Mlle. Fouchette Part 35

Mademoiselle Remy is the sculptor's dream!"

Jean Marot laughed. This unstinted praise of the girl who had fascinated him,--who had robbed him of his rest,--who had without an effort, and unconsciously, taken possession of his soul,--it was incense to him. Truly, Mlle. Fouchette had an artistic eye,--a most excellent judgment. It extracted the sting----

"Yes," continued Mlle. Fouchette, looking through him as if he were so much gla.s.s, "a great artist said to me the other day----"

"Pardon! but, mademoiselle, does your new beauty,--the 'sculptor's dream,' you know,--does she do the studios of the quarter?"

"No! Why should she?"

He was silent. Would she have another drink?

"Thanks! Un ballon, garcon," repeated Mlle. Fouchette.

They looked at the crowd in silence for a while.

The scene was inspiriting. With the shades of evening the joyous struggle waxed more furious. The entire street was now taken up by the merrymakers, who made the air resound with their screams and shrieks of laughter. The confetti lay three or four inches deep on the walks, where street gamins slyly sc.r.a.ped it into private receptacles for second use. The haze of dust hung over the broad Boulevard St. Michel like a morning fog over a swamp. Mlle. Fouchette watched the scene for a few minutes without a word. Both were thinking of something else.

"She'll soon get over it, never fear."

"I suppose so," he said, knowing that she still spoke of Madeleine, and somewhat bored at her reappearance in the conversation.

"A woman does not go on loving a man who never cares for her,--who loves another."

"'Loves another,'" he repeated, absently.

"But if Madeleine meets them just now,--oh! look out, monsieur! She's a tiger!"

He shuddered. He was unable to stand this any longer; he rose absent-mindedly and, with scant courtesy to the gossipper, incontinently fled.

"Ah! what a handsome fellow he is! Yet he is certainly a fool about women. A pig like Madeleine! But, then, all men are fools when it comes to a woman."

With this bit of philosophy Mlle. Fouchette buried her dainty nose in the last "ballon." She quenched a rising sigh by the operation. For some reason she was not quite happy. As she withdrew it her face suddenly became all animation.

"Ah!" she muttered, "I'd give my last louis now if that melon, Madeleine, could only see that."

Directly in front of her and not ten feet distant a young man and a young girl slowly forced a pa.s.sage through the conflicting currents of boisterous people. The man was anywhere between twenty-five and thirty, of supple figure, serious face, and sombre eyes that lighted up reluctantly at all of this frivolity. It was only when they were turned upon the sweet young face of the girl at his side that they took on a glow of inexpressible sweetness.

"Truly!" said Mlle. Fouchette to herself, "but she is something on my style."

Which is perhaps the highest compliment one woman can pay another. It meant that her "style" was quite satisfactory,--the right thing. Yet Mlle. Fouchette really needed some fifty pounds of additional flesh to get into the same cla.s.s.

If the rippling laughter, the shining azure of her eyes, the ever-changing expression of her mobile mouth, and now and then the rapt look bestowed upon her companion were indications, she certainly was a happy young woman. Her right hand rested upon his arm, her left shielded her face from the too fierce onslaughts of confetti. Neither of them took an active part in the fun. That, however, did not deter the young men from complimenting her with a continuous shower of confetti. The girl laughingly shook it out of her beautiful blonde hair.

"Allons donc! She has my hair, too!" thought Mlle. Fouchette. It is impossible not to admire ourselves in others.

With the excitement of an unaccustomed pleasure mantling her neck and cheeks the girl was certainly a pretty picture. The plain and simple costume was of the cut of the provinces rather than that of Paris, but it set off the lithe and graceful figure that needed no artificiality of the dressmaker to enforce its pet.i.te perfection.

"That must be Lerouge," thought Mlle. Fouchette. "He does look something like--no; it is imagination. He is not nearly so handsome as Monsieur Marot. But she is sweet!"

The couple were forced over against the chairs by the crowd and Mlle.

Fouchette got a good look at them. The eyes of Mlle. Remy met hers,--they sought the face of her companion, and returned and rested curiously upon Mlle. Fouchette. The glance of her escort followed in the same direction. And even after they had pa.s.sed he half turned again and looked back at the girl sitting alone amid the crowd under the awning.

