an appropriate gesture.

His repose during the night was fitful, and when Victoria was reached at last, he was conscious of some bodily fatigue. However, his mind was never slow to receive impressions, and at the sight of the scaffolding, he whipped out his note-book on the platform. He wrote, "The English are extraordinarily prompt of action. One day it was discerned that la gare Victoria was capable of improvement--no sooner was the fact detected than an army of contractors was feverishly enlarging it."

Pleased that his journey was already yielding such good results, the poet lit a Caporal, and sauntered through the yard.

Though the sky promised a fine Sunday, his view of London at this early hour was not inspiriting. He loitered blankly, debating which way to wander. Presently the outlook brightened--he observed a very dainty pair of shoes and ankles coming through the station doors. Fearing that the face might be unworthy of them, he did not venture to raise his gaze until the girl had nearly reached the gate, but when he took the risk, he was rewarded by the discovery that her features were as piquant as her feet.

She came towards him slowly, and now he remarked that she had a grudge against Fate; her pretty lips were compressed, her beautiful eyes gloomy with grievance, the fairness of her brow was darkened by a frown. "Well," mused Tricotrin, "though the object of my visit is educational, the exigencies of my situation clearly compel me to ask this young lady to direct me somewhere. Can I summon up enough English before she has pa.s.sed?"

It was a trying moment, for already she was nearly abreast of him.

Forgetful of Sanquereau's instructions, as well as of most of the phrases that had been committed to memory, the poet swept off his hat, and stammered, "Mees, I beg your pardon!"

She turned the aggrieved eyes to him inquiringly. Although she had paused, she made no answer. Was his accent so atrocious as all that?

For a second they regarded each other dumbly, while a blush of embarra.s.sment mantled the young man's cheeks. Then, with a little gesture of apology, the girl said in French--

"I do not speak English, monsieur."

"Oh, le bon Dieu be praised!" cried Tricotrin, for all the world as if he had been back on the boulevard Rochechouart. "I was dazed with travel, or I should have recognized you were a Frenchwoman. Did you, too, leave Paris last night, mademoiselle?"

"Ah, no," said the girl pensively. "I have been in London for months. I hoped to meet a friend who wrote that she would arrive this morning, but,"--she sighed--"she has not come!"

"She will arrive to-night instead, no doubt; I should have no anxiety.

You may be certain she will arrive to-night, and this contretemps will be forgotten."

She pouted. "I was looking forward so much to seeing her! To a stranger who cannot speak the language, London is as triste as a tomb. Today, I was to have had a companion, and now--"

"Indeed, I sympathise with you," replied Tricotrin. "But is it really so--London is what you say? You alarm me. I am here absolutely alone.

Where, then, shall I go this morning?"

"There are churches," she said, after some reflection.