Mlle. Fouchette Part 43

"Good! How much?"

"It cost about three thousand francs."

"It's a fortune, monsieur," she exclaimed, with sparkling eyes. "And here I thought you were--puree!"

"Broke?"

"Yes,--that you had nothing."

"It is not much to me, who----"

"No; I understand that. I once read of a rich American who committed suicide because he was suddenly reduced to two hundred and fifty thousand francs. That was very drole, was it not?"

"To most people, yes; but it would not be funny for one who had been accustomed to twice or five times that much every year."

"No,--I forgot," she said, reflectively, "about your affairs, monsieur. It is very simple."

"Is it?" He laughed lugubriously.

"You simply accept conditions. You give up your present mode of living; you sell your lease and furniture; you take a small place here somewhere, get only what is necessary, then find something to do. Why, you will be independent,--rich!"

"Only, you omit one thing in the calculation, mademoiselle."

She divined at once what that was.

"One must arrange for the stomach before talking about love. And how, then, is a young man to provide for a girl when he can't provide for himself? Let the girl alone until you begin to see the way. Don't be ridiculous, Monsieur Jean. No woman can love a man who is ridiculous.

Jamais!"

Love is not exactly a synonyme for Reason. To be in love is in a measure to part company with the power of ratiocination. Nevertheless, Jean saw in an absent-minded way that Mlle. Fouchette, for whom he had never entertained even that casual respect accorded by the Anglo-Saxon to womanhood in general, spoke the words of sense and soberness. His intolerant nature, that would never have brooked such freedom from a friend, allowed everything from one who was too insignificant to excite resentment or even reply. In the same fashion Jean was touched by the exhibition of human interest and womanly sympathy in this waif of civilization. And he was of too gentle a heart not to meet it with a show of appreciation. It gave her pleasure and did not hurt him. The fact that she was probably abandoned and vicious in no wise lessened this consideration,--possibly increased his confidence in her disinterested counsel.

In Paris one elbows this species every day,--in the Quartier Latin young Frenchmen come in contact with it every night,--and without that sense of self-abas.e.m.e.nt or disgust evoked by similar a.s.sociation in the United States. The line of demarcation that separates respectability from shame is not rigidly drawn in Paris; in the Quartier Latin, where the youth of France and, to a considerable extent, of the whole world are prepared for earth and heaven, it cannot be said to be drawn at all.

By his misfortunes Jean Marot had unexpectedly fallen within her reach. With her natural spirit of domination she had at once appropriated the position of mentor and manager. The precocious worldliness of her mentality amused while it sometimes astonished him.

This comparatively ignorant girl of eighteen had no hesitation in guiding the man of more mature years, and succeeded through her navete rather than by force of character. The weakest of women can dominate the strongest of men.

"Doctors never prescribe for themselves," she said, by way of justifying her interest in him. "Is it not so, Monsieur Jean?"

"No; but they call in somebody of their own profession," he replied.

"Not if he had the same disease, surely!" she retorted.

"So you think love a disease?" he laughingly asked.

"Virulent, but not catching," said she, helping him to some soup.

There were no soup-plates and she had dipped it from the pot with a teacup and served it in a bowl; but the soup was just as good and was rich with vegetable nutrition. He showed his appreciation by a vigorous onslaught.

"And if it were a disease and catching?" he remarked presently.

"Then you would not be here," she replied. "You see, I'd run too much risk. As it is--have some more wine?--But who understands love better than a woman, monsieur?"

"Oh, I surrender, mademoiselle,--that is, provided she has loved and loves no longer."

"Been sick and been cured, eh?" she suggested. "But that is more than you require of the medical profession."

"True----"

He paused and listened. She turned her head at the same moment. There were two distinct raps on the wall. He had heard, vaguely, the sound of persons coming and going next door; had distinguished voices in the next flat. There was nothing strange about that. But the knock was the knock of design and at once arrested his attention.

The young girl started to her feet, her finger on her lips.

"He wants me," she said.

"That is evident, whoever 'he' may be," replied Jean, significantly.

"Oh, it is only Monsieur de Beauchamp. A sitting, perhaps," she added.

She slipped out of the room without deeming it necessary to resume her overskirt. The feminine inhabitants of Rue St. Jacques were so extremely unconventional,--they not infrequently went down into the street for rolls and other articles attired in this charming negligee of the bedroom boudoir. And would, perhaps, have extended this unconventionality to the neighboring cafes, only the proprietaires had to draw a line somewhere, and had unanimously drawn it at hats and skirts, or full street dress.

Jean began to think himself entirely deserted, when Mlle. Fouchette burst rather than walked into the room conducting her next-door neighbor.

Jean saw before him a man scarcely older than himself, rather spare of figure and pale of face, in the garb of a provincial and with an air of the Jesuit enthusiast rather than the student of art. His long, dark hair was thick and bushy and worn trimmed straight around the neck after the fashion of Jeanne d'Arc's time. It completely hid his ears and fell in sprays over his temples. His face was the typical Christ of the old masters, the effect being heightened by the soft, fine, virgin beard and moustache of somewhat fairer color, and by the melancholy eyes, dark and luminous, with their curled and drooping lashes. These eyes gave rather a suggestion of sadness and inward suffering, but when animated seemed to glow with the smouldering fire of centuries.

"Pardon, Monsieur de Beauchamp," said Jean, upon being introduced to him, "but mademoiselle appears to have forgotten me for art."

"Ah! and as if there were no art in making a salad!" exclaimed the painter, as he shook hands with the other.

"Oh! la, la, la!" cried Mlle. Fouchette, wresting the dish from Jean's grasp; "there would be precious little art in this if you made it!"

And she proceeded with the salad on her own account, using the two bowls that had but recently served them for soup.

Monsieur de Beauchamp and Jean discussed the student "manifestations"

planned for the next day. The Dreyfusardes--a term by which all who differed from the military regime were known--had announced a public meeting, and a counter-demonstration had been called to not only prevent that meeting but to publicly chastise such as dared to take part in it.

No attempt was made to conceal these patriotic intentions from the police. The walls blazed with flaming revolutionary posters. The portrait of the Duc d'Orleans appeared over specious promises in case of Restoration. The Royal Claimant was said to be concealed in Paris.

At any rate, his agents were busy. They were in league with the Bonapartists, the Socialists, the Anti-Semites, against the things that were, and called the combination Nationalists. They were really Opportunists. The republic overthrown, they agreed to fight out their rival claims to power between themselves.

The unfortunate Jew merely served them as a weapon. They were the real traitors to their country. With the most fulsome adulation and the Jew they courted the army and sought to lead it against the republic.

And the republic,--poor, weak, headless combination of inconsistencies,--through a tricky and vacillating Ministry and a bitter, factional Parliament, greatly encouraged the idea of any sort of a change.

Popular intolerance had, after a farcical civil trial overawed by military authority, driven the foremost writer of France into exile, as it had Voltaire and Rousseau and many thousands of the best blood of the French before him.

The many n.o.ble monuments of the Paris carrefours, representing the elite of France, the heroes, the apostles of letters and liberty, who were murdered, exiled, denied Christian burial or dragged through the streets after death by Frenchmen, stand morally united in one grand monumental fane commemorative of French intolerance.

Wherever is reared a monument to French personal worth, there also is a mute testimonial of collective French infamy.

"Dans la rue!" was now the battle-cry.