Jean Marot had plunged into the throng to try and shake off the unpleasant suggestions of Mlle. Fouchette. While he felt instinctively the feminine malice, it was none the less bitter to his taste. It was opening a wound afresh and salting it. He felt that the idea suggested by "La Savatiere" was intolerable,--impossible. He paced up and down alone in the Luxembourg gardens until retreat was sounded. Then he re-entered the boulevard by the Place de Medicis, dodged a bevy of singing grisettes in male attire, to suddenly find himself face to face with the object of his thoughts.

How beautiful, and sweet and pure and innocent she looked! The laughing eyes, the profusion of hair with its tint of gold, now sparkling with confetti, the two rows of pearls between their rich rims of red,--it surely was an angel from the skies and not a woman who stood before him! And his knees trembled with the desire to let him to the earth at her feet.

The young girl regarded him first in semi-recognition, then with blank astonishment,--as well she might. She shrank closer to her protector.

Henri Lerouge had at first looked at his former friend with a dark and scowling face; but Jean had seen only the girl, and therefore failed to note the expression of satisfaction that swiftly succeeded.

"Pardon! but, monsieur, even Mardi Gras does not excuse a boor." And Lerouge somewhat roughly elbowed him to one side.

The insult from Lerouge was nothing. Jean never thought of that. She had come, she had ignored him, she had gone,--the woman he loved!

He stood speechless for a moment, then staggered away, his self-love bleeding.

Unconsciously he had taken the direction they had gone, slowly groping his way rather than walking, next to the iron fence of the Luxembourg gardens, past the great School of Mines, along the Boulevard St. Michel towards the Observatory. Like a drunken man he stuck close to the walls, and thus crossed the obtuse angle into Rue Denfert-Rocherau. Hesitating at the tomb-like buildings that mark the entrance to the catacombs at the end of that street, he leaned against the great wrought-iron grille and tried to collect his thoughts.

He remembered now; this was where he had gone down one day to view the rows and stacks of boxes and vaults of mouldering bones. Yes, he even recalled the humorous idea of that day that there were more Parisians beneath the pavements of Paris than above them, and that they slept better o' nights.

The cold wind stirred the branches, and they grated against the fence with a dismal, sighing sound.

"Loves another!"

Was it not that which it said?

"Loves another!" in plain and well-measured cadence.

And the word "l-o-v-e-s" was long and sorrowfully drawn out, and "another" came sharply decisive.

He wandered on, aimlessly, yet in the general direction of Montrouge.

Fouchette,--yes, she had told the truth. He--where was he?

The streets up here were practically deserted, the entire population, apparently, having gone to the boulevards. Here and there some rez-de-chaussee aglow showed the usual gossippers of the concierges.

Now and then isolated merrymakers were returning, covered with confetti, having exhausted themselves and the pleasures of the day together.

Rue Halle,--he remembered now, though he scarcely noted it.

All at once his heart gave a bound. His mind came down to vulgar earth. It was at the sight of a solitary woman who sped swiftly round the corner from the Avenue d'Orleans and came towards him. Her stout figure between him and the electric light cast a long shadow down the street,--the shadow of a woman in bloomer costume, with a hat perched forward at an angle of forty-five degrees.

It was Mlle. Madeleine.

What could she be doing here at this hour,--she, who lived in Rue Monge?

Before he could answer this question she was almost upon him. But she was so absorbed in her own purposes that she saw him not, merely turning to the right up the Rue Halle with the quick and certain step of one who knows. Her black brows were set fiercely, and beneath them the big dark eyes glittered dangerously. Her full lips were tightly compressed; in the firmness of her tread was a world of determination.

Jean had obtained a good view of her face as she crossed the street, and he shuddered. For in it he saw reflected the state of his own tempestuous soul. He had read therein his own mind distempered by love and doubt and torn by jealousy, disappointment, and despair.

He recalled the warning of Mlle. Fouchette, and he trembled for the woman he loved. Well he comprehended the French character where love and hatred are concerned.